This isn't about safety, it's about obedience

[tavalon]

I've seen so many questions about why the TSA is doing this or that and it just misses the real point entirely. They are training the brownshirts (TSA) and they are training us to accept more and more personal incursions on our liberty. I know everyone who has traveled in the last few years has seen the increasingly abusive behavior by the TSA. Incremental steps and I promise you if you look back over the last 20 years or so, you'll see so many places where TPTB have encroached on our persons and have been allowed to. The only thing interesting here is the miscalculation. They've taken it one step too far a little too fast and we have screamed.

It reminds me of how I took a stand and refused 15 years ago to submit to a "routine" urine drug screen for employment. I said it was unconstitutional (BTW, I've been clean as a whistle for almost double that time) and I didn't get the job. I was okay with that. Unfortunately, as time went on, it became standard and I wouldn't have a career if I hadn't relented. Few screamed about that one and now it's just SOP.

Creeping fascism folks. They don't give a flying fuck about your safety. If they did, they would give you universal health care. They want your obedience.

[Odin2005]

1. K&R

[October]

2. So true. Most missed the kickoff at last night's football game

Why? The TSA was patting us down.

Not kidding.

[reggie the dog]

58. why???

what???? what city? how ? are you serious???

[October]

146. Totally serious

The Philly-NY Giants game at Philadelphia last Sunday night!

We were all in line... more like a large group, really. They separated the women and men into different lines, indicated by gender-specific signage. However, I couldn't see the signs because the guys around me were so tall. Finally, we made our way closer and I realized the women's line was way over to the right. It was not very organized and quite difficult for females to make their way through the thick crowd. We were then patted down by same-gender agents.

The game started, and I could see tons of empty seats in the stadium -- players were announced, music blaring, TV personalities doing the intros, etc. I was still outside the stadium. My daughter and I missed it all, including the kick-off. We waited and waited for my husband and son to come through...but couldn't find them. They had a longer line, but went right to their seats because they didn't see us, and there was a delay in phone texting. we couldn't find each other after passing through this pat-down. It was so frustrating. I looked around, and it was surreal seeing all these women on cell phones, waiting for their partners or male friends. Our family finally met up at our seats. (I was so glad we'd divvied up our tickets!) We had paid a lot of money for these tickets, too -- as you can imagine. And we'd arrived EARLY...but with such a big game, it didn't matter.

[TexasObserver]

3. That's it. You nailed it.

[Little Star]

4. They have us by the balls. k&r

[tavalon]

11. And the boobs

Though, I am going to do my best to avoid going into another airport until this is quashed.

[aggiesal]

96. What's the saying? ...

If I'm going to be fondled this much, someone
better supply the condom and a cigarette, because
I'm having sex with someone.

[hobbit709]

5. Exactly.

There's something happening here
What it is ain't exactly clear
There's a man with a gun over there
Telling me I got to beware
I think it's time we stop, children, what's that sound
Everybody look what's going down

Paranoia strikes deep
Into your life it will creep
It starts when you're always afraid
You step out of line, the man come and take you away

[tavalon]

12. Every time I hear that song these days

I get a chill. Mind you, by, "these days", I mean the last decade.

[humbled_opinion]

106. OMG Freedom to Facism

Jefferson Airplane pegs it.... I thought we had alot of this under control when we (the majority) rejected this type of government intrusion during BUSHCO but now we have OBAMACO....

If this President does not see what is so terribly wrong with the TSA then he is unfit to lead this nation and totally unfit to be called a Liberal..... I want my country back....

[truedelphi]

125. Hey, the President had as his companion to the Far East the guy

Most involved with the development of the new, quite highly radioactive scanning equipment. I don't think he is capable of seeing beyond his Corporate-installed blinders these days.

[AlabamaLibrul]

127. That'd be Buffalo Springfield. Best known for Neil Young and Stephen Stills.

:hi:

[liberal N proud]

6. You nailed it.

[Tansy_Gold]

7. I pointed that out a couple days ago.

When next they say that rounding up your neighbors is for your safety, who will argue? And when after that rounding up your children and your parents is for your safety, who will argue?

And yet the discussion seems to be focused around the health risks of the scanners and the demands of personal modesty and even whether it would all be okay if we weren't such an overweight populace -- and none of that matters.

At the moment we're being herded into the scanners. Will we next be herded just as docilely into the showers?



TG, NTY

[DemReadingDU]

13. Or searched, groped and fondled before entering the shopping mall, w/o search warrant

What next? The police searching my house? without a search warrant.

[HubertHeaver]

72. Nah, it will be searched, groped and fondled upon leaving

the shopping mall. Theft prevention and all, ya know?

[awoke_in_2003]

87. "without a search warrant"...

they can do that already, thanks to the Patriot Act.

[Mnemosyne]

115. Already being done; Section 213 US Patriot Act n/t

[DemReadingDU]

129. this is so wrong, n/t

[tavalon]

15. I suppose by internet etiquette, I'm supposed to call Godwin's Law,

but dammit, you have it exactly right. It can happen here and it is happening here. Slowly and incrementally but just wait, if one nuclear bomb goes off in the US, we are going to be Germany, circa 1942. And I'm not saying it would be okay for a bomb to go off here, but I'm scared of my fellow Americans response more than I am of a nuclear bomb. That's really fucked up.

