So how bad are things getting? I suspect they've been bad for a while, but the public awareness is just now starting to get raised, and more people are speaking out about their mistreatment at the hands of the government. It's one thing if it's just nameless citizens like you and me who have to suffer these assaults, but as more and more reporters, officials, and other folks who have a platform from which to speak have to go through them, the word is getting out. That's what's happening to increase the heat and the pressure, and that's what needs to continue happening to force a change in this policy. By the way, if you're flying soon, don't wear baggy clothes - that'll get your junk felt up without the benefit of having a layer of clothing between your groper and your afore-mentioned junk. No, I'm not kidding! That appears to be standard procedure now. Want some other horror stories? Have you heard the one about the TSA agents who literally exposed one woman's breasts in public during her sexual assault, and then laughed and teased her about it? True story.
At least one DA is threatening to prosecute overzealous TSA gropers. Funny, I think that these
The head of the TSA, John Pistole, appeared before the Senate yesterday to testify, and it sounds like they were largely stupid about the whole thing. Clearly, they aren't the ones experiencing the strip searches or sexual assaults, although Pistole did offer to have them groped on the floor of the Senate. I assume most declined because that's the sort of thing that happens in their offices, not on the Senate floor. Anyway, most of the Senators expressed irritation that they're receiving hundreds of angry phone calls from constituents every day. You know what that means...dial even more! Let's make it thousands of angry phone calls every day! At least some on the House side are on the case, though:
We'll come back to one very important piece he mentioned in just a moment, but let's stick with the Senate for a moment. Missouri's very own Claire-bear McCaskill seemed thrilled at the new policy, lovingly referring to the sexual assaults as 'love pats'. I wonder why the interviewer didn't ask her how she felt about her kids getting them? I wonder if she'd have a different answer.
On top of the physical invasions, more evidence is coming out that the scanners produce more radiation than is safe, especially for frequent fliers. I'm way out of my league on the science of these things, but it seems clear to me that at the very least, there are legitimate questions that have unsatisfactory answers right now.
And what about the question of this policy's Constitutionality? In that perspective, what is the attitude of the TSA types? Eh, we really don't want to violate your rights, but we're going to do it anyway.
In addition, here are just a few other concerns that I've thought of in the past 24 hours or so:
- If TSA agents are shoving their hands down passengers' pants and coming into direct contact with their 'junk', are they changing gloves after groping each person? Aside from the obvious nastiness, there is a legitimate concerns about transmitting diseases from one person to another.
- Do they seriously expect us to believe it is not possible for these images to be saved? These machines are built with a test mode in which the images have to be saved...otherwise, how would the operators know if the machine has been installed properly? Also, we've seen repeatedly over the past couple years how these images somehow appear on the Internet, printed out in the hands of TSA agents (asking for autographs). And, if you think about it just a little bit, wouldn't it make sense to hang onto those images in the event that terrorists do manage to take over the plane? Wouldn't the government want to study them? Puh-lease don't give us that bull about images not being saved or retained.
- What about cancer survivors or victims of rape or sexual assault? Can you imagine what it must be like to have to be subjected to this treatment if you have an experience like that in your past?
- If my kids' school teachers touched my kids like this, I'd bust my butt to have them fired and thrown in jail. Then how is it somehow acceptable for a TSA worker to sexually assault my kids like this?
I have to wonder at what point the TSA workers themselves will refuse to do this stuff. I realize they're just trying to do their jobs, but when one's job involves sexually molesting a child, wouldn't that cross some kind of line for most normal people? I don't understand why we haven't seen any 'defections' from the ranks of the TSA yet. Have they been threatened with prosecution, too?
Throughout all of this, there are three things that really, really, REALLY burn me up about this. First is the most obvious fact: the one demographic group that needs the most strenuous security attention is the one group that has been given an exception to pass through without getting the strip search or the sexual assault. Yep, Muslims can beg out of both. Political correctness has to stop here, because the sheer bass-ackwardness of this situation is breathtaking.
Second is the fact that former Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, who initiated the policies that have been expanded into our current insanity, is now working for a company called Rape-scan...it's actually Rapiscan, but what's the difference...and guess what their big money maker is? ***drum roll***
Strip search scanners.
