The people making decisions in this administration have no decency and therefore don’t think we have any sense of decency either. It’s been a few years since I was in law enforcement here in CA. When we put our hands on a subject, he had better be going to jail. The only lawful purpose of touching the person is to effect an arrest. That’s because people have a right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures. Watching the televised interviews with women who were traumatized by the immodest contact, disabled people who were embarrassed, and children who were violated is an embarrassment to our country.
The logic that the public good (prevention of acts of terror) justifies violating the 4th Amendment should carry through to buses, trains, public sporting events,and concerts if it applies to aircraft. There are more people at a concert than can fit in a 767. If it is justifiable to search everyone for evidence of a crime that has not been committed, then it would certainly follow that police should be able to search everyone in the area when a crime has been committed. Seems like that’s not constitutional.
The thinking involved in this decision is the same as the left uses against firearms... it is the object that commits the offense, not the person. Rather than searching everyone for objects (that could be any size, shape, or substance),we should be making an effort to identify likely terrorists by profiling them.
The only way we change this is by refusing to allow it to continue. If it continues, the Constitution is out the window, and there is nothing to prevent a fascist dictatorship from replacing it. If they can grab our testicles with impunity, what provocation will it take to cause us to object? Our ancestors fought a revolution because the king couldn’t keep his hands off of their money. Now 240 some years later, those ancestors would be astonished to know what the government they established was doing with their hands.
Somewhere on one of these threads I saw an old man being groped and no kidding, I am SO happy my Daddy is Home in Heaven and doesn’t 1) ever have to go thru that or 2) see what’s happened, so rapidly, to the country he fought for.
And, another thing. That one of the agent touching that child at the airport, putting his shirt back on him....I thought about that all weekend, too. When my kids went to their DOCTOR, with me in the room....the DOCTOR didn't put their shirts back on....either I did, or the child did.
No. This is all VERY VERY wrong...
The other day there was a Senate hearing on the whole TSA search issue. The head of the TSA, John Pistole, testified. I saw this later on C-SPAN.
My impression is that the senators were ready to complain about TSA overreach, but Pistole made such a good impression with his testimony that they backed down. They did ask questions but they didn't criticize much and many thanked the TSA director for the wonderful job he is doing.
Pistole does not come across as a person lacking decency, He has been deputy director of the FBI. He clearly understands all the concerns but said he is not going to change the policy on searches at this time because of intelligence indicating genuine threats against aviation.
The hearing probably could have been more thorough but they did go into possible ways of making things less intrusive and even briefly discussed the Israeli methods, which Pistole seemed to be aware of.
Anyway it seemed to me that this one guy was majorly successful in giving the impression that an extremely competent person is running the show and making tough decisions for good reasons. Maybe he should not have gotten away with this, but that is what happened.