What’s interesting to me regarding all this is that nobody ever points out that all of the supposed attacks have come from overseas. (Shoe bomber — from France. Crotch bomber — from Amsterdam. Liquid bomber — never happened, but were in the UK). Two real incidents from almost one billion flights since 9/11. Yet passengers flying from Oakland to Seattle are groped and filmed naked “just in case.” It’s a statistical joke. And the fact that it is so vigorously defended makes you wonder what is the real agenda. Apparently the agenda is to take away our 4th Amendment on a de facto basis. This has been a goal of the FBI among other police agencies for decades, and long before 9/11. Why? To make their jobs easier, that’s why. If you can snoop, scan people and spy on everyone 24/7 without limitations, then law-enforcement is a breeze. This is called a police state. When you talk about how privacy is not important and you personally have nothing to hide. You are inviting a police state. This airport scanner thing is a ruse, a salvo to see how much the public will tolerate before they can up the ante. If you have not noticed, they up the ante every time. There has been no instance or pulling back, ever.
Why has the alert perpetually been on Orange? It’s never yellow any more. It’s never been green for 9 years. Why? what’s up? They upped the ante, that’s why.
The only thing missing from the ex-TSA Nazi jack-boot goon cocksucker motherfucker is his swastika armband.
Catching criminals is “hard” whereas scanning and patting down citizens is “easy.” What we are seeming is the confusion of input vs outcome. If we have hired xx thousand TSA goons, and spend $xx million, and scan for xxx thousand of flights, then law enforcement/government has facts/statistics they can look to. Its all input. Now, the one output which is number of bombs that have gone off/number of hijackings is zero==so who can tell whether the hard job is being done or not??
As to the 4th Amendment, who can spot the wild weasel?:
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.
Yep, you all got it: “unreasonable” which is gauged by the severity of the threat and the degree of invasion with due consideration to available alternatives.
In the case of airport searches, we are all on notice of the pat down search “so” if you don’t want to submit to that===don’t fly. Easy Peasy.
Silly whining little self absorbed hypocrites to think your privacy is being violated when you drive 15 miles and stand in line in order to have it occur. Stupid Really.
You got your Quakers not using modern machinery because of their value/religious system, you got your Jews not doing any work on their sabbath for their values. If you have any “values” besides the enjoyment in mindlessly bitching about what a more crowded world necessitates, you would “choose” not to fly if the search was that upsetting. But why not be hypocrites instead???
Make a real choice for a change. “We were never more free than during the German occupation.”
Heh, heh. Silly Hoomans–thinking their rights are grounded in anything they don’t like.
#6 the free speech zones were a feature of the DNC in Denver too.
The Alert is never green because Bush/Clinton/BushII/Obama have all failed. Failed miserably.
Frankly it all boils down to the radical Muslims don’t like what our government(s) (the “Western Powers”) do in their backyard. Sound familiar – yet?
Metal detectors and common sense is all that is needed. Revocation of the 4th Amend. will not stand!.
Opt out of the porn machine. Take a hand/wand pat-down. If the pat-down gets personal simply state in a loud clear voice, “STOP TOUCHING ME IN A SEXUAL MANNER”. Ditto with the children. Be polite, stand up for yourself …
No means NO! Chunk that through your dingbat head Janet et. al!
Searching for specific ITEMS is a fools errand.
We should be watching for specific PEOPLE.
But, this means hiring highly qualified, trained and competent TSA agents. Who, of course, are highly paid.
This goes against the conservative strategy of “privatization” where contractors get labor at the lowest possible wages to maximize profits.
Former airline employee — airline security consultant for EgyptAir.
http://ctc.usma.edu/harmony/profile_pdf/ali-mohammed.pdf
Two words no one has used:
PATRIOT ACT.
The provisions of this Act invalidate parts of the Bill of Rights. Our elected representatives voted for it, and Obama signed its extension, instead of letting it expire.
That was front page news, right?
Some may remember he promised to let it expire — but that was before he was elected.