[truedelphi]

126. + 1. n/t

[MissDeeds]

8. Bingo

I thought this would stop once * was out of office. Guess not.

K&R

[Greyhound]

59. We knew it wouldn't with the very first appointments.

We live under a http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/plutocracy">plutocracy, and a vicious one at that.

We have only two options; Submission or revolution.

[MissDeeds]

70. I had huge concerns during the primaries

and supported another candidate. I agree, the early appointments were indeed a clear indication of what was to come in this administration.

[awoke_in_2003]

88. they system is rigged...

the only "viable" candidate from each party are all vetted by the PTB. We have two choices when voting, and the money men control both. Why do you think a Dean or Kucinich couldn't make it?

[Greyhound]

94. Yes. Back when it was still relevant I and some others gathered the evidence of

how blatantly the M$M (particularly ABC) went to great and blatant lengths to hide or distract from the fact that DK kicked Obama's ass in the AFL-CIO debate in his own backyard, and then followed it up by ensuring he would not get another chance to be heard for the rest of the campaign.

[awoke_in_2003]

116. they basically did the same for Grayson...

both those guys are pitbulls.

[tavalon]

141. We know what submission looks like

What does revolution look like? Preferably one that didn't end with a Pol Pot dictator.

[Greyhound]

147. Aye, there's the rub...

My attitude is very bad right now due to personal circumstances, so I hope that is all it is, but I'm far from confident that the majority of Americans are bright enough to avoid putting an Adolph Pot in charge.

[DCofVA]

9. Paranoia; extreme and unreasonable suspicion of other people and their motives

I think this is really just the current Administration trying way to hard not to be as dismal a failure at keeping Americans safe, as the last Administration was. Do I agree with the scanners and pat downs? No way! It’s going way too far.

[Tansy_Gold]

17. Richard Hofstadter n/t

[tavalon]

19. Ever since 2001, I've been watching with eyes wide open

And when the eyes are wide open, you see things that you never even noticed. It's easy to dismiss this as paranoid. I don't think you're right.

[Mist]

10. +1. nt

[JohnyCanuck]

14. Exactly right.

"They want your obedience" (and a population that comes to regard questioning authority as irrational behavior and who will come, by default, to assume anyone who does question authority is, at best, mentally unstable or, more likely, an intentional troublemaker whose attitude endangers the rest of society).

[tavalon]

21. Indeed

[katnapped]

30. Exactly right

And no doubt hoping the obedient will turn in the troublemakers (since they are very likely "terrorists")

[awoke_in_2003]

89. is that from "1984"?...

if not, a similar sentiment was expressed there, also.

[seabeyond]

16. people were angry about the naked scanners, and govt wanted to manipulate naked scanner

as easier and less intrusive by changing pat down to grope.....

it isnt about safety.

i dont care who is trying to redirect the events

[awoke_in_2003]

90. if they grope us enough...

people will beg for the scanners, more will need to be bought, and people like Skeletor, I mean Chertoff, get rich.

[seabeyond]

95. exactly. and it backfired. instead of the quiet grumble of naked scanner, a grope took naked took

it to a loud roar.

[Tatiana]

18. This is almost like a Pavlovian conditioning.

It still strikes me as insane that people actually defend invasive procedures that go against everything we teach our young children about strangers and "touching" in the name of "safety." These procedures do not make us safer. They are creepy and they don't deserve a place in a democratic society.

I'm pretty sure if George Dubya Bush had instituted these policies before he left office, we'd have a lot more people up in arms.

[tavalon]

20. They don't deserve a place in a democratic society.

They do in a fascist society. As a matter of fact, they are a necessity. It is conditioning. They are teaching us in incremental steps to accept less freedom for the illusion of safety. One of our founding fathers had a feisty thought or two about that.

[Warren Stupidity]

22. the acceptance is what creeps me out. nt

[tavalon]

23. Hopefully, I'm not just in the DU bubble because I don't see much acceptance

about this. Now, about the thousand things that came before......

[katnapped]

31. There's PLENTY of acceptance

Just look around in the other threads.

That's what should really creep you out.

[Individualist]

40. +1

Reading list for those who accept it:

It Can't Happen Here
They Thought They Were Free

[treestar]

24. What is the evidence of that?

Was it before? The previous x rays and security checks did not seem to spark all this outrage? Is there no threat? What evidence is there of that?

What it's really about is that "I" am not a terrorist, and that should be obvious. "I" should not have to undergo this indignity. Only brown people should. This is the real objection and always has been. The proverbial "old (read: white) lady/gentleman should not have to be checked as they obviously could not be terrorists.

[hobbit709]

25. I opposed EVERY provision of the Patriot Act the day it passed.

It was a setup to ensure blind obedience from day 1.

[tavalon]

27. Yes it was

and yes it is.

[tavalon]

26. It's really funny how incremental creeping of fascism doesn't

spark our oh, so, obedient sheep and then one day, bam, too much!!!!

