TSA Love 'em, hate 'em, just don't care?

[Sophus]

Might be something nearly everybody agrees on. Hard to believe it.

I wasn't listening to a local radio station the other day and all the DJs and callers were saying "you gotta play by the rules." Apparently some people are... all for it? Maybe not, ut they really didn't seem to have a problem with it. They must not be traveling anywhere soon.

[Thumpalumpacus]

Even out here in SoCal there's too much of that "What've you got to hide?" shit that made the Patriot Act #1 with a bullet.

I understand that scans can be useful, and were I on a list for legitimate reasons -- say, I was a violent felon, since reformed -- I'd submit to it.

By making is a blanket policy, they are making, to my mind, an unreasonable search and seizure violation.  This is no different than setting up a checkpoint in front of, say, LA's Staples Center and demanding that everyone submit to a weapons search.  After all, Lakers games have 14,000 attendees, not 200 passengers.

[Sophus]

Well, this just in there is a resistance. And there is a resistance to the resistance in fear that by a large group of people opting for pat downs you'll have massive delays when you try to fly on what is already a busy time for airports.

In case you haven't heard, there's a big holiday coming up. No, I don't mean Thanksgiving. I mean the day before it. Wednesday is the busiest air travel day of the year, and a horde of paranoid zealotsâ€"techno-libertarians, Tea Partiers, rabble-rousers, Internet activists, and congressional demagoguesâ€"has decided to make it even worse. They're calling it "National Opt-Out Day." Rather than endure an electronic scan of your body at the security gate, they want you to "opt out" and force the Transportation Security Administration to physically inspect you. Their hero is John Tyner, the man who recorded himself a week ago as he warned a TSA officer not to "touch my junk."

Ignore these imbeciles. Their plan would clog security lines and ruin your holiday for no good reason. They don't understand the importance of the electronic scans. They're wrong about the scanners' safety. And from the standpoint of dignity, their advice is insane. If you opt out of the scan, you'll get a pat-down instead. You'll trade a fast, invisible, intangible, privacy-protected machine inspection for an unpleasant, extended grope. In effect, you'll be telling TSA to touch your junk.

I'm not flying anywhere for this Thanksgiving, thank God.

[Thumpalumpacus]

I like how asserting the right to be free of unreasonable search and seizure makes one a "paranoid zealot."

Also, in this passage:

And from the standpoint of dignity, their advice is insane. If you opt out of the scan, you'll get a pat-down instead. You'll trade a fast, invisible, intangible, privacy-protected machine inspection for an unpleasant, extended grope. In effect, you'll be telling TSA to touch your junk.

... the writer shows a startling density.  The point is to subvert the system by using its own rules, a classic tactic of non-violent protest.  What the protest really says is, "Go ahead and touch my 'junk', so long as you're willing to pay the political price."

Really, it's sad when Americans will defend an assault on Constitutional liberties by citing ... convenience.

[McQ]

Reading over the news, as well as Sophus' and Asmodean's thoughts on this. I'm actually soooooooo seriously grateful for your posts (and they're also very funny, too) because it is really disheartening to see other people who are sheepily (?) willing to give up their freedoms.

I give to the ACLU (guess that makes me a card-carrying member) and at least they are starting to see an influx of protests too, which they are more than capable of helping with. But what I have found so crappy is that between the time I made my post yesterday about even the far right seeming to be up in arms about this, until today...I have talked with half a dozen people here locally who are just fine with this new feel-em-up or zap 'em policy.  :hissyfit:

I posted to my FB page a paraphrase of the oft quoted/oft misquoted -  "Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both."

Already got some idiotic replies from people on that one. "Wouldn't you rather your kids be safe than..." blah, blah...

Stooopid to the max!

[The Magic Pudding]

Wouldn't you rather your kids be safe than..." blah, blah...Stooopid to the max!

Yes, safe from zapping and groping.

[elliebean]

They can grope me, but they must buy me dinner first.


And drinks.

[Thumpalumpacus]

They can grope me, but they must buy me dinner first.


And drinks.

Oh, quit playing hard-to-get already.

[Sophus]

I'm curious about the claims that the people viewing the naked images are not getting a head in the shot. How does that work? Not everyone is the same height.

