For the First Time, the TSA Meets Resistance
theatlantic.com
theatlantic.com
What scares me is the faceless machine nobody cares about silently collecting naked pictures of every citizen, managed by people nobody will ever see who can never be held accountable for anything. You can't simply flip a switch and capture high fidelity copies of a pat-down search. You can with the machines.
Incidentally: contrary to popular opinion, security agents, law enforcement, border control, &c all very much do care when complaints are filed on them. Their M.O. is that nobody takes the time to file those complaints. They're counting on people not bothering with the pat-down because the machine seems more convenient, and they're counting on not dealing with a flood of complaints. I plan on filing a complaint at the first hint of an off-color comment about what they're doing. "Better get new gloves, Fred!" --- "I'd like your name and your supervisor's name, now."
If challenged on the term strip search, as seems semi-likely:
"It records a picture of my naked body, and sends it to a screen for someone to look at, right?"
Then, regardless whether the responds is "yes", "no", "yes, but...", silence, whatever, follow up with just:
"Pat-down, please."
"I opt out of the electronic strip search {.|because} {I believe in human dignity|it's silly|I am worried about potential health risks|of Rolando Negrin|...}"
Strip search
Electronic strip search
Virtual strip search
Anonymous strip search
Personally if they really want to see me naked they can. It's just a hunk of meat. But you're lying, it's not a strip search unless you take off your clothes, ie "strip".
It's a scan of your body. You're perfectly right to object if you don't like it but it's silly to lie about it IMO.
What more proof do people need that the war on terror is a complete fabrication? Once again we have thwarted "terrorist" attacks right before a midterm election. The CIA/Mossad boys are up to their old tricks again.
We are sheep being led into the slaughter. Will you do anything to stop it or will you sit back and allow your children to be sold into servitude?
It would be like PETA protesting by eating live animals or something.
This sounds like a good idea. Maybe I'll do this, too. I don't fly often, but this stuff really, really bothers me.
This is one of the few reasons I'm currently (actively) trying to stay away from the US. As far as it's in my power, I refuse to be presumed guilty, and go through such an offensive and ridiculous process.
DHS, TSA, all the major U.S. airlines, along with their state and federal Reps and let them know what we thinks of this.
If we all do this...perhaps our voices will help turn the tide of this stupidity.
To me, it sounds like as a parent you either have the choice of letting some anonymous person in another room take naked pictures of your kids, or you have to let some strange man/woman touch and grope your children until they meet 'resistance'.
In the meantime, metal detectors are in place but it seems like there's some move to phase these out. And when I have kids, if some government minimum wage flunky thinks they're going to grope my daughter or son, my wife will be posting bail for me soon thereafter.
If my son gets upset, I plan to tell him "this is why you're going to take trig seriously; do bad in school and you might end up with this crappy job".
The pat-down is better than the machine. Even for kids. Maybe especially for kids. If you're going to violate my kids privacy, you'd better believe I'm going to want to be in the actual room.
We don’t prohibit public, passengers or press from photographing, videotaping, or filming at screening locations. You can take pictures at our checkpoints as long as you’re not interfering with the screening process or slowing things down. We also ask that you do not film or take pictures of our monitors.
Missing context:
However… while the TSA does not prohibit photographs at screening locations, local laws, state statutes, or local ordinances might. Your best bet is to call ahead and see what that specific airport’s policy is.
That is a horribly disrespectful thing to say in front of someone who is doing their job. Would you say something like that to a proctologist as they stuck a finger up your butt? I doubt the TSA people like this either, perhaps some will even resign over it. But that person has a job and they are doing it as they are instructed to do. That is the job they use to pay their rent and bills, so that they won't need to go on the dole and have their bills paid by your trig-savvy son.
Bitch about the policy all you want, and do what you think needs to be done to change it. But don't belittle the TSA worker, they can't change anything.
Are plenty of hardworking people going to have their feelings and self esteem hurt by this process? Good. Systemetized violations of our most private areas should cause all sorts of pain.
I might feel differently if these were sworn law enforcement officers we're talking about, for a number of reasons. I'm generally very respectful of law enforcement. Fortunately (or not), I'm not forced to confront that conundrum, since these aren't police officers, but low-skilled "security" contractors whose sole purpose is to harass citizens in order to create the illusion of control.
By the way, in the history of all-time worst rationalizations for behavior, do we even need to talk about "that person has a job and they are doing it as they are instructed to do"?
Thank you for making my day. That is all.
Very easy to say.
