I just got a call purporting to be from the American Civil Liberties Union. Before they got going, they said, “This call may be monitored for quality assurance.”

I said, “That’s ironic.” Then asked them not to call again. If one can’t have privacy from other ACLU people talking to the ACLU, then there is no worthy defender of privacy left.

I know Rand doesn’t like me to mistake loss of liberty (“freedom from arbitrary or despotic government or control” according to dictionary.com) for loss of privacy. But a great way to curb control is to curb monitoring. I also mourn freedom from waiting in long airport security lines and freedom to keep my hair gel in my carry-on bag.

There were 360 million US one-way airplane trips taken last year. That’s 360 million half hour delays for “increased” security. Let’s express that as lifetimes lost–wasted–due to boredom: 250. Let’s express that as number of trips that took 15 minutes too long: 100%. After 6 years of increased security, we have now lost 1500 lives worth of time from waiting in airport security lines. That’s a higher flux than terrorism for five of those years.

It’s time for the FAA to start keeping statistics on wait time in airports and TSA revamping security procedures so that the cost no longer exceeds the benefit.