The government is spending hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars to install 1,000 of them in the next couple years, and he's going to rake in the dough because of it. Personally, I think this guy should be in prison. Call it insider trading, call it aiding and abetting of millions of counts of sexual assault of minors, whatever. LOCK HIM THE HELL UP and make an example out of him - the American people should not accept such flagrant disregard for their privacy and Constitutional rights (you know, the 4th Amendment, the one preventing unlawful searches and seizures, for example), ESPECIALLY not so some vile political hack can make himself rich.
[On a side note, someone else who has profited handsomely from these scanners is George Soros, who coincidentally has publicly said he wants to dismantle America, has many direct links to Barack Obama, and who thinks that the brutal police state of Communist China is just the gosh-darned best form of government there is. Just so you know.]
Third, in terms of providing actual security, it's all irrelevant anyway.
In fact, terrorists have already conducted attacks where the bombs are literally implanted inside their bodies. Neither the strip search scanner nor the sexual assault is going to find that. And what about pets? What's stopping a psycho from stuffing his cat full of C4 and carrying it onto the plane in plain view of everyone? Heck, if we're talking about legitimate security concerns, how about the fact that many airport uniforms and IDs are stolen every year? What's stopping a terrorist from conducting an attack under the guise of being a pilot or flight attendant or mechanic? What's stopping a terrorist from hopping the chain-link fence around an airport and simply walking up to the rear of the terminal buildings and tossing a bomb on board or sticking one onto the bottom of an engine? This could go on for quite some time. The point is to illustrate that these measures are excessively intrusive and arguably illegal while doing nothing to actually improve security.
This is unacceptable in every conceivable way.
I came across two outstanding articles today that I really wanted to share because they have some outstanding perspective on the situation. First is Jennifer Abel from the U.K. Guardian:
Second, and the most disturbing to me, is this editorial from the Washington Times:Listen to this: "My freely chosen bedmates and doctors are the only ones allowed to see my naked body or touch my genitalia." For a sane person in a sane country that's the ultimate in "no shit, Sherlock" statement. But not where I live.
Not the United States of America. Not since 11 September 2001, when the government reacted to an attack on its citizens by lashing out against the very citizenry it claims to protect. No bureaucracy better embodies that reactionary principle than the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), whose contempt for American citizens has grown so great that they now require we submit to government agents either photographing our, to them, visibly naked bodies or groping us in molestation-style patdowns if we ever want to fly again.
I'm sick of the craven cliches TSA apologists have cited these past nine years:"They protect us from terrorists."
No, they impose pointlessly superstitious security theatre, trample Americans' constitutional rights and make foreigners feel sorry for us. TSA protected nobody with its infamous "bathroom bans" after last year's Christmas terror attempt; rules like "keep your lap empty and your hands visible at all times" only demonstrated the agency's willingness to treat ordinary citizens like serial killers in supermax prison.
"You gave up your rights when you bought an airline ticket."I never gave up any rights. The government stole them while cowards egged them on.
"TSA agents are just doing their jobs."
A lousy apologia and historically ignorant to boot; the civilised world established at Nuremberg that "just following orders" cuts no ice. And my fellow Americans are realising "it'll stop terrorists" cuts none either, at least not to justify low-grade sexual harassment as standard behaviour for government agents.
It's not hyperbole to call the enhanced patdown a low-grade sexual assault; if you don't believe me, go find some woman's boobs or man's balls, start cupping and squeezing them according to new TSA standards, and count how many offences you're charged with. Last month, an agent openly admitted that the purpose of the aggressive new patdowns was to intimidate people into choosing the nude scanners instead.
And Homeland Security director Janet Napolitano justified this Hobson's choice – and abandoned all pretence of being a "servant" accountable to the public – in an insufferably arrogant column she wrote for USA Today, burying outright lies beneath eye-glazing bureaucratic prose. "The imaging technology that we use cannot store, export, print or transmit images," she claimed – though this was proven untrue almost as soon as the scanners were put in use; last August, US marshals admitted to storing 35,000 images collected from one single courthouse – some of which have now been obtained by the website Gizmodo under a freedom of information request."Rigorous privacy safeguards are also in place to protect the travelling public."
You can't claim privacy points when ordering people to let you either see them naked or feel them up.
"The vast majority of travellers say they prefer this technology to alternative screening measures."
