All of This TSA Hoopla - Page 2

I agree for most of them. There are other cases where I think the job itself causes the inner prick to be amplified. I used to see this phenomenon back when I worked in retail. Regardless, it doesn't excuse their behavior.

I'm not saying mistakes aren't made, but you don't throw the baby out with the bathwater. And this isn't a matter of TSA agents coming into your home and forcing you to be searched. You are voluntarily using a mode of transportation for which you must purchase passage and whose security measures you are aware of going in. To me, it's no more an invasion of civil liberty than being searched going into a court house or being required to wear a seatbelt.

My point above was that I feel like we have bigger fish to fry in the personal liberty arena when basic personal freedoms are being denied or under threat of being denied. And getting on a plane isn't a basic personal freedom.

And a lot of the people wringing their hands over this (not on this board, mind you) would have no problems with it if it was only happening to people who looked Mulsim.

Oh, and in a lot of the traveler horror stories I've read, the traveler writing about the experience has either gone into the situation with a huge chip on their shoulder or acted like a total douche to the TSA employees, or both. Not saying they "deserved it," but come on, there are better ways to express your disagreement than slagging on some poor guy doing just his job as he's been trained.

I planned on doing the same thing next flight I take. I also have begun to wonder if with DADT in the media here lately if I can ask what the sexual orientation of my screener is.

Tell you what, Dickson, I'll agree that rednecks need to be pulled aside and given a cavity search anytime they attempt to get near a federal building if you allow us to profile brown people at airports. Jesus-tits, man. The Israelis have it right, suspicious people + ethnicity plays a giant role in thwarting this stuff. A track record of 39 years ought not be overlooked.

I flew a month after 9/11 and the armed guards didn't bother me. It made sense. Now? If they include profiling as a legitimate tool then I would be less inclined to believe it was security-theatre. But I would definitely be all for an increase in armed plainclothes officers patrolling looking for suspicious activity.

That's disingenuous. They didn't go looking for trouble. All the articles have been written by angry people after the fact. They can be faulted for poor writing skills and not telling a better narrative but I seriously can't believe you are saying most of them went in looking for trouble. As for slagging some guy doing his job? Most of the articles I have read were the writers were plenty cordial until the escalation from the mindless drone caused them to return the venom.

But you would - rightly - have a problem with it. This a similar heavy-handed approach. This policy is going to do jack shit to avert any terrorism. It's a show policy, and it's humiliating for people to have to go through this when they're just trying to do their jobs/visit family/!GASP! go to Disneyland. If anything it seems like my fellow progressives/liberals here have a chip on their shoulder, as they're happy to wave off an ugly government-endorsed policy because the conservatives don't like it. That's straight-up BS right there.

The problem with the highlighted part is that too many people read it as "suspicious people = ethnicity". And your own example proves that it's not always brown people that want to blow shit up. Why should we ignore the possibility a redneck militia man would want to blow up an airplane solely because the last one blew up a building?

I flew a month after 9/11 and the armed guards didn't bother me. It made sense. Now? If they include profiling as a legitimate tool then I would be less inclined to believe it was security-theatre. But I would definitely be all for an increase in armed plainclothes officers patrolling looking for suspicious activity.



The one I specifically remember, the guy laughed and said, "I don't think so" when he was pulled to go through the x-ray, and then told the guard doing his pat down, "If you touch my junk and I'll have you arrested."

And why are we so quick to peg TSA workers as "mindless drones"? What, because they're doing something we don't like, they must be soulless robots who just don't give a shit? I'd have a lot less problem with people's complaints about the scans if it wasn't drenched is so much glancing down the nose at people just trying to do a job. I'm sure the vast majority of TSA workers didn't sign up for the job for the chance to give people shit or secretly get their jollies while groping them.

Believe me, I'm sort of surprised at my feelings on this, but I just can't get myself worked up over it. And it's not about "Oh, the conservatives hate it, sign me up!" I just think scanning and finding a potential security threat before they do anything is preferable to an armed guard shooting them after they've done something.

I just hope those smart guys over there hurry up and perfect that human teleportation over vast distances thing. That will make this all a moot point.

Cheese and Rice, you just can't help being an over the top arrogant prick can you?