My husband has always dreaded air travel with me because I'm, well, cheeky and I don't suffer fools or foolishness with much gladness. I've considered this whole airport "security" merely a dog and pony show for a long time. When the backscatter xray machines came, I made a stink and tried to find out safety information. I couldn't find sufficient information so I told my husband I would refuse to be scanned. This was at least a year ago. Nobody was making a stink then except for me. Now, everyone is. I have no idea why the lightbulb just went off in everyone's head all at once. That said, I'm grateful. I'm no longer a lone freak, angry about the games the TSA and our government is playing with our fourth amendment rights.

This isn't about color, this isn't about safety, this isn't about dignity. It's about liberty.

[DemReadingDU]

32. Perhaps it's the personal groping

that finally woke up people. No one should be personally assaulted, by anyone.

[woo me with science]

33. "This isn't about color, this isn't about safety, this isn't about dignity. It's about liberty."

[phone]


Thank you.

[awoke_in_2003]

91. the old frog in the pot of water thing....

frog doesn't notice the incremental temperature change until it is too late.

[nashville_brook]

43. HAHAHAHA!!!! "don't touch my junk" is the new racism!!!!!!!!

:rofl:

[blackspade]

67. BZZZZZZZ. WRONG ANSWER!

NO ONE should be subjected to this unless there is resonable suspision that they have committed a crime.
That includes brown people by the way.

What you 'security first' folks don't understand is that one should not have to give up their freedom for security.
Once that happens, you are no longer free or secure.

[Boudica the Lyoness]

117. You're off base

again.

It's not people being indignant that someone else thinks they might be a terrorist. It's that the government thinks we'd be okay with them looking at our naked bodies, and touching our genitals and breasts and we don't think it will stop there.

There was no outrage before because they were not doing the above. There was outrage when they crossed the line.

These scans and gropes do not prevent terrorism. By the way you are assuming that all the posters here are white and not 'brown people'. This is DU, not free republic.

[Wind Dancer]

143. Are you serious?

Your claims alone are racist.

[kgnu_fan]

28. Yep, obedient and ignorant....sad affair

[Taitertots]

29. Greatest quote ever

"They don't give a flying fuck about your safety. If they did, they would give you universal health care. They want your obedience."

[tavalon]

35. Thank you for the compliment

It came from the heart, an honestly angry heart, but from the heart nonetheless.

[abelenkpe]

79. Gotta second that

it is a great quote. :)

[Wind Dancer]

144. Exactly!

It's a shame so many people can't seem to grasp this.

[suffragette]

34. The last time TSA tried similar in 2004

they had to change it fairly quickly and they announced in doing so that safety would not be compromised. Much of what was pertinent in those articles is still so today.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A20026-2004Dec22.htmlAirport Pat-Down Protocol Changed
Women Complained That Security Checks Were Humiliating

By Sara Kehaulani Goo
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, December 23, 2004; Page E01
Airport security screeners this week will be instructed not to touch women passengers between their breasts as part of new pat-down procedures, the Transportation Security Administration said yesterday.

The agency said it is making a modification to its searching methods that began in September after more than 400 passengers -- mostly women -- formally complained that the experience was invasive, humiliating and akin to being molested.

~~~
Mark Hatfield, a TSA spokesman, said officials changed the procedure to respond to passengers who have complained. Screeners, who number more than 45,000, will continue to conduct routine pat-downs on passengers because the agency remains concerned that the nation's air system is vulnerable to terrorists who smuggle explosives onto airplanes by hiding them on their bodies. Such methods are believed to be the cause of what brought down two Russian airliners in August.

"We can still get at the threat with this modified pat-down procedure," Hatfield said.

http://articles.cnn.com/2004-12-23/travel/tsa.pat.downs_1_pat-downs-metal-detector-screeners?_s=PM:TRAVEL
TSA modifies pat-downs to exclude breasts


December 23, 2004

The Transportation Security Administration announced late Wednesday that it is modifying pat-down procedures at airports -- a decision that comes after hundreds of complaints, most of them from women, that the procedure is too intrusive.

Under the new guidelines, screeners will not be able to pat-down a passenger's breast area unless the handheld metal detector goes off or if there is an irregularity in the passenger's clothing outline, said TSA spokesman Dave Steigman.

Steigman said that under the new policy, passengers will have their sides patted down. Once that is done, there will be a limited torso pat-down from front to back, from a line below the chest area to the waist. Screeners will pat the entire back.

~~~
He also said people in wheelchairs will not have to get out of their wheelchairs for the pat-downs. The screening will be done while they are seated, using the wand and explosive trace detection machines, he said.


They tried this before and abandoned it, with no resulting loss in security.


Your point about providing true universal health care is apt. That would provide true security for people here.

[krabigirl]

36. Yep.

[me b zola]

37. K&R

[sarcasmo]

38. Bingo.

[Poboy]

39. recommend

[Mimosa]

41. K&R n/t

[avaistheone1]

42. TSA porno scanners and genital gropings

all part of the creeping fascism in the USA.

[SamW]

44. This isn't about safety, it's about obedience

AMEN

[Demeter]

45. Yessiree!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Imb4tYOk8GE

[inna]

46. K&R. Exactly right.

[Blue_In_AK]

47. They try out all these things on the prisoners first

and then move them out into general population.

I worked in corrections in 1982 when they first started doing UAs on the prisoners ... I remember several of them saying to me, "Just wait -- they'll be doing this to everyone soon." Invasive searches? Same deal.

