...Led this morning by Susan Estrich, who totally supports TSA's drive to reveal her hidden self and touch her in deeply personal ways -- and to support her case, she cites the Underwear Bomber, a terrorist (of the largely inept, even idiotic sort) not found or even stopped by TSA.
Besides, she says, it's for our own good. When TSA demands people remove their prosthetics, why, she thinks those folks should be grateful! It's for their own safety, after all. Of course, she's smugly thankful she isn't in that position.
Other features include a catty jab at women she thinks are too skimpily dressed -- why should they object to a pat-down or a detailed backscatter x-ray, she wonders, in a replay of the old "she was askin' for it" defense of rapists.
All in all, the more I look at her screed, the more angry it makes me.
Update: Add Debra Saunders to the "do with me as you will, so long as you keep me safe" crowd, too. (Geezle, what is it with these more-or-less feminist writers? Are there suddenly piscine bicyclists when it comes time to kill a spider?)
Today is National Opt-Out Day. If you're flying, ask to skip the nakedizer and make 'em pat you down. Take up their time. Don't be confrontive -- but don't be Susan, either. You can be the wooden shoe that gums up the inexorably-grinding gears of the Security State.
I have written that I don't think TSA is the worst FedGov invasion; I still don't. But it looks to be turning into a line in the sand and I'll take what I can get along those lines. Airplanes now may spare us cattle cars later.
BUILDING A 1:1 BALUN
4 years ago
14 comments:
I'm calling it "the nakedizer" from now on.
I don't know if people are being sexually assaulted or not. (Although I love visiting the U.S., I haven't done it since visitors stopped being treated like welcome guests, and started being fingerprinted. I'm not a criminal, and won't be treated as one.) But lots of you say you are being sexually assaulted by uniformed perverts at airports.
SO WHY DON'T YOU CALL A COP? Identify the pervert, have him arrested, go through the whole legal process. You would do it if a uniformed crook stole your wallet, or started hitting you.
Call a cop, step aside, let passenger two get searched. If passenger two gets assaulted, they can call another cop....etc.
How long would it take before the perverts stopped their sexual assaults? How long would it be before they ran out of perverts?
I wrote an impassioned plea on Tam's 'TSA smallest record player' post. Nothing but chirping crickets.
Are you all going to work endlessly on the 'coolest' comeback line as some pervert swaggers off to his next victim, or do any of you still have the nerve to call a cop when attacked?
Am I going to get more chirping crickets, or just the sound of frogs swimming happily in that lovely warm water?
Mr. Wolf,
In all sincerity, what result do you think that will achieve? I mean, there's usually a cop standing nearby these checkpoints, watching it happen...
I'm wondering how long before canaries start chirping, myself. We've already had one guy arrested for punching a TSA agent...
And maybe the cop thinks it's a fun day out, and maybe he is just PRAYING that a fellow citizen will ask him to do his job.
Are you saying that maybe the cop will ignore the citizen in distress, and refuse to help? Is that legal? If not, take the cop's number, report him too. ( I know it sounds as though I'm losing it here, and should be measured for my tinfoil hat, but work with me here)
It is not the cop's job to determine guilt or innocence, but to react to a complaint. He has no idea what just happened during the search. Maybe it was legitimate, maybe it wasn't, but here is a distressed citizen claiming sexual assault. Is the cop going to pre-judge every complaint, or do his job and let the judge worry about it?
I have very carefully not suggested acting in a violent way. For most people, that moves you from 'victim' to 'thug'.
Are you seriously suggesting that a distressed, assaulted citizen will obtain no help from a nearby law officer, simply because the cop and the pervert both work for the authorities? Already? If so, the weather in Oz is wonderful, ever think about migrating.....?
The T&A people are "cops" of a very poor sort. There is no appeal to higher authority, and certainly not the civil police. And in this society that means the next resort is embarrassing the T&A gropers.
The man who thought speedos and stripping to them would reduce the indignity has learned there are worst things than a pat down.
The man in a kilt has a thought, and if it works I may dig out the Utilikilt; but I am waiting word from the airport.
A buxom female, yeast, must wear skirts, must fly today. Need I say more?
Stranger
Experience so far indicates the local cop is more likely to run interference for the TSA gropers by arresting witnesses and confiscating their cameras.
("Professional courtesy," y'know.)
My response to Ms. Estridge very nearly exceeded Yahoo's character count. It remains to be seen whether it will be allowed...
Suffice it that I pointed out that it isn't about safety (Bruce Schneier summed that one up pretty well as Security Theater). It's about the right to privacy and freedom of travel without harassment.
Pity. I used to enjoy flying commercial, but I won't be doing so anymore. I haven't the skills to actively organize a boycott, but I'm participating whether it's organized or not.
Hot Air today has a post quoting Janet Napolitano, stating that TSA already plans to install the pron scanners at ship, train and subway/El stations.
(You were talking about "cattle cars...?")
So it's getting to the point where you won't be able to go anywhere without being scanned or groped.
--Wes S.
Of course, the next Al Queda target will be the long lines (que for those across one or another of the ponds) waiting for the TSA grope-a-dope.
Then they will have the authority to stop anyone on the street, to search them in case they might be thinking about going close to a TSA security theatre location.
Well, there is one thing.. Sanitation.
Insist if the groper wishes to touch skin that they MUST change gloves unless they are fresh as in just changed for your grope. After all we do know where those gloves were.
I see no reason for not insisting on that. I'd make my dentist, doctor and anyone else do that if they didn't automatically (most do).
Eck!
I would bet that those who support the concept of "you can do anything to me so long as you keep me safe" (and aren't aware of the irony) and those who are antigun are exactly one and the same.
The interesting thing about that is not so much the 100% correlation but what it really says about their mindset.
My Grandfather and I had this "conversation" the other day. I have begun to realize that my Grandfather is a statist and anything that the government does is perfectly fine with him as long as they have some sort of excuse. Too bad he doesn't have anywhere to fly to, I would LOVE to see his face when one of the TSA pervs did their little grope-a-thon on him and he realized that I'm not as paranoid as he thinks I am.
s
Kind of curious to know what these people were writing / saying when the eeeevil Chimpy McBushitler was allegedly tapping their telephone conversations...
This is definitely a "stop and think" moment, and the answers won't come quickly. As one writer (at Hot Air, I think) points out, we gave up our civil liberties the first time airport security made us start emptying our pockets because a machine went "PING!" when we walked through it.
We don't want to be blown up or have crazy people from some undefined religion flying planes into buildings. On the other hand, we don't want to be scanned, groped, or otherwise treated like criminals.
These two desires are incompatible. The question is how far should the .gov be allowed to go?
docjim505,
Nobody's ever going to take over a US airliner with a box cutter again. That trick is over and done; whip out your pocketknife and wave it around the cabin and you'll be at the bottom of a pigpile before you can yell "Allahu", never mind "Akhbar".
The whole concept of current TSA procedures is based on closing the barn door after the horse has crossed the far horizon.
"If it only saves one jetliner!" sounds suspiciously like another slogan of which I'm only too familiar...
WV: "profi" Yes, we should.
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