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TSA Pats Down 3-Year-Old
3-year-old Mandy Simon started crying when her teddy bear had to go through the X-ray machine at airport security in Chattanooga, Tenn. She was so upset that she refused to go calmly through the metal detector, setting it off twice. Agents then informed her parents that she "must be hand-searched." The subsequent TSA employee pat down of the screaming child was captured by her father, who happens to be a reporter, on his cell phone. The video have left some questioning why better procedures for children aren't in place. I, for one, feel much safer knowing the TSA is protecting us from impressionable minds warped by too much Dora the Explorer.
If the reason for these searches is to find weapons and bombs then whats the problem? If you're going to search then you need to search everything or it becomes pointless. Do you think a terrorist wouldn't hide a bomb in a baby's nappy if they thought it would work?
I can think of some cultures that wouldn't hesitate to have child suicide bombers.
Reply to That ||
So, the TSA has gotten to YouTube. What's next, the Google itself?
But seriously, the harassment of this little girl is a clear indication that all parents should enroll their toddlers in "Little Ninja" classes so they can protect themselves from the groping hands of our government.
What would happen if there was a suicide bomber that was caught with a child, and the child was the one with the bomb... Would we willingly subject our children to being searched after an incident like this?
I have worse karma than M$.
Obligatory link to My First Cavity Search: A Children's Guide to Understanding Why He May Be a Threat to National Security.
http://gizmodo.com/5688087/the-tsas-sense-of-humor-makes-me-nervous
(But seriously, TSA? Child molestation is cool now?)
Travel season is starting. That's why. Not to mention the pat-down is now an "enhanced" pat-down. Correct me if I'm wrong on the "enhanced" pat-down being a semi-recent change.
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People get up in arms about profiling, but this is what you get when you say it has to be completely random. 3-year olds, nuns, grandmothers being searched.
Meanwhile people who are thousands of times more likely to be an issue can't be targeted even though it makes good sense.
I don't think the question really is about whether the child should have been searched or not, but that there should be a better way of handling it.
It's a very sad state of affairs no matter what angle you look at it from.
Fox news got on it (yes seriously).
"So let's see. Either I am seen naked by a pervert hiding in the booth or suffer a sexual assault.
I'll take the first one, thank you"
-Me, today, at airline security.
To think we are paying ~$5/person in "Security fees" to suffer this shit that doesn't do any good.
And I just hope the TSA personnel have dosimiters: The X-ray dosage per person may be low, but I'd not want to stand next to that thing for a year without wearing a dosimiter..
Test your net with Netalyzr
We need to keep putting the screws to the TSA. Their mere existance is utter CRAP, this whole body scanner / groping scandal needs to stay on the forefront.
...report being creeped out by these new procedures.
And lots more buxom younger women are apparently being subjected to thorough full body searches than guys.
MEK
Credo quia impossibilis -- Tertullian
Does she have some kind of mutant superpower where emotional distress causes her to manifest lumps of metal inside her body?
As for the rest of this, yeah, this shit is sick. Pat-downs were invasive even before, and now they've turned them into non-consensual erotic massages.
The naked picture scanners that can't be saved (except when they can) and the molest^H^H^H^H^H^H pat-downs that would be criminal offenses if done outside the airport have spawned something of a populist backlash against TSA's goons.
You're seeing a lot of stories because there's both a lot of interest, and a lot of material. This is the classic example of a bureaucracy run amok and it's time for the politicians to do their jobs and regain control over it.
-- "So they told me that using the download page to download something was not something they anticipated." - Bill Gates
If Osama is alive he must be laughing his skinny ass off.
It's a non-story that US citizen's constitutional rights against unreasonable search and seizure are getting violated? It's a non-story that the government is now examining and groping genitalia without any suspicion of wrongdoing? It's a non-story that people are being threatened with lawsuits by the government for asserting their rights?
Tell me, exactly what does the US government have to do to its citizens for it to be newsworthy?
I am officially gone from
The policy has recently shifted from "mild frisking" to more invasive frisking for those that opt not to succumb to AIT (Advanced Imaging Technologies).
Genitals and breasts are vigorously groped instead of the older method of using the backs of the hands only.
Even the TSA has stated that the recent methods are likely to be uncomfortable for many, especially those who have been victimized by molestation.
Is this because somebody, somewhere thought these frisking methods would be more effective, or is it a means of discouraging people from "opting out" of AIT?
I don't know, but I suspect the latter.
"Flame away, I wear asbestos underwear"
The video appears to no longer be available due to a copyright claim by the Tribune.
Interesting...
otherwise al qaeda will plant bombs on a 3 year old. Come on people use your brain.
I just read on Ars that the head of the TSA testified to Congress that children under 12 were not subject to enhanced pat-downs. I'm shocked, shocked to find that he may have been lying!
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2010/11/tsa-boss-our-patdowns-turn-up-artfully-concealed-objects.ars
My three year old nearly got the same treatment in Malta the other day. I made sure that she hadn't got any metal on her, and had sensible shoes and jumped through any other hoop, but she managed to pick up a penny off the floor that someone had dropped. All the alrams went off, and the burly guard came over. Only quick thinking by the rest of may family avoided tantrums and screaming all around. - But I still think it is right to check chldren of what ever age-Just do it with the minimum of fuss is all I ask. Anyone remember the song about the bomb in the baby carriage....?
Sorry for the loser who sits in front of her. Ugh. Can't win.
Fuck systemd. Fuck Redhat. Fuck Soylent, too. Wait, scratch the last one.
If patting down anyone is effective, you ought to be able to pat down kids, as harsh as it sounds. People who blow themselves up to make a point usually believe in that point enough to blow their kids up, too. Wouldn't be hard to hid a gun on a kid. Especially since keeping guns off planes is one of the few good things TSA does.
By the way, if you figure out how to do anything with a kid, even go to the park or whatever, and can guarantee that the kid won't cry, I want to know your techniques.
Qxe4
For some reason getting a routine grope and a handjob they can't opt out of is a big deal for a lot of people.
Honestly I hope that happens. I really, truly hope that full cavity searches will be required to fly.
It's my last hope that the people in this country will have any sense and stand up to this kind of asinine "security."
If the American people accept cavity searches every time they fly, and they just shrug and say "Well, what are you going to do?" Well, then this country has lost everything that made it special.
This will happen as long as people let it happen. By shrugged their shoulders and going along with it, they're letting the government and the TSA know that we will give them absolute free reign in this. It doesn't matter how many angry articles there are decrying the new procedures -- if people continue to fly, then the procedures will stay. And eventually they'll get worse. Again.
In the hearings today in the senate, John Pistole, the head of the Transportation Security Administration, children under 12 would not be pat down.
The "enhanced" pat-down was created with the goal of making it unpleasant enough to get people to go through the scanners.
And yeah, I'd say that being groped by government goons because I committed the crime of buying a plane ticket is definitely unpleasant.
-- "So they told me that using the download page to download something was not something they anticipated." - Bill Gates
I think it mostly has to do with three things: (1) invasive searches (either as back scatter images or pat downs) required of everyone now; (2) disclosure that the TSA or certain TSA promises about images have already been broken; and (3) a general feeling that security theater is becoming more and more ridiculous to the point that the TSA is engaged in the creation of child pornography and sexual molestation (both of children and adults). After the patdown option became available, it didn't take long before allegations of officials copping a feel of nubile young women started appearing.
Also, there's the feeling that, in the case of disrupting society, the terrorists have won!
Your American odds of dying in an airplane bombing (either on-board or in a skyscraper), are 1 in 500,000. That is about the same as your risk of drowning in a tsunami. And of course if you move to the mountains or don't fly, the odds drop to near-zero.
I think I'd rather take that infinitesimal risk, rather than take the 1-to-1 risk that some TSA officer will be playing with my penis, touching my wife's boobies, and/or fondling my kid's pussy. (Sorry for the frank language but I believe in speaking the brutal truth.)
I also think the US Transportation Secretary can go eat a bullet.
"This is okay," he says.
No. No it is not.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
How is this idiocy not a story? It's pointing out, even if it's YET AGAIN, that the laws and procedures put in place to rob you of your privacy (and protect you from the stupidest of stupid terrorists - it won't catch any you need to actually worry about) are being used and abused in the most insane ways.
Fucked up laws are never fixed by keeping your mouth shut about them. Quite the opposite really.
In other news, it is now possible for an individual to have their NAMBLA dues deducted directly from their TSA paycheck.
if you don't want to be searched, don't fly. they're not compulsory.
Because all these TSA goons are stealing our tax money, make traveling a pain, are screwing airlines, etc.
The way it is, you can't simply choose -not- to deal with these privacy invading goons and fly unless you have something like a private jet.
The masses are scared that another 9/11 could happen again if we didn't have these things and every incompetent terrorist "attacks" add more "reason" that the masses see to continue with these worthless programs.
When the government which is supposed to be limited and by the people for the people is stealing your money, trying to run businesses into the ground which will no doubt 'need' to be "bailed out", invade your privacy and all of this for no increase in safety which is why they say they are doing it in the first place, it should be a major issue.
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
People always forget this fact.
For now, I am going Greyhound...
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
It's the holiday season, during which many people will be traveling. Since its creation, the TSA has been imposing ever more inconvenient, invasive and just plain stupid policies on travelers. Bringing those policies to light through bad publicity can browbeat the TSA into redacting them. Seems very straight forward to me.
In my opinion the TSA didn't do enough. Remember what we found in that guys diaper last Christmas in Detroit? God knows they missed the syringe full of acid and matchbook in this girls diaper.
The defenders of profiling will arrive shortly to tell us how if we just focused on the "right people", we could avoid harassing little girls and little old ladies.
Obviously she should be allowed to just go right on the plane without being checked since she's not Arabic. It's not like anyone's ever tried to smuggle a gun onto a plane in a kid's teddy bear befo... oh wait.
If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
Tribune had the original video taken down, but the news report is still viewable here, with most of the actual footage:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VJNY_PTULO4
I live in constant fear of the Coming of the Red Spiders.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7yshc_ez6tg Footage from it... Lol I wonder where that copyright claim came from... It's fucking news, there is nothing to claim!
...is named Pistole. I'm not kidding.
so i'm supposed to drive to hawaii? jackass.
Drudge, actually. Fox picked it up from there.
Hoist Number One and Number Six.
There's nothing wrong with searching people getting on flights.
There is something wrong with the gropings they are mandating.
Honey, be sure not to say anything about the little bomby womby! Maybe TSA should start to get a grip on reasonableness instead of a grope on some poor child. One cannot eliminate all risk. I might get run over by some mad lunatic too, but that doesn't mean the police should pat down everyone before they get into a car. There is a line called ridiculousness which needs to be acknowledged. Teach a kid not to talk to strangers, and then expect them to not be frightened when some stranger pats them down. Or you have to explain to the kid that this is happening because the world is full of evil and not the bright, wonderful adventurous place they think it is and darken their world? There's got to be a better way!
www.Migrainesoft.com - Computer giving you a headache? We can fix that!
think of the children?...
They may have hung themselves with their new backscatter stuff and intrusive pat-downs -- I think all this extra coverage is indicative of people outside of Slashdot-types finally realizing that TSA is out of control and helping no-one.
i am from europe, but i start to love america
here we have books where our "hero" shouts "you can take my life, but not my freedom"
in america you guys must have books showing a terrorist and suggesting that you forfeit all your freedom to keep your life.
lets just asume that 9-11 had about 3 terrorrists on board of every plane.
the terrorrist lost 12 people in 1 attack.
america lost a whole lot of lifes in 1 attack (sorry cant be bothered to look up how many)
almost every american still alive lost a whole lot of freedom in 1 attack.
yeah, make sure to not let the terrorrists win, right?
This stupid shit is happening because nobody said anything when the last stupid shit happened.
Unless we make TSA Security a 6 figure career we are not going to have good decisions and professionalism out of these people. They are mostly high-school graduates with a few weeks of training. The kind of people we can trust not to pat down every hot chick, or hold up every rude businessman, or occasionally do something moronic like this story reports, simply do not work in this sort of pay. Either we need actual doctors and nurses assigned to the pat downs, or we need to give up this little bit of safety for the sake of privacy.
We were discussing this issue last night. I think the most effective form of protest would be for everyone being fondled to fake orgasms... loudly. So long as the main populace considers this an uncomfortable search, they'll grumble and put up with it. As soon as even a small fraction of the populace has to explain to their kids why the guy in front of them is screaming, "yes, yes, stroke it big boy!" to the security guy touching him, politicians will be under enormous pressure to fix the TSA problems or fail to re-elected.
And there is something wrong with the whole security theatre to begin with...
http://www.thestar.com/news/world/article/744199---israelification-high-security-little-bother
Don't blame me, I voted for Kodos
Can we select which airport employee pats us down? I mean, it's annoying if it's some burly TSA guy, but I could probably handle a Singapore Airlines stewardess handing my search...
Tell me, exactly what does the US government have to do to its citizens for it to be newsworthy?
Be Honest.
So the molestation of a 3 year old is not a big deal to you?
Bullshit.
You really think that the airlines -like- these? No, the airline's rights to be exempt from TSA screenings are being violated first off. This of course makes any free-market alternatives to the TSA unavailable.
Governments are not like private enterprise, in an age of fiat currency, we can't exactly 'bankrupt' the TSA like consumers can run a business into the ground by not choosing to use them. In no way does a decision not to fly hurt the TSA and send a statement to them, it does, however screw the airlines out of more business even though the TSA scans and the like weren't authorized by them. If no one flies, the TSA agents still get paid, they still get a chunk of the budget, cutting costs doesn't happen as easily as simply printing more worthless paper notes for the government.
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
Trillion dollar wars that kill tens of thousands are OK when our government tells us they are protecting us from terrorist attacks. But a screening and/or pat down is going too far!
Seems like the same people complaining the loudest today were bashing me for being against the TSA back when it was first created.
Blar.
wait big deal that the government is paying people to molest little children? Oh wait they are government so it is ok as long as they are not in a van. I can't wait until people start demanding that anyone caught watching this is watching kiddie porn, the logical gymnastics to justify the search but not people watching it will be amazing.
The bit about being threatened with lawsuits was in reference to a recent case in San Diego where a passenger made the choice to leave the airport rather than consent to the search and was threatened with a lawsuit for doing so.
I am officially gone from
so i'm supposed to drive to hawaii? jackass.
No, you are supposed to swim, of course.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
Unpleasant... yes, effective? No. I was recently made aware of someone taking a hunting knife (not a $20 swiss army, but an actual knife) through security with the help of steel-toed boots. They were stopped on their return trip and thought the jig was up only to be told they couldn't take aerosol deodorant through the checkpoint. Both checks failed to catch the knife.
In related news, another friend, working for the coast guard, routinely made it through security (as part of his job to infiltrate and notify the chief of security inside the line) with explosives, guns, etc.
As near as I can figure, the entire point of airport security is to catch idiots and pacify the masses through some sort of fear / control response.
Look, it's obvious to feel that patting down children is a stupid idea, but what isn't a stupid idea is using a child to carry dangerous things onto a plane. Anyone intent on bringing down a plane is not going to care if a child dies in the process.
In the end, you either check all possible vehicles for carrying dangerous things or your start making exceptions. (You know, exceptions like bringing formula or juice for a child in excess of the allowed volume of liquid or allowing gas cylinders in luggage when it is in the same bag as a gas powered curling iron.)
Yeah, I was a TSA screener and I know how they work and how they are supposed to think. It's a lot of stupidity, but I cannot disagree with patting down a 3 year old. If the news story was about a 3 year old found carrying a weapon, would we then start jumping on the TSA for even checking or would we jump on the parents of the child? Seriously. Think of the alternatives before getting angry or indignant.
As TSA procedures become more and more involved and outrage (whether justified or not) becomes the norm, it's only a matter of time before any potential mass-murdering maniacs decide that the best target is the huge crowd that has built up *before* the screening process.
So, the other night I was speaking with some people regarding this issue, and my aunt raises a good point here:
Women have nothing to hide, so why are they complaining; I mean we can all see the size and for the most part, shape of their boobs. Not to mention that common clothes are barely covering up the slightest bit of obesity, and there is nothing dangling between their legs.
Men on the other hand: we have our weiner... given the amount of personal enhancement drugs out there, i would venture to say the majority of men are uncomfortable with their... situation...
That being the case, Grow a set, and walk through the scanner...
If nobody else will say it, then I will.
Control your kid. Then she'll go through the metal detector, get her teddy bear back, and this non-story is over.
At least when my daughter flew out of Machester, NH last year, she got a TSA 'badge' (which coincidentally looks like a real police badge - remember that TSA are not law enforcement).
The only big trip we have upcoming is Disney next year and I find it unlikely we'll be going anywhere else by plane soon. Unfortunately, taking Amtrak down from Boston will be about as expensive as staying down there for a week. Which makes getting there half the fun^W price.