I also like how you attacked with full prejudice anyone who might attempt to contradict you.
You're attacking the wrong people. Did these TSA people in the terminal get up one day and decide that they wanted to do pat-downs on everyone? I'm pretty sure it's been very hard for some of them to stay in their post with the new conditions but they're there because they do have families to feed and rent to pay, etc.. They're people too.
So, yes we do have to talk about the reason that you think you can dismiss people for not simply quitting their jobs because of enforced change that is not their fault and not their choice. We do have to talk about why you feel they should be potentially impoverished.
Why don't you leave your job in protest? That would be as effective as a TSA officer leaving theirs I'm sure.
Yes if all people in your country refused to do security pat-downs then this wouldn't happen. Also no flights would leave the ground (for at least a time).
IMO if you feel so strongly that you're demanding other people leave their jobs then you need to be doing 2 things. You need to be directly supporting those people leaving their jobs financially, and you need to be lobbying hard for a change in the rules/law.
If you're doing both those things then more power to you, TSA people will be happy you're paying their wages whilst they find work.
So, there you have it, in your opinion the "[worst] in the history of all-time worst rationalizations for behavior".
This is how you make this sort of argument. And I'm not just saying that because I agree with it. (That's what my upvote was for.)
I mean, really, they we're just doing their jobs to pay their bills, etc. etc.
TSA is not a far step from that, btw.
See the Milgram experiment and the Nuremberg trials. The "just doing their job" excuse isn't good enough for passengers or for employees, they should do the right thing and quit/disobey.
Have you seen the video of US marines airbombing journalists (or civilians? I don't remember). They seem to enjoy it a whole lot... We, of course, know this is nothing like that, but are we sure? In both cases people were doing what they thought was necessary for the good of their country (of course, it's much easier to see how killing people is justified when you think they're about to shoot anti-aircraft missiles at you). It's very easy to demonise people in retrospect, and say "we would never do these things today", but the guards in concentration camps probably said the same thing for other atrocities of the past, while actually doing the same thing themselves.
This is just a lot of speculation on my part, but I find it hard to believe that an entire country just happened to consist of monsters who would enjoy killing people or endorsing that genocide. I'm just saying that these are probably the same principles at play, but we have the benefit of hindsight and should take steps to nip this erosion in the bud.
Of course, that's very hard to do, so we'll probably just shut up and take this too.
> I find it hard to believe that an entire country just happened to
> consist of monsters who would enjoy killing people or endorsing
> that genocide.
1. The guards at the concentration camps were not 100% of population of Germany.
2. Did the general populus of Germany really know everything that was happening at the concentration camps? Did they know that Jews were being killed at stuck in mass graves or were they (the public) just told that they (the Jews) were being 'sent to camps' to 'keep them separated from the general population?'
* I'm not equating pat-downs to genocide.
Good, maybe if we are lucky he will kill himself over it.
If that happens I will urge everybody to go piss on his grave, because he is not a human, but a criminal mindless drone.
JUST DOING YOUR JOB WAS WHAT THE NAZIS WHERE HUNG FOR - IT IS NO EXCUSE.
But images taken by the machines may be obscene - so possession of the pictures gets you prison + lifetime on the sex-offenders register.
This came up after they were going to use them in schools.
As far as I'm concerned, everyone responsible for setting the policy to use these machines or actually using them should be one trial away from the sex offender's register, just like anyone else who takes "naughty photos" of someone without their consent. They can have their hearing right after we're done with the agents described in the article who take such apparent delight in groping people inappropriately.
I keep waiting for some grownup to stand up and put some limits on what's acceptable for them to do, but then I realize that there basically is no limit. Nobody wants to be the person that stops this runaway train.
It's enough to make me seriously consider whether I want to use commercial air travel again.
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew.
Then they came for me and by that time no one was left to speak up.
Martin Niemöller
I think it applies very well in this case.
They first made us run our shoes through the X-Ray machine, and I complied because it wasn't that big a deal.
Then, they installed the full-body scanners, and I complied because I just wanted to get home for Christmas.
Then, they started requiring social security numbers when buying plane tickets.
Then, they began keeping all air travellers' fingerprints and retina scans on file...
The question is not against whom they're discriminating (clearly, that's not applicable in this case), it's to what length they (and, by extension, we) are willing to go.
This is about apathy towards injustices that don't directly impact you and a lack of foresight. I.e. Wow that's so wrong, I'd raise a stink if it happened to me.
The question at hand is, "What is acceptable in the name of defending ourselves against terrorism?" And "How effective do these measures have to be to be worth the tradeoff?" and "Who is accountable for measuring and deciding that?"