But they're gonna find nothing with this kind of approach. We're not dealing with morons here - if someone has the patience and ability to truly plan a terrorist attack he's not going to be stopped at the last hurdle when he straps his homemade bomb to his inner thigh. It's exactly the kind of shortsighted, close-the-gate-after-the-horse-has-bolted mentality that characterised the Bush years. What's next in terms of preventative intrusion? All inflight toilets being widened so a federal air marshall can watch you pee, just in case?

We've been planning a trip to the U.S. as a family for quite a while, but this has given us pause. I don't want to see my wife or my young children subjected to this kind of intrusive, unprovoked and pretty humiliating procedure. It's a total surrendering of courtesy and decency to a threat that's amorphous and massively exaggerated.

Why aren't these implemented at train stations? All state and federal government buildings? Tourist attractions? They're targets too. It's just utter nonsense.

I'll give you my bias of an "absolute power corrupts absolutely" mindset in my own instance of labeling them as such. Throw in on top of that an ineffectual bureaucracy and the fact that for the level of invasion occurring the training isn't up to snuff.

At least one of the articles I have read mentioned that the TSA agent in question apologized profusely for what they had to do while they were doing it which heartens one I would think. However as I said above, many people here would decry uniformed police actions with a resounding cry of "pig" and some kind of allusion to the mentality of the officer in question as being a power mad lunatic.

It's kinda illustrating Andrew's point, as a right leaning board member I am calling TSA agents "pigs" with a mentality of wanting to abuse their fellow Americans whereas if this was Office Bubbles the left leaning board members would be going on about the power trip. I see a power trip for the majority of the people who take the position.

And you are correct the conflation of ethnicity and suspicion is a problem and I do worry about instituting profiling and then terrorists making changes to their M.O. but I try to balance that worry with the hope that a professionally trained workforce could mitigate those changes with proper handling of suspicious activity.

Security checks every single bag that goes into a theme park here in Orlando. As in opens it up and probes around with a stick. And hand-held metal detectors are waved over people entering big events like Halloween Horror Nights.

But they're not frisked for two minutes, genitals and all. And they're not walked through a scanner which essentially shows them naked. Holy Hell, do you not see the difference?

And I can't fly a theme park into an office building.

But you could still blow it the fuck up and kill a large number of people. Jesus, it's like 9/11 convinced everyone that the only way terrorists can EVER harm us is with planes and box cutters. Fear the planes! FEAR THEM!

Here are some fun stories!

This is pretty much where I am, too. It seems like such a small outrage vs. a whole bastion of Giant Outrages.

Now I agree that's wrong (the 3-year old being searched). But that strikes me more as an error in judgment, not an error in the system.

But terrorists could hide something on a child, right? If you think this is a workable security measure, you're either for it wholesale or against it. You've already crossed the line of decency by having people effectively stripped naked and/or examining their genitals, so I don't see why you think searching a crying child is wrong.

You're right, because it's not like a monolithic policy without nuance is the issue now.

Seriously, explain this to me. A terrorist will do anything, including hiding explosives on a child, to get it aboard a plane. This is the basis for such an intrusive policy. So why, if you agree with said policy on any level, do you have an issue with a three year-old being patted down? It's a small leap from "bomb on my genitals" to "bomb on my infant", given that these guys operate as suicide bombers.

It's an ugly, unworkable policy that exists only for show. But by all means continue to condone it because hey, there's worse shit happening right now.

I just wanted to say that I've come out previously for selected screening at Air Ports. My position? If we're trying to pay equal attention to everyone, no terrorist will be given the proper attention

I'd hope that Muslim American who are peaceful, decent people would understand the funny place that we find ourselves in with security and would be willing to submit to a screening process that was indeed not trying to pretend that it was random

Now, as I said in the other thread when I stated that opinion previously: my view that they should be willing to go through more/different security than other Americans is based upon the condition that the TSA is completely overhauled from the ground up, and would be staffed going forward only with professionals. The TSA as it currently exists is an embarrassment, and I could not in good conscience ask a group of Americans to willingly submit themselves to increased attentions from such a haphazard scandal plagued agency

To the people who suggest that patdowns ETC are nothing to worry about, and that people are unfairly assuming that the TSA is not qualified to carry them out... another link for you

I have not been on an an airplane since 9th grade (less than a year after 9/11... besides the epic delays, I was not selected for additional screening thank god and I had a great time flying). With that said, I'd absolutely hesitate to fly now. Unless people are selected by a computer, the screenings are not truly random. Since the TSA has in the past demonstrated itself to be staffed by cads and undesirables, who wouldn't wonder if there was an ulterior motive in the event you were selected for a patdown/shoe search ETC?

