You have all probably read about the famous psychological experiments
where normal everyday people are put in charge of some "prisoners"
(who are also normal everyday people) in an isolated environment with
no control, no deterrents and no consequences for abuse. Sooner or later
the "guards" will start abusing the "prisoners", starting with little
things and slowly escalating to amazing proportions, even though these
are, as said, just normal everyday people who would never do these things
normally.

It seems to me that the TSA in the United States is a perfect example
of exactly this in real life. The more I read about the extreme cases,
the clearer this becomes. For example:

http://tsanewsblog.com/2572/news/yet-another-child-abused-by-tsa/

I'm pretty certain that a normal person would normally not shout
"put your hands over your head! Hands over your head NOW!" to a small
5-years-old child who she has never even seen before. However, when
put in a position of power for a long time, with no deterrents and no
punishment for crude behavior, and with peer pressure, ie. when put into
the proper environment, even the nicest people can become outright
abusive, not to talk about a person who probably was already asocial to
begin with...

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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