It makes sense to make a principled case even if the problem currently limited to air travellers. If "oversight is unnecessary, just do whatever you think will keep people safe" gets enshrined in popular opinion, it's going to be ugly when they get to the internet.
More effective than "security theater".
That would actually be really effective. What's a good upcoming holiday to pull that as an act of civil disobedience? Thanksgiving? Thanksgiving might be an ideal day to reassert our belief in freedom as a people. Not flag-waving, not heavily political, just stopping by the airport to wish our loved ones off with a fake boarding pass.
And refusing the scanner.
1. If your kids go through the machine, loudly accuse the TSA of child pornography. If your kids go through the patdown, loudly accuse the TSA of child molestation. (If you have a suitably eccentric or sympathetic local law enforcement head, like a county sheriff, this might be the way to go, but there's probably some sort of federal immunity against actual prosecution.)
2. Upon entering security, strip completely naked.
3. Opt for the pat down and take a dive, claiming the screener hurt your testicles.
4. Opt for the pat down; pretend to enjoy it.
Note that, like most forms of nonviolent resistance, many of these can get you arrested or at least stop you from making your flight. Getting arrested to make a point is a proud tradition, however. And unlike a mere protest, these kinds of actions can sabotage the TSA or potentially cripple air travel if you get a large enough coordinated protest.
You'd probably be arrested out of sheer spite, but just think of all the blog pageviews you would get later! Add enough advertising and try to create secondary drama with some followup letters to the TSA, and you could make a fair amount of money with just audacity and a metal codpiece.
You're probably right, and this makes me very sad. For all the supposed rights US citizens fight to defend, both the TSA workers and air travelers are just rolling over at the threat of being called a "terrorist".
Keeping the public terrified makes for easy prey.
If a thousand, or ten thousand people engage in civil disobedience, it starts to put a real strain on the system. It overwhelms the TSA. The court costs become prohibitive.
Why do we have so many people going to a rally in DC that won't really do anything (rallys almost never do)? And most of them will likely meekly go through security, without a fuss, on their way there. Why don't we instead organize 10,000 people to take a flight on the same day, and all wear aluminum jock straps and bras, or strip nude as they go through security? This would demonstrate how ridiculous the system is; this would help overburden an already overly expensive system to the point of breaking.
But of course, it's easy to talk tough on the internet, and a lot harder to get people to actually do anything. We all have our jobs to do, families to support. We have rallies for "truthiness" to go to. Or some of us don't even know where to start; don't know how to assemble such a group, and get them to follow through with it.
But perhaps we should put all that aside for freedom's sake, and go out, and disobey authority in a civil manner; it's our country, and we need to take it back.
You'd be required to remove it - like you're sometimes required to remove a belt, or boots, or anything with metal in it for that matter.
http://www.rockyflatsgear.com/mens-brief-radiation-blocker.h...
I've been waiting for an opportunity to bust that out...
But it will a short time before someone makes an explosive one.
But then again - and I'm unfortunately stereoptyping here - but who many attractive TSA agents of any gender have you seen?
It would be amazing to get a campaign going of people doing this.
Hopefully the TSA guys will make life hard for the sucker, perhaps enough to make him quit.
But of course, terrorism isn't actually a problem and never was.
Well you've still got the bomb-on-plane problem, which is what the latest three rounds of security increases have been in response to -- there was the shoe bomber, and then the liquid-mixture plot, and then the underpants bomber.
You'll note that none of these plots worked. Why? Because they were increasingly shitty bombs. Why were they increasingly shitty bombs? Because they've been progressively closing loopholes. The underpants bomber might have been successful if he were shoe bomber number two, but he wasn't, because the bomb-in-shoe loophole has been closed.
People like to use the words "security theater" a lot because it makes them feel clever, and yes, the TSA like any government department has its own particular forms of insanity. But there's actual security accomplished there too. In the 1980s it was possible to sneak a 747-destroying bomb into a plane in a suitcase... now they're reduced to sticking dynamite up their butts.
Also, communications shutoff between the cockpit and outside is crazy. What happens when there's a medical emergency onboard? Let 'em die because the pilots aren't allowed to know about anything that happens in the passenger cabin?
At the risk of the FBI stashing a tracking beacon in my car (ha! I don't even have a car!) I'm going to take your bait.
Richard Reid's bomb didn't fail because he had to hide it in his shoe, rather than doing the ol' Ramzi Yousef "hide it in the life jacket routine." Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab didn't fail because he had explosives shoved down his shorts.