Everything being done to the flying public may legally justified, so long as this Act is in effect. Complaints to the TSA are misdirected, since the Bill of Rights ceases to exist — in the ‘Security Zone’.
Orion314 said, on November 15th, 2010 at 1:12 pm
The only thing missing from the ex-TSA Nazi jack-boot goon cocksucker motherfucker is his swastika armband.
————-
I love it when someone “digs deep”
FTW !
Awareness is the first step … good start !
/T.
Listen to what he says. He can hardly contain his glee. “there are events around the world… that are driving us TO BE ABLE TO” …scan your ass.
What they have wanted all along. Big Brother.
Simple Game Theory — who is able to act, and what’s the action they can take that will provide the biggest return for the risk?
In this case the people that are in a position to make this decision have very little incentive to not be invasive, and a solid piece of incentive to be invasive. It’s the safe move, the best return on risk. The penalty for making a mistake over-searching is minimal. The penalty for under-searching is potentially catastrophic, even if they don’t catch the bomber with the new methods.
The only way it will stop is to change the outcome of the play. When a substantial number of Americans make this decision less rewarding by demanding the long, labor-intensive, costly hand-search, when the airlines lose business and the airports lose revenue, things will change. That’s all there is to it.
Frankly, this is exactly what Bin Laden and his boys were looking for — vast amounts of collateral damage that cost them virtually nothing to create. OBL said “jump” and the TSA has asked “how high?” You can’t defend against a terrorist. The only option is offense.
S.
Two words no one has used:
PATRIOT ACT.
Everything being done ‘to’ the flying public may be legally justified — so long as this Act remains in effect.
Does anyone recall that Obama promised not to sign its renewal, before the election? And what did he in fact do, after the election?
Under the provisions of this act, portions of the Bill of Rights cease to exist, once a citizen enters the ‘Security Zone.’
Complaints to, or about, the TSA are misdirected. The real problem is a president who reversed his pre-election promise.
Your analysis is spot on John.
Some idiot terrorist puts a bomb in his shoe, and now we all have to take our shoes off.
Some idiot terrorist puts a bomb in his underwear, and now our underwear is searched.
Next thing you know some idiot will put a bomb up his ass, and we will be subjected to cavity searches.
Then some idiot terrorist will blow up a plane with a surface to air missile, proving that airport security is a complete waste of time and money.
If you get on a plane, what are the chances of you making it to your destination. Its around 99.99999%. Basically it is more likely for you to be killed by a drunk driver on your way to the airport than on a plane across the country.
If we completely got rid of the TSA and did away with the security check point, how would that change the risk? Even if it increased airplane fatalities five times, that would still make the chances of arriving to our destination 99.99995% It would still be more likely to be killed by a drunk driver on the way to the airport.
In other words, basic risk assessment math says the TSA is a complete waste of money. Even the metal detectors are completely unnecessary.
In the name of feeling safer, maybe we could keep the metal detectors and the sky marshalls, but everything else is a waste of time and money.
#22 Bobbo. I gather you think it is OK to let these strangers with little screening to touch children in private places? Do you think it is OK for them to look at naked pictures of children as well? When you look at the consequences verses the risk, in this case, the consequences to the child, who may have been a victim of sexual assault previously, it far worse than the 1 in a billion chance that they are carrying weapons. Besides this screening does nothing as anyone can shove all types of weapons up their but (and elsewhere) in order to get past this screening. If it worked that would be one thing, but all this screening does is provide opportunities for perverts and the people who make money off those nude body scan machines.
The “powers that be” (PTB as opposed to PHB) are trying to immobilize us all.
By US I refer to people who aren’t wealthy, like 90% of us, or super-wealthy, like 98% of us.
We schlubs get to ride aboard some form of mass transit.
The wealthy and the super-wealthy fly on their own planes. (Like the Saudis and other members of the OPEC oil cabal.)
That is one way to stop the Saudis and the other members of the OPEC oil cabal in their tracks. By stopping us in OUR tracks.
And this is how they’re doing it.