I posted to my FB page a paraphrase of the oft quoted/oft misquoted - "Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both."

A nice quote. I really don't see how this is going to make us significantly safer either.

Would we let any other business get away with these sort of regulations (government enforced or not)? When can we expect cruise ships and trains to take up the same procedures? According to the Washington Post 64% of the public likes the idea of these machines. If they're going to support them for airplanes why not everything else? When and where do we draw the line?

[Tom62]

Every month I have to go to the same ordeal, when I visit my wife in Washington DC. After 8 hours of flight, I'd do anything to get past the TSA idiocy as quickly as possible. Most of the time however, the hall is full of people from the three flights that arrived just before us.  Cool, any decent airport security in another part of the western world could handle that in less than 15 minutes, but not in the US. If I'm lucky, I could leave the airport within one hour.

In the US they seemed to have hired the most inefficient people as inhumanly possible. People who want to enter the country are not treated as humans, but as potential dangerous objects. It seems to be OK to shout us around; photograph and fingerprint us; to ask us private questions, like if we are criminals. Even the former East-German border guards were friendlier and less obnoxious   . If that is not enough, the USA already receive already loads of other information about us, before we even board the plane (like our bank data). Since incompetence seems to be a virtue in the USA (just ask my wife, she has to deal with incompetent companies every day), it is extremely likely that my personal data is not save in the hands of US bureaucracy.

[joeactor]

I posted to my FB page a paraphrase of the oft quoted/oft misquoted -  "Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both."

Yeah, I've always liked that one (in all it's variations ;-)

The original is from Ben Franklin published in the 1738 edition of "Poor Richard's Almanack":

"Sell not virtue to purchase wealth, nor Liberty to purchase power."

... really nice to see how far we've progressed in the last 270 years, huh?

[McQ]

Every month I have to go to the same ordeal, when I visit my wife in Washington DC. After 8 hours of flight, I'd do anything to get past the TSA idiocy as quickly as possible. Most of the time however, the hall is full of people from the three flights that arrived just before us.  Cool, any decent airport security in another part of the western world could handle that in less than 15 minutes, but not in the US. If I'm lucky, I could leave the airport within one hour.

In the US they seemed to have hired the most inefficient people as inhumanly possible. People who want to enter the country are not treated as humans, but as potential dangerous objects. It seems to be OK to shout us around; photograph and fingerprint us; to ask us private questions, like if we are criminals. Even the former East-German border guards were friendlier and less obnoxious   . If that is not enough, the USA already receive already loads of other information about us, before we even board the plane (like our bank data). Since incompetence seems to be a virtue in the USA (just ask my wife, she has to deal with incompetent companies every day), it is extremely likely that my personal data is not save in the hands of US bureaucracy.

Sorry to hear you must undergo this on a regular basis. It is just as you say, sadly. And the most people here will do is laugh about it and make jokes on talk shows and late night TV. it's embarrassing.

[McQ]

Yeah, I've always liked that one (in all it's variations ;-)

The original is from Ben Franklin published in the 1738 edition of "Poor Richard's Almanack":

"Sell not virtue to purchase wealth, nor Liberty to purchase power."

... really nice to see how far we've progressed in the last 270 years, huh?

Oh yeah. Ben would be horrified.

[Thumpalumpacus]

Since incompetence seems to be a virtue in the USA (just ask my wife, she has to deal with incompetent companies every day), it is extremely likely that my personal data is not save in the hands of US bureaucracy.

Generalize much?

[Sophus]

Scientists challenge TSA on scanner radiation.. Also, a man is now suing TSA, citing the 4th Amendment.

An Arkansas man has filed a federal lawsuit against the Transportation Security Administration, claiming that the agency's new screening rules are detrimental to his "emotional, psychological and mental well-being."

Robert Dean filed the lawsuit Monday in federal court in Little Rock, even though the Little Rock National Airport does not yet have the full-body scanners that have drawn criticism throughout the country. Dean's lawsuit asks a federal judge to issue an injunction stopping the TSA from conducting full-body pat-down searches and using the full-body imaging scanners.

The lawsuit claims that the new practices violate Dean's civil rights and his Fourth Amendment right protecting against unlawful searches and seizures.

TSA says it does not comment on pending litigation.

I wonder how we'll look back on this five or ten years from now.