Posted on 11/20/2010 7:31:28 AM PST by chickadee
“Does the federal government have the right to ask you who you’re visiting and why when you’re traveling from NYC to Indianapolis? No need to answer, I already know that you do because you have vigorously endorsed the “Israeli Method”.
Amen. After seriously considering profiling, scanning, groping, and now this rampant “Israeli Method” crap, I have come to the conclusion that the only constitutional method of protecting our airlines is allowing passengers to unionize. Then the administration would give all the union bosses free flights, take over or bail out the airlines, and drop fares to next to nothing (for union members, of course).
Seriously, the only way to get things back to reality from this ridiculous ‘it’ll-all-be-safe-if-only-we-give-everyone-anal-probes-and-ask-about-their-sex-lives’ attitude is to post a big “ENTER AT OWN RISK” sign on the door to everyone’s homes so that when they leave in the morning they realize life ain’t fair, easy, or safe. At what point do we realize that after the government makes airports Gestapo zones, it’ll be doing so anywhere there are buses, boats and cars? Not trains, of course, because that nice government fellow would like us to get used to those, so we’re docile on the way to the reeducation camps.
When you count the hours people waste in various lines for permissions from government to live that life in the guise of ‘protection,’ it all adds up to the notion of freedom being shredded already.
Railroads and local transit will be next for this kind of security. Since 9/11, trains have been the main targets of Muslim terrorists in the West.
Fine...only as long as every...EVERY person is subjected to the same assaults.
This includes all muslims wearing head gear/clothing. No religion exceptions. No exceptions, period.
Like all other 0bama crap they make rules for all or most then give ‘wavers’ to their friends/donors.
It disgusted me that we couldn’t even enjoy the sights without harassmen
reminds me of our trip to DC. Oppressive, rude security, bag checks, metal detectors, lines for everything. My husband was holding a place in line for me (stated on ticket it was permissable to hold places in line. I walked down the sidewalk, joined him in line and we started talking to some people around us. Suddenly everyone starts looking behind me and says ‘watch out’. My husband jumps in front of me to protect me from the gorilla of a security guard charging at me with hand on her holster! My crime? She ‘thought it looked like I was skipping in line!’
why would you charge/tackle someone for that? I wouldn’t even think they would care unless other people complained to her that I skipped! Goons on a power trip!
Osama is no doubt enjoying this spectacle. Even if his people never kill another American, he has succeeded in bringing a lot of misery into our lives. And it just seems to keep getting worse.
I hate the thought that we are responding exactly as he hoped.
*** I want to see Big Sis on a talk show undergo a love pat demonstration on TV ambush style. Let’s see if she submits. ***
Yes!! Get her on one of the talk shows. Have her submit to the full body scan, but don’t show the scan to the live audience, only to the ‘remote viewers’ at home. Then have her submit to the body search. That’s how it used to be done. The leaders demonstrate how new procedures are nothing to fear.
Bingo. The biggest problem Obama's government has with the Israeli model is that it involves profiling.
Most of us feel pretty much the same way.
Don’t forget to refer to it as “Obama’s TSA”.
“Your money or your dignity”
I wouldn't condone that, either. Imagine having a TSA screeners little kid be there to watch him get beaten to a pulp. That would leave a mental scar that would never go away and might have even worse repercussions on everybody later in that kid's life. They going to beat up the female screeners, too? If you get THAT mad, just sue. That would be more acceptable, IMHO.
“The TSA should be defunded by our new Congress and replaced with the Israeli model for airport security.”
*******
Have you ever flown into or out of Ben Gurion on El AL? Do you have any idea how intrusive those interrogations are?
Where are you going, who are you visiting, why are you visiting them, do you like Israel, why are you angry etc, Are you Muslim, are your parents Muslim, etc, etc.
How is an interrogation - with no right to refuse to answer - any less a violation of an aggressive pat-down (that are also done to people using the “Israeli method”)?
Does the federal government have the right to ask you who you’re visiting and why when you’re traveling from NYC to Indianapolis? No need to answer, I already know that you do because you have vigorously endorsed the “Israeli Method”.
*****************
Agree that both are intrusive, but I’ll take the questioning any day. If the real goal is to stop terrorists, good examiners can detect shady characters who lie pretty easily, and the more the person is exposed, the deeper the questioning gets - and the claims a traveler makes can ultimately be verified if need be in most cases.
However, with the scan and grope, it is immediate and total exposure based on absolutely nothing. It is a violation of basic human dignity at its fullest, and it will not stop at airports, IMO.
My experience has been that they interrogate everyone, just some more than others.