The worst part is when the TSA goon sniffs his fingers after fondling people's genitals.
They must be sniffing for explosive residue.
The cost would be immense and if you think your privacy is being violated by a scanner...hoooo doggy!
Blar.
These TSA guys are simply doing their jobs. There's no reason to be upset at them. As for patting down a child, as wrong as it may seem, it has to me done. There's plenty of sick people who would use children to hide things. The TSA are in the right here, not a real story at all.
How you get there is your problem. If you want to get on a commercial flight in the US to get to Hawaii then current laws compel you to submit to a security screening.
The are other methods of getting to Hawaii. If they happen to be unattractive or impractical that is unfortunate, but is ultimately your problem.
You have no inherent inalienable right to board somebody else's airplane.
Screaming brats don't take any special triggers to scream. Must be a slow news day.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
Yeah if only there were some large ocean going vessels that could get you across those oceans...what a world it would be...
And if we think this anchor baby threat is to be taken lightly, realize that we have at least on anchor baby in congress. This anchor baby has access to the top leaders of the US and all our security plans. In one step, he could give Cuba, who is still under the same government that wanted to kill every man, woman and child in US, the means and opportunity to kill every man, woman, and child in the US.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
You're right. The whole thing is security theatre at its finest. That's been true for years. Does anybody really think that an old ladies sewing needles are a threat to the airplane?
The problem now is that TSA has gone from annoyance theatre to dangerous and vile theatre. Keep it up much longer and they'll bring down the airline industry as a whole, because do you seriously think I'll ever fly to the US again while this bullshit is going on?
A lot of other countries are happy to take my tourism dollars without molesting me for the privilege.
-- "So they told me that using the download page to download something was not something they anticipated." - Bill Gates
Duh. It's known as Security Theatre for a reason.
I mean they know how to touch children and convince them to say nothing.
seriously though why don't they employ the oh so effective method of profiling. There is a reason the fbi uses "profilers" to help with investigations. even if it is only a 18-35 year old males profile, that would cover most of the terrorists. a 40 year old woman with 2.6666666667 children in tow is probably not going to blow up a plane, while a 22 year old man with a one way ticket, paid in cash, deserves a second glance at the very least.
lose != loose
>>>This is the classic example of an [unconstitutional act by the U.S.] and it's time for the politicians to do their jobs, [obey their oath], and [stop shredding the Bill of Rights].
>>>
Fixed that for you.
Especially amendments 4, 9, and 10. We the people should try to make the US more like the EU - most of the power remains reserved to the Member States while the central government's powers are few and limited.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
A while back TSA prepared to introduce high-resolution, clothes-penetrating body scanners as part of their standard procedures. There was then a flood of (accurate) stories portraying it as a "virtual strip search", which produced political pushback against the scanners and TSA made them optional, with the alternative of a pat-down search. By making the scanners an option, with a moderately intrusive but reasonably innocuous alternative, the pushback was effectively neutralized.
Recently, in an effort to get people to submit to the scanners, TSA has (and they've been fairly open that this is what they are doing) changed the pat-down procedure to make it more embarrassing with the hope that this will get more people to submit to the imaging scanners instead.
The recent flood of stories is the pushback that that change has produced.
I simply wear a kilt and go commando.
"The average reporter we talk to is 27 years old......They literally know nothing." - Ben Rhodes
It's a big deal for me. Heck, it's the only reason I fly!
I, for one, feel much safer knowing the TSA is protecting us from impressionable minds warped by too much Dora the Explorer.
That is a typical idiot media response. Like what happen or not, save the idiotic hyperbole for yourself in the mirror.
I'm not sure how I'd handle a pat-down from a Marlon Brando lookalike.
Everyone should start hip thrusting while being fondled by the TSA agents (men, women, children, teddy bears, etc.). Ask for more, beg for it. Don't stop, I need it! Ooohhhh yyyeeeaaahhh! Was it as good for you as it was for me???
I, for one, feel much safer knowing the TSA is protecting us from impressionable minds warped by too much Dora the Explorer.
Lewis Black said it best just last night. To paraphrase:
We're so afraid of terrorist attacks that to prevent it from happening again we are willing to start preemptive wars with countries that have shown us no provocation, killing hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians in collateral damage, but we are not willing to consent to a simple pat-down?
The 'enhanced' search also takes a lot longer than a quick scan, and can only work if the majority consent to the latter. If you're flying this time next week, take the opportunity to protest by joining the mass refusal of scanning.
http://www.ustravel.org/about-us-travel/contact-us
http://www.tsa.gov/contact/index.shtm
Write politely and literately. Don't rant, and explain your position as briefly as you can. But let them know that you are no longer travelling by air as long as this security theatre is in place.
You can also write to your representatives with the same message, but I cannot give you that contact info.
(I know I'm an AC, but I hope someone mods this up, and people take the advice to heart)
It seems to have been bought in at the same time as the new scanners came online. I think the biggest objection to it seems to be the way it's done more than anything else - the TSA officials aren't warning people about what they're doing, taking a presumption of guilt if you question any part of the process, haven't made it clear at any point what's changed (or the apparent $10,000 fine for decided you neither want to be x-rayed or felt up) and generally acting like power-drunk dicks.
Another interesting POV here: http://www.pennandteller.com/03/coolstuff/penniphile/roadpennfederalvip.html
The unlawful use or threatened use of force or violence by a person or an organized group against people or property with the intention of intimidating or coercing societies or governments, often for ideological or political reasons.
this is a definition i found of terrorism.
now the only thing i am missing to make whatever the TSA does terrorism is making it unlawfull.
they put a full body scanner in place, they change the patting rules, for no special reason other then that they can.
they make it feel very bad (inducing fear, intimidation) so that people take the leser evil instead of not wanting to take any evil at all.
and it sure seems to be for political reasons.
man, i really cant wait till they make flying planes into building legal so that 9/11 wasn't an act of terrorism but and act of protecting people from terrorism.
Mod parent up!
Paul B.
With all the TSA stuff in the press, I'd been thinking. Anyone sufficiently security minded should know that there's no such thing as perfect security. Maybe if all they ever did was transport dead people then you would know they wouldn't cause trouble. Even if you're not a pro, anyone could derive the law of diminishing returns from security theater.
But pre-9/11, shit happens on planes. Hijackings, bombs, whatever. They were pretty rare but they happened. But WHEN they happened, nobody pointed a finger at the president and said that he dropped the ball. Nobody cried about someone "not connecting the dots" and "intelligence failures" and all that stuff. It was just something tragic, pointless, but essentially a fluke of living in the modern world with the crazies.
But 9/11? People were chomping at the bits to blame Bush for SOMETHING, ANYTHING. And why not? A tight race that ended essentially via court order and Al Gore's withdrawing (read, not perusing additional legal action). Bush seemed to be setting the stage to frame his presidency as the The Vacationing President. Yeah, 9/11 was an act of terror with the goal of global effects, but even if it was just another random bomb the freshly brewed vitriol unlike anything I've seen before in my lifetime (Reagan and those after) would have had similar effects.
The upshot is that now random violent acts of terror now need to be defensible by politicians. It didn't happen because "shit happens," it happens because "Government Official Soandso screwed up." Protecting lives is secondary to protecting against SCANDAL. It's so politically important to make sure no random accidents or malicious acts of violence occur on their watch that politicians just can't afford to have anything happen on their watch.
As much as I hate to think this way, we really do need to have a random act of terror happen involving a plane and loss of life to show that these crazy TSA regulations are really just theater. That a dedicated individual, or group of individuals, can do what they feel they need to do and cannot be stopped just because we're afraid, and that, in the end, if it's your time, it's your time.
More Twoson than Cupertino
no. however, i would call for some bomb sniffing dogs to be on patrol at the airports sniffing for explosives. there are better ways to catch bad guys with out resorting to unconstitutional means. as for anyone taking over a plane these days... and keeping it long enough to hit your target? good luck with that.
it's time to get rid of the TSA, too much bad and no good.
bend over some more you stupid fascist.
This is the classic example of a bureaucracy run amok and it's time for the politicians to do their jobs and regain control over it.
Bureaucracy run amok is the very definition of a politician. What we need is a government for the people by the people and we haven't had that in a couple of generations...or we have and the people are very dumb.
"A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it." - K
I'm so glad I live in Canada.
Round-up natural-born citizens and put them in concentration camps?
Nope.
That happened in WW2 and nobody balked. Instead they praised democrat FDR's initiative and labeled him "best president ever". The average American simply doesn't understand the need to fight for individual rights, especially if the rights being violated are somebody else. "I am not asian, so it does not concern me." "I am not muslim, so it does not concern me." "I don't fly, so it does not concern me."
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
While there are lots of objection to TSA's tactics, this isn't one. Flying isn't a right. They aren't saying "submit to a search" which would be a clear violation of your rights. They're saying "submit to a search or you can't get on the plane". You have no intrinsic right to get on the plane, they can be put preconditions on your doing so. There is a compelling argument for aircraft security (air*port* security is really a bit of a misnomer, we put the security in the airport for convenience, but it's intended to secure the aircraft). Even ignoring the safety of your fellow passenger and the crew, it's a huge multi-ton craft moving at incredibly high speed and maneuverable on a three dimensional axis; in short a potential weapon of mass destruction.
That said, we do aircraft security poorly. Current methods are crude, invasive, and let through as much as they stop. What's the right answer? I don't know. We clearly need some form of aircraft security, but the way we do it now is reactive, incomplete, and embarrassing for everyone involved. Not to mention a huge waste of time, and causing little girls to cry.
I don't need a million points of light, just two points of multi-mode fiber and a 10 Gig-E router.
Make sure the TSA agent is now listed as a pedophile, obviously got off on the power trip and hands on experience.
I'm confused. In what airport in America are you allowed to wear your shoes through the metal detector? Or were they hiding the knife in their shoes when they put it through the x-ray? Or was someone just bullshitting you or telling you a story from years ago? If you set the metal detector off it's never a "oh, must be your shoes, you can go." It's always, take whatever you have on off, and if you set it off a 2nd time you get the full pat down.
Google "drugs in diapers". People HAVE used children before to break the law. Why not again? You can't run a security operation half-baked. Either everyone is searched or no-one. Because anyone wanting to get through security is bound to notice any obvious holes.
But that is the problem with security theather, it is all an illusion. It is not real so people expect exceptions to "everyone is checked". Can't search diplomatic bags, then they will be used to smuggle. You can't get a job in Holland at Schiphol if you got debts or are otherwise bribably or vulnerable to blackmail because criminals know that staff often doesn't get the same scrutiny as passengers.
THIS is what security is people. Patting down kids, strip searching the elderly, having your privates groped. EITHER you accept the risks of NOT having this security (and vote accordingly) or you accept that security searches only work if EVERYONE is searched.
You can't have it both ways. And right along all the critism of the security measures are cries for "why did the FBI not do more to stop the 9/11 attacks." Because either you have freedom or security. Rarely both. And seeing how Russia is dealing with its own terrorists, giving up freedom doesn't give much security either.
Basically this is yet another story of a middle class white american getting a wake up call that live is NOT all "Friends". Welcome to the real world. Perhaps you shouldn't have voted for Bush after all. But don't worry, the Teaparty will set it right... yeah right.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Pretty much. If people know that small children will be allowed to go threw the cracks they will use them to get threw the cracks. If their morals are warped enough to think that killing a bunch of people who may or may not agree with their political/religious views. Just to make a point that most people already know, just because they have been warped to think that it will grant them good graces in the eyes of God or Alla. What makes you think they will draw the line for sending their small children... Hey it is Fast trip to God.
We have been using kids in warfare for thousands of years.
Sure the child may not understand what is going on. However we cannot bend the rules for children and make the rules stricter for adults. As it will invalidate the whole.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
What makes you think they have lost control of it?
Does anybody really think that an old ladies sewing needles are a threat to the airplane?
As I've said before, the fact that they still allow glass on planes negates pretty much all of their "no vaguely sharp objects" rules.
Not that I actually consider glass to be a risk, mind - worst case scenario someone gets a few cuts before the hijacker is jumped by 150 other passengers - but it's more of a risk than most of what they're confiscating.
YouTube video now says:
"This video is no longer available due to a copyright claim by Tribune."
Round of applause for Tribune, whoever they are. Thank you for your noble efforts. /sarcasm
Of course, it's critical to ensure their identity is correct - that they are who they are suppose to be - but then screening them? Um... Even *if* they were "bad guys", they don't need weapons or explosives; they're flying the plane.
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
No Agenda Show actually. They exposed (as the first scanners were going in) that the former chief of Homeland Security (Chertoff) is the one responsible for bringing them in. Nevermind his security consulting group has a client that manufactures the machines. No Agenda has been consistently months ahead of both the news and public reaction on a number of similar issues. http://noagendashow.com/
#!/Jerald
I've had a few ideas to complicate the matter...
- Wear a cup. What are they going to do if they "touch your junk" and find you are wearing a jock strap?
- Ladies, here's your chance to wear that coconut bra you've been saving from halloween
- Stand silently until they touch you and then scream in agony saying "the bad man touched me"
- Pull your pants down so everyone gets a good look
- Claim you are not homosexual and feel uncomfortable having someone of the same sex pat you down and demand someone of a different gender do it.
- If possible, have a giant visible erection
- Literally put a banana in your pants. It doesn't violate any rules I can think of but would have interesting results
- Be sure to take video of anything that happens
- Claim you believe the TSA agent tried to place something on your person and them stuck it down their pants and require them to be patted down to determine what that item was
- Moan loudly while you are being patted down.
- Wear wet pants
- Faint when they go for your privates
- No matter what, don't blow bubbles on the TSA agents
Ninjas don't carry tic tacs
There is something wrong with the gropings they are mandating.
These are only mandated if the facility in question doesn't yet have the right imaging hardware.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
CHILD MOLESTER.
Google maps says kayak or jet ski depending where you are coming from.
This is what happens when you pound regulations into people's heads and hire cheap robots instead of professional, intelligent employees. It's the same kind of mindless zero-tolerance policies that lead to kids being handcuffed and thrown in jail over school fistfights, bringing plastic knives to school--even if they're a 5-year-old just throwing a temper tantrum.
Has one of these security scans ever caught even ONE actual terrorist or criminal? In 9 years, even ONE?
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
TSA agent charged with raping 14 year old girl
But it's ok! Lets have them grab crotches of our teenage sons and daughters, take naked pictures of our wives, etc. It makes us safer!
You opt out of the enhanced pat-down by going through the scanners. The scanners are unpopular enough that they added the embarassing pat-down to try to push people to go through the scanners.
If they don't do this they will have wasted millions on the new scanners because nobody will go through them.
The problem is now that while the new scanners will detect a ceramic knife taped to someone's leg, they will not detect a "butt-bomb" stuffed up someone's butt. You could easily cram enough C4 there to bring down an airliner and failing to recognize this until it happens is the hallmark of the FAA and airline industry in general. So of course it applies to the TSA.
It is not a weapon of MASS destruction. Not to be insensitive, but 3000 people dying and 2 buildings collapsing with virtually no other collateral damage is very far from MASS destruction. Mass destruction would require taking out an entire borough at the minimum. Id rather chance dying in a fiery plane crash then live my life the TSA way.
Good-bye
Governments are not like private enterprise, in an age of fiat currency, we can't exactly 'bankrupt' the TSA like consumers can run a business into the ground by not choosing to use them.
Sure you can. You vote for someone running on a platform that pitches less hassle at the airport in exchange for the higher risk of being killed on your approach to Detroit. If enough people think the risk of that happening won't go up when people aren't screened for PETN-lined underwear, then the case will be made, and the legislature can tear down the TSA or any given program they like. Simple as that. So, all you have to do is persuasively make the case that the mulitple recent just-getting-warmed-up incidents of people being willing to kill themselves to bring down an aircraft will stop as soon as we stop checking for the explosives they like to use.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
Personally, I think it would be best to give the kid a good lesson on 'naughty touches' and tell them it is ok to kick a man that touches you that way in the crotch, then laugh as the TSA learns that touching children improperly is, improper.
Yes, I would even miss my flight for it, and would be proud of my kid for standing up for himself.
through the xray - the knife was placed in line with the metal ribbing on the shoes and the shoes were placed next to each other to increase the amount of metal the xray "saw"
JFK international airport, New York City. I did not have to take off my shoes at any point on a trip to Tokyo and back; A few people did it voluntarily but I didn't and they didn't ask me to. (This is only in response to your question. I'm sure metal toed boots would have to be removed)
You're right. The whole thing is security theatre at its finest. That's been true for years. Does anybody really think that an old ladies sewing needles are a threat to the airplane?
Of course they are, they could knit an Afghan... thanks, I'll be here all night.