We're all just prisoners.

[reggie the dog]

62. what is ua?

[Blue_In_AK]

69. Urinalysis.

Sorry. They started the drug tests in the prisons and then moved them out to the work force.

[reggie the dog]

71. oh yeah, that shit that prevents people like me from working

most jobs in the usa... meritocracy my ass, i have an MA and am unqualified to work at burger king in the usa...here in france they dont do ua as it is an invasion of our privacy.

[Boudica the Lyoness]

121. The air force was doing UA's

around 1977.

[Nevernose]

148. My wife pats down schoolkids daily.

Granted, she works at an "alternative" school for misxcreants -- the kind of school you go to after you've been expelled from the school you went to wh en you got expelled from, and drugs and violence are a daily occurance, but every time the TSA subject comes up, we look at each other like "hey, it looks just like summer school!" And in the end, its still just children; most of them aren't that bad and most of them are there for drugs.

Actually, the two of us would rather have the TSA patdown -- at least on the TV it appears less invasive.

So yes, I agree with you. They try this stuff out om captive audiences first, before rolling it out for the general populace.

[NightWatcher]

48. its also about selling shit to the government,

expensive scanners at every airport
$130 for everyone wanting to work at a port on a TWIC card
various other scanners, card readers, machines, doodads, background checks....all costing money and all supplied by a contractor, usually tied to a former government employee

[Initech]

53. This. Suffering for us = billions in profit for them.

[liberation]

77. We actually get double dipped...

... we actually have to work hard to pay the taxes... which finance the same people who abuse us.

We are worse than prostitutes, I have no idea what the term is for those who are getting screwed and have to pay their customers for the screw.

[tavalon]

133. Totally fucked?

[Uncle Joe]

49. I agree, those searches will be tazed in to American Society and they're not stopping at passengers

for air flights, this will spread.

This was an inevitable by-product from decades of technological advancement and of the U.S. Government criminalizing the American People.

Thanks for the thread, tavalon.

[Papa Boule]

50. Yep. Inflating, gratifying power games. Degrade, violate, and humiliate. n/t

[woo me with science]

51. Exactly. Have you seen why TSA ruled out body cavity searches?

"Since a body cavity bomb needs an external triggering mechanism, there is a possibility current screening technology would pick up the trigger even though it could not detect explosives hidden in a body cavity. 'So we are not going to get in the business of doing body cavities,' Pistole said at breakfast. "

Not because they are wrong. Because they are currently]/b] unnecessary.

TSA is an outrage and must be stopped.

[awoke_in_2003]

92. "we are not going to get in the business of doing body cavities,'"

he left off one word- YET.

[L0oniX]

52. They don't give a flying fuck about your safety. If they did, they would give you universal health..

care. = perfect

[Catherina]

54. You nailed it. Thank you. n/t

[ileus]

55. well said...

[reggie the dog]

56. there are no drug tests to get jobs here in france

here i am qualified to do any job my master's can get me, back home in the usa i am unqualified to work at mcdonalds because i smoke reefer

[Mosaic]

122. France is looking really good

These days in this decaying country. I hope you will accept this aging immigrant.

[reggie the dog]

124. i will

but french people are , well some anyway, are getting pissed off that so many people who come from shitty countries are coming here due to the good quality of life... it is not that easy of a country to immigrate to unless you marry a french person (as i did) but it is not impossible. is there any way you can get the nationality of your old ancestors from another EU country?

[katty]

57. Bingo - it is all about obediance, so obviously Orwellian

[BlueJac]

60. You are right on........

this is the continuing of the training process to see just how much the America people will take. Well, from what I have seen, quite a fucking bit. Wars, wiretapping, hugh bailouts, torture, lies, murder, assassinations, fuck, you name it...........this shit can not be made up!!! It is happening now and years from now they will write books about this time in the fallen Empire called the United States. How many times have you heard the words? "They are fighting for our freedom" that is the biggest crock of shit I have heard in my life. "Fighting for the corporations" is more like it.

[kctim]

61. If we aren't careful

we are going to have to pass govt background checks in order to exercise our rights.

[Hissyspit]

63. The Three I's: Invasive, Illegal and Ineffective.

The Electronic Privacy Information Center's basis for their lawsuit.

[GreenTea]

64. The TSA moronic screening process is not effective, it's only for effect!

It's about control - it's about making us think that all the bullshit they are doing is helping, (while a few are only helping themselves by raking in big bucks gouging the government)......Not to mention the heavy-duty radiation exposure every time one must travel by air. And helping a few pervs the low paid, bored agents getting a kick and a quick thrill by telling all their friends about their "fun" feel-up stories after work over drinks & laughs....But mostly it's about control.

The whole concept is so ridiculous, if anyone wants to bring in an explosive device - There's far more easier ways to do it than by boarding an airplane - Tons & tons of marked & unmarked cargo comes into the U.S. daily 24/7 UNCHECKED - via air freight, ships, trucks, vehicles, mail, UPS, etc. etc....

This TSA airport security is really a joke, a "legal" feel-up program, a money making scam for a few, pretending they are really on their job in people's minds as they are humiliated, controlled, harassed, striped, x-rayed & felt-up - all the while being manipulated by our ever blossoming police state!