They failed because they were untrained. These guys displayed a Carlos the Jackal level of buffoonery in their conduct. The July 21nd attackers didn't fail because of the crack police work that went on to murder Jean Charles de Menezes. They failed because they were too stupid to build bombs. (Who would want to target Hackney anyway? It's just a bunch of tyre shops and fish & chips.)
For the most part, people who want to do us harm aren't particularly smart. Bright people tend to have more opportunities in life and are less to see that all go up in a puff of smoke. Of the 9/11 hijackers, only one had a girlfriend. Atta was a trained architect, but for the most part they were a bunch of college dropouts. We aren't faced with some "evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds," we're faced with a bunch of bumbling fools with nothing better to do than kill themselves.
Look at the Aum Shinrikyo sarin attack. They had a deadly neurotoxin that they saw fit to unleash with pointy umbrellas and newspaper rolls. Good job team, way to unleash your crazy new age apocalypse.
It isn't a matter of loopholes getting closed. Attackers are simply dumb. Really dumb.
Did you notice the part where some idiot smuggled plastic explosives on board a plane in his underwear? Security failed in this situation.
If a guy is willing to blow up the plane he is flying on, do you really believe that living with a stick of dynamite shoved up his ass for his final 5 hours is going to be a deterrent?
This is exactly what security theater refers to: security procedures that do not have internal consistency and hence, are nothing but show.
Nope. But I do think that a butt bomb is significantly less of a threat than a suitcase bomb. The Lockerbie bomb ripped a 747 to pieces. I'm no explosives expert, but I imagine the worst thing an anus-sized bomb could do would be to punch a hole in the side, which would probably be survivable.
Yeah, it would be scary if you were on this flight... but if you want to kill 500 people there are a lot easier ways than sticking explosives up your ass and detonating them on the plane.
Bread and circuses - flying is the bread, but team spectator sports are the circuses.
But there haven't been security increases! They are just targeting one of an infinite number of threats, making their coverage with each of these specific measures effectively zero. Remember: the 9/11 hijackers didn't need bombs.
That's silly, there's a finite number of threats to airliners. Excluding external threats like missiles (which are themselves defended against by other agencies) you've got two basic avenues: bombs and hijackings.
Hijackings require weapons. The first hijackers used guns, so the TSA (and other similar agencies around the world but I'll use the TSA as an example) made it hard to get guns on board. So the next round used knives. So the TSA made it hard to get knives on board. With the damn near impossibility of getting knives on board plus the fact that passengers in a hijacking are now much more inclined to fight back, hijacking is pretty much fully defended against.
Bombings require bombs. The earliest bombers used suitcase bombs, which is ideal from their point of view because they can be very large. But security screening got better and suitcase bombs are too difficult nowadays. So they switched to shoe bombs. But now they're impossible. So they switched to underpants bombs. And with the latest (overly invasive) techniques that's more or less impossible too. The size of the largest bomb you can smuggle on board keeps decreasing, and the danger keeps getting smaller and smaller -- whatever you can stick up your butt it's never gonna blow a sizeable hole in the side of an airliner.
It's a finite space of threats, and they're actually doing a pretty good job at defending against them. That's why since 9/11 there have been N foiled attempts to attack airliners, and zero successful ones (I think there was a Russian exception).
Someone else here said and I agree, this is really starting to feel like more overt discouragement from air travel. It's almost as if the TSA has decided that the best way to stop hijacking and bombing of passenger planes is to eliminate passenger planes altogether. I sure as hell will not want to travel to the US by air anymore.
Wait until somebody implants Semtex into the boobs.
I suppose the time when people could do that is at earliest, the most recent of those incidents.
Remember that 9/11 was only possible because passengers believed they were in a conventional hijacking situation.
Another 9/11 scenario is going to be near impossible to pull off. Pre-9/11 hijackings often left the passengers with some hope of living through the situation so they would be docile and controllable. Post-9/11 passengers will not be docile and the hijackers will have to effectively control the entire plane with force.
There is still run of the mill blow up the airplane style terrorism to watch out for, but that was around before 9/11 and will be around for long time after.
There is a safe middle ground here, and metal detectors were definitely in it. Full body scans? Not so much.
This, like most aviation security, is just security-theater. The American people were scared and so elected officials, realizing they couldn't realistically secure aviation, come up with a bunch of "procedures" that's supposed to make the general public feel more comfortable. In the end, it's about votes.