I would not want to submit to this kind of procedure either, but it seems that some people object just because they are overly sensitive. What's wrong with being touched by someone who certainly does not do it for his or her own pleasure (and is probably even more emberassed by it than you are)? And what's with all this crying criminal charges when somebody touches you? Do you punch someone in the gut when he bumps into you in a queue or something? Do you get angry when the P.E. teacher at school helps your children perform some gymnastic exercise? Do you swear bloody revenge on a doctor who looks at you naked in order to help you?
I mean, seriously, how prudish can one get?
>>>Flying isn't a right.
Yes it is. Read Amendment 9. Also 4 (which forbids congress from strip-searching or fondling Americans w/o warrant.) Plus it would be impossible for me to attend a Friday meeting in California if I had to travel by car or train (2500 miles is a frakking long distance).
Flying is the only option to get from MD to the west coast, and the government has no more right to block me from using a plane, than they do to stop me from drinking alcohol, or having sex with the same gender.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
This is Slashdot. You kids haven't been out of your basement in a month, no one would expect you to have seen children with bombs strapped to them sent out into streets to approach our military servicemen over in iraq. But hey, this is the U.S., and terrorists don't attack airplanes in the U.S. so clearly all this security is just the government trying to control your basement dwelling minds.
I read that as TSA *puts* down 3 year old... which also didn't surprise me.
"I will not be a silent victim of sexual assault by a TSA agent. Total Sexual Assault."
"I stood there, an American citizen, a mom traveling with a baby with special needs formula, sexually assaulted by a government official. I began shaking and felt completely violated, abused and assaulted by the TSA agent. I shook for several hours, and woke up the next day shaking."
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
Airports can opt-out of using the TSA for security. Which means, I think, that all of these ridiculous measures can be bypassed.
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/politics/Amid-airport-anger_-GOP-takes-aim-at-screening-1576602-108259869.html
start moaning when they pat you down....
"ooo, yah, ooo, right there baby... mmm...."
react LOUDLY too.....
I don't think the question really is about whether the child should have been searched or not
That's not a question? She's a fucking toddler throwing a fit, not Osama Bin Laden.
Maybe, but we certainly have a constitutional right to voice our displeasure and disagreement with it. We also have the power to vote out people who think this is acceptable, we also have the right to gather and peacefully protest. Having a 'tough shit it's the rules' attitude is what creates the 'tough shit, we don't like it' attitude that led to the American Revolution in the first place.
ed duval the very last person
I've made this point repeatedly to my friends... I'll state it here now. The problem with America today is that we suck so badly at math.
As an example, 200 people get sick eating tomatos.... Suddenly 300 million people stop buying tomatos... All because no one can do that math in their head and figure out that they only have a 0.000000667% chance of getting sick eating tomatos.
I routinely perform this kind of math in my head, if there are more than 3 zeros after the decimal point, I generally don't have to worry about it. The sensationalist media doesn't help, but if people could do a little fact checking on their own, then we could avoid 99% of the problems caused by overreaction.
Terrorism falls into a very similar place. Everyone is OK with this insane security system because its protecting us from a "threat" unfortunately, no one is good enough at math to realize your likelihood of dying in a car accident is way way higher than being killed by a terrorist. You can probably be killed 10 times over in car accidents on the way to the airport before you will be killed by a bomb on a plane... Where are the enhanced pat downs and mandatory breathalizer tests for everyone before they operate a motor vehicle? Not to mention why don't we turn cars into faraday cages to keep people off cell phones? And we really should look at automatic governors on cars to limit their top speed to 55mph, and limit the weight/hp ratio in all cars to something that will barely allow acceleration... Well... no lets just ban cars all together, they're way too dangerous.
Watching this make me feel sick.
I am not, not ever, never going to take my daughter to the US.
Now will I, except just maybe if my boss offers me 'go there or be fired' as a choice, go there myself.
Sorry guys... A line has been crossed here when a child is groped in the name of 'security'. This is plain wrong.
No, what they are doing isn't useful.
Yes, its ridiculous that we're being subjected to this kind of bullshit.
Yes, the fucking reporter should teach his fucking kid to behave and that throwing temper tantrums will get you a swift response. I promise you, my daughter would not behave like that in when she was that age.
The only thing truely evil about this particular video is the kids behavior. The TSA crap is bullshit, but theres nothing damning about the TSA here, its just a video of a kid throwing a temper tantrum because someone took her teddy bear away for 15 seconds.
Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
Wait! What was that sound?
Like an aeroplane, an aeroplane of the mind!
"Lost time is not found again."
I suggest freshly used adult diapers. Yes that means you wear them, as an added benefit you don't have to get up to go to the bathroom. If they pat you down, make sure ya poop em.
If this policy is to continue, I would hope that all TSA screeners would have to undergo the same level and detail of background checks as are required for any other person who works with young children (ie. teachers and so on). I doubt their current checks cover this, and it would at least set one baseline. It would also help if the TSA agents were required to be screened via pat-down by an independent security agency (maybe local law enforcement) before starting a shift - the extra costs for the local agency could come from the TSA budget.
I'm also wondering what their response would be if you requested that a sworn law enforcement official conduct any invasive searches of your person. They seem to have the option of pressing civil charges if you decline to be searched in any way, but opting to have the search conducted by someone who is more likely to be professional about it and actually be trained properly would seem to be a viable option and they shouldn't be able to decline you access to the facility for this request.
[All Your Fish Are Belong To Us]
+1 insightful. You can bankrupt Circuit City or Apple or even Microsoft via boycott. You cannot bankrupt the Monopoly known as government. They just suck the money direct from your paycheck.
Somebody else wrote:
>>>US to get to Hawaii then current [strike] compel you to submit to a security screening.
"Laws that are contrary to the Supreme Law (constitution) are nullities." - Thomas Jefferson.
"Laws declared unconstitutional are voided from the day of their creation; as if they never existed." 1810s Supreme Court.
and:
"We are not bound to obey or enforce the unconstitutional Fugitive Slave Act. We declare it nullified." - The Legislatures of the following Member States: MA, CT, VT, and PA during the 1840s. These states became places of asylum for people like Harriet Tubman.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
You're right. The whole thing is security theatre at its finest. That's been true for years. Does anybody really think that an old ladies sewing needles are a threat to the airplane?
Funny thing about that example: Knitting needles are explicitly allowed. 'course, who knows that's what the TSA agents are doing on the ground. Luckily, I have a set of modular circular needles made of plastic. Pop the ends off, and in an x-ray, they look like a set of pens. *shrug* OTOH, the cable would make a rather handy garrote...
What if it had been an hour later and the buildings had been full? What if it had been an older building that wasn't designed to collapse inward? Just because mass destruction wasn't caused, doesn't mean that there isn't the potential for it. A poison gas bomb detonated in the middle of a desert may only kill a few people, or no one at all. It's still a potential mass weapon. Again I'm not saying TSA isn't broken, in fact I say quite the opposite, just that there is a case for securing aircraft.
I don't need a million points of light, just two points of multi-mode fiber and a 10 Gig-E router.
Yeah, terrorists would never hide a bomb on a kid; just let all kids skip screening - I mean, come on, they're so small and cute. Oh wait, don't they do that all the time in Afghanistan and Iraq?
Presumably that's why it's effective; people don't expect it. The screening was warranted in my opinion.
What exactly? That depends on what the government thinks is newsworthy.
Seems like an extraordinarily risky method for a planned Op, hoping that the shoes don't get jostled going in, that the officer and passengers around you don't see you slip the knife under the shoes, ect ect so I wouldn't write off the effectiveness of security checkpoints simply because of that.
And as much as I'd like to dismiss it all as theater I honestly don't think the TSA really cares deeply about keeping sharp objects off the plane, because they are simply too easy to come by or even make, too hard to detect, and unlikely to be effective against the security of the plane itself anymore. Explosives/guns should be the main concern.
I hear 3 year olds are a terror.. They should be happy she wasn't put on the no fly list.
Possibility #1: The enhanced pat-downs and radiation-based scanners are here to stay, and the terrorists figure out how to sneak something in that won't be caught even with these scans. After something gets aboard an airplane there's a hew and cry and we get even tougher screening.
Possibility #2: Public outcry makes them go away then the terrorists figure out a way to sneak something in that only a radiation scanner or pat-down would catch an after a hew and cry the pat-downs and screenings come back.
In either case, the terrorists are laughing at us because they made us change our behavior and made America a more annoying place to visit which was their intended goal in the first place.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
WTF is up with this "flying is not a right" "driving is not a right" "the internet is not a right" stuff?
The Constitution doesn't tell us what our rights ARE, it tells us what the government CAN'T do. Just because it doesn't mention airplanes, cars, or the internet doesn't mean we shouldn't have the freedom to make up our own damn mind about what we want to do. The right to fly on a plane (if the plane is yours or agrees to carry you) is a part of the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. The right to drive on taxpayer-funded roads is part of the right to life, liberty, and happiness.
The government doesn't tell us what our rights are or aren't. The founding fathers espoused the belief that our rights are inherent to our humanity, that they transcend governmental decisions, and that they cannot be taken away without due process of law. The Constitution is also very clear about limits on what "due process of law" means - you can't be searched, and you can't have your papers (including computers, documents, or files) searched either, not without a warrant. They aren't allowed to mass-print warrants without evidence that a crime has occurred or is about to occur - *evidence*, not suspicion.
The TSA's actions are completely, utterly, and without recourse illegal under the laws described in the US Constitution. Unfortunately, the Constitution doesn't provide average citizens with any way to punish the people in power who perform these illegal acts or who mandate that these illegal acts be performed. Treason doesn't apply here, as much as I wish it did. We can't bring criminal charges against them, because a) courts won't hear cases brought by private citizens. Only a prosecutor can bring charges, and none of them will. b) any court cases involving these acts will be refused on the basis of national security, which is also illegal to do.
The problem is with our legal system, and with corrupt politicians in office, and with the mass apathy shown by the majority of the populace. I don't see any way out of this, but maybe smarter minds than mine will find something.
With member states like the England putting monitoring cameras EVERYWHERE, I don't find that argument very compelling. The problem is way too many people are going along with this crap out of fear. Sad how far we've fallen since The Greatest Generation.
We should not start frisking children, we should accept that once in a while a terrorist would get a bomb aboard and kill a lot of people. We should state up front, "we know it is easy to kill unarmed civilians. There is no fight, no glory in killing innocent people. But if you do kill a few of us, we can take the loss, and we will take our revenge. Living well is the best revenge, that is what we will do mostly. Also we will show how much we value our lives by the strong support and sympathy we show to every last one of us killed by you. Then we will spend as much money and effort it takes to hunt you down and bring you to justice."
Instead if we go down the path of, "we will not let you kill even one of us", their definition of success has been changed. All they have to do is to kill one American and claim victory. We should not allow them to define victory and success that way. Surest way to lose the war on terror is define success as, "not a single American could be killed by Terrorists".
It is a fact Islamic terrorists kill more muslims than non-muslims. We should repeatedly draw the contrast showing how we never say, "if we kill one terrorist it is worth 100 or 1000 American lives". But the terrorists repeatedly say, "killing one American is worth sacrificing XX or YY number of muslims".
The surest way to win the war on terror is, simply refuse to be terrorized.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
6 years ago I had to get on a last minute flight with my wife and 1 year old daughter. Because the ticket was purchased last minute we were subject to "Extra security screening" Which included a pat down of my 1 year old wearing nothing but a onesy and a diaper. To this day my wife and I laugh at the ridiculous measures that are in place especially around children.
Opt-out DAY is in itself Theater.
Boycot flying is the only real way to bring pressure.
Not everyone can avoid it to be sure. But if employees start resisting business travel, or demanding financial accomodation for surrendering to sexual groping, employers will take notice. Airlines will take notice.
One day? Nobody will take notice, especially since most people planned and bought tickets in advance and have too much sunk costs to back out.
This really needs a legal test.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
Travel season is starting. That's why. Not to mention the pat-down is now an "enhanced" pat-down. Correct me if I'm wrong on the "enhanced" pat-down being a semi-recent change.
It's new and it's great! This TSA agent is a hero for following the rules. Sometimes playing badly for the other team is MORE effective than playing well for your own team.
This is the best news yet. Now the "Think of the Children" bastards that condone this garbage in the first place have to start re-thinking their cause.
Protest all you want but ONE guy taking a job for the TSA and following their own rules to the letter would do more for the cause of freedom than 100 vocal citizens.
No jury in this country would convict a parent of this kid from clocking the Gestapo agent ... um, TSA "agent" ... for such a pervy thing.
It's time to just refuse to give up our rights - this backscatter x-ray and search thing is the last straw.
And what gets me, as someone with counter-terrorism and demolitions/concealment experience is that it DOES NOT work in stopping terrorist attacks.
Four out of Five attempts to get items thru TSA screening - including this - succeed.
And you still are at more risk of terrorist attacks in your car than on a plane.
Resist and stand up for your Rights!
We are Americans, not Sheep!
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
Yes, exactly.
There is no new threat. This whole new procedure it to force people thru the new scanners and to shut people up about the visual invasion of privacy.
Goon squad tactics at best.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
Sorry, but you getting from MD to California so you can attend a meeting on Friday is not a right.
Personally, I'd prefer to have my 4th Amendment rights back.
Also, the TSA is an economic disaster for the US tourist industry - hotels, airlines, convention centers, rental car companies, theme parks, and more. I recently succeeded in convincing the organizers of an international conference to move the 2012 meeting from Philadelphia to Toronto so that convention attendees would not have to deal with the TSA. That will cost Philadelphia businesses about $2 million that the visitors would have spent.
Under Sec. Napolitano and Mr. Pistole, the TSA has become a militaristic power, responsible to no one. That allows them to get away with fondling small children, preventing law-abiding citizens from traveling, and costing a fortune in lost time to stand in lengthening lines that separate travelers from their destinations. The only people who benefit are those who sell $3 bottles of water after security, and the employees of the TSA, who might otherwise have to flip burgers.
American readers of Slashdot: please send messages to your elected representatives in DC and stop the TSA assault on American citizens and visitors to the US. Ask your local governments to support you in the name of their own economic interests, especially if your home is a destination for travelers. Lobbying and money will speak louder than the ACLU.
I am saying that situation is already solved. Lock the fucking cabin door. Done and done.
Just remember during Vietnam we lost a lot of troopers with wired kids. As sad it was it still could be.
Jack
The security part is about 25 seconds into this clip. While Airplane II wasn't nearly as good as Airplane!, it had its moments:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PyAautx-mVc [youtube.com]
TSA...Your safety is our excuse.
For your security, this post has been encrypted with ROT-13, twice.
do you seriously think I'll ever fly to the US again while this bullshit is going on?
I am forced to travel to patdownistan for my work, but one of the many reasons I am looking for alternate employment is that I hate all the bullshit that goes along with business travel these days.
If libertarians are so opposed to effective government, why don't they all move to Somalia?
Not being searched without specific articulable cause presented to a judge and confirmed with a signed warrant IS.
Can we get a "-1 Wrong" moderation option?
The TSA has recently "enhanced" their physical exploration of travelers, to encourage them to instead subject themselves to virtual strip searches. This is part of that. It's called "news".
http://alternatives.rzero.com/
See, fear mongers? That idiotic line is a double edged sword.
Then secure the aircraft. Groping my family has nothing to do with it.
Can we get a "-1 Wrong" moderation option?
What if a suicide bomber manages to smuggle explosives on board a plane inside the body?
Oh and I'd like to apply for a TSA job specializing in examining teenage girls. Sounds like an exciting career path.
thegodmovie.com - watch it
The video is a perfectly clear example of why Copyright suck.
In order to form an immaculate member of a flock of sheep one must, above all, be a sheep.
The ninth amendment says nothing about airplanes. It say you may have some other rights. One might just as well interrupt that as having a right not to have airplanes run into your buildings. The fourth amendment says the government can't force you to submit to a search. They're not forcing you. You don't HAVE to get on that plane. They're not going to send you jail if you don't submit to the search, they're not letting you get on the plane.
The fact that you can't conveniently get across the country without getting on the plane isn't the government's problem. They aren't preventing you from traveling, they're preventing you from traveling via commercial aircraft. You could take a private plane. You could drive. You could take a bus or a train. You could walk. Your 9 AM meeting is not the government's problem. Airplanes running into buildings are the government's problem.
Again, I'm not defending the TSA or the way we do airport security, but saying that he 4th amendment protects you from airport security is just stupid. The government cannot force you to submit to a search of your person without a warrant, it can and will force you to submit to a search of your person before allowing you into certain areas of its sphere of control. As long as the only penalty is not allowing you into that area, there's no legal issue.
I don't need a million points of light, just two points of multi-mode fiber and a 10 Gig-E router.
Just practice this skit: http://www.hulu.com/watch/47604/saturday-night-live-snl-digital-short-j-in-my-pants
Then after the pat down, do your best impression lol
Or if you prefer the government not get to keep snapshots of your junk.