Every other country in the world seem to have more effective measures stopping "bombers" - as becomes more evident with each passing day of no incidents and effective intercepting when something does occur - of course the rest of the world sees us as a joke anyway and we never prove them wrong...... just another one of the stupid American grandstanding ploys....It's all about controlling us...conjured up by a few who love & want these oppressive tactics while making a killing ripping-off our tax dollars!

[KansDem]

73. This post should be a thread!

:thumbsup:

[laughingliberal]

65. Creeping fascism? I'd call full speed screaming ahead. The marriage of government and big bidness

and our government-allowing employers to be more and more intrusive into the lives of employees has been a major part of it. People are seeing more and more of their privacy invaded by both employers and the government. They are in it together and we are the losers.

The right wingers who are now, finally, screaming about privacy have little recognition that their originalist heroes in the courts have never believed we have a right to privacy. It is time to educate them as they seem to be waking up and realizing privacy is desirable.

[pauldp]

66. They just turned the stove up one more notch, hoping the frogs don't notice.

[tavalon]

134. The only encouraging thing is we noticed

[reggie the dog]

68. i have been arguing this for years since i was a teenager

in 1991 i was 12, i liked sports like bmx, soccer, skateboarding, basketball etc. i often rode my bike around with friends in the suburbs of chicago. the cops would stop us and search us just for being young and when i say search i mean they take your balls and cock intheir hands and then when they find no drugs they make fun of the size of your dick. my friends and i were so pissed off that when we were 14, and we had been molested by the cops dozens of times already we started to smoke weed because we already got moelested so many times for "looking like potheads" in other words bmxing or skating, that we figured we would get high. honestly by the time we were 14 or 15 we just would cut through the woods on back dirt trails all we could to get from one side of town to another and at night would run from the cops on our bikes (scatter, jump fences with our bikes and just lose the cops as we did rather often). i dont know about the others but it made me really depressed, i was an honor roll student in jr high, towards the end the cops started being assholes, people started looking at me differently (long hair like dad???) and would say shit like "you dont look smart" when i said i liked learning. i realized that being an adult meant being superficial, judegmental, and also meant falling into line and submitting to rules. my parents didnt teach me this, they helped me learn how to fight it, but school and cops went a hell of a long way. cops pulling guns on us 13 year olds for playing tag in a park lit by stadium lights after dark, but why did they have to grab our dicks so many times looking for "drugs" at a time in our life when we wanted nothing more than to get a girl to touch us there, but no, the first hands on my dick were those of a 30 something agent of the state, and the second, and the third, and the fourth, and the fifth....some of the cops did this shit, others no...but damn hardly anyone wanted to listen, and many adults told me i got what i deserved because i didnt "look like a good kid" (i looked like my biker father).... classism, yuppies looking down on workers... soon i saw the parallels with racism.... people who "dont look right" according so some rich white male asshole that gets off on molesting the kids (the way he can fuck us all the most)..... are americans finally waking up???????? i have hated the usa, its cops, an its social morés since 1993, the year i turned 14 and the year the cops rubbed my dick looking for drugs, hell they did that to me when i was a senior in college because i had poor friends.... always looking for weed (luckily never when we actually had any) now its looking for terrorists.... WAKE UP!

[northernlights]

74. +10,000,000,000,000 nt

[Ford_Prefect]

75. As if yet more scanning would truly help........

I agree with tavalon. As many have said elsewhere this is yet one more adjustment to the "global security" goal along with one more humiliation to make sure we know just how beholden we all are to the powers that be...Yet more War on Terrah. In our "situation" we are again told to throw the vulnerable under the wheels of the speeding train we ride that we may better afford the trip; the excuses for such excess hardly matter. In Germany people were told it was necessary to sacrifice lesser beings that their betters might live a more perfect life, and that a good citizen's duty was to submit to the authority which decreed such.

Like so many other so called responses to the "threat" we are supposed to believe it is sensible and cost effective to scan everyone more completely and more often and willingly pay the extra cost, while reinforcing the condition that everyone who disagrees or doubts the policy is guilty of complicity, rather than pursuing a genuinely useful solution such as a less abusive energy policy, or(insert your best guess here), which might result in reducing the need for violent behavior on the part of those whom we are told threaten us. It reminds me of a game of Chinese checkers where the real dangers are hidden by mis-direction and false threats.

One has to beg the question about the truth of the "security threat" given the kinds of responses proposed as solutions. Are we next to travel nude in sealed individual containers to guarantee that "we" are not dangerous, or will a star decal identify those who could bring us harm. (I suspect a larger goal of intimidating we ordinary folk into staying at home that only our betters may travel in safety and comfort.)

Last time I looked the border of my county did not include Lebanon, Jordan, Egypt or Israel. I don't propose to know all the answers to those situations either. I don't live there and refuse to act as if every car on my local road is a bomb and every stranger I meet is carrying a weapon next to their heart. There are much better answers to those dramas which have previously been applied, and which have worked. Gandhi, King, Tutu and many others have shown us where the threat really lies.

[tavalon]

137. You are usually a person of few words

Thanks for your input.