No, the vast majority realise Napolitano's gone too far this time, and the backlash has finally begun. November 24 – the eve of the Thanksgiving holiday, and one of the busiest flying days of the year – is National Opt-Out Day, whose organiser Brian Sodegren calls for all Americans to refuse the nude scanners and insist the patdown be done in full public view, so everyone can see how law-abiding travelers are treated in the Land of the Free. Sodegren points out the obvious:
"You should never have to explain to your children, 'Remember that no stranger can touch or see your private area, unless it's a government employee, then it's OK.'"
Similarly, the group We Won't Fly calls for my fellow Americans to "Jam TSA checkpoints by opting out until they remove the porno-scanners!"
I've flown only three times since the inception of the TSA, and only when I couldn't avoid it: two business trips and a funeral I couldn't drive to. But I won't fly on vacation; and last winter, when I thought I'd need to cross the Atlantic, I made reservations in Canada – a 450-mile drive to the airport, but worth it to avoid the TSA.
I'm not alone. Industry leaders reportedly met with Napolitano to express their concerns; as one executive with the US Travel Association fretted, "We have received hundreds of e-mails and phone calls from travelers vowing to stop flying."Airline executives are rich. Maybe they've got the clout to stop TSA bullying. Napolitano clearly doesn't care if ordinary Americans quit flying altogether; at Ronald Reagan National Airport, she openly offered "travel by other means" as the only option for people who won't submit to the new TSA probes.
That's what we've been reduced to in America: security measures lifted from bad porn plots, and hoping this latest outrage inconveniences enough rich guys with political connections to get it repealed.
The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) has crossed the line. As if subjecting millions of Americans to X-rated x-ray scans and public groping sessions weren't bad enough, the agency now threatens $11,000 in fines against anyone refusing to submit to humiliation at the airport.
Oceanside, Calif., resident John Tyner found this out after he posted on YouTube a video of his degrading encounter with TSA screeners. Mr. Tyner's catchy phrase, "If you touch my junk, I'll have you arrested," spread quickly, thanks to attention provided by the Drudge Report. TSA was not amused, and an official announced Monday that Mr. Tyner faces punishment for leaving the airport without submitting to the high-tech or low-tech molestation options.
The term is not used lightly. Under 18 U.S. Code Section 2244, " 'sexual contact' means the intentional touching, either directly or through the clothing, of the genitalia, anus, groin, breast, inner thigh or buttocks of any person with an intent to abuse, humiliate, harass, degrade." It's no coincidence that TSA initiated sexual-contact pat-downs after fliers began to refuse the pornographic scanners. There can be no question that when threats of civil punishment are used to ensure compliance, those encounters with the TSA lose their status as a voluntary transaction. It's even more outrageous that these unnecessary searches are being conducted on children.
There's also no doubt that some rogue TSA agents seek self-gratification at the expense of passengers. In January, a TSA agent planted white powder in the bags of passengers, according to documents posted on the Smoking Gun website. Apparently, scaring members of the public into thinking they were being busted for smuggling drugs made for a good "joke." The new screening rules open yet more opportunities for the worst elements at TSA.
Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano insists that anyone who has a problem with the state of affairs simply shouldn't fly. Unelected bureaucrats like Ms. Napolitano - known across the blogosphere as Big Sister - have no business making decisions that touch upon such a fundamental right as the ability of innocent citizens to travel freely. In Ms. Napolitano's view, Americans wishing to visit family and friends across the country exercise a privilege granted by the government. Air travel is no longer a free transaction between a member of the public and an airline.
Once freedom at airports is "locked down," it's inevitable that TSA will next target buses, trains and the Metro. After all, al Qaeda has attacked each of these modes of transportation in other parts of the world. Strict controls on internal travel is the hallmark of a police state.
No matter how invasive TSA searches become, there's no guarantee anything the agency does will prevent a terrorist attack. A balance must be struck between reasonable security measures and the maintenance of a free society. These decisions cannot be made by Obama administration officials without involving the public in the discussions. Many Tea Party candidates standing for election earlier this month promised they were going to "take our country back." Stopping TSA would be a good first step.
A police state, anyone? Welcome to Obama's America.
I, for one, believe the American people will win this one, and with the rising anger toward the TSA and the federal government, I suspect it may not be too long before that happens. Still, this is something that requires action from everyone. Pick up the phone and call your Senators and Representative, and demand that they do something to stop the madness now.
The sooner millions of Americans take a stand, the sooner the TSA stops violating us 'for our own good'.
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