By putting up restrictions one after another, slowly ratcheting the collar as it were, they are making it impossible for the populace of the USoA to get together to do anything. (Actually pretty much anyone anywhere.)
Then come trains, buses, ferry boats, anything above a certain fuel carrying capacity where members of the public can be conveyed. (Lear jets are still okay, though.)
Notice that they will NOT have full-body scanners where rich people fly.
Why bother? They only make up 10% of the population and besides, only poor people kill themselves and are pissed off enough to want to take out a waiting room full of slaves and idiots.
But the mobility that people enjoyed is coming to an end.
You’d better get used to meeting “virtually” over the internet ’cause that’s all that’ll be left to us schlubs.
Of course you can call me paranoid, but that doesn’t mean that they, that wonderful, mysterious they, aren’t hiring the people who are out to get me as part of their jobs.
I’m choosing where I want to retire right now because in a few years I’ll have to die where I stand.
Travel’s going the way of all flesh.
Hope the hookers aren’t too homely and the blow’s primo where you are, ’cause that’s gonna be all there is…
#32 ArianeB said, “basic risk assessment math says the TSA is a complete waste of money. Even the metal detectors are completely unnecessary.”
Ariane – You are so right. The hardened cockpit doors are basically all that needed to be done. If the bastards want to kill a bunch of people, a couple of grenades in a busy shopping mall will do the trick. Or derailing a passenger train. How about instead of trying to blow up a skyscraper they park a van full of explosives under an apartment building? Now that’s some basic Terror 101 when people would not feel safe at home! In the end, they cannot protect us so, instead, they harass us. And we pay them billions of dollars per year for the privilege.
Sad.
We need to make the 2012 election a lever to get to get the TSA toned down and the Patriot Act repealed. The focus seems to be on healthcare and cap’n trade. And we should focus on those but not to the exclusion of all the other nonsense.
I agree whole heartily with John, “think for your-self’s”!!!!
Unfortunately the common public refrain is “be positive”, “Let’s play nice, let’s be congenial”…
Not only are most American’s sports couch potatoes and arm-chair quarter-backs but; they argue about how “a process” leaves them feeling rather then the substance or merits of a debate.
Challenging ideas honestly is deemed augmentative and/or being negative; regardless if it could have adverse side effects.
The depth of most Americans thinking is exemplified by GW Bush, when said “he looked into Putin’s eyes and got a sense of his soul”.
Basically, for Americans, facts be damned,it’s who I feel that matters!!!! That how they willingly over-mortgaged them-self’s, deceive themselves about being fat….
Basically American rely of others to think for them, rather then thinking for themselves.
I don’t know if TV, Celebrities, Computers, Internet or a nexus of all the above? Americans’ are intellectually lazy and intellectually dishonest!!!!
#33–Beard (and I do believe you)==the kiddie molestation was on the other thread but I’ll take the question. No I don’t think it is “OK” because from day one I’ve posted our entire response to 911 is wrong headed, ineffective, a waste of money, pandering to peoples’ fears, and an invasion/eroding of our desire for personal privacy.
I’ve never posted anything contrary to that either.
So–why are you fixated on kiddies?
The terrorists have won. One idiot puts a bomb in a shoe, now we all take off our shoes. One idiot makes a bomb out of a diaper, now we get scanned and groped.
Osama Bin Laden and the other terrorists are laughing their asses off at our over reaction and stupidity.
No man, WE won. The terrorists can’t hate our freedom any more. We got none.
#6 During the 1988 Democratic National Convention, the city of Atlanta set up an official “free speech area”.
98 U.S. senators for voted in favor of the US Patirot Act of 2001 (Senator Landrieu (D-LA) did not vote) Senator Russ Feingold of Wisconsin was the only senator who voted against the Patriot Act on October 24, of 2001. 357 Reps voted Yea
About time you accept that the Demoncraps are just as bad as the Repukes, they used the free speech zones first and were right there in lock-step on the patriot act and just about everything else during the Bush reign. Demoncraps need to accept their roll it the crimes of the past 10 years.