[lsewpershad]

76. I find that I need more protection

from the big corporations, fox and the repukes than from terrorists.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

78. Absolutely right!

I decided to see just how many terrorist incidents there have been involving airplanes (either explosions or hijackings). I found just TWENTY-FIVE since the beginnings of passenger aviation. I may have missed a couple but it's a small number for sure.

Any guesses on how many "ordinary" crashes there have been in those same years? Hundreds, maybe thousands. Too many for me to count, at any rate.

[DirkGently]

80. Yep. It's a frog-boiling exercise. Get ready for the Patriot Probe and Anthem Singing Test.

[katnapped]

81. Oh SH*T you're right

"Sing the national anthem on request or subject to arrest"

We know most of the freepers would fail, but still....

[DirkGently]

130. They'll watch for a hand over the heart, even though it's wrong, 'cause real 'Mericans don't know it

[JDPriestly]

82. OK. There is a trade-off here.

Are you willing to take the blame and responsibility if a terrorist does get on a plane with explosives hidden on his/her body?

Or do you think that there are no terrorists?

Do you think the whole "threat" is exaggerated?

I am not being sarcastic. I am asking you whether you have thought about the potential consequences of ending these extreme and probably unconstitutional invasions of privacy.

I tend to trust the Obama administration on this. We can travel less, conduct meetings via the internet or find alternative transportation for some trips.

I see both sides on this question. My first reaction was horror at what the TSA is doing. But then, on second thought, I'm not so sure.

The emotional reaction is to be angry at these invasions of our privacy. But then -- what if they are necessary? How can we be sure whether they are or are not?

[wickerwoman]

128. How many terrorist plots have been stopped at airport security?

I don't know the stats but I'm willing to bet it's relatively few compared with the number stopped by good intel. And if stopping terrorism really is our number one priority why 1.) are we firing Arabic translators for being gay? 2.) are we still allowed to bring matches on planes? and 3.) do we have minimum wage non-union workers conducting searches?

You are more likely to be killed by lightning than by a terrorist attack. You are far, far more likely to be killed in your car on the way to the airport than you are to be killed by a bomb on the plane. People still drive and they still walk in the rain. In fact, your odds of being killed by a terrorist attack on a plane are roughly equal to your odds of getting cancer from the TSA scanners (about 1 in 30 million).

Are you willing to "take the blame and responsibility" if a kid gets cancer from the scanner? Are you willing to take the blame if, while we're wasting resources frisking eight year olds, terrorists smuggle a dirty bomb in through the ports, or the hundreds of miles of unguarded coastline?

People who are deeply committed to performing acts of terrorism will find a way. They occur all over the world in places with much tighter security than the US (Northern Ireland, Israel, etc.) It's tragic but the "blame" isn't with us for refusing to let fear run our lives. The blame is with the assholes who think killing civilians is the way to get their point across.

Yes, we should exercise appropriate vigilance. But sacrificing fundamental constitutional values like freedom from unreasonable search without probable cause is not an appropriate reaction. Nor am I convinced that it's a particularly effective one.

[tavalon]

145. Yes, I believe the threat is exaggerated

I believe that one cannot fight a war against an emotion - terror. I believe the powers that be are well aware of that. I realize that just as it always was, there is an element of danger to getting on a plane - that danger being much, much less than the drive to the airport. Those who would give up liberty for a little security (and in this case, a false sense of security since the next terrorist attack is likely to come from a package in cargo, of which only 20% are being scanned) deserve neither liberty nor security. Not an exact quote from Ben, but the sentiment is the same. There comes a time when we have to accept that they aren't really interested in our safety because most of these games they play don't catch anyone, just make us more compliant. The things that we as a human race must do to stop breeding terrorists are things we have no interest in doing. They are generational and include human parity, something the haves (that includes you and me, compared to many in 3rd world countries) have no interest in pursuing. Therefore, terrorists will continue to be born, bred and trained and they will always find a new way to hurt those they believe have hurt them. We have hurt them, in fact, but terrorism is a terrible way to right a wrong. But their still going to do it.

Evidence points to that this is just more mind control and an opportunity in the meanwhile for Chertoff to make bank.

Honestly, with or without these new invasive control tactics, another plane will come down again. It's happened before and it will happen again. Another plane will be hijacked and taken to some remote airstrip and maybe the terrorists will be killed by snipers as has happened before and maybe people on that plane will die. It has happened before and it will happen again. If I or my family or loved ones or you are on that plane, it really, really sucks. I hate it. But pornoscans and TSA fondling will not change any of that. Checking cargo more rigorously might, but we won't know because that isn't on the agenda. Groping is.

[TransitJohn]

83. It's about keeping us at home too.

Spot on. +1.

[Rex]

84. Thank you for saying what I've failed to be able to put into words

it is what the rah rah govt crowd doesn't get. I know they all want to just rah rah around Obama, but this is a larger concern that goes far beyond the POTUS.

[Lifelong Protester]

85. I give this a K & R and am glad I am not alone in my belief

that this is not just one more step in moving us towards a police state.

[tavalon]

135. You know it's funny

I started screaming about these machines just as they were rolling them out. I couldn't get traction. Now, I've gotten 231 recs saying basically the same thing. I guess it's just in the timing. I'm grateful to not feel alone anymore. But it's still the same level of atrocity as it was when I first brought it up.

