“‘They singled out non-white, foreign-born workers’: the restaurants raided by Britain’s version of ICE”

As you probably guessed, it’s a Guardian article. I must admit that I am not that shocked that immigration enforcement officers singled out non-white foreign-born workers. But then I read this…

After 37 gruelling minutes, having failed to find any wrongdoing, the Ice officers left the premises. To top it all off, Moitra Sarkar says, the Home Office vans left the restaurant car park without paying – non-customers are usually charged £2.

The horror.

Now, as a libertarian, I am well aware of how often “the process is the punishment”. Here are several pages of Samizdata posts containing that phrase. There is no doubt that having cops or similar barging into the premises can lose a restaurant money. And it is an unpleasant experience for customers and employees alike. And I teetered on the edge of supporting open borders for years. And some very bad things can happen in 37 minutes.

But in this case, they didn’t. The enforcement officers came in, asked some questions, and went away 37 minutes later. Had they not singled out those workers obviously most likely to be illegal immigrants for questioning, they would have taken longer and caused more disruption. As it was, they evidently spent no more than a few minutes per employee. Judging from the facts if not the tone of the article, in this case British ICE (our version stands for Immigration Compliance and Enforcement and I genuinely wonder if its officers hate the fact that it has the same initials as the US version or if they secretly think it’s cool) did its job with commendable speed.

Not paying the £2 parking charge was bad, though. Someone start a GoFundMe.

The BBC reports,

UN votes to recognise enslavement of Africans as ‘gravest crime against humanity’

The United Nations General Assembly has voted to recognise the enslavement of Africans during the transatlantic slave trade as “the gravest crime against humanity”, a move advocates hope will pave the way for healing and justice.

They’ll never get reparations. But this move might end up paving the way for healing and justice – by being annoying enough to finally kill off the MOPE Olympics and the self-destructive mindset that mopery promotes.

I am not one to get to the airport early. Why would I? I take no joy in sitting in a terminal. I do not need to eat at Chili's. I will not join the Group 5 passengers who preemptively crowd around the boarding door like they're waiting for the last chopper out of Saigon. And I am not opposed to an airport sprint (I could probably use the cardio), though it rarely gets to that point. I have never missed a flight.

So imagine my dismay when the closest I came to doing so, if memory serves, was when I arrived at the airport three hours and 40 minutes prior to takeoff on Sunday.

My flight home from a wedding in New Orleans coincided with the 37th day of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) shutdown, which, among other things, has seen agents with the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) go unpaid. Hundreds have resigned. Several airports, including New Orleans, have seen sky-high call-out rates. On Sunday, 42.3 percent of TSA officers there called out of work, per numbers provided by the federal government.

The result was more disastrous than I could have imagined. Upon entering the airport, the security line spilled down from the second floor into the lobby, where I got in line. Except that was not the end of the line. It was a break in the line, which had fractured as people filed in from the parking garage, where the line actually ended. So to the garage I went. Finding the end point was another thing entirely. Passengers were instructed that they would know they had reached their destination when they saw, hilariously, a red flag. Around and around we walked in the concrete maze, flanked by people on both sides, who were somehow standing in the same line. Which side was ahead? Which was behind? Who can say?

The prize for finally making it to that red flag: a three-hour, 20-minute TSA wait, which consisted of about two hours in the garage, an hour and change inside, anxious phone-checking on a dying device, a pair of travelers concocting a business idea for a TSA-line beverage service with very high market prices we were all willing to pay, a woman doing yoga, travelers asking to cut in front because their flight was boarding (which, um, hello), and a fire alarm going off that we all just sort of ignored.

Also present in the air around us was (shockingly) a lot of frustration. Abolishing the TSA is often viewed as a kooky pipe dream. But I have never seen such a clear, obvious case for doing just that than the TSA line in New Orleans, which existed only because the functionality of airport security currently depends on whether Congress can agree on a budget. People will bicker over whether the fault lies with Republicans or Democrats. Beyond debate, however, is that scores of people have been inconvenienced or had their lives temporarily upended because federal lawmakers could not reach consensus on what is arguably the most basic part of their job: approving spending bills. The ability to get home should not be a privilege contingent on the political moment.

