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Scanners and pat-downs... Don't touch my junk.
Posted on 11/16/2010 8:32:28 PM PST by SpareChange
TSA: Touching Sensitive Areas -- My Two Cents on Terrorizing Travelers
By David J. Aland /// 19 November 2010
In the classic joke, the mother tells the teacher: “If my son acts up, don’t punish him. He’s sensitive; punish the kid next to him and he’ll get the message.” Apparently, the folks at TSA think the same way – to dissuade terrorists, terrorize passengers and the bad guys will get the message.
Janet Napolitano went for the “Obama Defense” the other day when faced with mounting outrage over the growing intrusiveness of airline passenger screening: people would understand that this is for their own good if they just listened better.
The problem is neither the explanation nor the listening. Americans have a great track record at making sacrifices for the common good in times of crisis. The problem is that the people can neither see how all this serves the common good and the government continues to deny there is a crisis.
The current regime of airport screening is based on two false assumptions: all passengers are equally suspect, and screening should eliminate dangerous objects but not dangerous people. Reductio ab absurdum: attempting impartiality, TSA has only achieved imbecility.
The common good is best served by making travel safe. Frisking three year olds does not accomplish this, nor does running flight crews and other trusted fliers through repeated X-Ray exposures. Let’s face it, if a pilot wanted to crash a plane, it wouldn’t take a box cutter.
The new body scanners might identify a knife, they are not effective with explosives. The infamous Undie-Bomber would not have been caught – the scans cannot differentiate det-cord from Depends. And neither can a pat-down.
The common good is clearly not served when passengers distrust the TSA more than they distrust other passengers. In Boston, a TSA screener who passed the agency background screening was found to be a sex offender. Elsewhere, illegal aliens made it past the background screens to service aircraft.
This administration has been careful to avoid calling the terrorist threat a crisis, or even calling it a terrorist threat. Why should passengers accede to sacrifices simply to prevent “man made disasters?” Recently, the Council on American Islamic Relations advised Muslim women to refuse body scans and pat-downs, a religious exemption that DHS is reportedly examining. How much more absurd can it be to ask Americans to equally shoulder sacrifices when members of the demographic most often associated with man-made non-crisis activities are now exempt?
A European friend once commented that the unique genius of America was the ability to logically extend an idea to its most absurd extreme, and this is no exception. In trying to avoid all appearance of “profiling”, our government may consider excluding the most likely groups.
The Shoe Bomber resulted in bans on fluids. The Panty Bomber resulted in more intrusive pat-downs. Where will it all go next? In September 2009, an al Qaeda operative tried to assassinate a Saudi prince using a bomb in his rectum. None of the screening now in place would have detected that – does that mean that body cavity checks are next? Will baby’s diapers get checked for loads others than yesterday’s strained carrots? Are feminine hygiene products next on the list?
I travel frequently – boarding 25 planes last year alone. By all accounts, that means I could have only accumulated as much radiation from body scans as a single chest X-ray would afford. While that doesn’t seem like much, even my doctor doesn’t have me do an X-ray every year. Furthermore, as a security professional, I hold a number of clearances which putatively certify me as trustworthy. Still, I am apparently considered equally untrustworthy to TSA as some newly arrived fellow from Yemen.
This, perhaps, is the most egregious untruth underlying the screening process currently in use. Not all passengers are equally dangerous, and random screening is not uniformly effective. Profiling – not the crude but popular mischaracterization as a means of ethnic discrimination – is effective. Effective profiling involves physical features, behavioral markers, travel patterns and other factors.
This is an issue that touches a lot of sensitive areas, and not all of them are physical. Crotch-groping is not just a Muslim taboo – a lot of Baptists don’t like it either. Our security has to depend on keeping bad people off of planes, not just preventing everyone from bringing potentially bad objects. Box cutters don’t hijack planes – terrorists do.
It’s time DHS put a new move in the TSA playbook to replace touching sensitive areas – Taking Some Advice. A few million pilots, flight crews, and passengers can’t be all wrong.