[awoke_in_2003]

86. It is "death by a thousand cuts". nt

[timefortherevolution]

93. Bravo to you for taking a stand!

It is indeed creeping fascism.

[NoPasaran]

97. Unrecced and hidden

[tavalon]

139. Why and why?

Oh, wait, you can't see this.

Never mind.

[nc4bo]

98. Obey. Do not question authority. Consume. Sleep.

They Live.

[EverHopeful]

99. Exactly, obedience is the goal

Thank you for putting it so succinctly.

This from Daily Kos really struck me too:

Coercion, Sexual Humilation and TSA: Part III (And We're Starting To Be Heard)

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2010/11/21/922266/-Coercion,-Sexual-Humilation-and-TSA:-Part-III-(And-Were-Starting-To-Be-Heard)

[Withywindle]

100. Totally agreed.

Fourth Amendment:

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.



It's been slowly eroded and watered down for decades, on all sorts of flimsy justifications. Red Scare? Drug War? War on Terra?

"Unreasonable searches and seizures?" All the goddamn time - now without a warrant, any EMPLOYER (not even the police) has a right to your urine? Now some untrained TSA grunt has a right to grope your crotch and mess with people's prosthetics and ostomy bags and stuff like that? All without a warrant?

Where is our sense of WRONGNESS? How much further can we go in giving up rights, not only for "security" but for mere convenience.

[Swamp Rat]

101. OBEY

[TBF]

102. Obedience yes, but there's got to be a profit component as well -

and my guess is those xray machines are a pretty big government contract for somebody.

[tavalon]

138. Chertoff

Yes, there is always the monetary angle but I think the obedience training is the main thing.

[LuckyLib]

103. Yep. Are we fascist yet? We're getting there.

[WillYourVoteBCounted]

104. Great point. If they cared about our health, we'd have universal health care

Great point!

[TheKentuckian]

105. Fuckin A, Bubba!

The authoritarian taint lickers cannot wait to surrender our rights to support a politician, a party, or just because they are consumed with fear.

[bertman]

107. Couldn't agree more. thanks, tavalon. Rec. nt

[varelse]

108. K&R

[d_b]

109. wish I could rec this a thousand times

[paparush]

110. "They don't give a flying fuck about your safety. If they did, they would give you ..."

Universal Health care.

This is the best fucking line I've heard regarding the TSA.

And you are 100% correct.

[live love laugh]

111. "...training us to accept more and more personal incursions on our liberty..." BINGO nt

[Lorien]

112. They would allow us Universal Health Care, safe food and drugs, and they would work to

curb climate change and stop biodiversity loss if they cared about any non-wealthy American's life...but they don't. They only care about our status as consumers and low wage workers.

[GinaMaria]

113. From the ACLU: What to Expect When Getting a New TSA Pat-Down

November 21, 2010
Thanks to a new Transportation Security Administration (TSA) policy, many passengers are being forced to undergo an extremely intrusive and humiliating "pat down" search that is unlike anything most Americans have experienced before.

In the few weeks since the policy came into effect, the ACLU has received hundreds of complaints from travelers who have been subject to these invasive and suspicionless searches. These complaints came from men, women and children who reported feeling humiliated and traumatized by these searches, and, in some cases, comparing their psychological impact to sexual assaults.

Based on the reports we have received, those who are subjected to the searches will very likely experience the following which appear to be "standard practice":

Agents fingering your ankles and running their hands all the way up your legs, including the area between your inner thighs and crotch;
Agents patting your genital area through your clothing;
Agents rubbing and squeezing your arms, back, stomach, buttocks, and breasts with open hands through your clothing. Screeners often run their fingers along the underwire of women's bras;
Agents running their fingers through your hair and the area around your neck and the collar of your shirt;
Agents running their fingers several inches down the waistband of your pants or skirt, often involving touching and/or exposing your bare stomach.
You may also experience what some have reported:

Agents performing these searches in full view of other, gawking passengers, without informing travelers of their right to be screened in private;
Agents touching your genitals through your clothing with shocking and even painful force;
Agents pressing between the cheeks of your buttocks through your clothing;
Agents repeatedly touching the same parts of your body, for no apparent reason;
Agents with demeanors that range from embarrassed or apologetic, to coldly professional, to aggressive and hostile, to creepy;
Being delayed and forced to wait for extended periods of time;
You may be separated from your carry-on belongings, which are often left unguarded while the pat-down takes place. One woman reported being separated from her infant during the pat-down
Who can be subjected to one of these searches? Anyone. Based on the reports we've received, you may be forced to undergo one of these rub-downs if:

You are selected randomly for one;
You set off a magnetic scanner (individuals with artificial joints or other metal in their bodies may undergo these pat-downs each time they fly);
You undergo a full-body x-ray scan, but are told the image indicated something unclear or possibly suspicious;
You are told that your clothing requires a pat-down (reports vary widely as to the clothing at issue);
You exercise your right to opt-out of the full-body x-ray scan, which permits a TSA agent to see through your clothes and view your naked figure;
A TSA agent decides to punish you because you misunderstand them or exercise your right as an American to express an opinion to them.
In fact, in some cases, individuals have reported being subjected to this touching for no reason that anyone explained to them. According to our reports, Children, adolescents, the elderly, and the disabled are not exempt from these invasive searches.

