TSA: Carcinogenic Petting Zoo

The TSA is effectively an unconstitutional, carcinogenic petting zoo. Deep down, we all feel that the airport security system is an FDA-approved rubdown and radiation parlor. But we are busy, rushing to catch flights, and we tell ourselves it is for our “safety.” So, like sheep, we comply.

The TSA security process is in violation of the law of the land, specifically the Fourth Amendment: “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.”

Let’s be honest, when I “opt” for a pat-down over a blast of cancer-inducing radiation, it is not a choice—it is a preference for the lesser of two fixed evils. A pat- down is a clear violation of my “person;” there is no probable cause warranting random government agents to feel me up for weapons.

The pat-down system also violates my right to be secure in my “papers and effects.” Every time I get a pat-down, my personal property is subject to theft. The TSA pat-down process does nothing to prevent an unconscionable person (going through the scanner) from taking advantage of the fact that I’m helplessly standing behind waiting for a pat-down—unable to monitor my luggage.

Because, here is what normally happens: I inform the TSA agent, “I’m opting out.” The agent then calls for a “female assist” and asks me to step aside. I wait (occasionally up to 10 minutes) for a pat-down. Meanwhile my luggage—including my purse, iPhone, MacBook Pro and other valuables—travel the conveyer belt and idle on the other side of the X-ray machine where anyone could easily walk off with them.

On a recent flight out of Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport, a female TSA agent (who was openly annoyed at the prospect of doing her job and giving me a pat-down while oddly assuming that I yearned for her to touch me) said: “Well, if you ask for one, we have to give you one. So, are you just doing this for the free massage we give you?” I wanted to respond: “No way, pervert.” But, since I wanted to make my flight, I replied: “No. I just don’t want the radiation.”

3,778 service calls were made between May of 2010 and May of 2011 to address mechanical issues in backscatter X-ray machines, according to a TSA report.

The New York Times writes: “The machines move a focused beam of high-intensity radiation very quickly across the body, and David Brenner, director of the Center for Radiological Research at Columbia University Medical Center, says he worries about mechanical malfunctions that could cause the beam to stop in one place for even a few seconds, resulting in greater radiation exposure.” The Times reports further: “A recent study reported that radiation from the machines can reach organs through the skin. In another report, researchers estimated that 1 billion X-ray backscatter scans per year could lead to perhaps 100 radiation-induced cancers in the future.”

Many independent researchers concur that the safety and radiation levels are still unknown because the TSA has actively kept its research in the dark and has redacted public reports.

The next time you fly, opt for the pat-down as a form of healthy protest. For now, it’s better than getting cancer from supposedly “fail-safe” body scanners. And if enough Americans congest airport traffic by choosing pat-downs, perhaps the TSA will eliminate its unconstitutional rubdown and radiation parlor.

Pat-downs do not keep us safe. They merely serve to treat Americans like animals. I may have long hair but I’m not a fuzzy tarantula or a furry bunny rabbit. I wear earrings in my ears, not bombs. Yet every time I get a pat-down, it starts with a TSA agent tugging down on my hair with clingy plastic gloves.

Last September, a Dallas woman named Isis Brantley (wearing a large afro hairstyle) cleared the checkpoint at Atlanta’s international airport as she had for the previous 20 years. Brantley had made it to the escalator when two TSA officers changed their minds and decided she was a terror suspect—perhaps imagining she used her hair to disguise a diminutive flamethrower. The agents chased her down the escalator shouting: “Stop—the lady with the hair, you!” They began parting through her hair on-the-spot without offering her a private screening area.

The TSA treats humans far worse than animals. For, petting zoo owners do not grope their cows, de-shoe their ponies and pluck their chickens before letting them into the barn. We are rational beings, not sheeple, and our bodies are our private property. It is time we speak up against the unconstitutional, carcinogenic petting zoo known as the TSA.

Last week there was a story about a woman with her two small children in the backseat of her car was stopped by local cops. Since she was obviously a threat (not) she was strip-search along side her car and in full view of passing traffic.

A female cop was called in to do the search and removed a tampon from the suspect.

How much money would you have to be paid to remove a tampon? I’m a woman and there’s no way!!!!

She (the driver) is suing the cops personally and the city. I hope she wins a bundle. This search is so outrageous that one wonders if the female cop doesn’t have a few mental problems.
I wonder the same about TSA workers.

I have managed to avoid flying since the systematic dehumanizating, molestion program began. No way I can gurantee my own reactions to the sight and sound of inhumane pigs like this.

We should prosecute the manager AND the employees who have gone along with these orders to violate the American people and the law of the land (constitution). We should do this before they progress to genocide.

I'm speaking from a slightly more informed perspective ~ that's all. Ever have an airplane drop out of the sky onto your house?

I didn't but a lady at an intersection just a few blocks away had an airplane drop on her automobile.

She'd just gone to the store for some hotdogs and buns and was calling her husband to tell him she was on the way back ~ killed her dead!

So, airplanes drop out of the sky ~ so that concerns me a lot. I"ve also missed more than one flight that then crashed. So, I kind of like to know a plane is going to make it to the other end before getting on board. If I won't get on, you shouldn't either.

Two things i don't want ~ (1) A plane dropping out of the sky onto my property, family, myself, and (2) Being on a plane that's dropping out of the sky.

So, what to do ~ well I"d do profiling ~ and right off the bat anyone wearing Middle Eastern clothes would never get on a plane ~ not even old ladies!

Folks with bad accents would need a US military escort or they couldn't get on a plane.

As time went on I would get tougher.

I"d be doing that Israeli "twenty questions" trick ~ guess it works pretty good. Their planes don't go down.

Now what was it I was proposing that could be considered government abuse of American citizens?

I hope you did'nt think I'm a TSA fan ~ but then again, I'm not exactly an airline fan.

I travel by car to the degree possible.

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