Posted on 11/21/2010 1:06:49 AM PST by nickcarraway
Just a few days before the busy holiday travel period, the Transportation Security Administration has decided to change the rules of flying - again.
At the beginning of this month, the agency began enforcing its name-matching requirements for airline tickets. Passengers must now provide their full names as they appear on a government-issued ID, their date of birth and their gender when they book a flight.
After a terrorism scare involving explosive devices shipped by cargo, the government banned printer cartridges from luggage.
And the TSA started implementing several new screening measures, including an enhanced "pat-down" protocol for air travelers who opt out of a full-body scan.
The agency appears to be phasing in these new procedures unevenly, leading to frequent confrontations with air travelers. At some airports, passengers are being randomly asked to go through the scanners, while at others, they must all be screened by the machines or by hand. At one airport last week, passengers were both scanned and frisked.
As a result, air travelers aren't sure what to expect when they fly. In a Consumer Travel Alliance poll conducted last weekend, more than half the respondents - 56 percent - said they were more confused than ever about the TSA's new rules. About 41 percent said they were about as confused as before, and only 3 percent said they were less confused.
Pat-downs are by far the biggest problem. When I first reported on these aggressive screening techniques in the spring, the TSA insisted that it hadn't changed the way it checks passengers and that it wasn't punishing air travelers who refused the scans. But it turns out that the agency was testing the controversial frisking procedures at several airports, after all.
The pat-downs, which are being introduced nationwide this fall, have been widely interpreted by
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
Rush: Obama groping flyers to punish them for voting GOP - ‘This is all about control...
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-backroom/2629003/posts
“Asked about the safety concerns some parents have raised about the full-body scans, Greg Soule, a TSA spokesman, said that the “technology is safe for all passengers, including children and pregnant women.” “
Pretty much you only have the TSA’s word on this, however. The bio-physicists’ letter last april pretty well stated the concerns with this technology.
Notable that if it were being used for a medical purpose (for far fewer patients than travelers), it would be so exhaustively tested and studied that we would have a fairly good idea of how much radiation was absorbed into the skin.
Seeing how they have managed to PO pretty much the entire political spectrum (first time I recall seeing this), if tsa can manage to keep this policy in place substantially unchanged, then they can probably get away with anything they want to do to us.
“....more than half the respondents - 56 percent - said they were more confused than ever about the TSA’s new rules. About 41 percent said they were about as confused as before, and only 3 percent said they were less confused.”
. . .
Nice. The TSA has become the IRS of the friendly skies except we get body cavity audits.
Time for a new tagline.
("Dismantle the TSA and send the screeners to southern border patrol.")
A ‘volentary’ virtual strip search by an authority which has the power to detain you and cause your arrest that if you refuse, you’re subjected to aj involuntary hand search with an eleven thousand dollar fine if they feel you were difficult.
All of this resulting in a zero percentage of terrorist acts stopped at the checkpoint.
Seems to me that the health effects for liberty is a diagnosis for cancer.
Interesting point. Citizens have been increasingly subjected to worse treatment than illegals crossing the border. Where does it end? My guess it will be when some TSA screener gets too personal with someone or someone’s wife and the screener is killed on the spot.
Where are all the lawyers stopping these unconstitutional searches? When elections don’t come out the way they want, or a bill they don’t like is passed, they are in court for a stay or outright overturn. Where are they now? Crickets.
You really think they would do a decent job there? I don’t!
After watching the video of the little boy being strip searched, Wal-Mart is too good for them.
They need to receive the same treatment that the troops at Abu Ghraib got.
Where are all the lawyers stopping these unconstitutional searches?
. . .
Somewhere, an ACLU lawyer is pleasuring himself over what he’s helped usher in.
While I don't do much flying any more due to the (previously) instituded idiocy (ALL "REACTIVE" BTW) but the few times I have over the past year or so, leaves me to question TSA's argument that once beyond the screening process, that you NEED THEIR PERMISSION TO LEAVE IT!
Being one of those who indulge in that eeeeevil habit (smoking) I have more than once left the screening area to make my way outside (yes, I know, the lengths we smokers go to satisfy our adictions, but that's another matter) and at NO time has anyone ever even looked askance at me or others for doing so.
Of course we had to go thru the whole BS procedure again.
Following TSA "logic" (/sarc) to its ridiculous conclusion, they would have the "authority" (WHICH I STILL HAVE YET TO BE ABLE TO FIND A SOURCE THEREOF) to keep all passengers, say who's flight has been delayed or cancelled, from leaving their "secure" area without their "permission."
Likewise, how about when disembarking?
Theoretically, according to these JACKBOOTED, THUG, MORONS, the TSA could prevent all passengers leaving the secured terminals upon arival without the TSA's consent and aproval.
PROVE IT!
I can't wait for one of these cases to make it into court and they have to defend these actions based upon the Law and the Constitution!!!
In the meantime, as much as I hate the cold and snow, have refused to book a trip to Florida this winter until I see this matter resolved as they have just announced these scanners being installed here in Burlington, VT.
Last year, at the ticket desk at Phoenix’s airport I presented my photo Id for my boarding pass. I went through three security check points, at each one showing my boarding pass and photo ID. It was not until I arrived in the plane at my seat that I noticed it was not my boarding pass, and had someone else’s name on it. One TSA person even held the two documents up and stared at me while comparing them and didn’t notice the error!
Sure made me feel safe!!! sarc.
I said what I did about the ACLU because they’ve generally litigated away common sense procedures over the years and enabled this abuse to take hold. I’m just so angry. They got what they wanted and now they’re complaining?
I haven’t yet read the links you’ve posted, but I will. Right now I’m enjoying my fantasy of those who thinks that what’s happening is okay being air dropped into N. Korea.
I literally pray that you’re right that the general public has had enough and that we can stop the madness.
I wonder if the TSA has a DADT policy for their screeners? Or can a openly gay TSA screener do pats downs (of children, ugh)? Inquiring minds what to know....
Ask them if they have a policy of not hiring queers?
Ask the screener if they are a queer, bi, or any other such fruit.
If they refuse to give a ‘straight’ answer, then request a Female to do the feel-up/hand job.
Be sure to use those terms. That should really wind their watch.
“Don’t grope me Bro?”
I’ll send Nickname the bill...
I have GI ID that are DIFFERENT from one another!
Good idea but I do think the leftists are much better at this sort of thing. Hopefully someone on their side will organize a “Pee Queue Society,” or other such cute name, in which the activists arrive at the checkpoints with full bladders and let loose upon contact with TSA.
Outrageous govt calls for outrageous measures, and conservatives are just not good at that.
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