The government should enact procedures that pose the least threat to our civil liberties and are also proven to be effective; embarrassingly intimate pat-downs does not fit that criteria. The ACLU is doing everything it can to end these unacceptable physical searches.

If you have experienced a problem with the full body scanners or pat-down searches at airport security, you can help us end these problems.

Tell Us Your Story
Think Your Rights Have Been Violated While Traveling? »

http://www.aclu.org/technology-and-liberty/what-expect-when-getting-new-tsa-pat-down

[tavalon]

142. I think I'm pretty aware of the answer to this question

but if they get fondling to my genitals and my knee reflexively slams into their jaw, am I going to jail?

[iamjoy]

114. I Don't Believe That

I don't believe it's about obedience and control. That being said, I don't truly believe it is about safety either, rather, it is about the appearance of safety. The government can say to the American people, "don't worry about any more terrorists having explosives in their shoes, because we're going to x-ray all of your shoes while you walk barefoot or in socks/stockings through the security check-point. Don't worry about liquid explosives because we're going to limit the amount of fluid you can bring on a plane. Oh, and don't worry about people hiding the dangerous stuff in their undies, because we're going to scan or check that too." Don't you feel safe, now? Sleep tight, America and fly with confidence.

Oh, and it's about money. Some one influential is making a lot of money off of these scanners. The pat downs are just a sort of back up plan.

BTW - I'm sure we have some TSA screeners who just get giddy with their power and enjoy making folks uncomfortable, but we probably also have a lot of screeners who believe (however misguidedly) that they are helping keep America safe. And we probably have others who think it's kind of silly, but need to keep their job to feed their family. I doubt most of them really enjoy smelling feet all day or groping sweaty people with BO, or arguing with some one about whether that 6 ounce bottle is okay if it's half full. If they are mishandling situations (and we've heard the abuses) it is likely because they were not properly trained, rather than that they are sadistic or perverse. If anything, that lack of training should concern us more than anything...

[johnaries]

118. 2 words: Bull. Shit.

[tavalon]

140. Discuss your point of view.

I'd like to hear it. I don't have the market on the truth. None of us do.

[Mnemosyne]

119. Hear, hear, Tavalon! Clarity does suck sometimes though, doesn't it?

snip>

"You see," my colleague went on, "one doesn't see exactly where or how to move. Believe me, this is true. Each act, each occasion, is worse than the last, but only a little worse. You wait for the next and the next. You wait for the one great shocking occasion, thinking that others, when such a shock comes, will join with you in resisting somehow. You don't want to act, or even to talk, alone; you don't want to "go out of your way to make trouble." Why not? - Well, you are not in the habit of doing it. And it is not just fear, fear of standing alone, that restrains you; it is also genuine uncertainty.

snip

"And you are an alarmist. You are saying that this must lead to this, and you can't prove it. These are the beginnings, yes; but how do you know for sure when you don't know the end, and how do you know, or even surmise, the end? On the one hand, your enemies, the law, the regime, the Party, intimidate you. On the other, your colleagues pooh-pooh you as pessimistic or even neurotic. You are left with your close friends, who are, naturally, people who have always thought as you have.

"But your friends are fewer now. Some have drifted off somewhere or submerged themselves in their work. You no longer see as many as you did at meetings or gatherings. Informal groups become smaller; attendance drops off in little organizations, and the organizations themselves wither. Now, in small gatherings of your oldest friends, you feel that you are talking to yourselves, that you are isolated from the reality of things. This weakens your confidence still further and serves as a further deterrent to – to what? It is clearer all the time that, if you are going to do anything, you must make an occasion to do it, and then you are obviously a troublemaker. So you wait, and you wait.

"But the one great shocking occasion, when tens or hundreds or thousands will join with you, never comes. That's the difficulty. If the last and worst act of the whole regime had come immediately after the first and the smallest, thousands, yes, millions would have been sufficiently shocked – if, let us say, the gassing of the Jews in "43" had come immediately after the "German Firm" stickers on the windows of non-Jewish shops in "33". But of course this isn't the way it happens. In between come all the hundreds of little steps, some of them imperceptible, each of them preparing you not to be shocked by the next. Step C is not so much worse than Step B, and, if you did not make a stand at Step B, why should you at Step C? And so on to Step D.

snip>

much more at link

http://www.thirdreich.net/Thought_They_Were_Free.html


We are beyond the "uncertainty" now, but so many are just beginning to arrive here,

if they can get past the TSA gropings...



Great OP! :applause::hug::applause:

[Goldstein1984]

120. "Creeping fascism"...

Made possible by a nation of Walmart zombies embracing their peasant status.

[cliffordu]

123. Yep. Exactly.

[G_j]

131. nailed it... n/t

[siligut]

132. I was privy to the attitude verbalized.

Of course I already knew, but I overheard a senior agent telling a junior agent, "You know the ones who look like they don't want to obey the rules? Target them", no kidding. And, sorry for the stereotype, but she was, bleach blonde, blue eyeshadow, overweight and looked like a life long smoker and drinker.

[kentuck]

136. It's the truth folks.

It's time to open our eyes.