Posted on 11/14/2010 10:01:10 AM PST by NCBraveheart
Question. Is too much being made of this TSA pat-down issue? I have been reading a lot of stories on line that this is tantamount to sexual assault under cover of authority. Are these X-Ray scanners that bad? I just have to wonder how we ever flew prior to 9/11. I am watching a YouTube video some guy caught on his phone after refusing a groin check what is scary is the recording over the PA in a soothing voice that security is everyone’s job. Very “1984” So what do y’all think??? Me, I am against it I think the TSA is a waste of tax money and and infringement of our liberty
The Good News: Air fares remain affordable.
The Bad News: The personal degradation to board a flight cannot be worse - next step in the progression would be stripping off all clothing.
Example: I boarded a flight last night at an airport that I use with some frequency and was confronted with the new naked scanner machine. I went through the new enclosure and was asked to reach for the sky while being scanned. Then, I was put through a brief waiting period with my feet on outlines AND then subjected to a pat down. Why? Because I couldn’t raise one of my arms high enough due to a long-time handicap (frozen shoulder), I was forced to undergo a pat down.
So, in the course of boarding a flight, I was forced to expose my genitalia, absorb a potentially dangerous dose of radiation and then reveal a handicap of which most people that know me are unaware. I felt totally degraded, irradiated, angry and disgusted with the process.
I have considered private aviation hard to justify from a cost standpoint, but I now see why it will continue to gain popularity. When traveling abroad, I have not been subjected to such idiotic procedures, but feel equally safe.
Well said. They won't have my business either. Here's a link to the guy's blog where he's got the videos:
http://johnnyedge.blogspot.com/2010/11/these-events-took-place-roughly-between.html
Unbelievable that this is going on in the US. These agents come off as bullies yet they're so inept any terrorists would be laughing themselves silly.
Agreed. I refuse to fly anywhere. Don’t want the hassle and resent the fact that I’m now the criminal.
We fly a lot. Two weeks ago I was very pleased that both me and my wife’s friend’s husband were singled out for the new scanners. We both declined and got public pat downs. We need people to say no. The TSA cannot afford to pat down everyone they single out without draconian measures that would make even the ignorant start to take notice.
We must “give up our comfort” as our founding fathers did.
And, frankly, this is just ONE of many ways we can do that.
The checks are getting more and more extreme. And perverted
Obviously the government is not serious in fighting Islamic Terrorism....there is no need to frisk or x-ray a newborn
The Big Government Globalist types love the extra attention....but, the pat-downs and x-ray cameras are just more intrusion and erosion of rights
Recently I was stopped by two TSA agents. First agent asks why I had bacon bits, “You planning on making a salad?”
“Nope. It’s for terrorists.”
Second agent says “What does bacon have to to with terrorism???”
First agent gives him a ‘you idiot’ look...
I personally believe that we should do away with the reason we have a TSA.
I have had discussions with the Israeli Airport screeners, and they look at the TSA as an absolute joke. First of all, they are trained to recognize behavior in everyone that goes through their security. But, (and get this), they spend most of their time looking at muzzies between the ages of 17 and 34. They don’t waste a lot of time on 80 year old grannies.
I often said that instead of taking away everything including fingernail clippers, we should issue everyone a knife upon boarding a plane. At least that would improve passenger politeness on flight and give everyone a fighting chance against the terrorists.
It’s not just a pat-down issue. The issue is that the federal government has taken it upon itself to determine who can travel and who cannot. They use standards that, while secret, show a clear bias towards those who are likely to trust and respect them. The federal agents have reserved for themselves the right to bar travel (travel that’s already been paid for, no less) of those who do not show them the proper obeisance and, in this case, willingness to be sexually abused.
Humanity has been down this road many, many times before. The Emperor Diocletian terminated the travel rights of what, the day before, had been Roman Citizens, and bound them to the land. Roman Citizens instantly became serfs (though, of course, the full implications of serfdom took years to develop from that one new fact: no matter how bad a local ruler, serfs COULD NOT LEAVE). The Russian Ruler Ivan Grozny (aka the Terrible) did the same thing to what had been a fairly free people in what we now know as Russia, forbidding the previously fairly-free Rus from moving from place to place, except with permission. It took a while, but that control over human movement led directly to horrors such as the means by which St. Petersburg gained the sobriquet “the city built on bones.” The Nazis had an internal passport system, the East Germans forbad people to leave their failing state, the Chinese impose travel restrictions on Falun Gong.
Over and over again, throughout history, tyrants take for themselves the rights of a free people. It may start slowly at first (metal detectors, run by free agents, at airlines), then goes on (government takes over the metal detectors) then on (government allows travel only of those its agents deem properly submissive) then on and on. The end game of people loosing their rights, including the right to travel, is well known to historians: it’s slavery, with occasional periods of slaughter and other mass death.
Think it can’t happen here? History shows that tyranny happens everywhere, eventually. It will eventually happen here; we can’t stop it forever, but we can slow it down so that maybe — just maybe — our children and grandchildren will have a chance to also fight against tyranny.
That’s the issue regarding the TSA. It’s not about safety. It’s about keeping freedom alive for just one more generation.
***The entire department of homeland security is a waste of money and resources. Something that George Bush, that big government Republican, couldn’t resist I suppose.***
Oh, boy, you got that wrong! Bush fought and fought making the TSA a union outfit. He was RIGHT! Blame Congress.
TSA Screener Attacks Colleagues After Being Teased Over Penis Size
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/05/07/tsa-screener-attacks-coll_n_568229.html
Screener Rolando Negrin’s private body parts were observed by his Transportation Security Administration colleagues conducting training on the airport’s full-body imaging machines.
Months of joking culminated on Tuesday night, when Negrin attacked co-worker Hugo Osorno in an employee parking lot, according to an arrest report.
Watch the videos of one person going through the new “screening procedure” and tell me this country is one scrap better than the invasive power we usually associate with Soviet Russia. Just because they haven’t started herding us off to the Gulags doesn’t mean that isn’t exactly where this is headed. Regardless, this is NOT the United States of America I was born in, and I am sick of how far it has fallen, and how willing so many are to go along with it.
http://johnnyedge.blogspot.com/2010/11/these-events-took-place-roughly-between.html
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