There are, of course, objections beyond this, including that the TSA isn't very good at what it does. A DHS investigation in 2015 found that undercover operatives successfully got mock explosives or banned weapons through airport security 95 percent of the time. "Experts have long emphasized that the TSA is geared towards assuring the public that Something Very Important is being done to keep people safe, even as money and energy is squandered on pointless activities and useless devices," wrote Reason Contributing Editor J.D. Tuccille in 2022. Consider that travelers were recently permitted to go through TSA lines with their shoes on after years of having to remove them. The world kept spinning, and the planes kept flying. One security measure taken after 9/11 was very important: Cockpit doors now lock, so no longer is it possible for a wannabe hijacker to break in with a box cutter, a change more consequential than the creation of an entire agency.

But more to the point of the current fiasco, also consider that several airports across the U.S. have largely privatized security. That includes San Francisco, a major hub that has not missed potential terror attacks and is currently not drowning in call-outs and lengthy lines. Those private contractors are still subject to regulations, but their ability to fund operations does not hinge on the whims of politicians. Commercial airports in Canada and most of Europe also use private screeners.

What is the argument against this? "If I was a traveling passenger, I would be so much happier to know that these TSA officers are career dedicated civil servants to have nothing else to do but to make sure that I get to where I'm supposed to be safely," Johnny Jones, secretary treasurer for the American Federation of Government Employees, told San Francisco's ABC affiliate.

I cannot speak for everyone. But my happiness at the airport hinges purely on whether I get to my destination safely and on time. After arriving at the New Orleans airport before 2 p.m., I found myself sprinting to the gate (hello, old friend) at 5:20 p.m., hoping to make it before the gate closed imminently. The gate agent appeared skeptical that I still had a seat, I assume because they were in the process of reassigning no-shows to those who had missed previous flights for the same reason I was about to miss mine. I was not happy about the situation, nor, I imagine, were the passengers who missed what was the last American Airlines flight to D.C. that evening. Had we been in San Francisco, that would not have been the case.

The post I Spent Over 3 Hours in a TSA Line. Why Haven't We Abolished This Agency? appeared first on Reason.com.

A new Harvard-Harris poll shows that 60 percent of voters believe teachers unions should stay out of politics. A differently worded poll would likely reveal even stronger sentiment. Ask voters whether union dues pulled straight from teachers’ paychecks should fund political activity, and the numbers would likely climb higher. The public already senses what many teachers have lived: unions exist more for activism than for academics.

The National Education Association’s annual financial report confirms the imbalance. Less than 10 percent of its funding goes toward actually representing teachers. Meanwhile, more than 98 percent of its political contributions flow to Democrats in every election cycle. Roughly a quarter of teachers identify as conservatives. These educators should not feel compelled to hand over their hard-earned paychecks to causes they oppose.   

The 2018 Janus v. AFSCME decision made this choice possible. The Supreme Court ruled that public employees can no longer be forced to pay union dues as a condition of employment. That ruling upheld First Amendment rights and ended compulsory support for political speech. Independents and rational Democrats who simply want to avoid politics and focus on the basics in the classroom now have every reason to opt out as well.   

The dam is breaking on the teachers union monopoly. Some 10,000 teachers have joined the independent alternative Teacher Freedom Alliance, as more teachers are realizing they do not have to fund agendas they oppose. With genuine support now available outside traditional unions, teachers can apply pressure and hold union bosses accountable. 

The best teachers deserve the freedom to negotiate their own salaries and benefits, including liability insurance. Instead, unions drag all educators down to the level of the lowest common denominator. Seniority rules and rigid contracts protect the weakest performers while holding back those who deliver results for kids.   

Teacher salaries have remained flat over the past half-century when adjusted for inflation. Union leaders fight to hire more staff because bigger headcounts mean more leverage, a larger voting bloc, and more dues-paying members. Those decisions come at a direct cost: less money available for the teachers already doing an outstanding job. The system rewards expansion over excellence.

A teacher exodus gives union bosses an incentive to focus on their members instead of political activism. Just as school choice competition incentivizes district officials to up their game, teacher choice gives unions a reason to put classrooms first or risk losing even more support.  

The old model forced teachers into one-size-fits-all representation that served union power more than classroom needs. The new, competitive landscape lets educators keep more of their money, secure better personal protections, and stay focused on what matters most: teaching kids.   

The teachers union cartel built its power on compulsion. Janus cracked that foundation. The Teacher Freedom Alliance and similar groups are finishing the job by offering a positive alternative. Educators now have real options, real protections, and real freedom.   