Anecdotal, but I've been patted down at the airport before (I blamed my Joaquin beard), but honestly I didn't get any special attention paid to my junk. Dude ran the back of his hand where he needed to. To be honest, I don't think they use their fingers at all. My genitals definitely were not "examined."

I'm not at all suggesting the terrorists HAVEN'T won, mind you. I think this all sucks. But if I need to be 3,000 miles away from where I am in one day, this crap now comes with the territory. Yes, please do everything you can to make sure no one on this plane will blow it up. This is a narrow-minded, selfish point of view, but I'm the one on the plane and I'm the star of my own movie and flying is already terrifying enough for me, thanks.

Re: Equating its certainly less than absolute effectiveness with uselessness: there's an analogy in here somewhere about the "if we outlaw guns, only criminals will have guns" mindset, but I haven't had my coffee yet. Maybe later.

While I agree that children shouldn't be screened in this manner that story is a bit misleading. The child in question had a teddy bear the father relates that she barely parts with. The bear had been removed from her and placed into the x-ray machine. She was throwing a tantrum prior to the screening and that certainly exacerbated it.

Again, children should be left alone but this is a poor example to use in light of the other information leading up to her fit.

I'm with Andrew. The policy is ridiculous.

That's you. There's been multiple reports of the examination being pretty intrusive and unpleasant.

How much are these scanners/training programs costing? You don't think such a presumably vast sum of money could be put to better use? This is a random, arbitrary and pretty much totally ineffective method. As far as I can recall, all the reported incidents of potential bombers since 9/11 have been foiled used intel work and/or dumb luck prior to the flight itself, not by invasive security checks during the boarding process. This isn't doing "everything we can" to stop the plane being blown up, either. That would entail far more intrusiveness and unpleasantness.

That's probably why the vague acceptance of this troubles me. This is neither fish nor fowl. It's just nasty enough to be intrusive and unwanted, but it's still not the plundering or personal freedoms that would eliminate all possibility of an attack. It's a waste of time, whichever side of the ideological fence you come down on.

Just to verify... on the monitors... can they see your penis? Can they see your wife's vagina? Especially since it's probably recorded. Or are the reports exaggerated?
That's enough for me to be pissed about this. Moreso than babies on planes(which reeeeeally bugs me).

*edit- Agreed with Jacob and Andrew.

Which are just as anecdotal, but no doubt juicier and more full of outrage, so way less likely to be dismissed as "that's you."

Baby steps. I'm sure it's going to get a whole lot worse.

The argument I keep hearing about this is how many suicide terrorists from Al-Quida are 3 year old children, or grandmothers? They've all been men of a certain age and race. Why aren't we focusing on them rather than being politically correct and screening everyone with equal fervor?

All I know, if my wife gets groped, the terrorists win (sarcasm). Three guys in a cave on the other side of the world get a good chuckle as they make us dance like puppets over this crap. They send a clock with wires coming out of it through UPS, and they slow the mail even more than usual.

They're never going to defeat us, but they can sure be a pain in the ass.

Seriously, I wonder where people who see no problem with the current state of affairs would draw the line? What would constitute TOO MUCH pointless security theater?

Oh jesus, this is a politics thread!

*retreats*

I'm not educated well enough for such things!

Not true. While I am for selective screening, I've stated that I'd need the TSA to be completely overhauled and turned into a professional agency before I'd ask any American to submit to increased scrutiny when they fly. I'm for Muslims getting screened, but against them being screened by incompetents who don't understand the law

There is a difference

Nor could you use an explosive the size of a battery to bring down the theme park killing 500 people.

A tiny explosive detonating on a plane is a big deal, so I'm told.

Not meant to be dismissive, but surely even a handful of people being borderline-molested during these things is enough to reconsider the policy? I mean, anecdote versus anecdote, you bet the personal stories of people being touched inappropriately and intrusively carry more weight - they're the ones which call the system into question.

How about a tube of nasty chemical shit the size of a pen?

Seems like us yanks are going with the odds here. I'm not aware of many instances where someone was able to release a small amount of a chemical weapon in a public place killing a bunch of folks.

Theres been quite a few bombs on airplanes and hijackings, though. Seems to be a bit easier than manufacturing and smuggling biowarfare agents, too.

