The stench of the police state at US airports

[Karmadillo]

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2010/nov2010/pers-n23.shtml

The stench of the police state at US airports
23 November 2010

As tens of millions of Americans travel during the busy Thanksgiving holiday weekend, they will come face to face with the new regime instituted by the federal Transportation Security Administration. More than 70 major airports have installed full-body scanners, where randomly selected passengers are compelled to undergo the electronic equivalent of a strip search. Travelers who decline that scan will be subjected instead to an extremely invasive body search that includes an open-palm patdown of the genital area.

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There are already reports of gross invasions of privacy and abuse of passengers. A flight attendant was forced to show her prosthetic breast during a patdown. An 8-year-old boy was forced to remove his shirt in Salt Lake City, although children under 12 are supposedly not subject to the intensified searches. A retired special education teacher from Lansing, Michigan was humiliated and left covered with his own urine after a TSA screener broke the seal on his urostomy bag while patting him down.

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These police-state methods are not directed against “terrorism,” but at any opposition to the increasingly unpopular policies of the financial aristocracy. The more farsighted sections of the ruling class understand very well that their policies of impoverishing the working class and ripping up social programs will lead to mass opposition, for which they have no answer but mass repression.

Moreover, police-state measures at home are a critical component of the preparation for new wars and imperialist adventures abroad. Each “terror scare” is tied to the promotion of the interests of American imperialism in key regions of the world, generally those that sit on top of vast quantities of oil and gas or straddle critical shipping routes.

All this is not to say that there is no danger of terrorist incidents. However, the principal source of this danger is the American government itself, which through its actions helps foment opposition and deep anger in the most far-reaching areas of the world. Despite the incessant panic mongering over terrorism, no one in the political establishment or media suggests the most immediate step necessary to dealing with the danger—putting an end to the bloody US wars in the Middle East and Central Asia.

In the final analysis, the increasing reliance of the US ruling elite on police-state methods, abroad and at home, demonstrates the impossibility of combining imperialism and democracy. American society is being ripped apart by profound social contradictions. Never has the gulf been so wide between the enormous wealth of the privileged elite, and increasing misery for the broad masses of the population.

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[Octafish]

1. Discourages free people from traveling.

Oh well. The fridge holds a chilled a six-pack and my television screen "beck"-ons.

[Frances]

2. I flew across county on Nov 11

and back again on Nov 15.

I encountered 0 problems and I did not see anyone else hassled either.

It was the easiest security I have encountered since 9/11.

I think that the Republicans want the public to go tea-party about security so that some terrorist gets on a plane and blows it up. Then Obama and the Dems will lose votes because everyone knows that the Dems are weak on security!

It will be just like the bail-out which was passed under Bush being blamed on the Dems, as though Clinton didn't leave Bush a surplus as well as warnings about terrorist plans.

[Karmadillo]

3. Kick

nt

[NoPasaran]

4. The stench of the crazy in lunatics' minds, you mean

Unrecced and hidden

[stray cat]

5. And we all know how much progressives hate police and TSA workers and often the military