What the patdowns are really about.

[Richard D]

What the TSA Patdown Searches Are Really About
by Robert Freeman

You can hardly watch a TV news show, listen to a radio broadcast, pick up a newspaper, or read the Internet without hearing about the aggressive Transportation Security Agency patdown searches at airports.

The TSA and all relevant officials tell us that they’re really for our own protection. But are they? In truth, the searches have virtually nothing to do with increased airport security.

Several years ago, my four year-old daughter was pulled aside in one such screening because she happened to be the Nth person in the line to go through security. Though she was traveling with me, her mother, and sister, she was subjected to 40 minutes of terrifying interrogations and inspections of all her personal effects, though not a bodily patdown.

The startling part of it was the mindlessness of it all. The guards were simply being good Nazis. Today, it is no longer mindless. It is part of a sustained campaign to condition the American public to being humiliated by government officials in the name of national security.

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/11/23-5

[grasswire]

1. so Obama is part of this campaign?

How do Obama and Biden fit into this?

[rfranklin]

2. If you are not part of the solution...

You are part of the problem.

[snot]

3. Our leaders--all of them--are more afraid of us than they are of terrorists.

[Igel]

4. Don't know what they're about. Don't much care.

Today's "most amusing comment" was some politician supporting the TSA, saying that the "rush" to the new system, including the revised pat-down regime, was triggered by the underwear bomber. Since it was implemented in such a rush, immediately after the threat became known, of course there might be some overlooked aspects of it.

In other words, this politician considered 11 months to be a "rush" when viewed in TSA-hours.

This explains rather a lot, I think.

[reggie the dog]

5. what kind of questions would they ask a 4 year old???

seriously??? 40 minutes of questioning and going through her carry on bag...

why do you have a stuffed animal rabbit? do you have a passport for your toy rabbit??? is there a bomb inside bunny??? we had better cut him into bits to make sure there is not....

???? did i miss something???