I'm also wondering how long it before someone sues the TSA for improperly touching them (too long, suggestively, etc.) or for injuring them (moving too fast and bumping the resistance).
Edit: I hadn't even considered that maybe people who like to feel others up with sign up to work for the TSA
I'm not the one who has to touch some else's testicles. You want screen me? Then you have to do the dirty work.
Should all of this end I would love to go to New York, San Francisco, LA and the many other wonderful places in the USA, but until then I'm not happy to go. The only thing that would get me there would be specific unavoidable business.
However, I would like to thank the TSA and DHS for the opportunities I have had to visit all over Canada (another great North American country with great people) and I'm hoping to hit the Carribean and Mexico next year.
It's a definite loss for me that I may never return to the US, but I have to make a stand somewhere.
The next time I make that trip I will be paying extra to ensure a direct flight from Toronto to Australia.
I will also be avoiding any other sort of travel to the US. It's not much in terms of a protest, but it's better than nothing...
If this article is true, it's a highly-disturbing downfall for American civil liberties.
The guy just shrugged, gave me a quick pat down and let me through. I'd say about 30% of the people took the same option and received the same treatment. Same every time since I've that I've been through.
But the last time one guy made a big deal of how invasive the machine was (not rude, just loud about his refusal) and got the works (well, a rough pat down and then taken to one side). Obviously, this is a different case, he was just joking around with them. But I imagine this could easily have been a different story if one of the TSA officers couldn't handle a bit of humour (all too common, sadly).
Just saying.
These machines are a real problem for our privacy/society. But all the "horror" stories (not so much this one) we are seeing are mostly the result of people making a fuss, and getting rough treatment.
We should just refuse these, politely and quietly, and at such a volume all they can do is what they have done previously; give us a pat down.
Fortunately it looks like the UK air services are "rebelling" somewhat against "draconian security measures". It's not 100% certain what they are talking about, but I got the impression this covered resisting the spread of these machines in the UK.
Which makes a change :)
Maybe most people will tolerate this kind of abuse even if they don't like it, but even running 90% full planes instead of 100% is a serious dent in your profits in this sort of industry. Sadly, I suspect the comments by the various air industry executives in the UK over the past week or so are motivated more by falling profits than any ethical problem with these devices, but if the end result is the same in practice, I welcome their opposition anyway.
Also, as someone pointed out on (I think) the BBC News story about those comments, it is not exactly in the airlines' interests to have their planes blown up. If we assume that the executives at such businesses are at least reasonably aware of the real effectiveness of these security measures, the fact that they are still now openly saying things have gone too far is quite telling.
It at least takes the fight to them.
Unfortunately such a strategy needs strong adoption; and sadly most of modern society seem too apathetic.
As the author points out, detailed background checks would be far more effective than either looking at or touching people's privates.
That would be far less intrusive and far less invasive a procedure than violating the physical privacy of very many and in some cases every traveller, which is where this is already heading at several major airports.
Seriously, how would a background check work? What are you looking for? Ethnic background obviously would be the biggest failure (although still done, see above). Credit history? Police records (international? Good luck with that)?
Either you disclose what you are looking at and "the bad guys" can trick your check. Or you don't and you're back on the security by obscurity road, doing "arbitrary" (to the public) things, annoying probably just as much.
I think this idea is just as flawed as the current procedure. And I surely hope no one is starting something like that, since this whole security BS seems like a race of arms to me lately..
I don't think this is true. The purpose of terrorism is to spread fear, the killing is only a byproduct. The reason hijackings and bombs on planes are so effective is that many people already fear planetrips. You're caught in a tin can that intuitively should drop to the ground instead of flying through the air ten kilometers above the ground with no way of getting out. The thought of a crazy guy with a bomb in his pants just waiting to detonate it makes the experience absolutely terrifying to a lot of people. They'll think about it every time the get on a plane even though the chance of dying in a terrorist attack is close to zero.
The Troubles' impact on the ordinary people of Northern Ireland produced such psychological trauma that the city of Belfast had been compared to London during the Blitz. [104] The stress resulting from bomb attacks, street disturbances, security checkpoints, and the constant military presence had the strongest effect on children and young adults. [105] In addition to the violence and intimidation, there was chronic unemployment and a severe housing shortage. Vandalism was also a major problem. In the 1970s there were 10,000 vandalised empty houses in Belfast alone. Most of the vandals were aged between eight and thirteen. [106] Activities for young people were limited, with pubs fortified and cinemas closed. Just to go shopping in the city centre required passing through security gates and being subjected to body searches.