Whoever modded this insightful needs their head examined. Listen to yourself. Let's apply the same logic to another situation. Leaving your house isn't a right. They aren't saying "submit to a search". They're saying "submit to a search or you can't leave your house." The Supreme Court has recognized freedom of movement as a right established under the United States Constitution. While an airline would be within their rights to establish prerequisites to flying as a private organization the government has no right to do so.
Not that I actually consider glass to be a risk, mind - worst case scenario someone gets a few cuts before the hijacker is jumped by 150 other passengers - but it's more of a risk than most of what they're confiscating.
You remember that one only needs to cut through a single major artery to kill a person?
I have a 3 year old daughter who certainly has her emotional moments. As a father, I can not imagine standing by and digging out my cell phone to record someone upsetting my kid. The more appropriate thing to do would be to calm my little girl, explain what is happening and just get through it. To me, this is less about the actions of the TSA and more about the inaction of someone who is supposed to be protecting their child.
I'm European, my last flights were last week, so after those Yemen bomb attempts. I'm glad it hasn't, at least yet, caused any extra procedures to appear here in the EU. Anyway, somehow I always set metal detectors off. Must be my shoes. Last week, same as usual - walk through the metal detector, with my shoes on, the metal detector beeps, a security guard does a quick and professional pat-down. That's pretty quick, efficient and secure enough without resorting to outright humiliating treatment.
As much as I hate to say this, in a way this story is good news. I really am sorry for the family that had to go through this. But my perception of the American public is like that of a strong, sleepy bear. Might allow someone to poke him but once poked hard enough, it awakens and becomes very dangerous. It might be true that Americans have allowed too much civil liberty erosion in the past decade (at least judging from online news) but I have confidence that what America needs is a story or two that would make national headlines. A search of a panicking 3-year-old might well be it. Or let some TSA employee be caught on camera jerking off to images from the body-scan machines. Or let someone record TSA employees discussing the dick sizes of people sent through the process. A story that can make headlines in mainstream news, not just Slashdot, and is outrageous enough might just cause the society to raise a big enough stink about it so the government is forced to back down.
And explosives taking a wing off while over a heavily populated area wouldn't accomplish the same basic thing as getting into the cabin? A little less precise maybe, but still a massive potential for death and destruction.
I don't need a million points of light, just two points of multi-mode fiber and a 10 Gig-E router.
Reading the slashdot summary, my first thought was, "This has setup written all over it". I mean, the kid is throwing a tantrum, and the parent doesn't order the kid to be quite and walk "over there" (i.e. through the scanner) and you'll get your teddy bear back. Then, the parent "just happens" to be a reporter.
I'd almost be willing to stake money that the reporter set this situation up, perhaps even *coached* his 3-year old, to create the situation he wanted so he could get the video he wanted.
I'd also just like to echo the sentiment that someone else posted - if you accept that such searching is legitimate for *anyone*, then you must accept it for *everyone*. You cannot make exceptions, because as soon as you do, "The Terrorists" will figure it out and use a member of whatever 'exempted' groups you allow to pass screening. It doesn't matter if someone is an 80 year old white person, or a 3 year old baby, they can be exploited. In the case of babies, it not be completely implausible that a terrorist might use their own babies to smuggle something in through screening (after all, they don't have to put their baby on the plane that they're gonna blow up - they just need to get material in through screening; I wouldn't even completely put it past a real hard-line terrorist to sacrifice their own kid, although I'd find that scenario less likely than just using the baby as a mule in the airport).
As for anyone who is older, anyone could potentially be exploited - say a terrorist group kidnaps some old white church-lady-from-Ohio's (who you wouldn't suspect of ever being involved in terror) granddaughter, then tells the grandmother that unless she does exactly what she's told, her granddaughter will disappear forever and become a sex slave who's beaten every day for the rest of her short life, or murdered. I suppose some people might have the courage to resist the terrorists in that case, and tip off the TSA, but I bet there are some people who'd decide to try to 'protect' their granddaughter, even if that means other people die.
By the way, just by making the *decision* to exempt any group, you give the terrorists an incentive to specifically target that group. By not exempting anyone, you are protecting everyone to some degree.
Had the Founding Fathers conceived of the day when vehicular travel was considered not a right, they would have included it in the Bill Of Rights. Indeed, one of the strong arguments against a "bill of rights" was that absence of a right from enumeration could/would be construed as non-existence thereof - hence the catch-all 9th Amendment.
The Constitution enumerates what powers the government is granted. None of those powers precludes his right to fly cross-country to a meeting, nor permit gross violations of other enumerated rights as a condition of that right, just because it is not enumerated.
Can we get a "-1 Wrong" moderation option?
would you have told Rosa parks that she could have walked if she didn't want to sit in the back of the bus too?
letting an idiot know they are an idiot is not a game... it's a responsibility. - by Kristopeit, M. D. (1892582)
This kind of idiocy is a classic example of a slippery slope. It's fine to take away rights if people opt in to flying, because no one has to fly. By the same logic, it's also fine to take them away if people go on a boat - after all, no one has to go on a boat. Same with a train, or crossing the border in a car. Or even driving down a public highway in a car. After all, you don't have to do any of these things - you can spend your life in your own lead-lined house and not have your privacy violated.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
Complete security is impossible. The Founders who wrote the Constitution realized that, and reasonably favored liberty over security. Gradually reducing our liberties in an a vain effort to make us safer only leaves us less free.
Here's the thing. This is exactly the terrorists' plan.
... or if a passenger chooses not to submit to being showered with radiation inside a device with untested health effects.
If libertarians are so opposed to effective government, why don't they all move to Somalia?
If you have any children you know that all 3 year olds should be checked, they're crazy and you never know what they are packing!
can bankrupt Circuit City or Apple or even Microsoft via boycott. You cannot bankrupt the Monopoly known as government. They just suck the money direct from your paycheck.
That isn't quite true. You can't avoid buying the "product", but the government can still find itself bankrupt because the Laffer Curve has a maximum. At some point there's simply no way for the government to raise more revenue, because every new tax reduces the economy accordingly. We pretty close to that point now, and sadly, approaching bankruptcy if other countries decline to lend us more money.
Maybe we could delay that day by entirely defunding the TSA! Sounds win-win to me - TSA airport security is no higher than when we just had a metal detector and an X-Ray, and no security lines, it's just more intrusive.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
Please explain the H^H^H^H thing (I realize that it can be other characters, but following the format of ^ ^ ^ ^ ^). I've never understood it.
Does anybody really think that an old ladies sewing needles are a threat to the airplane?
Didn't you hear about the Sleeping Beauty fairy tale ? The needle is poisoned. Excepted that instead of a 115-year-old lady looking like a 15-year-old girl, you would have a 15-year-old-girl looking like a 115-year-old lady.
I have discovered a truly marvelous proof of killer sig, which this margin is too narrow to contain.
Paraphrased from a popular movie, the point in still intact:
"I do, like many of you, appreciate the comforts of every day routine- the security of the familiar, the tranquility of repetition. I enjoy them as much as any bloke. But in the spirit of guarding our civil liberties, thereby those important events of the past, associated with the deaths of those who fought and bled, and even fled for our freedoms ... I thought we could mark recent events by taking some time out of our daily lives to sit down and have a little chat.
There are of course those who do not want us to speak out. Why? Because while the the threat of imprisonment may be used in lieu of explanation or accountability, words will always retain their power. For those who will listen, the enunciation of truth... and the truth is, there is something terribly wrong with this country, isn't there?
Cruelty and injustice, intolerance and oppression. And where once you had the freedom to object, to think and speak as you saw fit, you now have officials threating you with arrest, sexual harrassement and systems of surveillance coercing your conformity and soliciting your submission.
How did this happen? Who's to blame?
Well certainly there are those more responsible than others, we the people must hold them accountable, but again truth be told, if you're looking for the guilty, you need only look into a mirror. I know why you did it. I know you were afraid. Who wouldn't be? War, terrorism, bomb scares. There were a myriad of problems which conspired to corrupt your reason and rob you of your common sense. Fear got the best of you, and in your fear you allowed your representatives to turn to the TSA. They promised you order, he promised you safety, and all they demanded in return was your silent, obedient consent.
Even now as we speak, your fellow citizens and seek to end that silence. To expose the abuses of those in power in the name of security and to remind this country of what it has forgotten.
More than two hundred years ago, our forefathers wished to embed inalienable rights to society within the document enumerating the supreme law of the land. Their hope was to remind the world that fairness, justice, and freedom are more than words, they are perspectives. So if you've seen nothing, if the crimes of this government remain unknown to you then I would suggest you allow the 24th of November to pass unmarked. But if you see what I see, if you feel as I feel, and if you would seek as I seek, then I ask you to stand beside your fellow citizens, outside the X-ray scanners and security gates of the TSA, and together we shall give them a 24th of November that they shall not forget."
I know someone who has done these types of tests too - a couple of months ago he was taking a dismantled gun & bullets through security. He'd gone through ok, but one of the guards noticed his government id (has to carry that handy, for obvious reasons) and they re-searched his bag & found the gun. Never found the bullets, though, and he was pretty sure that if they hadn't seen the id he'd have been home free.
Video is not available in germany. youtube claims copyright issues with "tribune"
Makes me wonder if one could organize a flashmob of folks planning to travel on a certain day to opt out of the machine scans and play up a desire to be touched when security searches them. "Oh baby, frisk me one more time!"
Um, yes, but I'm fairly sure that if you decide to LEAVE the airport without flying and not being groped/scanned, you do have a right to do so. Except in that case the TSA has threatened to sue for about $10k...
You don't even need to be willing to kill the child, since people going though the same security checks end up in the same room on the other side at a lot of airports, even though they're bound for different planes. Even if they didn't, just get the child to scream and scream until it gets thrown off the plan after boarding.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
We the people should try to make the US more like the EU - most of the power remains reserved to the Member States while the central government's powers are few and limited.
This comment probably made a lot of Slashdot's EU readers chuckle.
"Of all tyrannies a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victim may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated, but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience."
-- C. S. Lewis
It's true no man is an island, but if you take a bunch of dead guys and tie 'em together, they make a good raft.
The little girl's reaction was the parents fault. If the parents corrected her and calmed her down there wouldn't have been all that drama.
You remember that one only needs to cut through a single major artery to kill a person?
True, but how many arteries to crash a plane?
It is what it is.
We were flying back from Atlanta and it was myself, my 3 year old and my nine month old. I have always work an ergo (no metal components in it) to carry my son as anyone with kids knows traveling with kids requires taking a ton of crap. We went through the metal detector and the agent said we had to get patted down because he was in a harness. It was funny because the agent that was tasked with doing the pat down was confused and went back to check if we had actually set off the metal detector. The agent at the detector said we had not but had to get patted down because it was TSA policy that if I was wearing the carrier, we both had to get patted down. I could tell the agent that did the pat down was completely embarrassed by the incident.
Sadly, I don't feel any safer with the new procedures.
This is a very dangerous attitude to have. There is a reason that, in the US, 'right' is inherently granted and law only restricts. Law does not 'grant' rights.
Think of the bill of rights. What is the language? Not, "you have the right to do this," but "the government shall not."
We the people should try to make the US more like the EU - most of the power remains reserved to the Member States while the central government's powers are few and limited.
We tried that once. It was called the Articles of Confederation.
I've always wondered why terrorists didn't just blow themselves up in the airport at the screening center. Just as effective, just as terrifying, etc. However, I just realized why they don't... They'd be killing their allies, the TSA! What's the definition of a terrorist anyways? Something about striking fear into the hearts of people? What's the TSA doing? Hmmm...
You do have to watch out for those toddlers. Have you seen the kinds of drugs they have 3 year olds on these days?
http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
That said, we do aircraft security poorly. Current methods are crude, invasive, and let through as much as they stop. What's the right answer? I don't know. We clearly need some form of aircraft security, but the way we do it now is reactive, incomplete, and embarrassing for everyone involved. Not to mention a huge waste of time, and causing little girls to cry.
We could ask Israel. I've flown out of Tel Aviv (admittedly, a few years ago, so my memory is fuzzy) and it was a hell of a lot more pleasant than the stories I'm seeing out of the US. And both El Al and Ben Gurion Airport are considered some of the most (if not the most) secure in the world. (Info from Wikipedia, but cited over there.)
Not just threatened. Charges were actually filed and the fines are piling up.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Seriously, all this security theatre stuff is basically giving in to the terrorists.
The only way to win against terrorists is to *ignore* them and go about your life as before. I do like your ideas about supporting those affected. It might not be a bad idea to look at the root causes of terrorism as well.
its the PEDOBEAR!
I will not be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, debriefed or numbered. My life is my own.
Any argument can be reduced to absurdity. The absurd reduction of your is that if the government has no right to search anyone without a warrant ever, then it essentially has no right to any secure facilities at all. Courthouses, military bases, police stations, they should all take down their security check points and let anyone wander in or out with anything they want. Hey prisons to! We don't need to check people walking into prisons for weapons they may turn over to inmates.
There are lots of places you can't go without some form of security check, because of the danger to 1) yourself 2) others 3) information the government has deemed sensitive. Airplanes are one of them. Right to movement is certainly a right. You can move freely throughout the country without documentation, just not necessarily on a commercial aircraft.
I don't need a million points of light, just two points of multi-mode fiber and a 10 Gig-E router.
Nah, it's pretty much a daily thing for him.
sure, with the proper video, at the right angle, someone could in fact use it to bring some of these agents to court for molesting a minor, and that would put a major dent in someone wanting to pat down a minor....
Agent>Now let's see, if i was a nail clipper , where would i be hiding, oh yes....right here in your private genitals....
Father>What the hell are you doing
Agent>It's ok, we are airport security we can do what we want when we want....see I am checking out your kid's privates and there is nothing you can do....now let me get back to inspecting the kids genitals please...
Seriously, I have no kid, but anyone that does could set it up, and video it, and start the process of going to the courts, to see if this insanity will finally stop!!!
Off Topic: Are you saying that we cannot expect our government employees to have good decision making skills and professionalism with only 12 years of training? I'm not saying I disagree with you. It's just that nobody makes your point when the topic is education.
Based on the information in the wikipedia entry for here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extremely_high_frequency
it looks like the scans would have trouble seeing through wet clothes.
This will, of course, lead to strip searches if you can just hide stuff underneath your wet underwear.
Every time some three letter agency (this is the important keyword) does something despicable we start throwing fireballs at it instead of directing our anger at the correct entity or entities the Congress, the Senate, the President. It is pointless to attack the Agent while the Principal allowed to watch the show. IRS or TSA is not the real problem, they are just actors they are mostly covering their own asses.
There's nothing wrong with searching people getting on flights.
Funny how we did just fine for 40+ years of commercial air travel without it. The risk of dying in a plane crash is tiny to start with -- about 1 in 11 million -- and the risk of being the victim of a terrorist attack is smaller still. This is a) a waste of taxpayer dollars in simple terms of ROI, b) a violation of the 4th Amendment by all but the most extreme of standards, c) a clear and present example of the "slippery slope" principle in action. First metal detectors, then x-rays, then luggage searches, then shoe removal, then body scanners, then pat downs, then "enhanced" pat downs (are those anything like enhanced interrogation techniques?), and what's next? It's obscene. It's allowing ourselves to behave in a terrorized fashion. And I have no qualms about someone seeing me naked, or irrational fear of what amounts to little more than background radiation. It's not about that. It's the principle of subjecting ourselves (and our loved ones) to degrading, unnecessary, ineffective, overreaching, and (IMO) unconstitutional practices just because someone yells "Boo!" It's outrageous that people allow themselves to be cowed like this.
Look, if the "turrists" want to get us, they can. There are ample opportunities where huge amounts of people congregate that dwarf the contents of any plane (or any 4 planes for that matter), many with little or no security. Even putting aside the idea that there's no such thing as foolproof security, even if we secure those locations, they'll just pick others. Playing whack-a-mole is not the way to win -- the way to win is not to play that game.
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
Mod++ Devious. Twisted. And probably 100% true. :-)
You can ship packages UPS Ground to Hawaii so why not?
Ascalante: Your bride is over 3,000 years old.
Kull: She told me she was 19!
Ah the love it or leave it attitude.
Comply or die...
Since when is it constitutional to treat every traveler as if they are a criminal?
If it is so neccesary, why dont we extend that thinking to every other aspect of our culture by law. (We've already done it mentally).
In other words, we already treat people as guilty until proven innocent. Being searched at an airport is guilty until proven innocent by search.
In every way this is a violation of civil rights. How we justify it... well thats another thing. But this is a violation of civil rights and the ideals we hold dear.
I understand the balance between security and rights, its a tough one to sort out at times.... and everyone has a right to land safely at their destination... in theory.
