Posted on 06/07/2017 6:55:44 AM PDT by Kaslin
Much has been said of the ineffectiveness and intrusiveness of the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) over the last decade and a half. However, when newspaper headlines start mocking the agency for asking a passenger “Is that a cookie or a bomb?”, it becomes clear that we have a real problem.
To be sure, there is a vital need for pre-flight security. That has never been in question. What has been questioned is the amount of power granted to a single federal agency for performing functions that can, could, and should be undertaken by private agencies under contract with the federal government. At least private contractors could be fired for the troubling behavior demonstrated by the TSA over the years, including beating-bloody passengers with special needs, humiliating teenagers over choice of clothing, and making incredibly rude remarks about passengers – including U.S. Olympians.
Despite numerous incidents of this nature, the TSA is routinely rewarded each year with billions of taxpayer dollars, out of blind deference to the golden calf of “national security.” And now, federal officials are poised to give the agency even more power over you.
Responding to recent terror threats in the same, often ham-fisted and reactionary methods typical of federal agencies in the post 9/11 world, the TSA currently is testing new screening procedures that require passengers to remove food and reading materials from carry-on bags. In addition to demanding that passengers place their shoes, coats, laptops, “liquids,” and any other bulky items in separate bins, new procedures being applied in several airports require passengers to separate out books, magazines, and snacks for extra inspection by TSA agents.
Where today passengers are advised to arrive at their departure airport at least two hours before a scheduled flight, one can only imagine the additional time delays this will create with TSA screenings; though, this should be the least of passengers’ worries. According to TSA officials, screeners may “fan” reading materials while checking for contraband, but promise they are not actually paying attention to what travelers are reading. Never mind that it was revealed only two years ago that TSA’s SPOT (Screening of Passengers by Observation Techniques) program employs subjective behavioral markers such as excessive body odor and sweating, for secret scorings to determine if an individual passenger likely is a terrorist. Yet, have no fear -- the content of a person’s reading material is completely off-limits. Sure.
Try as they might to convince us of their trustworthiness, nothing in the TSA’s history of gratuitously punitive, if not deliberately petty behavior, leads us to believe this to be true. Rather, what is more likely is that reading material specifically will become the focal point of TSA screeners’ discretion as to whether passengers warrant additional screening. A passenger’s magazines and books will then be subject also to callous remarks from agents; all of which passengers must silently endure. After all, what other recourse do they have when faced with abuse from federal agents – submit or miss your flight, or find yourself facing criminal charges.
Passengers, who long ago should have abandoned hope for even a modicum of privacy or dignity when attempting to fly, must also endure the embarrassment of pulling out their choice of reading for other passengers to see and judge. Ready to fly? You must also be ready for your fellow passengers to know if you are dealing with marriage issues, depression, or a have a predilection for erotica. It will soon be all on display as agents “fan” through your reading material with the restraint and professionalism demonstrated with other luggage items.
To its credit, TSA’s Pre-Check program, in which passengers apply to be vetted before flying and then are allowed expedited screening without all the dehumanizing antics of going through non-Pre-Check screening, is a significant step in the right direction. However, rather than double-down on what has so far been a relatively successful program, TSA fritters away its budget on other highly questionable projects like SPOT, and now what might be called its “Approved Reading Materials Assessment Program” (“ARMAP” for short).
Congress, of course, should step in and undertake serious oversight of TSA, including this latest foray into inspecting an individual’s reading materials. Unfortunately, considering the deference with which the Congress has approached funding TSA year after year, it is unlikely the legislative branch of our federal government will do more now, than issue some stern warnings followed by approving increased funding for yet another year. And the privacy rights of the citizenry – at least those who wish to exercise their right to travel by commercial air carriers – will have suffered another blow in the name of “national security.”
In all its years of annoying and harassing travelers the TSA has never caught one, not one, terrorist.
They have found plenty of fingernail clippers and toiletries with more than 3 oz in them.
Also, it is not too much to ask that the goal of luggage theft be always a trend toward zero, with serious jail time for violation of victimizing travelers. No exceptions, no second chances.
The TSA supervisors, of course should be held to higher standards, with higher penalties for clearly defined crimes, including incompetence. Nuke nepotism and muslim employees altogether.
I drive twice that distance to avoid the TSA. I love flying but the boarding experience is horrible. For some reason I usually get the grope session while others skate. I’ll never fly again unless it’s an emergency.
“... I went ahead and enrolled in the Pre-Check program. I don’t know if Pre-Check is really a step in the right direction or just a way to pay the government money to avoid their security theater, but at least air travel is now fractionally less annoying.”
We pretty much only fly on airmiles anymore...earned thru American’s charge card program. If we don’t fly first class, we’re generally given pre-check status even though we’ve never signed up thru the pre-check program. I guess they just know enough about us now. And, it does make it less annoying. Although last flight, they rifled thru my bookbag and swabbed it. I don’t have an issue with that. I actually used the time standing there to talk to a very nice-looking young lady that was also having her bag rifled.
Unfortunately it is only useful at U.S. airports. Why? I have no clue.
So, for foreign travel, it is one-way convenience.
More Guns,Less Crime also!
They'd be wondering, is there really is such a book and wonder where they can get a copy.
"Any protest to this policy will be entertained, with prejudice, back at the terminal. Good luck."
Yeah, I guess Abdulla would cause some suspicion with that remark.
A hundred and one ways for planes to go BOOM. Fun reading while sitting next to a nervous flier.
Ha,ha! (as if any employee of the T.S.A. could even read a book)
At one time, in a land far away, people actually liked flying. Flight attendants were cheerful and helpful. Passengers were just ordinary people, neither great nor obnoxious. You were able to bring things on board that now are designated “criminal”.
It was unlikely that a bearded savage would shave off his facial fur and fly the plane into a building.
Much has changed since then. The mutual trust among people who didn’t know each other is now gone. You are treated as a terrorist, unless you actually are one, in which case you are offered an extra drink.
Bob Barr spoke at the first FR event, if I’m not mistaken.
All the books I read these days are on the pad.
It’s just part of the programing.
Once the upper middle class’s and lower upper class’s acclimated to governmental personal intrusion then unwarranted searches of car, home and person becomes socially acceptable.
Remember Bostonians acted after the bombing.
Someone needs to write a book entitled, “What a bunch of assholes the fat, lazy, morons at TSA are”
Other books that I’d like to see are: “Why the government jerk-offs don’t give a damn about you, and how they screw you over” and “How to make fun of a TSA drone with him, her or it even having a clue.”
They can thumb through those, if they can even read.
(I've got a copy of each).
The latter was a textbook in the "Unconventional Warfare" class the Political Science department offered when I went to college (I didn't take the class; I only bought the book "for reference").
re: “Give someone an ID badge and a badge and they’re like the Gestapo”
YES, that is the point! The people who turned the TSA into the organization they are today knew that.
The famous academic study which described how to change people with the use of uniforms and fake authority is known as the “Stanford Prison Experiment,” but real life precursors of the TSA include the Sturmabteilung, which was eventually folded into the Gestapo. The first large scale action of the Sturmabteilung was setting up checkpoints in front of private businesses, changing both the Sturmabteilung members and the general public in the process.
The TSA’s only accomplishment since inception is the complete validation of the Milgram Experiment.
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