How much does an aircraft carrier cost? It seems this would be extremely expensive, but then, airplanes themselves are extremely expensive so it kind of comes with the territory. But I wonder if we're talking orders of magnitude higher costs.
Not sure how crazy of an idea this is; it came to mind and I figured I'd throw it out there. :)
Nobody goes through TSA to get on a private plane. It makes me wonder how many members of Congress and senior TSA leadership actually have to go through the same processes us plebes do...
If you made a static rig that's only purpose was being a runway, I think it might be possible.
One of many problems is that a lot of places are not near an ocean, so that rules out an aircraft carrier :)
They have an incident report page:
As the article says, a determined terrorist will get through either of these procedures anyhow.
Instead, Resistance was literally a euphemism for the author's penis.
I was under the impression it was his testicles.
From the article: 'That's funny," I said, "because 'The Resistance' is the actual name I've given to my testicles."
Getting angry or offended will cause them to get aggressive in response, and they have procedures in place to deal with that. They almost certainly don't have a procedure in place for making them feel like they've just taken part in a little gay fondling.
Used to be so bad you made sure to not wear jeans&t-shirt if you were going to fly just so you didn't get pulled off the line by the Uzi wielding thugs and miss your flight.
Then they freed the great terrorist Nelson.
Yeah, that's right... Here in .za we felt exactly the same way about him as you yanks do about the great terrorist Osama.
Fast forward sixteen years later and guns are rarely visible in the airport, check-in is smooth as silk (though we seem to have inherited the idiocy with the water bottles from you) and the last time anything got blown up here was when I forgot an aubergine in the oven for too long.
They're having y'all on. The thing with tyranny is that until someone says "no thank you" it grinds on relentlessly becoming more and more expensive to stop with each passing year.
"We" being who, exactly?
1: http://abcnews.go.com/WN/tsa-pat-procedure-airports/story?id...
This is a good point, but I don't completely agree with it. If terrorists can smuggle a bomb on board an airplane, they can probably smuggle tools on board that will allow them to break into the cockpit. Then (as we've seen), the plane itself can be used as a very large bomb. (Note that I am not venturing an opinion on whether backscatter imagers are a solution to this problem or whether the invasion of privacy is worth it even if they are.)
To the extent that we're concerned about the security of cockpits, maybe our efforts are best directed towards better cockpit doors instead of strip-search machines.
Excluding the events of 9/11, how many times have terrorists hijacked an airplane and flown it into a building? All I'm trying to say here is that the sample size is very small. How do we deal with the risk of unlikely but catastrophic occurrences?
To the extent that we're concerned about the security of cockpits, maybe our efforts are best directed towards better cockpit doors instead of strip-search machines.
I agree with this. I think El Al uses a double-door system, for example.
I get that every single time I fly, and even so, I would never opt for a backscatter machine. It's far more invasive. Having been through dozens of patdowns, I feel pretty sure that someone looking at a naked picture of me is a worse option.
This has new policy hit a wall with the press and has gotten nothing by negative writeups. When it was announced, I made a statement, as did many others, that there would very soon be an "incident" that would let this cure. That appears to be happening right now with this worldwide blitz on Yemeni packages. One and done.
Two things here are very unfortunate:
1. This is one of those huge media events that take all the front page space and interrupt network programming. It's going to instil fear in some population and give merit to the security theater.
2. Interestingly, given that this is supposedly cargo, we're still not talking about systematically scrutinizing cargo. Even so, in a political context, I don't think anyone is going to sufficiently separate the two. Right now, the big lines are Richard Reid and Christmas Day Bomber.
No matter what happens now--letters to Congress, TSA abuse reports, journalistic stunts--I fully expect to get my bread buttered at the airport.
One more thing: there's a good post on the front page about incentives. How about a tax break for fondling or photo shoot on has to endure? Let's provide disincentives for the Fed to keep this up.
Hell, it's just a little extra incentive to keep myself healthy, so I look good when I go through ;)
With these machines, America is less free.
In my experience, one of the most illogical things is the difference in security in different countries. Back when I bought a Zippo lighter for the first time I flew from London to Paris. On the way out, I packed the Zippo in my suitcase, and just kept a disposable lighter in my pocket. As they let me keep it, on the way back I kept the Zippo in my pocket and was once again allowed to keep it. The following week, a return flight to Berlin, and on the way back the Germans confiscated the Zippo. It pissed me off, naturally, but just seems stupid - the same flight, with the same two cities at each end, and different rules for what you can take on depending on which direction you're going.