You see because more planes crash due to mechanical failure than terrorism. Terrorism is such a tiny risk factor when flying. It's more likely you will crash due to a mechanical failure.
Our country was founded long before many of these marvelous inventions... cars for example. Do you have a right to drive? The founding fathers would probably say you do, if you so chose... and that the government should not be saying who can and can not drive. Did the government say who can and can not own horses? I actually do not know that answer... I'd be curious to know.
Tell me, exactly what does the US government have to do to its citizens for it to be newsworthy?
Tax them. Apparently, that's the only government activity that's objectionable.
Flying isn't a right.
This isn't for the government to decide. The bill of rights pretty plainly lays that out. Whatever rights and privileges are not described in the constitution are left to the people. Not only does the bill of rights not give the government the right to invasive search without probably cause, it specifically excludes it. The federal government, by order of the most foundational laws of the country, may not, no matter how badly they want to, or how safe it would make us, perform such searches as a precondition to allowing citizens to fly.
Only one, considering sky marshals carry firearms and therefore present a source for better ways to down a plane.
Sounds more to me like he wants to get from MD to California to drink alcohol and have sex with people of the same gender.
For those of you without kids:
I've traveled domestically and abroad 14 times in the last 4 years, with a 1 through 4 year old, plus gear. At 1, they don't notice. At two and three, she would reliably freak out at security. My conclusions: The wait tests her patience. The packing/unpacking, undressing/dressing, unstrollering/strollering, takes away all of her comfort. Then, her mother walks away, through a big machine, towards a person with a wand.
We've learned it's best if mom goes first carrying nothing but a boarding pass, so that my daughter walks through the machine, to her mother. Then I follow, with absolutely all the gear. Often there is a meltdown, but then one parent is 100% focused on it, while the other worries about stuff, repeat scans, etc.
Now three of those twelve times, security has helped us a lot. In JFK, Hong Kong, and Beijing, they pulled us aside, and screened us in the priority/first-class lane. There's fewer people, a more enclosed space, and less overall distraction.
This post is just about kids and travel trouble; everyone else has the body-cavity-searches-sucks thread covered.
Beware: I believe all are created equal, and have the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
I agree that flying on a commercial airline is not a right (though there is a right to build one's own aircraft and fly it in "common" air space, so long as one obeys reasonable safety restrictions regarding other traffic, but that's another post).
What commercial flying is, however, is a contractual arrangement between the passenger and the airline, and the government has no business interfering with that contract. The entire regime of commercial airline security is a blatant overstepping of the power granted to the government by the U.S. constitution.
How could air travel be safe, without this intrusion, you ask? Um, who has more interest in striking the correct balance between security and convenience than the airlines themselves, and the passengers that choose to contract with them? Some airlines would install a completely laissez-faire regime, and passengers who value convenience (or are easily embarrassed, or whatever) will choose to take that risk. Other airlines will promise colonoscopies and the fearful or very extroverted will select that carrier. Most likely, the airlines will spend lots of money on hiring very good people to staff and lead this increasingly important part of their business, and we would all benefit greatly from the higher quality and choice that would ensue.
Then, the government could focus on doing what it does best, which is bringing the fury of the U.S. armed forces to bear on the states that harbor and support the groups that actually perpetrate these acts, before they are able to organize and implement them.
If humans are mostly water, and beer is mostly water, then humans must be mostly beer.
I do have a right to get on the plane. I purchased a ticket. I completed a business transaction. I did not sign away my rights as part of that deal. There is no justification to take away my rights in the name of security. I have the right to get on the plane I paid to be on, they do not have the right to take my rights away. If I didn't have the right to be on that plane, I would not have a ticket, and the airline would not have my money. If I pay the bus driver, I have every right to be on that bus.
I've always been able to place them on the conveyor myself.
You do that before you get to the airport, not after.
When you tell someone that something like that isn't happening, and you don't have a clue whether this is the case or not, and you know that nothing has been done so that this doesn't happen, it is an outright lie.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ASCII#ASCII_control_characters
^H (control + H) is backspace.
Even the TSA has stated that the recent methods are likely to be uncomfortable for many, especially those who have been victimized by molestation.
How about you turn it around on them?
Genitals and breasts are vigorously groped instead of the older method of using the backs of the hands only.
You had me at "vigorously grouped". How about everyone who goes to the airport on national opt-out day take a Viagra beforehand?
Putting moderation advice in your
I haven't flown recently (and don't plan to), so I don't know the detail of the new groping procedure. Do they actually stick their hands in your pants?? And do they change their gloves between passengers? I really hope the person in front of you doesn't have an open herpes sore.
If they do touch children's genitals (even over clothing), then need to be charged with sexual assault of a minor. I shouldn't have to explain to my 4 year old daughter that no stranger should ever touch your vagina, except for federal officals.
I also think all people going through the terahertz and x-ray scanners should file FOIA requests for the pictures taken of them. These will naturally be denied since the TSA says they don't save the images. I also think this is a complete lie, and it's only a matter of time before high-res TSA image sets get leaked onto bittorrent or wikileaks. The FOIA requests will provide legal documentation of the TSA's lies when the images are finally leaked.
The only way for the TSA to fix this, that I can see, is to actively do racial/culteral/religious profiling and interviewing. A side benefit of this would be that Al Qaeuda would have to start recruiting outside of the Young Male Arab demographic, which might make it easier for us to infiltrate them.
^H is the Backspace control code
E pluribus unum
It still makes me wonder how this is not a violation of the warrant-less search and seizure clause.
I mean, innocent until proven guilty, probably cause does not exist (does it?) so searching someone in an airport would (IMO) be a warrant-less search unless there's a judge standing at the gates and the TSA agent is asked to swear by oath that the person that just walked through the door has committed a crime.
Every time I start to have faith in humanity, I ruin it by driving to work between 7 and 8 am.
Why is parent modded flamebait?
Where do you get a love it or leave it attitude in my post? I think there's lots of things wrong with this country. I think the way we do airport security is wrong (as I've said about 15 times in this thread). I'm just saying that this particular argument for this particular issue is fallacious. The 4th amendment prevents the government from *forcing you* to submit a search. There is no force here. You either voluntarily submit to the search, or you don't fly commercial air. If there were no travel alternatives to commercial air, their might be a stronger case for this being "force", but there are. Lots of them. Some are even faster, though generally more expensive.
I don't need a million points of light, just two points of multi-mode fiber and a 10 Gig-E router.
I'm relieved that the TSA is finally stepping up to protect us from the threat of three year olds with explosive diahrrhea.
But (at least in the US) if California decided to put up cameras everywhere, people could have a choice and move to another state without needing a passport, etc.
Every time I start to have faith in humanity, I ruin it by driving to work between 7 and 8 am.
300 million people living in fear with little rights to their own privacy or personal space > the chance a plane goes down once in a while.
Before the "take off your shoes" nonsense, I used to wear lightweight hiking shoes when flying. Better ankle support. So, one time I'm flying out of PDX (Portland OR) and I go through the metal detector -- BING BING!
I get wanded, and when they get to my feet, BING BING! They make me take them off and then carry them over to another Xray machine. The dope is telling me "your shoes have metal plates in them. " I know that is ridiculous. It's a lie. I say so. The dope tells me, well, sometimes they put a metal plate in the sole of one "by accident". I say that he's full of shit.
So, to prove me wrong, he takes me over to the xray machine where he says the image from my shoes is still on the screen. Except what is on the screen is obviously a full-sized, calf-high boot -- not like mine at all. Complete bullshit.
What this dope did not know, or did not admit, is that the metal wanding process at Portland Airport was being done without raising your feet off the floor, and the wand was reacting, every time, to the REBAR in the concrete flooring. EVERYONE who got wanded had metal-shanked shoes! Obviously!
Security theater at its best. Or worst.
Now we xray all boots, even metal containing ones, so all a bad guy has to do is put his knife in the sole of his boot and take it out when he gets on the plane. Oh, wait, this is clearly impossible. Never mind.
Hm....groped by one individual who will then have to recall the event from memory in order to humiliate me to his co-workers, or scanned by a machine that produces a humiliating picture for all those present in the room to see (and potentially to share with others; even if the machine doesn't save the pictures - and they do - people can still use their camera phone...)
I'll take the groping. It's more embarrassing for the groper to touch me than it is for them to see a picture of me.
:(){
"He who sacrifices freedom for security deserves neither." - Benjamin Franklin
I'm military. When I'm given an order to go somewhere, I haven't a choice. I have no intrinsic right to *not* get on the plane. So I'm in the army to protect the rights of citizens, but the government is taking them away...
Anyone else catch the date at the start of the video? It looks like April 9, 2009 to me. While upsetting this is still over two years old
It is as much a non-story as anyone else going through "enhanced" screening, yes, but people seem to care more when it happens to a child. Of course, not screening children would open an obvious vulnerability -- nevermind the fact that body cavities, and the screeners themselves for that matter, are a much greater vulnerability. When can we stop pretending that security theater is anything other than a mild deterrent? Nobody who's willing to risk getting caught by a metal detector is going to be deterred by a body scan or a pat down, random or otherwise.
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
it's a huge multi-ton craft moving at incredibly high speed and maneuverable on a three dimensional axis; in short a potential weapon of mass destruction.
Then semis, trucks, vans, and cars are just smaller weapons of mass destruction?
I guess we need more regulations to let us travel in our privately own property.
Planes are different, you say? Well, they're privately owned property too.
People are paying for a service (to fly place to place). They are not paying for the service of being scanned by the TSA.
As for me, I bought my nonrefundable tickets before these damnable scanners were installed at San Jose airport. So for many of us, the airlines have our money, and short of a lawsuit, we don't really have a choice but to put up with it. Next year, however, I'll be getting a sleeper car on Amtrak. Even traveling halfway across the country, it's absolutely worth it to me to pay several times as much and spend three times as long just to not have to put up with the TSA's bullshit.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
Sure it is. The goverment has an obligation to enable/regulate interstate commerce. By mandating that you have to drive where someone else may fly, they are impeding in that.
Every time I start to have faith in humanity, I ruin it by driving to work between 7 and 8 am.
Explosives aren't going to take off a wing unless there is a LOT of boom. Small explosives are more likely to cause sudden decompression, which can rapidly damage a plane if it occurs at altitude. This reduces the chance of the plan going down and hitting a heavily populated area.
If you want to take the plane down over a heavily populated area, it's rapidly approaching the point where DIYing a SAM would be far easier than getting the amount of explosives required to take down a plane from inside at low altitudes onto a plane.
Yes, I agree that in general, the TSA could do a better job with their PR and interact with the public with a little more respect, but what do you legitimately expect them to do? There are those that will say it's "security theater" and that people who want to get explosives on a plane will find a way. Ok, fine, I can agree with that. So these people might say that the TSA should just give up because their searches won't catch the really determined terrorists. Seriously? Just give up, that's your answer? If I was one of those really determined terrorists, one of my first thoughts would be to get the crabbiest kid I could find, and load her up with explosives in the hope that the TSA guys will just let her go through when she pitches a hissy fit. These guys actually did their job, and they catch hell for it. Can someone point out exactly what the point of this article is (i.e. what was done improperly)?
Pure gold, baby.
Would you have that attitude about cars if someone started detonating car bombs in populated areas? After all, you can walk right?
I don't have a problem with licenses or real security, but this is way too fucking far. I'm sorry you don't see it that way.
E pluribus unum
Sign up for a job with the TSA. All the kiddy-groping you could want, fully legal.
I'd suggest driving out of the US and getting on a plane from a sane country.
Again, I'm not defending the TSA or the way we do airport security, but saying that he 4th amendment protects you from airport security is just stupid. The government cannot force you to submit to a search of your person without a warrant, it can and will force you to submit to a search of your person before allowing you into certain areas of its sphere of control. As long as the only penalty is not allowing you into that area, there's no legal issue.
So if people start setting off car bombs you would be ok with government mandated searches of your car every time you bring it onto a government constructed highway? After all, you can walk right?
E pluribus unum
The bit about being threatened with lawsuits was in reference to a recent case in San Diego where a passenger was asked to leave the airport by security when he wouldn't consent to the enhanced search and was then threatened with a lawsuit for doing so.
Fixed that for you :)
The 9th amendment doesn't need to say anything about planes or spaceships for that matter. The genius of the US constitution is that the founders crafted it in such a way that said the government can and cannot do x,y,z and everything else is an inherent right of being human. There is a large and interesting discussion between the writers about enumerating any rights at all because they were afraid they could be construed as you have done - that they are listed out and finite.
Also, at this point there will NEVER be another plane turned missile. That was a one time chance that Al Queda used effectively, but going forward they will have to kill every single person on the plane to do it again and I just don't see that happening. If you think about it further you'll see that 9/11 nearly put a halt to all plane hijackings. From now on if any hijacking starts to occur there will be a huge fight on the plane whereas before people were taught to go with it and they would eventually be let off.
We tried that, back in 1860... the Fed government didn't like it, not one bit at all...
Don't blame me, I voted for Kodos
The fourth amendment says the government can't force you to submit to a search. They're not forcing you. You don't HAVE to get on that plane. They're not going to send you jail if you don't submit to the search, they're not letting you get on the plane.
Actually, if you refuse to submit to the search, you're subjected to a civil suit and a $10,000 fine. You can't just say "no" and then leave the security area.
Not quite the same as sending you to prison, no... but enough of a threat nonetheless.
The libertarian solution to the failures of capitalism is to apply more capitalism til the failures are fixed.
reject being scanned. request pat-down. take off clothes prior to pat-down. hilarity ensues. indecency is already abound, why not add some more.
It's worth noting that this video is actually ~3 years old and, while what happened is objectionable, it was not done under the recently changed policies. Take note of the color of the TSA screener's shirts (white).
This article is the first I've heard of that, and I completely agree that it's screwed up.
I don't need a million points of light, just two points of multi-mode fiber and a 10 Gig-E router.
I, for one, feel much safer knowing the TSA is protecting us from impressionable minds warped by too much Dora the Explorer.
Because no one has ever planted explosives on a child before...
One might insert the typical "turn in your geek card" witty retort, but having a reason to know this probably goes back twenty years or more. As others explained, it's the backspace control code (and ^W does whole words).
The reason it's a "thing" is because it didn't always work on all terminals with all software. To make it simple, imagine an email to your boss that says, "sir, I strongly disagree with..." but shows up on the bosses terminal as "you bumbling ass^W^W^Wsir, you're an idiot^W^W^WI strongly disagree with..."
BEHAVIOR profling, you fucktard.
See you're a primary example of what's wrong with the US.
This is pretty extreme. With the "enhanced" pat downs, I would not be surprised at all if this girl starts showing signs of PTSD similar to those of other children that have been molested.
I see the glass as full with a FoS of 2.
SECURITY BROADWAY, Iron Curtain, Wednesday — In the wake of Transport Security Administration staff forcing a "full pat-down" on a three-year-old child, Catholic priests have been clamouring to work for the government department.
The TSA, which has apprehended only slightly less than one terrorist in its nine years of operation, welcomed the new recruits to the fold. "We need people with experience in dealing with young people," said TSA head John Pistole, "in telling people what to do and in making the innocent feel guilty. And the enthusiasm! They're not your typical bored minimum-wager, no way! Also, they have better uniforms."
Mr Pistole reiterated the patriotic duty that drives the TSA in their work. "Fondling little girls' genitals is vital to protecting America from TERRORISTS. Remember: if TSA staff can't finger your daughter, the TERRORISTS have won!" He then strangled a kitten for our photographer.
Cardinal Bernard Law returned to America from the Vatican especially for the opportunity to create government-funded child pornography with the new "naked" scanners. "It's top quality stuff, too. The tears, the pain — the things that make this sort of thing really worthwhile."
"They were nasty men," said three-year-old TSA molestee Mandy Simon. "But it clearly demonstrates the iron necessity of the holy Jihadic destruction of the West. Allahu akbar! Daddy? I done a boo-boo."
http://rocknerd.co.uk
Now the "Think of the Children" bastards that condone this garbage in the first place have to start re-thinking their cause.
No they won't. I don't think that kind of person is affected by cognitive dissonance.
Reminds me of the scene in Airplane 2 where the TSA pulls an old lady out of the line and puts a gun to her head while terrorists walk through the metal detector with machine guns in the background.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
This. The reactions to 9-11 have amounted to a huge win for the terrorists. Anyone who thinks their life is safer as a result of any of this (outside some provisions in the patriot with regards to information sharing amongst different agencies) is a tool.
Umm... $10,000 fine if you chose to submit to neither, not to fly and just turn around and go home. I don't know how much you make but for most of us that is pretty @#%#@ close to forcing.
There may be some folk thrown under the bus, but the bus (backscatter scanners, big brother, new world order) will keep moving in the general same direction.
Once the media was fully corrupted/owned by corporations and intelligence community, we lost the battle and it was only a matter of time before 1984-style big-brother became reality... to quote Mr. Smith:
what good is a phone call... if you're unable to speak?