Nor can they all be suspects.
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David J. Aland is a retired Naval Officer with a graduate degree in National Security Affairs from the U. S. Naval War College.
If this keeps up, only Adam Lambert, Madonna and Lindsay Lohan will be on planes.
If we made it clear that if anyone messes with our planes, the perp’s family would be tossed into a plastic regrinder or tree chipper, we’d get much fewer people even thinking about it.
And for those without families, we’ll chose a random 50 from their town, village, or city and do truly unspeakable things to them and put it on youtube.
But we’re nice people and we wouldn’t do that. So we’ll let Janet Napolitano grope us.
Well said!
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
I think the constitution has the answer to all this drama
Within the decade passengers will be required to drink a laxative and then crap into a clear glass toilet bowl--in public.
I think that before it gets to that, the airline industry will be crushed... or the current DC mindset will be long flushed, it will be one or the other.
FR Thread - Posted on December 20, 2009 11:28:08 AM PST by Beaten Valve
Sully joins opposition to heightened airport security measures
Leaked online - the body scanner images we were promised would never be saved or published
Bingo. Setting up the stage for government takeover of the airline industry now in process..... Flying is fast becoming one of the most detested methods of travel, thanks to those vested in the nude body scanners - Napolitano, Chertoff, Obama and Soros.
And... it is all on purpose!
Really sick/sad really.
I haven't flown since before 9/11 when all we had to worry about was extremely rude airline personnel, late and overbooked flights, high prices and the possibility of being imprisoned on the tarmac for hours.
Then came restrictions on how much shampoo one had and exorbitant fees for luggage.
Now you get to anticipate, after getting to the airport at an unacceptable, required early arrival time, being x-rayed or groped.
Yep, sign me up for that.
From what I read, not all gates have the x-ray machines or the “pat-downs”. So what stops a terrorist from going to one of those gates? Who is monitoring the cargo holds?
I was once of the opinion that eventually, airline travel would return to an earlier age when only the rich flew. I fear that may not be the case any longer. Could be that with the TSA and trying to make a profit, the airlines can sell a lot of planes.
Good reminders, but part of the problem is that most people remain clueless as they march towards the cliff.
Easy fix, just don’t fly.
There now, wasn’t that easy?
No more strangers feeling your or your families crotch, your wife or daughters boobs. No more taking your shoes and belts off. No more grandmas in wheelchairs getting strip searched. No more insults or snide remarks. No more outrageous baggage fees. No more being treated as an enemy of your country.
This is the most absurd thing of all. And Janet Napolitano even said on record yesterday that they are looking at addressing that issue, being sensitive to their regilion, while insisting all other Americans will have to suffer either the naked body scanner, or the enhanced pat down all over their body, no exception, or you will not fly. And if you try to leave the secured area after opting out, you will be threatened with a $11,000 fine.
In the meantime, the moslems are escorted safely to their planes, bypassing the most stringent security measures, brought on by moslem killers!
This gubmint is incompetent as well as corrupt.The people making the laws are not subject to same.
Was discussing the scanners with a relative in the midwest today and he was adamant that the scanners are there for his protection and he is not afraid to use them. No amount of enlightening him (powders are not detected) could change his mind. What can be expected from people who watch and believe NBC/CNN, etc.?
What was that thing Rahm Emmanuel said about never letting a good crisis go to waste?
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Download or listen to this small audio file:
Scanners and pat-downs... Don't touch my junk.
For Thanksgiving, I'm driving a thousand miles, rather than fly. However, it's a bit inconvenient for trips to my daughter 2500 miles away, or other relatives even further away.
This all smacks of a Nazi plot to track and restrict people's movements, before they round us up and slaughter us. Our government is becoming the enemy of us all.
The recent elections were only a glimmer of what democrats can expect in future elections, given their propensity for fraud, corruption and total disinterest in the Will of the People. May the commie politicians, media and so-called entertainers continue their assault upon the majority of Americans. It is firing us up beyond their wildest comprehension.
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