Teachers deserve better than a system that treats them as dues payers first and professionals second. They deserve the chance to keep their money, protect their careers on their own terms, and stay out of endless political fights. The exodus is underway. The monopoly is crumbling. Freedom is winning.  

Two years after the European Union (EU)’s Digital Markets Act (DMA) took effect, the results have been mixed to negative. Promises about certainty, lower enforcement costs, and a more innovative and competitive digital ecosystem haven’t materialized.

Rather than learn from Europe’s mistakes, Californian policymakers and federal proponents of Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN)’s American Innovation and Choice Online Act (AICOA) would import similar ideas to ostensibly help small businesses and hold tech giants accountable. The EU’s experience shows that DMA-style proposals aren’t just unlikely to achieve these goals. They’re also likely to harm consumers, competition, and innovation.

The DMA was intended to support “fairness” and “market contestability” for small businesses that rely on large digital “gatekeeper” platforms, like Amazon, Google and Meta, to reach customers. The “gatekeepers” are mainly American tech giants. The DMA bans them from engaging in certain business practices, even if those practices benefit consumers or competition

For instance, the DMA prevents Google from integrating its Maps, Flights and Hotel Ads tools into search results as this would be “self-preferencing” over third-party booking sites. Evidence shows that this ban has degraded the user experience by increasing the number of clicks required to see prices and make bookings, leading to reduced hotel bookings. Similarly, Apple is limited from excluding third-party apps and app stores from its App Store and iOS even though this has degraded security features, IP protections, and trustworthiness in Apple’s products by increasing the proliferation of pirated, less secure and pornographic apps. 

These mandates help some businesses, but harm others, including developers of apps aimed at children who rely on parental trust in the highly curated app store, and hotels that benefited from traffic directed through Google’s tools. Rather than upholding competitive markets, they let governments “pick winners” and undermine digital platforms’ ability to differentiate themselves or experiment to better meet consumer and business needs. This goes against American antitrust law’s focus on consumer welfare over punishing firms for size and success, or shielding businesses from competition — an ethos that has let the US produce leading tech firms that have eclipsed would-be European peers.

Like the DMA, AICOA bans large digital platforms from self-preferencing and from using third-party seller and service provider data to refine their own offerings or better serve consumers — even though such practices are routine in non-digital industries, like grocery stores. The bill also claims to provide legal certainty for businesses, yet its language is vague and grants regulators broad discretion. For example, it uses amorphous phrases like “materially harm,” which courts must interpret without precedent, and allows the FTC to define what constitutes an anti-competitive practice through guidelines.

In Europe, the DMA’s ambiguity about the conditions and costs a platform can impose on third-party services — intended to maintain security and ensure fair value — has led regulators to impose heavy, retrospective fines on Apple without providing clear instructions for compliance, all while soliciting feedback from competing app stores and developers on what Apple should do. This uncertainty has delayed the rollout of new features, including AI tools, for European Apple and Google users.

AI development depends on deploying new technology at scale to gather data, refine foundation models, and solicit user feedback. Rules like the DMA, which create legal uncertainty and impose arbitrary limits, can discourage AI infrastructure and software investments, stifle innovation, and undermine US tech leadership, as well as the ability of small businesses that rely on AI-integrated platforms to compete.

Unlike AICOA and the DMA, recent California Law Reform Commission (CLRC) recommendations that could be adopted by that state’s legislature apply to even non-digital businesses and would dramatically lower evidentiary thresholds for market power. The reforms penalize broad swathes of conduct for firms deemed to hold “significant market power”, including self-preferencing, without need to show likely or actual consumer harm or weigh pro- and anticompetitive effects. By banning “predatory pricing” without need to show that alleged offenders would likely recoup their losses by raising prices later, the reforms discourage businesses from legitimately competing on price. The CLRC’s proposals radically pivot antitrust law from protecting consumers to protecting competitor businesses and stakeholders such as “trading partners.”

Such restrictions arbitrarily favor some businesses over others, leaving the competitive process at the mercy of government diktats instead of consumer demand.

Existing US federal and state antitrust laws already punish tech giants and platforms for anti-competitive behavior on a case-by-case basis that also allows judges to limit inadvertent restrictions to competition or harm to consumers that could result from legal fixes, as recent rulings against Google and Apple show. Existing laws can and should be strengthened only if there is a strong rationale supported by economic evidence. Importing flawed foreign competition policies would only empower government officials and some competitors at the expense of consumers, innovation and America’s global competitiveness.