The (non-rich) people have lost their voice, and it's a matter of time before this scandal is old-news, sadly.
Make sure everyone's vote counts: Verified Voting
How much clothing can I remove in the security line and not get arrested? Jacket... shoes... belt... How about my pants, and shirt? If I strip to my boxers and walk through that would make a nice scene. But would I get thrown in the clink?
I will make damn sure that they do it in front of everyone in line, just so that they can see how they treat American citizens. And for an added bonus, I'l give myself a boner beforehand, just to embarrass them as much as they embarrass everyone else with this bullshit. Sure, sheep may feel safer, but there are some of us in this country that actually... you know... like the 4'th amendment. I have nothing to hide, so I don't have a problem submitting to a pat-down. But people need to realize that this bullshit is nothing but wool over their eyes.
Boredom is bliss.
I am so sick of these articles. The terrorist camps are using kids to carry explosives, weapons, etc. Just because a 3 year old is adorable and innocent in our western culture, to some terrorist groups its just a vehicle to transport a explosive device. Seriously, let anyone who complains about being searched all fly on their own airplane with the rest of the people who don't want to be violated and let the rest of us be the normal flights. I hate this mentality that flying on an airplane suddenly is in the bill of rights next to freedom of speech. Its a privilege and if you don't want to be searched and have the government violate your privacy then drive yourself or walk
Bryan
I was recently made aware of someone taking a hunting knife (not a $20 swiss army, but an actual knife) through security with the help of steel-toed boots.
And why should we even CARE? I don't fucking care if someone takes a huge, razor sharp katanna on a plane. It isn't like the pilots will open the door to the cockpit regardless of who a nutjob threatens to kill. Sure they can hurt some passengers, but no more so than someone with the same sorts of weapons in any crowded place.
The only thing they need to search for is explosives. Give everyone who gets on a plane a 18" marine combat knife. IT DOESN'T FUCKING MATTER.
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
However, searches that intrude upon a traveler's personal dignity and privacy interests, such as strip and body cavity searches, must be supported by "reasonable suspicion."[68]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution#Border_Searches
"nonroutine" searches must be supported by "reasonable suspicion"...
while searches of a traveler's body, including strip, body cavity and involuntary x-ray searches, are considered "nonroutine."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Border_search_exception
This is only for borders also, other random searches are much more highly regulated when your not dealing with a border.
4th amendment, it is my right.
You needing the comfort of security theater is not a right.
You are entitled to your own opinions, not your own facts.
I'm looking for a reference, but heard on the radio that this video was taken two years ago. It's not like it happened last weekend. This wasn't news when it happened, and is only news now because of our heightened awareness of TSA pat-downs.
On the other hand, no telling what kind of pat-down the TSA agents would have done in this same circumstance had it happened now.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
The facist elements in our government just want to see how much we'll put up with before they come up with more sweeping police state activities.
I am surprised that no-one has mentioned Russian Ark as a good candidate for a long shot. This is a one shot ninety minute movie. Very impressive, and awesome scenery as well.
By the constitution you have the all rights, except for those explicit areas where the Gov't is granted the power to limit your rights. If not listed, it is your right. Furthermore, in the case of the airport security the only penalty is not simply not being allowed to fly. There is a monetary penalty for refusing to be screened in addition to not being allowed to fly. And please explain how privately owned aircraft are in the governments sphere of control. If we're talking about a courthouse, or the Capitol then perhaps, but the aircraft is not a government building. The only (and very thin) connection would be air traffic control and the FAA.
At some point there's simply no way for the government to raise more revenue
Then they just start up the printing presses. We have a currency based on nothing, not only that but the US has a currency which many other currencies are pegged to it or use it as their primary currency or reserve. Hell, the Fed just injected, what? A few billion? A trillion? Extra 'dollars' into the economy. Yes, there -is- a point where people won't take Federal Reserve notes and start accepting coins for bullion value, but I don't think the masses have hit that point yet nor ever will unless we see a -dramatic- increase in prices.
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
I'm against this security policy like you are, but the 4th amendment only prohibits "unreasonable" searches without a warrant. All it says is "unreasoanble". To me, this policy is unreasonable, but I'm only one voice in 300million.You are a second voice. We can convince 150million more people, or we can convince five Supreme Court judges. Sadly, I don't think either of those is likely.
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.
The video have left some questioning why better procedures for children aren't in place.
BECAUSE THEY DON'T CARE! None of them do. They have no reason to. Even if the filth gets voted out, they'll just go to some cushy position their friends in the politiclass have waiting for them. They. Don't. Give. A. Gnat's. Fart.
Geez Louise, people is there any thinking adult left who is surprised by the epic failstorms that appear on a daily basis now?
And, as I've said in THREE other places now, that's wrong. I hope the TSA gets it's ass handed to it over that.
I don't need a million points of light, just two points of multi-mode fiber and a 10 Gig-E router.
a device with untested health effects
True. That is, if by "untested" you mean "tested by numerous entities within the private, educational, and government sectors and found to present less radiation (that matters) than approximately two minutes worth of the exposure everyone gets while flying at 30,000 feet in the very airplanes they're about to get on. So, considering that people are specifically and willingly buying a ticket to do something that will and always has actually exposed them to wildly more radiation in the first place, that's not much of an issue, is it?
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
Freedom from unreasonable search and seizure is a right. And just because someone chooses to participate in an activity that isn't an explicitly enumerated right somewhere in the Constitution does not give the government a pass to violate those rights that are given there.
SARS, Bird Flu, Swine Flu...
How much worse would those epidemics have been if people wern't detered from flying around on a whim by the TSA?
Ironically, 9/11 may have saved more lives by slowing down those diseases than were lost that day...
It still makes me wonder how this is not a violation of the warrant-less search and seizure clause.
I mean, innocent until proven guilty, probably cause does not exist (does it?) so searching someone in an airport would (IMO) be a warrant-less search unless there's a judge standing at the gates and the TSA agent is asked to swear by oath that the person that just walked through the door has committed a crime.
Because it is a place of business, and in order to gain access to that place of business you must follow their rules or leave. Of course this is a government sponsored security restriction, but that is their logic to how they can validate this type of treatment.
Oh, and I believe the TSA made these two options or else policy is to force people to use the expensive scanners because they found that people did not want to use them.
This only works when people protest loudly enough. This does not work when encroachments are instituted gradually enough, such as in the past ten years of TSA history.
In the same boat as you. This year I plan to make a huge scene. Either yelling ""Stop molesting them, HELP !", or "HELP ! He is Touching My Penis! HELP !" I did not sign away my rights as part of the business transaction that took place between me and the airline I bought my ticket from. I won't fly again. I looked at train for the same trip. 5 extra travel days, $40 more. Worth it for me from this point on.
I want a T-shirt that says
"Touch my kids 'Junk' and ill have you arrested"
so i'm supposed to drive to hawaii? jackass.
Well, before I address your comment, I'd like to start off by saying that I agree that this is all security theater. You can't take knives on board, but you can take glass. You can't take flammable liquids on board unless they're distributed amongst 3oz bottles.
Now, having said that, I agree with the person you responded to. Flying isn't compulsory. So, you reply with "but how the hell am I going to get to Hawaii?!?!". Now, some people would reply that you can take a cruise. But I think they're missing a larger point: Going to Hawaii isn't even compulsory. The gov't isn't requiring you to go to Hawaii. But, if you do want to go, and if you want to take this mode of transport, then those are the tradeoffs.
The world is full of provisos like this and you don't give them a second thought. If you want to ride in my car, you can't smoke. If you want to smoke during the drive, then go in someone else's car. If you want to spend the night at my mother's house and you're not married to your sweetie, then you can't sleep in the same room. If you want to sleep in the same room as your sweetie, then don't crash at my mother's house. For some reason, you've selected this particular trade-off for "enhanced seething"; probably having to do with how we've all taken flying for granted.
Again, we can co-miserate all day about how this is total bullshit, and about how women get pat-downs more than men or whatever, but this indignation about being subjected to this "for the crime of buying a plane ticket"... give me a break. You could apply that to just about anything. For the "crime of getting a driver's license", you're required to drive on one side of the street and not drive too fast. For the "crime of buying tickets to a football game", you're often limited in how many beers you can buy. For the "crime of wanting to have a mate", you're required to stay in shape and not be an asshole until after the wedding.
These are all optional things, which carry ancillary requirements to do them. For some people, the trade-off is worth it, so the suck it up and deal. For others, it's not worth it, so they just go do something else.
The risk of dying in a plane crash is tiny to start with -- about 1 in 11 million -- and the risk of being the victim of a terrorist attack is smaller still
Consider the following situation: Henry is a traveller in the United States, who is about to go on a flight to New York. Is it more likely that he would die from a plane crash, or die from a plane crash caused by a terrorist action.
The quirky thing about how humans think is that if you set up a question like this, many people will pick the second option, even though it is more specific.
Ask me about repetitive DNA
planes don't explode from a little hole like it's total recall (i love than movie).
Flying isn't a right. They aren't saying "submit to a search" which would be a clear violation of your rights. They're saying "submit to a search or you can't get on the plane". You have no intrinsic right to get on the plane, they can be put preconditions on your doing so
Really? I don't have the right to engage in a legal business transaction with zero criminal history or court ordered sanctions without consenting to a government search? Do I have the right to walk down the street? Sit on my porch? Where do my rights end, because I was pretty sure it's where your body and property begins, but I'd love to hear the correct definition.
We *do* have an intrinsic right to get on a plane, or train, or bus, or use our feet, because the government does *not* have the right to bar us from those activities. They can put all the preconditions they want on what I can *bring with me*, but the act of (potentially) getting on a plane does not automatically subject me to search and seizure. If the airplane companies themselves want to set a condition for searches, that's between them and me, but it's none of the government's business unless and until I commit a criminal act or plot to commit one, and not before.
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
They're banking on the idea that by opting to fly you've "consented" to search before boarding the aircraft. Check the fine print next time you buy a ticket. It's bullshit, but they're claiming you've consented.
people who wear orthotics are often let through with shoes on (they're impossible to put back on after a long flight what with all the swelling)
not always though. there's often some insensitive cun-... clod who refuses.
They aren't saying "submit to a search" which would be a clear violation of your rights. They're saying "submit to a search or you can't get on the plane".
So how about these demands?
Ask me about repetitive DNA
What isn't clear to most people that any X-ray process, in contrast to magnetic metal detectors or THz RF scanners, *will* damage your DNA [1,2].
The medical community (and presumably the TSA) would like to convince you that X-ray doses are low enough that they are harmless. But IMO there is no "safe" dose. Just greater or lesser degrees of actual physical damage.
1. The photons of X-rays and to a lesser extent short wave UV rays have sufficient energy to break atomic bonds. Breaking the atomic bonds in water can produce hydroxyl radicals which then attack DNA which can further result in DNA double strand breaks. DNA double strand break repair is error prone [3] and corrupts the genome sequence much of the time. Thus any significant quantity of X-rays will damage ones genome and will increase ones risk of cancer and/or ones rate of aging. If the TSA is really using X-ray scanners (and people are not misinterpreting the THz scanners as X-ray scanners) then the is grounds for a lawsuit and a cease and desist decision by the courts.
2. It is useful to keep this in mind when your dentist wants to take X-rays or your hospital wants to take X-rays or run a CT-scan (which involves loads of X-rays). If you can receive treatment without the need for X-rays or CT scans it is something that deserves consideration (and even prior directives to care givers/family/facilities for permanent inclusion in ones medical record). People may be subjected to X-rays or CT scans without their permission as one can observe from many TV programs involving Emergency Room treatments.
3. Courtesy of the exonuclease activities in the WRN and DCLRE1C (Artemis) proteins [genes] involved in DSB repair.
Or from smoking pot.
http://cache.gawkerassets.com/assets/images/4/2010/11/500x_tsa-humor-book.jpg
When the foot seeks the place of the head, the line is crossed. Know your place. Keep your place. Be a shoe.
I don't really have a problem with the searches. I for one will never carry a weapon onto a plane, and even though it might be awkward to have someone view my penis through an x-ray machine, I do feel better knowing that the people who would carry weapons onto an airplane will have much more trouble doing so.
My problem lies with the completely unqualified employees that will be viewing said penis. I think it might be appropriate to take some of those unemployed sociology graduates and put them in these positions. At least then I know that the person looking at my penis went to college. And that makes it ok somehow.
WTF is up with this .... "driving is not a right"
In my state, you are not allowed to drive on public roads unless you receive a government issued license. How does it work where you live?
They pat me down for all I care. They'll be more embarrassed about it than I am. In fact I'll deliberately think dirty thoughts to try to get wood. I'm sure the TSA idiots would be more embarrassed groping a bloke with a hard-on than I will be having my junk felt.
If 80% of Americans don't care, then why should I?
or we have and the people are very dumb
"A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it." - K
Um
Insanity: voting in the same two parties over and over again and expecting different results
What most alarmist articles about CCTV Britain don't mention is the fact that millions of the cameras are privately owned covering mostly private property and not networked in any way to the police or government. The privacy aspect only becomes an issue when large aggregate data is processed, something of more concern for drivers with the national GATSO camera grid fining speeders regularly. The real reason for concern is their general uselessness in preventing crime or convicting captured criminals. We're not beating 1984 yet.
Nope, but a bullet to the head of each flight crew member usually poses a danger.
For that matter, as I've seen pointed out elsewhere, it's virtually impossible to get to Europe from the U.S. without flying. I was hoping to take a plane from Toronto (3 hrs away by car) but it seems that the Canadians have decided to use the strip search scanners too.
The right to protest the State is more sacred than the State.
...and ^W does whole words.
You're mixing ASCII control codes with bash readline key mappings. ^W in bash is "unix-word-rubout (C-w)". ^W in ASCII is ETB - End of Transmission Block.
Tiller's Rule: Never use a word in written form that you've only heard and never read. You will end up looking foolish.
Putting the issue of EM & radiation exposure aside and focusing on the more lurid kind of exposure -
Why do the full body scanners have to create a full body picture? If the images from the scanner to the TSA officials were physically divided up - say, head and shoulders, upper torso, lower torso, legs and feet - there would probably be less "OMG they're seeing me nekkid!" reactions from the passengers, since the images are more anonymized.
Of course such a solution raises numerous "yes, but.." flags, but I'd think they should be readily addressable.
Of course they said the same thing about electronic voting machines.
Ah, forget I said anything....
.
Prisencolinensinainciusol. Ol Rait!
Actually they are.
Once a passenger has entered into that screening process, he cannot opt out of it.
And since the screening begins when your ID is check they are saying "submit to a search"
I agree this is the most likely threat to aircraft today. There are many places, including residential houses, under the flight-path of major airports but far outside the security zones, where Bad People could set up improvised or even smuggled military-grade rocket systems. If you have the technology to build a bomb and an RC plane, you have the technology to do this.
Scientists point out problems, engineers fix them
altslashdot.org: The future of slashdot.
I'm not sure how I'd handle a pat-down from a Marlon Brando lookalike.
I know. He coulda been a contender.
"A government is a body of people usually -- notably -- ungoverned." -Shepherd Book
Oh that's nothing. When my family flew to Disney World three years ago, we had to lift my palsied son out of his wheelchair so they could pat him down and pat down the chair, swab it for explosives residue.
That was fun.
If you check out the British Crime Survey, you'll find that crime in England and Wales has fallen virtually every year since 1995. And the prison population is at an all time high - so they are certainly managing to convict people.
*IF* CCTV cameras are responsible for the direction of crime stats, then they are being very effective.
I have a friend who's car has been trashed 3 times and his shop window broken twice within the space of a year. Neither he, the neighbours, nor the police have a clue who's doing it. Now he's always been opposed to CCTV cameras, but now, being the victim of repeated crime, he sees it as the only sensible thing for him to do about it. He's getting CCTV cameras installed front and back of the property.
See it's easy to complain about CCTV cameras if you don't feel like you need their protection. Become a victim and your perspective may well change.
"Flying isn't a right"
The ability of an airline to OFFER flight to their customers without intrusive searches IS a right. The violation is when the government begins interfering with the freedom of the two parties.
Having ice cream isn't a right. But if I want to buy ice cream, and somebody else wants to sell it to me, a mandated ice-cream-safety strip-search DOES violate our rights.
Hence bulletproof door, and only one pilot leaving cockpit at a time
www.RacquetUp.org - Helping Detroit Youth
There's so many dumb sheeple lulled into complacency by corporate run media that the few smart folks left get drowned out in the noise at the ballot box.
To keep and bear arms. Yep, that's correct. Owning and carrying a gun is a *RIGHT* too.
It will happen. DUIs already excuse checkpoints; car bombs will only further reinforce the unconstitutional practice.
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
The rule works in principle, but we all know the part about best-laid plans.