I've also noticed that security officers in America are much more friendly than pretty much any country I've been to in Europe or Asia. I was flying from London last year with a colleague, and while he was being patted down after the scanner beeped at him, I thought to myself that we had a few hours to kill, so decided to make a slightly stupid comment... "Is that a gun in your pocket or are you just pleased to see me?" Yeah, that cost us about an hour. Sure, they were probably right to double check after that, but for sure they were, after a short time, just delaying us to piss us off.
Flew out to LA a few weeks ago, and on arrival myself and three colleagues are waiting, having picked up are checked baggage, for the security screening. Three of us, a few places being our fourth in the line, look at each other and say "yeah, he's definitely going to get stopped." Sure enough, he was (he was wearing a black tshirt with a skull and crossbones on, a beanie hat, and carrying a sports holdall that looked, even to us, like it must surely contain drugs.) Being the idiot he is, when they pulled him over for a bag search he immediately said "I'm with them!" and pointed - we were immediately taken to one side, too.
However, the officer searching our bags was incredibly friendly. Asked about what we were doing in LA, but took in to a level beyond the "look for suspiciousness" concept, continuing a 15 minute conversation about various things from what we were doing to video games (related to our time there), what games he liked, etc. Having not found anything really problematic, he did tell me that I had twice the limit of cigarettes I was allowed to bring in to the country (I had 400 with me from the duty-free, for my two weeks out there) - just told me that he was supposed to confiscate and fine me, but would let me off. (This was pretty lucky - I had known the limit but decided to take the risk, given $3/pack duty-free or $12+/pack in NYC.) That kind of friendliness would never be shown (in my experience) by UK staff, or any other country I've visited.
On the other hand, the only place that I've had trouble with my passport (it was kid of dog-eared at the end of its life) was also Glasgow. It depends which security officer you get.
In a little more detail, we already have plenty of policy precedents to solve this whole problem of airport security, terrorism via airplanes, and terrorism in the US and against the US and to do so without the TSA or the DHS at all.
In particular, there is the issue in this thread of infinite or some finite but large number number of ways a terrorist can attack us so that blocking each way after an instance of that way is unpromising, even in the long run. Well, we can get the infinite or large number down to just a few, maybe just one or zero, right away.
So, with this background, we can get to the policy we need in just two steps:
Step One. For a policy precedent, we can remember the "Bush doctrine" as in
September 11, 2001
Statement by the President in His Address to the Nation
8:30 P.M. EDT
as at
http://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/200...
"We will make no distinction between the terrorists who committed these acts and those who harbor them."
With more there is, also by President George W. Bush,
September 20, 2001
Address to a Joint Session of Congress and the American People
9:00 P.M. EDT
as at
http://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/200...
with
"And we will pursue nations that provide aid or safe haven to terrorism. Every nation, in every region, now has a decision to make. Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists. (Applause.) From this day forward, any nation that continues to harbor or support terrorism will be regarded by the United States as a hostile regime."
Step Two. We need only to regard an act of terrorism against the US as an act of war against the US. We have plenty of policy precedents about war.
Then the policy we need is simple:
We don't defend against the attacks and, instead, retaliate against them and, thus, deter future attacks.
With appropriate retaliation, we stand to need to retaliate against at most just a few, maybe just one or zero, attacks before all this nonsense of terrorism against the US just stops, at least for some decades.
So, here is how we "retaliate" and, thus, deter: After each attack, we find the countries the terrorists came from, much as in "The Bush Doctrine" say that each such country committed an act of war against the US, declare war against that country, and win the war quickly. As soon as we discover an offending country, we make them "an offer they can't refuse": They pay horrendous reparations, e.g., that more than cover the current annual costs to the US of our present approach to airline security and of the DHS, etc. or we will level their government and most of their economic infrastructure within 24 hours, accepting collateral damage as a necessary part of war. And we are not joking. And, yes, "All cards are on the table.". We still have the SSBNs, ICBMs, B2s, and aircraft carriers, and no Muslim country has anything like any of these or any means at all to defend against them.
We don't attempt to build a democracy in their country, don't occupy their country, and, really, don't even set foot in their country.
We will have to destroy at most only a few sh!tpit countries.
All the other relevant countries will make sure that anyone in their country, citizen or visitor, who even jokes about Jihad, gets a big crowd shouting "Death to America" (sounds like a declaration of war to me), etc. will be effectively re-educated, jailed, or just killed, maybe with their families, villages, etc. Wackozerostan with the Taliban? Level it, nearly all of it. Now. Further problems with Pashtun and Taliban in Pukistan? Same treatment.
