TSA Theater - EVERYBODY FREEZE! NO MOVEMENT! - audience applauds

[DaveinJapan]

This is a second hand account from a friend of mine traveling through ATL, so feel free to discount it or whatever, and if anyone can verify that they've seen such a thing, it would be much appreciated.

Anyway, a friend was traveling so I asked her to let me know if she encountered any of the recent scans or enhanced pat-downs or whatever. She wrote this back to me...


"Seen one of new scanners but didn't go through it. Did ATL's normal security run through. Did get the heart beating when they pulled a security drill as we were getting all our belongings.

EVERYBODY FREEZE! NO MOVEMENT!"


I did a double take when I read it, so casually written, so I wrote back asking her for more details, she wrote back the following account...


"The freeze lasted about 5 minutes. The entire area of security came to a halt, along with escslators and elevators. For those that have traveled through ATL you know the area is probably one of the bigger security areas.

No one was to move, you could have been putting on your shoes, lifting your laptop off the conveyor belt, loading a kid in a stroller. They took down a guy for not stopping. The security workers all took off running to different areas, checking differenf locations. That is what was kind of jarring at first.

They called out check points, "Southside clear?" "Clear." When all responded, the head guy said something like, "Ladies and Gentlemen this has been an emergency incident drill blah blah blah". People applauded"

People APPLAUDED??

If true, this is Security Theater, nothing more. And what of the guy they "took down"? Was he in on the act? Or just some innocent bystander (perhaps deaf? perhaps wearing headphones? who knows, but obviously HE got a hell of a beat down during this "drill" for his lack of respect for their authority).

Has anyone heard of ANY other security or law enforcement group that performs their "emergency drills" in front of a live "audience"?

Do cops routinely burst into banks in the middle of the day guns drawn and yell "everybody down!", in order to drill for a robbery scenario?

I'm more shocked and offended by THIS story than the machines and the pat-downs, frankly. Is this professional? Necessary? Any purpose other than creating a constant state of anxiety and fear along with the helplessness and humiliation?

[AzDar]

1. Whiskey. Tango. Foxtrot.

[lib2DaBone]

18. TSA.. One big Charlie Foxtrot..... (as in Cluster _ _ _ _ )

[onecent]

2. Christ I'm flying through Atlanta on Wednesday...this is a

fucking joke.!!! and people ARE LEMMINGS!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[rgbecker]

3. I'm sure it did the job scaring the shit out of everyone.

Got on the bus the other day. No one said boo, no one checked my bags or patted me down yet I was completely unafraid that the terrorists were going to blow the bus up....Then, got on the subway and same thing....totally fearless, yet no TSA or anything!!!! Is it the terrorists or the TSA that are terrorizing the USA?

[TexasObserver]

4. The Keystone Kops are running airport security in our country.

What a bunch of self aggrandizing ass hats.

[zeemike]

5. All of that serves an important purpose.

To train us all to submit to athority....and it is working.

[KarenS]

6. Bingo!! I agree with you on this assessment.. n/t

[spin]

7. +1 (n/t)

[Richard Steele]

10. Exactly so. nm

[Poboy]

12. This is correct. -nt

[Delphinus]

16. Nailed it.

This is what I've been thinking and here you stated it. Thank you.

[Obamanaut]

17. This training starts in public elementary school. On the first day of

school, in some areas, the incoming students have their supplies gathered up and put into a common basket for all to use, so that the children who did not bring any, for whatever reason, won't feel singled out for not having pencils, crayons, etc.

And this is done by the government paid authority figure.

We are trained since early childhood to accept this.

[zeemike]

24. Never heard of that before.

But I have heard of the police conducting a raid on a school where the made the kids lay on the floor and brought in dogs....now that is the kind of training that worries me because it seems like a police state to me....but someone trying to spare kids embarrassment seems pretty minor does not train us to be submissive to authority.

[Obamanaut]

25. Yes it is minor. And the kids are quite young. The teacher is the authority

figure, and the kids learn early through these relatively minor things who the authority figures are and what they can do.

The teacher says all must give up their new goodies for the good of the group, and they do so.

Kelo in Connecticut had a house. A developer wanted to develop. SCOTUS ruled that Kelo couldn't have the house any more, the developer lost funding, the corporation that was going to provide much to the economy moved, now Kelo can look at the place where her house used to be.

Kelo v. Connecticut is a good read.

[Occulus]

19. This.

Are other countries watching what is going on here?

[lumberjack_jeff]

22. Yes.

[Marr]

8. It sounds like general harassment, meant to intimidate while these

machines are causing such a stir.

[The_Casual_Observer]

9. I've seen this at LAX. After it's over , stupid travellers all smile & clap & shit.

One more pain in the ass.

It's like when the waiters line dance at Long Horn Steak House,

[liberal N proud]

11. Security Theater, nothing more

[Poboy]

13. kick

[struggle4progress]

14. Boing Boing had a story like this in 2007

Moment of TSA surrealist zen @ LAX: Xeni
Xeni Jardin at 6:07 PM Wednesday, Aug 29, 2007
http://boingboing.net/2007/08/29/moment-of-tsa-surrea.html

There's a similar story from 2009 ATL at FlyerTalk

Everybody FREEZE!!!!!!!!!
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/travel-safety-security/956778-everybody-freeze.html

It's a weird story, so I'd expect to see more buzz about it if it were actually happening

[DaveinJapan]

15. I don't have any reason to doubt my friends' story but

as I said in the OP, it is a second-hand account. Take it however you will.

If this is happening though, I say it's nothing more than a ridiculous exercise in fomenting fear and anxiety on the traveling public.

[struggle4progress]

23. Do you have an exact date and some idea about time of day?

[Occulus]

20. All it would have taken to cause mass panic would have been a RECORDING of a gunshot. n/t

[Canuckistanian]

21. Pavlov would be proud

Geesh, and they say Canadians are too deferential to authority.

And then they applauded?