I'm half-Sicilian. My skin is pretty olive colored, more so in the Winter, oddly. I have an Italian given name, and an Anglo last name. The last time I flew to Israel (2008), I was questioned pretty extensively, even though I was active-duty Navy at the time. But, they questioned the blond-haired woman in front of me, even more. To be fair, I have no idea what kind of passport she was traveling on, or any other of her particulars, but she definitely got the third degree.
That’s so horrible!!!! I’m glad I got to see DC for the last time, pre-911 (their excuse for this new tyrannical govt).
They are training us to comply with any thug in uniform, mostly flunkos who couldn’t even get jobs anywhere else.
They are preparing us to line up for the concentration camps.
I tried not to let it ruin our trip — my husband and I were switching off driving through the national and state parks of Texas, but I felt like we were completely in a police state. Every time I was driving and came upon one of the govt checkpoints (they can put them within 100 miles of the border), I could feel my face turning red....
So much for the bots saying “just don’t fly.”
“My key point still stands - i.e. the current level of outrage over “implementing” these nude scanners and enhanced “groping” of private parts would be 10 times greater - with the lamestream media leading the charge, if it were Bush (or any Republican) occupying the White House.”
Exactly right. Just like the Republicans didn’t get upset when Bush announced that as President he had the authority to lock up anyone indefinitely with no rights to a lawyer or to even know the charges against him. What Republican would have gone along with that if it had been Obama who had first claimed that power?
I am going to bump my own post.
And that is what used to be called treason.
The Obama Administration is using this to try to get the general public used to surrendering all their rights in exchange for any kind of travel eventually.
If it isn’t stopped here, the system will devour our Constitutionally protected freedoms and liberties.
Here is some common sense to throw into the argument.
“...But how afraid should Americans be of terrorist attacks? Not very, as some quick comparisons with other risks that we regularly run in our daily lives indicate. Your odds of dying of a specific cause in any year are calculated by dividing that year’s population by the number of deaths by that cause in that year. Your lifetime odds of dying of a particular cause are calculated by dividing the one-year odds by the life expectancy of a person born in that year. For example, in 2003 about 45,000 Americans died in motor accidents out of population of 291,000,000. So, according to the National Safety Council this means your one-year odds of dying in a car accident is about one out of 6500. Therefore your lifetime probability (6500 ÷ 78 years life expectancy) of dying in a motor accident are about one in 83.
What about your chances of dying in an airplane crash? A one-year risk of one in 400,000 and one in 5,000 lifetime risk. What about walking across the street? A one-year risk of one in 48,500 and a lifetime risk of one in 625. Drowning? A one-year risk of one in 88,000 and a one in 1100 lifetime risk. In a fire? About the same risk as drowning. Murder? A one-year risk of one in 16,500 and a lifetime risk of one in 210. What about falling? Essentially the same as being murdered. And the proverbial being struck by lightning? A one-year risk of one in 6.2 million and a lifetime risk of one in 80,000. And what is the risk that you will die of a catastrophic asteroid strike? In 1994, astronomers calculated that the chance was one in 20,000. However, as they’ve gathered more data on the orbits of near earth objects, the lifetime risk has been reduced to one in 200,000 or more.
So how do these common risks compare to your risk of dying in a terrorist attack? To try to calculate those odds realistically, Michael Rothschild, a former business professor at the University of Wisconsin, worked out a couple of plausible scenarios. For example, he figured that if terrorists were to destroy entirely one of America’s 40,000 shopping malls per week, your chances of being there at the wrong time would be about one in one million or more. Rothschild also estimated that if terrorists hijacked and crashed one of America’s 18,000 commercial flights per week that your chance of being on the crashed plane would be one in 135,000.
Even if terrorists were able to pull off one attack per year on the scale of the 9/11 atrocity, that would mean your one-year risk would be one in 100,000 and your lifetime risk would be about one in 1300. (300,000,000 ÷ 3,000 = 100,000 ÷ 78 years = 1282) In other words, your risk of dying in a plausible terrorist attack is much lower than your risk of dying in a car accident, by walking across the street, by drowning, in a fire, by falling, or by being murdered.
So do these numbers comfort you? If not, that’s a problem. Already, security measures—pervasive ID checkpoints, metal detectors, and phalanxes of security guards—increasingly clot the pathways of our public lives. It’s easy to overreact when an atrocity takes place—to heed those who promise safety if only we will give the authorities the “tools” they want by surrendering to them some of our liberty...”
“Don’t Be Terrorized”
(You’re more likely to die of a car accident, drowning, fire, or murder)
http://reason.com/archives/2006/08/11/dont-be-terrorized
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