You're absolutely right, thanks for the reminder. I get a demerit on my geek card, but still get to keep it, right?
A civilization may be best judged by the way it treats it's children. While our society in general seems OKish in that regard, clearly the TSA is considerably worse. Surely they could have found SOMEONE there who could manage to not terrify her and cause her to yell "STOP TOUCHING ME!".
Early memories are formative and one of her formative memories will be of government people taking away her teddy bear and then making her stand there while they bad touch her(form her perspective).
People are growing a bit tired of an entire government agency apparently being run by Frank Burns (but even less personable). Needlessly abusing 3 year olds is the icing on the cake. Honestly, people SHOULD be incensed about this
As if forfeiting the price of a non refundable ticket isn't good enough for them...
Hey... what would happen if someone realized a crowded shopping mall was a good place to blow up a lot of people easily, so they packed a stroller full of explosives and took a walk to the food court?
(OMG! Never thought of THAT serious potential security issue! We better start searching all baby strollers as parents enter the malls, right??)
Or, what would happen if someone decided to do a suicide bombing run in a big, multi-level parking garage?
(OMG! Never thought of THAT serious potential security issue! We better start searching all cars as they enter garages, right??)
I could go ON and ON with this, and probably create a lot of scenarios with more chance of happening than someone using a child as a bomb on a flight leaving the U.S.A. But no matter.... The point is, you simply can't legislate complete safety for yourself. Life is ALL about risks. The moment you get up out of bed in the morning? You're taking risks. What if you slip and fall because your kid spilled a glass of water on the hard-wood floor, and you crack your head on the floor and die? Every day you drive to work in your car or truck? You're taking a relatively significant risk of dying in a car accident. Every time you EAT, you run some potential risk that your food had bacteria in it that will poison you.
What we need to do is get a grip, quit allowing ourselves to be scared by all of this, and accept that the "risk vs. reward" is FAR tilted towards the "reward" side of the equation if we can quickly/easily board airline flights we want to take, and not be subjected to all of this B.S.!
Heavy groping... pat downs... Honestly I consider this a value added measure, no more strip bar lap dances... just.. visit airport security for a cup and stroke.
Kid patted down when they set off metal detector? Say it ain't so!!! the AIT is refused the metal detector goes off and someone STILL wants to check a third way to be sure they are not loaded with an explosive? is your sarcasm meter on it should be.
If people are known to hijack a plane with kids on it and A.crash it B.blow it up C.Crash it AND blow it up with kids aboard. I don't think they will suddenly develop a moral compass letting them NOT smuggle explosives onboard via a kidnapped kid.
Bringing down a plane is trivial to do without getting on board. You can use SAMs, maybe even a high-power laser. That's not what TSA is trying to prevent now. Their goal is to prevent another 9/11.
If you are on a plane which is hijacked today you have maybe 5 minutes to regain control if you want to survive. Once a plane is believed to be under the control of terrorists it will be shot down by the US military.
Read the 9/11 commission report. Cheney scrambled jets but they were too slow to stop the attack. That won't happen again.
Intron: the portion of DNA which expresses nothing useful.
You do realize, of course, that both Congressmen and other Federal Government big-wigs have their own fleet of aircraft and do not have to subject themselves to the tender ministrations of minimum-wage TSA agents? Other Rich And Famous people fly via private or chartered aircraft and also do not fall subject to TSA search. It's only the cattle flying via the regular airlines. The Anointed Ones don't put up with this rubbish
Wait.....they are let through (pre-flight security.... i.e. before flying) because its hard to get them back on due to swelling (which occurs during the flight)???
www.RacquetUp.org - Helping Detroit Youth
For some, like women / rape victims / molested individuals it is a big deal (of course I know you are being sarcastic).....
Now the best way to protest this, at-least for men, is to take a dose of viagra before entering the queue line.... that way when you opt out of the body scanner you can get your revenge on the TSA agent by giving him/her a good whack when they go down under.
They aren't saying "submit to a search" which would be a clear violation of your rights. They're saying "submit to a search or you can't get on the plane".
No--they're saying "submit to a search and get on the plane or pay a $10,000 fine and not get on the plane". Once you find out that you're about to be molested, you can't say "on second thought, maybe I won't fly"--well you can, but you'll have to pay 10 grand for the privilege. I can't say for sure whether or not the new procedures are constitutional (I suspect they're not), but I, for one, am done flying. I'm taking my first ever trip on Amtrak next week to visit my family for Thanksgiving, and am relieved to not have to deal with the TSA's bullshit.
I sure hope this doesn't catch all the air-terrorists... otherwise, how will america ever justify a new war?
Despite your theories on the currently "justified" war... war really is good for the US economy as they (and a few other freedom countries) pretty much have a lock on selling the war products.
Without letting some terrorists cause harm it will be difficult to make an unjustifiable action (war) palatable to the people through media.
The TSA's actions are completely, utterly, and without recourse illegal under the laws described in the US Constitution. Unfortunately, the Constitution doesn't provide average citizens with any way to punish the people in power who perform these illegal acts or who mandate that these illegal acts be performed.
See Amendment 2
Exactly! Mod parent up insightful.
Yes, if only average citizens were allowed the right to choose the people who are put into power, and hold them accountable for their activities (or inactivities) while in office, and replace poor performers with people with more sensible and moderate policies through a regularly scheduled election cycle.
But alas! We're stuck with this accursed monarchy!
"This video is no longer avalible due to a copyright claim by Tribune."
cant we just have safe, and unsafe where the usual checking of bags and then a metal detector (no pat down) no need to give up any privacy...
You can thank a tremendously liberal interpretation of the Commerce & "Necessary and Proper" clauses for that.
I'm not sure whether this is security theater aimed at simultaneously placating and abusing the population, or a poorly conceived plan to entrap potential pedophiles by luring them into the TSA screener recruiting offices...
But really, is there anyone not working for the TSA that thinks any of this is a good idea?
Pound! Bang! Bin! Bash! is this a shell script or a Batman comic?
What they should do is charge more for "Enhanced Security" flights where you have to go through patdowns and scanners. See if people really care enough about their "safety" to pay more for it. If they do then the airlines make more money, and if they don't then we can get rid of a lot of TSA costs.
if you don't want to be searched, don't fly. they're not compulsory.
This is the government eating its cake and having it too -- they'll cite all the reasons why a ticket is considered a private contract and you waive any rights to search before purchasing, yadda yadda yet co-opt the TSA into federal service, making them all government employees who would normally be required to follow the law regarding search and seizure.
"A government is a body of people usually -- notably -- ungoverned." -Shepherd Book
Recently saw an Australian version of one of those border-security reality TV shows. Customs guy says a problem they have with arriving US travellers is bullets. Hunters grab the same bag they use camping to use for carry-on, they take out any boxes of ammo of course, but there's always a few rounds rattling around in the bottom of the bag. Apparently TSA never picks it up.
(This isn't a security issue here, the tourists are inbound. It's a customs issue. It's illegal to personally import ammunition into Australia.)
Science is all about firing a drunk pig out of a cannon just to see what happens.
As a rule, cosmic radiation levels rise with increasing altitude (up to about 20 km above ground). The actual radiation level is influenced by a number of factors, most importantly through the shielding provided by the earth's atmosphere. The overall effect for flight crew and travellers is an increased radiation exposure during flights as compared to staying on the ground. Flight crew passes up to 1000 hours per year on board of flying planes, which leads to annual effective radiation doses in the range of 2 to 5 milliSievert (mSv) for most crew. Occasional travellers obtain a fraction of this value through less frequent leisure or occupational flights. In comparison, the natural background radiation amounts to 2 to 3 mSv per year at most geographical locations worldwide.
Though I am against these scanners as they dont help and invade privacy. A much better use of comparable money/space/time is similar scanners which blow air on you and then analyze trace amounts of compounds (searching for explosives or signatures of common explosives)
www.RacquetUp.org - Helping Detroit Youth
Actually, they are saying "submit to a search or you will be fined for attempting to get on a plane and refusing to be searched."
BIG difference.
The right to fly on a plane (if the plane is yours or agrees to carry you) is a part of the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
While I can't stand the way the TSA is handling any of this, either, you most definitely do not have an inherent "right" to fly on a commercial plane. You might try to argue that point if you owned the plane, but as it is you just bought a ticket, which is basically a contract between you and the airline, subject to terms of the contract that you have to be cleared by security before being allowed on the plane.
And in general the Constitution itself is a form of joint contract/agreement between the citizens of the country, the basis of it being that they elect representatives from their number to make and enforce the laws of the country. Unless the law specifically conflicts with a right stated in that agreement (the Constitution), for good or bad (in this case we both agree with "bad") the majority of the elected representatives has decided you will be subject to it. Unfortunately it doesn't violate the Constitution (which doesn't contain laws, by the way, it contains the mechanism for creating laws).
And as you said, as long as the majority is apathetic (and not willing to elect representatives that listen and/or make changes to the Constrituion), it's not going to change...
a couple examples of them talking about it
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kJolgpfviG8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GPXXxbGZGRI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DxpTKefgde8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a8Cfzqbrvng
That's just the part of the conversation that has been on youtube
Comment removed based on user account deletion
When they treat you like cattle, it's time to ask whose cattle you are
blog.sam.liddicott.com
But that couldn't' t work in the US. The Maerican approach is to pay employees as little as possible and then make sure they follow a scripted protocol.
1) Why didn't the parent have enough sense to take care of his child and keep the child calm when the bear was going through the machine.
2) Why did the child set off the metal detector when going through it
I think this story is crap. It was staged to get more anti-publicity for the full body scanners.
I am not in favor of these scanners, I think we don't need them. But I am not in favor of sensationalizing all of this just for press.
consistently bringing out the scare that Republicans will take away Senior citizen's benefits? Take away your health care? Take away this that or the other thing?
All so they can remain cozy with their Wall Street and Pharma buddies?
Hate to break it to you, both parties are only concerned with power and those who have enough money to interest them, and the public has neither in sufficient quantities. The public is too easily played for the fool
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
Do not have a cabin door. Flight crew have their meals in with them, have their own toilets, and use a separate hatch to access their work environment. If there's no way to get to them there will be zero hijackings.
The history of sudden plane accidents over densely populated areas does not have a high people-on-the-ground death rate. At least, not on the level that you're trying to imagine up.
Also, "taking a wing off..."? What is this, the Twilight Zone except that it's a terrorist instead of a gremlin?
First a guy tried to light a bomb in his shoe...now we have to take our shoes off to fly on an airplane.
Then a guy tried to light a bomb in his underwear...now we have to have TSA pervs feel us up.
What happens if someone next tries to hide a bomb up his ass?
How long are we willing to be made to feel humiliated and violated in the name of so-called security?
If you've never been modded as "flamebait" or "troll," you've never tried to argue a minority viewpoint here!
Any argument can be reduced to absurdity.
Correction, any of your arguments can be.
actually that guy got his non-refundable ticket, refunded. see: http://johnnyedge.blogspot.com/2010/11/these-events-took-place-roughly-between.html
It's not a typo if you understood the meaning!
Actively crashing the plane into something was pretty much what I had in mind, although it could be considered a subset of crashing it.
So yes, a hijacked plane would be shot down at some point. That actually makes the need to check for glass (and pretty much any sharp objects) pretty much pointless.
It is what it is.
We're doing it wrong. Here's a great article on how Israel handles security at their airports. Note the emphasis on training PEOPLE as opposed to buying and trusting multi-million dollar machines to do the job.
http://www.thestar.com/news/world/article/744199---israelification-high-security-little-bother
Any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so.
The TSA is happy to molest kids in the terminal, but once on the plane the flight attendant is still happy to sell me a number of tiny little bottles full of flammable liquids to put in my Coke... Just sayin'
The TSA agent should be arrested for child molestation. If that happened to my kid, I would be arrested for what I would have done to TSA.
The reason the 9/11 attacks worked so well was mainly because no one had ever tried it before.
Exactly! Nowadays even if a terrorist were able to hijack a plane with a makeshift knife he would be jumped by 1/2 the passengers.
And 'home of the brave'? The TSA is so shit-scared that they'll touch up a 3-year-old because he/she might be carrying nail clippers, doesn't that show just how successful the 9/11 terrorist attacks actually were?
Many shoes have metal shanks in them. It's not terribly ridiculous, actually.
What doesn't kill you only delays the inevitable
I WAS GROPED BY THE TSA
and I had to make my own T-shirt.
Actually I spoke to soon. Some recent investigations suggest that THz RF scanners may damage the DNA by "unzipping" it (which can increase the probability of DNA double strand breaks as well as other kinds of damage) [1].
So it looks like neither the AIT scanners which use back-scatter X-rays, nor the THz scanners are completely without risk of damaging the individual going through them.
I agree with Dthief that high-tech noses detecting chemical odors may be a better way to go for non-invasive, non-damaging scanning.
1. http://tinyurl.com/2fgf9f5
it's unfortunate that it took something *this* invasive to make the press start to wake up to what's been happening in the name of security. THe more such reports we have, the better -- now that mainstream media coverage is kicking in, I can only hope it's a matter of time before the general US populace wakes up to the erosion of rights we've been complacently allowing to take place over the course of the last nine years (if not longer)
The rule works in principle, but we all know the part about best-laid plans.
They usually involve your mom?
Bow-ties are cool.
If you sacrifice liberty for security you have neither.
Unpleasant... yes, effective? No. I was recently made aware of someone taking a hunting knife (not a $20 swiss army, but an actual knife) through security with the help of steel-toed boots.
That's nothing - a friend of mine got an entire disruptor pistol through security by breaking it down into components and disguising them as fashion accessories...
Bow-ties are cool.
What exactly does "radiation (that matters)" mean? Are you a lawyer?
If libertarians are so opposed to effective government, why don't they all move to Somalia?
Well, a knife can only do minor damage to an airplane. Deodorant is much harder to get rid off.
If you can receive treatment without the need for X-rays or CT scans it is something that deserves consideration (and even prior directives to care givers/family/facilities for permanent inclusion in ones medical record)
I think that's really irresponsible paranoia. X-rays and CT scans are done for a reason and all sorts of problems could be missed if people are encouraged to avoid them! I'd imagine the risk is much greater of untreated/undiagnosed conditions than a couple of X-rays or CT scans!
The worst part is when the TSA goon sniffs his fingers after fondling people's genitals.
They must be sniffing for explosive residue.
Hentai provides the perfect answer:
If you are a guy, be sure to let them know that you avoided bathing for weeks, because you know there's nothing they like better than a dirty, sweaty guy's body funk. When the agent begins touching you, point out that they are, in fact, a dirty whore.
If you are a girl (and you are kinky), show up to the enhanced pat-down in shibari bondage with vibrators in and running. Make it clear that you are looking forward to this sexual experience.
Bow-ties are cool.
What's a kid going to do. Seriously. Is he going to smuggle a knife or a gun? Both of those would be rather ineffective if the pilots are behind a strong locked door. Hell what is ANYONE going to do? Any bomb you can hide on your person that can't be found using a simple "take off your jacket and/or any sweater you have on and pass through this metal detector" search method would be much too weak to do serious damage to an airplane. Any bomb big enough to do damage would have to be smuggled onto luggage.
> The Constitution doesn't tell us what our rights ARE, it tells us what the government CAN'T do.
> The government doesn't tell us what our rights are or aren't.
This is no longer true. Thanks to the war on drugs, the Supreme Court has ruled that the interstate commerce clause overrides the ninth and tenth amendments. Anything that can theoretically impact interstate commerce is the smallest way is now under the purview of federal regulation. This ruling has literally cornholed the Constitution; the only rights we have left now are the ones explicitly mentioned, and even those are tenuous since the ICC clause can override amendments. Someday I expect the ICC clause to be used to override first amendment protections.
That's the best you could come up with?
Maybe you'll have more luck once you reach preschool.
When they treat you like cattle, it's time to ask whose cattle you are
Well, there's this burn scar on my ass that says "Benevolent Robot Overlords"... I wonder what that's all about...
Bow-ties are cool.
>>>Flying isn't a right.
Yes it is. Read Amendment 9.
Wow, someone badly needs a refresher course in Con Law. Amendment 9 doesn't mean that anything you can dream up is your "right" automatically. It's typically only applied to certain areas of "privacy" (e.g. the original Roe v Wade decision was based largely on the 9th Amendment). Anything that falls within the "police power" of the states or the federal government, i.e. anything that touches on areas of public concern, such as safety, health, monetary policy, etc., is not covered by the 9th Amendment.
Plus it would be impossible for me to attend a Friday meeting in California if I had to travel by car or train (2500 miles is a frakking long distance).