There seem to be a lot of people in this thread who are just scared shitless of dying and will tolerate absolutely anything that promises to spare them of dying, regardless of its actual effectiveness.

You know, you're going to die anyway, ultimately. Is a slightly longer life in which you hand over your liberty and self-respect every single time you're asked to a more choiceworthy life than a possibly slightly shorter one in which you don't do that?

The thing is, it isn't every single time. The x-rays and pat-downs are only to certain randomly selected passengers. The vast majority of people will just go through the regular screening process.

And the pat-downs are if you refuse the x-ray. Unless my understanding of this is completely off-base.

The pat downs are NOT random though. Unless you've been selected by a computer, you've been chosen by a human being for reasons that may very well be anything but random

Pretty much. And not just because your spin, speaking in absolutes as it does, omits the "dying while screaming and shitting yourself in terror part." My causes and crusades and passions are my own, but I'm of no use to them as a dead man.

But if drawing a line in the sand over the issue is that crucial, you're covered: http://www.hertz.com/rentacar/reserv...OnHomepage.jsp

But Phil, do you honestly belief this shit is effective in any way whatsoever?

The pat downs follow refusing the x-ray. Wherein, according to one article, the TSA agents on duty began to holler down their chain gang that they " Have and OPT-OUT!" in a manner that was related by the writer to humiliate and draw attention to them for not wanting to go through the back scatter machine.

So, it boils down to The Dick Measuring Device which is invasive enough for anyone, or molestation.

What I cannot believe is that more people are not up in arms over the back scatter machine, not for the radiation but for the image it produces that is recorded and kept.

Give me some Total Recall-style machine and maybe I'll go through that.

Not sure how things have changed with respect to who gets chosen since my last flight a year or so ago but never, ever, under any circumstance utilize the electronic kiosk to check in for your flight. Every time I did I got chosen for additional screening. When I realized it and began using a physical agent to check me I never got chosen.

This "ends justifies the means" spiel and "sad facts of life" stuff kinda reminds me of the various blurbs used to excuse the Patriot Act. Monstrous abuses of power aside, that probably stopped more deaths than this ever will.

I think that something like a back scatter machine is probably necessary, or will be at some point in the future as the tools of terror become ever more sophisticated, but I'd hope that steps were taken to minimize embarrassment. Such as, the person watching the feed from the machine is in a separate room and will never see your non back scattered image

I think it's a growing pain, part of a process that will never stop evolving, shifting, reacting to shit. And sorry for rolling out this old chestnut, but if it saves one plane full of people, even if it saves them by causing one jittery, Four Lions-type dumbfuck to decide to stay home that day, isn't there some merit to that? There's no way to quantify or measure that, I know, but you can't say there's no way that has happened or will happen. There's merit to even the "theater" aspect of it in that regard. I'd rather people were humiliated than blown to pieces.

This applies to the Patriot Act too. Ditto Guantanamo Bay. Also the Iraq invasion, re: saving people from Saddam's gulags. I'm just baffled that this example of dehumanising panic-button security is being waved off after ten years of its antecedents being rightfully decried.

Please don't blanket me, Andrew. I'm talking about the one situation of all the ones you listed with which I have any personal experience. I'll put "anecdotal" in my user title if it helps everyone. I'm not telling anyone else how to feel about this, only how it impacts me and my life. Is it bad for the country? Probably. We're an empire in decline. I've accepted that a while ago.

I'm not trying to blanket you, at all. But those nasty relics of the Bush era may well have been responsible for the prevention of one or more planes/trains/automobiles blowing up. This type of nebulous justification can be applied to a lot of things, and it's a slippery slope. If this keeps on going ahead, what's next? You yourself said you think it's only going to get worse.

I do. And I think in that context, getting worked up over this is going to seem quaint.

But I'm a guy who would, no lie, pay extra for a flight which anesthetized all the passengers before takeoff. I'm likely not able to separate my own distaste for the flying experience from the larger issues at hand.

I would totally take that flight.

But Phil, if you don't draw the line here, what justification will you have to complain when the invasive searches get "worse"? Won't people just say then "well you were ok with the pat downs, so how can you say X is a bridge too far?"

You would probably have to look beyond me to find someone complaining about the searches getting worse. I'm not a fragile person with personal space issues. Neither party is "enjoying" the pat down. I kind of don't give a shit about the pat downs.