There are several pieces of good news for us here:
(A) This terrorism stuff is essentially ONLY Muslim Jihad nonsense. Our policy will have the effect of turning Islam back into just a peaceful religion instead of some international, take over the world, political and military effort. We won't have to have our HUMINT recording and reviewing Mullah speeches because the local government will eagerly, as in we made them "an offer they can't refuse", do that for us.
Just what is it about Islam actually being a "peaceful religion" the Muslim leaders won't be able to understand, e.g., after we level, really, take back to the Stone Age, Wackozerostan?
The story goes that recently Hamid Karzai gave to Pervez Musharraf names, titles, addresses, and phone numbers of the Jihader leaders in Wackozerostan. Of course, Musharraf did nothing. So, we know what, who, and where the Jihader leaders are. So, kill'em.
UBL? There are stories that he is still alive and in Pukistan near the border with China and, also, the main source of funds for the Taliban military efforts. So, find UBL and kill him. "That's what the bullets are for, you twit."
Some Jihaders in India blew up a train. Supposedly some Hindus went to a Muslim neighborhood and devastated it and then leveled about 200 mosques. We could learn a lesson about what such people regard as "effective". Pretty? No. Strong enough? Maybe. So, for the US, one neighborhood and 200 mosques would be 201 GPS coordinates and maybe 201 cruise missiles. Easy enough, but we could do MUCH more.
(B) The Muslim Jihaders have only really crude means of making war, which is NOT a reason for us not to retaliate, effectively.
(C) There only a few countries that want to entertain Muslim Jihaders and, thus, only a few countries we will have to level or deter.
(D) None of the Muslim countries can defend against being leveled by the US within 24 hours.
(E) Our main problem is just that we are too eager to be nice, to mess up our own economy to be nice, and to be reluctant to take the retaliation we are fully able to take.
As of just the last few days, near the top of the list is Yemen. Level it. Good riddance.
It's time to put a stop to this Jihad nonsense. Quickly. Period.
This Jihad terrorism is just war by another means. We in the US know a LOT about war; we're the unchallenged world champions at both offensive and defensive means of war; we are fully able to defend ourselves against the Jihad variety of war also.
What we need to do is just a matter of defending ourselves. I'm sorry about war, but the Jihaders are making war against us; so, we need to defend ourselves.
"Collateral damage"? That's what the Jihaders are doing to us. Collateral damage is part of war, certainly part of theirs, and now has to be part of ours. Otherwise we are back into letting Imams and Mullahs "hijack" a religion and turn it into an international political and military effort, mess up the US economy, kill Americans, and grow the international and military power of Islam. That the Jihaders are making war against us is their fault. If we let them continue without effectively defending ourselves, then that's our fault. We should not continue to let our suffering be our fault.
"Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me."
It's time for the US to stop being fooled. Being so nice to them is NOT making them be nice to us. The Imams and Mullahs sending out Jihaders want POWER and are quite willing not to be nice about it.
War is ugly. The only good response to war is to win it, and the usual way is by killing the enemy. Sorry 'bout that, but it's better that we win than lose.
Net, the Imams, Mullahs, and their Jihaders will just continue on with their outrageous nonsense until they are stopped by some sufficiently effective means. Since they have been declaring and making war on us for some years, we need to stop them and to do so better now than later.
If none of the above policy precedents convinces you, then we can return to some of the content of this thread: You will have to have your daughters groped by strangers, photographed in the nude and studied by strangers, and eventually cavity searched by strangers and where there is no effective guarantee of any clinical professionalism or privacy and no effective means of defense or retribution. Yes, the groper might have just gotten HIV on their glove and then given the virus to your daughter. Are you ready to defend the US now?
I really wish people would stop pointing this out. Yes, it's probably true, the TSA screening site is a soft juicy target. Yes, you're very clever for pointing it out. Now pipe down about it before you give someone some ideas.
Ultimately what we can't do is to entirely rejig our society to prevent people from being densely packed in any place at any time just in case somebody decides to set off a bomb. The best thing we can do is to keep suicide bombers fixated on hard targets like aeroplanes so they forget about soft targets like... well, whatever.
Think about it: If they'd had a single success, just one instance where they stopped someone from doing something bad, they'd be screaming it from the rooftops every chance they got. Since they're not, and we haven't heard of anything more malicious than grandmothers with nailclippers, I think its safe to say that the TSA hasn't done a damn thing.