Now you're just being even sillier. Where oh where in the U.S. Constitution do you find a "right" to attend a particular meeting at a particular time? This would only plausibly have a constitutional relevance if the "meeting" had some sort of public significance, like going to the ballot box to vote, attending a court hearing, presidential inauguration, etc. But even then, it's up to you to plan your trip accordingly so that you get there on time: you don't have the constitutional right to bypass a bunch of safety regulations just so you can make a timely arrival. "I'm late for my meeting, so everyone else has to suffer the probability that I might try to fly this plane into a building, or drop some sarin gas on a densely-populated urban area".
the government has no more right to block me from using a plane, than they do to stop me from drinking alcohol,
Are you sure about that? According to Wikipedia (was too lazy to research any farther than that), Minnesota state law allows local jurisdictions to "enact laws which are more strict than state liquor law, including completely prohibiting the sale, possession, and consumption of alcoholic beverages" (emphasis added). Whether any such Minnesotan jurisdictions have enacted such laws, or whether any such laws have been challenged on constitutional grounds, remains to be seen. Counties in many states, however, can and do go "dry", meaning no liquor can be sold. And the 21st Amendment clearly gives states the power to control "transportation or importation" of liquor. The constitutional "right to booze" isn't nearly as clear-cut as you imply.
or having sex with the same gender.
This was only recently recognized as being a right of "privacy", protected under the 9th Amendment and similar "privacy" Supreme Court precedents. But it has little or nothing to do with the safety regulations that apply to certain modes of travel. Other than, of course, your wishful thinking that 9th Amendment makes every individual's preference or desire automatically a "right" under the U.S. Constitution.
To be sure, the fine line between what is "public" and what is "private" is constantly under review and re-definition. But flying on airplanes is pretty far over the public/private line to the "public" side. If we had any doubts about that pre-9/11, I don't think those doubts exist any more, in the mind of anyone reasonable.
Don't bother. That jackhole in charge all but already said it in an interview: he don't give a fuck what we think.
So I'm taking a different tack: I'm currently writing a letter to Richard Anderson (CEO of Delta Airlines) explaining to him exactly why I will be driving to my friends' wedding in March, making it very clear that it is in no way the fault of his company.
Airlines: I don't fly any more, because I don't want to put up with the TSA thugs.
-----------
On 9/11 morning, I said to myself "Here comes the police state."
Everyone watching this video just witnessed felony child molestation. There is a precedent about groping children.
What are you going to do about it?
Or are you all just going to sit in your mama's basement and whine all day?
If your friend really had a disruptor pistol, I think he could have gotten on the plane just fine without breaking it down. All he'd have to do would be to wave his hands and say, "There is no pistol" to the TSA agents.
"The problem now is that TSA has gone from annoyance theatre to dangerous and vile theatre."
I don't see why there's a problem here. This is a good thing. They've gone and done something that the everyone is actually complaining about. The airline industry is complaining about it, the general public is complaining about it, everyone except the TSA is complaining about it. The government will do something about it because now there's actually a significant opposition to it.
Previously it was 90% of people that were willing to give up their rights and submit to bullshit searches because they stupidly thought that this would protect them from terrorists, and 10% of people that complained. Obviously, this didn't help stop the TSA. Now, the numbers are reversed. The 90% of people who think that this is an invasion of privacy will hopefully be enough to stop this bullshit.
-1 disagree is not a modifier for a reason. -1 troll, flaimbait, redundant, overrated are NOT acceptable substitutes.
When a terrorist attack shows that their current methods have been for nothing. And not a moment sooner.
I am Bennett Haselton! I am Bennett Haselton!
Makes me sad that the first real major protestation of this crap is coming via a "think of the children" bullsh*t approach. F*ck the children.
http://swampland.blogs.time.com/2010/11/17/tsa-defends-new-screening-procedures/ The TSA administrator declined to provide some details about the nature of the pat-downs, citing security concerns. But he tried to allay fears stoked by the media rumor-mill. Children under 12 are exempted from the pat-down process, he said. (A viral tale about a three-year old bursting into tears after being prodded by an officer is, in fact, from two-year-old footage of a three-year old crying after her teddy bear was taken from her at a security checkpoint. And that viral snapshot of the nun-frisking--which the Drudge Report headlined, in typically restrained fashion, "THE TERRORISTS HAVE WON"--is actually at least three years old.) Read more: http://swampland.blogs.time.com/2010/11/17/tsa-defends-new-screening-procedures/#ixzz15a9QfLOw
A 757 crashed on takeoff from LGA a couple of months after 9/11. It landed in a neighborhood in Queens, destroying several buildings. A total of five people were reported missing after the crash (everyone on board died). So no, blowing a wing off an airplane in flight at random is not equivalent to controlled flight into a crowded building. Not even remotely.
The risk of dying in a plane crash is tiny to start with -- about 1 in 11 million -- and the risk of being the victim of a terrorist attack is smaller still
Consider the following situation: Henry is a traveller in the United States, who is about to go on a flight to New York. Is it more likely that he would die from a plane crash, or die from a plane crash caused by a terrorist action.
The quirky thing about how humans think is that if you set up a question like this, many people will pick the second option, even though it is more specific.
If you present the question like that, it sounds like you're presenting two mutually-exclusive options, even though (as phrased) they're not. I think there's a natural tendency to assume the first option is meant to exclude the second. Hence it's kind of a trick question.
Bow-ties are cool.
Imagine if her parents took her to Australia and customs confiscated her Teddy Bear...
The ninth amendment says nothing about airplanes. It say you may have some other rights. One might just as well interrupt that as having a right not to have airplanes run into your buildings. The fourth amendment says the government can't force you to submit to a search. They're not forcing you. You don't HAVE to get on that plane. They're not going to send you jail if you don't submit to the search, they're not letting you get on the plane.
That's just a means of weaseling their way around the literal interpretation of the law. If you can't force someone to submit to a search, you make it very, very painful for them to get around it. You're not forcing them, so it's OK - never mind the fact that you've made things so unreasonably complicated in the case that people don't submit that the practical effect is the same as if you had. They come up with a loophole and that's just OK with you?
Bow-ties are cool.
Then why is it the government's concern that I'm willing to risk getting on a plane where someone might possibly have managed to figure out a way to force the plane to crash? Why is it the government's concern that I have a mutually-satisfactory private deal with a service provider to get me across the country? Why do you think the government has the authority to restrict my right of movement?
Then why aren't private planes flying into buildings part of the federal government's "sphere of control"? Why are the other methods of travel that you mentioned not? Why aren't U-Haul trucks checked every hundred miles to make sure they're not full of fertilizer and timers?
The 4th amendment notes that I have right to be secure against an unreasonable search. A warrant is just a written-out reason that's been reviewed and approved by someone; it's not the be-all and end-all of reasonableness. What's the reason here?
I cant see exactly what happened since the video no longer plays but it sounds like the dad just video taped his 3-year old daughter getting felt up by TSA. I know he's a reporter and this was possibly a good idea for his career but I think I would be more interested in protecting my child than shooting a video of this.
Great parenting there!
But alas! We're stuck with this accursed monarchy!
Don't blame me, I voted for Kodos.
Bow-ties are cool.
That should be the new defense for gang rapers, its not like 2nd and 3rd guys did any additional harm, it was just the 1st guy.
Drugs are hidden with babies and small kids.
It isn't just explosives they are looking for, they need to search for drugs and weapons too ....
TSA employees are usually not the sharpest tacks from the box. Remember after 9/11 how they were forced to become federal employees and couldn't remain as airport contractors? It isn't like they got special pills to make them smarter. Certainly there are smart TSA employees, but I'd guess the average employee was high school educated and skilled for fast food work.
The 4th amendment restricts the government's authority to search me to reasonable circumstances.
There are many cases where there is no reasonable alternative to flying on a commercial airline.
Ergo, the government is overstepping its authority.
That's the best you could come up with?
Maybe you'll have more luck once you reach preschool.
I've gone all these years without schooling, why start now?
Bow-ties are cool.
The choice between backscatter and pat downs began in 2007 after being tested as far back as 2005.
http://www.usatoday.com/travel/news/2005-05-15-airport-xray-bottomstrip_x.htm
READ IT AGAIN, MOTHERFUCKERS.
Now, why wasn't this news back then? Because the GOP gets away with pretending that when they violate basic civil liberties, it's for a good purpose. When Obama came in and declared torture illegal and wanted to shutdown Guantanamo, he's called out for endangering America.
Mandatory screening came after the underwear bomber, and it was pushed by a guy you may remember named Michael Chertoff and the rest of the paranoid fucks like Hannity, Beck, and O'Reilly, who turned it into a political game to try and prove that the Obama Administration was weak on terror. So they responded with more security measures.
Yeah, the Democrats are still a member of the business party. Are they better than the paranoid, ignorant trash the GOP needs to stay relevant? Absolutely, as every uninformed response like this has demonstrated.
I am seeing a lot of posts here from the kinds of people that are the root cause of all this nonsense.
"It's okay that kids get groped because terrorists use kids to meet their ends all the time." I disagree. If children being used as weapons was a common security problem in our airports, I could understand that point of view. But it isn't. This isn't Vietnam, and this isn't Afghanistan. Either way, this kind of reaction is not okay.
Want my opinion on the matter? Drop all of this airport check-in security garbage. All of it. No scans, no molestation, no profiling, no cavity searches. Let anyone with a knife or a properly licensed handgun take it with them on board. Want to know what will happen when that one in twenty thousand flights has a hijack attempt? The guy is going to get shot, and the plane will make it safely to its destination. And the time when an extremist decides to blow himself up and take down the plane? It isn't like we can actually catch that anyways, so we can take the tax money we saved from this false security to seek justice upon those responsible instead of pulling the covers over our head like a scared child.
It should be "If you're too paranoid to fly, don't fly." not "If you don't want to be sexually assaulted, don't fly." Until this is changed, I'd rather risk driving.
You're right. The whole thing is security theatre at its finest. That's been true for years. Does anybody really think that an old ladies sewing needles are a threat to the airplane?
No. Not even the TSA (as of this posting) thinks knitting needles are a threat. From http://blog.tsa.gov/2009/05/tsa-urban-legends-nail-clippers.html:
Knitting needles, carried by grandma, Mrs. Claus or Jeremy down the street are permitted. Plastic, metal, clay, titanium... Whatever... Permitted.
Kids, on the other hand, (and their subversive teddy bears) are a definate threat.
Yeah, that's legal here. Guns and ammo are explicitly allowed in checked baggage by the TSA.
Ammo is literally small metal shaped-charge "cartridges" filled with explosive powder. But plastic cartridges filled with provably harmless printer ink or toner are explicitly prohibited, however.
Obviously that means it's legal to carry guns and ammo into airports. Presumably group of bad guys with not-yet-loaded guns could accumulate in the airport, and as long as they didn't try to take threateningly large shampoo bottles through security, the TSA would have nothing to say about it. In fact, for more easy massacreing, the TSA would ensure that there is a large crowd of innocent people waiting in line for their pre-flight pelvic exams.
At this point, the wackos would say that some massacre like that is secretly what the government wants to happen so they have an excuse to take away everybody's guns. I find that really hard to believe, but I also have to admit that such claims are getting harder to disprove over time.
Actually a mass opt-out will have far more effect and visibility than any boycott. A boycott just has fewer travelers, but with the week chosen, it will only be seen as a benefit.
Go with the mass opt-out and suddenly TSA is dealing with massive lines of people they have to grope, causing increased delays, frustration and passenger anger. The media often monitors the airports on heavy travel days for delays and such, and will not miss out on the TSA having to choose between causing massive back-ups or letting people opt-out to just the mag and bag searches.
The National Opt-out movement is really one of the most effective ways of protesting these abuses we have.
Tell me, exactly what does the US government have to do to its citizens for it to be newsworthy?
Work for them.
The airlines should hire Hooters waitresses (in "uniform") to do thorough patdowns on male passengers. Ticket sales will triple overnight.
Citation for that accusation:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/12/31/AR2009123102821.html
I take your anecdote and raise you. My brother had a jet ski robbed from his drive this week, they took out his CCTV before nicking it. It was only outside due to lack of space. Amusingly, it was broke and they'll never get a key for it. He has now expanded his CCTV network in response. Good luck to your friend.
According to the Met 3% of robberies are caught on CCTV, so its easy but incorrect to correlate crime reduction with camera expansion. Considering the many laws that have been introduced since 1995 I'm unsurprised prisons are fuller than ever.
Good luck getting into the cockpit. Unless the terrorists have machine guns, they're not going to get in. So say they can kill 5-10 people(max depending on how many there are) before they get shot by the air marshal or beaten by the passengers. They're not going to get into the cockpit I can guarantee it.
Go with the mass opt-out and suddenly TSA is dealing with massive lines of people they have to grope,
So just like last year then.....?
Isn't that exactly what was done in the past?
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
We need to terrify the children to save the children from the... no, I mean bad people who touch children must be... no wait, terrorists give children nightmares so the TSA has to grope terrified children to.... damnit, just give me 5 minutes while I come up with some sort of post-hoc justification would ya?
I know it would be a pain to implement on existing airliners, but why not completely separate the cockpit from the passenger cabin on future models / aircraft being built? No door, just a nice solid wall (admittedly going full out with two separate pressure compartments would be overly complex). The pilots come on board from a separate exterior door. Include a washroom and something for lunches/snacks in the cockpit compartment if necessary.
While it is not explicitly enumerated in the US Constitution, flying is beyond a shadow of a doubt a right to every US citizen.
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
This isn't the correct video for this article. The article discusses a young girl, this video is of a boy. The article talks about her screaming and that isn't happening in this video.
Someone mod parent down!
"Lame" - Galaxar
Just about nobody would choose the safe version. Millions of dollars of Homeland Security contracts would be at risk... ... I mean, "terrorists! Aaah!"
"MIT betrayed all of its basic principles."
As someone else has posted, Rosa Parks didn't have to ride the bus.
The Supreme court has repeatedly ruled and held inviolate that the freedom to travel (regardless of means) is a constitutional right even though it's not explicitly enumerated in the Constitution or the Bill of Rights.
You're right, I don't have to travel to Hawaii, but it is my constitutional right to freely travel to Hawaii via any means possible, without having to surrender my constitutionally given freedom of privacy.
And not everyone is traveling their optionally. I'm in the military, if I get orders to travel to Hawaii, I'll do so via commercial air and will have to submit. What then? It's not an option, other jobs can be on the line as well.
And I love the comparison I started with. Rosa Parks didn't HAVE to ride the bus at all. She could have walked, or taken a taxi, or hitched a ride if she didn't feel like moving to the back of the bus.
I'm too lazy to compose a creative sig.
Thats not what experts at Johns Hopkins Hospital are saying about the health risks.
I'm too lazy to compose a creative sig.
While there are lots of objection to TSA's tactics, this isn't one. Flying isn't a right. They aren't saying "submit to a search" which would be a clear violation of your rights. They're saying "submit to a search or you can't get on the plane". You have no intrinsic right to get on the plane, they can be put preconditions on your doing so.
For all the great purposes for which the Federal government was formed, we are one people, with one common country. We are all citizens of the United States; and, as members of the same community, must have the right to pass and repass through every part of it without interruption, as freely as in our own States. Smith v. Turner; Norris v. City of Boston, 48 U.S. 283, 472 (1849).
Undoubtedly the right of locomotion, the right to remove from one place to another according to inclination, is an attribute of personal liberty, and the right, ordinarily, of free transit from or through the territory of any State is a right secured by the Fourteenth Amendment and by other provisions of the Constitution,. Williams v. Fears, 179 U.S. 270, 274 (1900).
In all the States from the beginning down to the adoption of the Articles of Confederation the citizens thereof possessed the fundamental right, inherent in citizens of all free governments, peacefully to dwell within the limits of their respective States, to move at will from place to place therein, and to have free ingress thereto and egress therefrom, with a consequent authority in the States to forbid and punish violations of this fundamental right. United States v. Wheeler, 254 U.S. 281, 293 (1920).
The constitutional right to travel from one State to another, and necessarily to use the highways and other instrumentalities of interstate commerce in doing so, occupies a position fundamental to the concept of our Federal Union. It is a right that has been firmly established and repeatedly recognized. United States v. Guest, 383 U.S. 747, 757 (1965).
This Court long ago recognized that the nature of our Federal Union and our constitutional concepts of personal liberty unite to require that all citizens be free to travel throughout the length and breadth of our land uninhibited by statutes, rules, or regulations. Shapiro v. Thompson, 394 U.S. 618, 629 (1968).
Each citizen has the absolute right to choose for himself the mode of conveyance he desires, whether it be by wagon or carriage, by horse, motor or electric car, or by bicycle, or astride of a horse, subject to the sole condition that he will observe all those requirements that are known as the law of the road. Swift v. City of Topeka, 43 Kan. 671, 674; 23 P. 1075, 1076 (1890).
The right of the public to use the streets is the right to use them for purposes of travel in the recognized methods in which the public highways of the State are used. Any method of travel may be adopted by individual members of the public which is an ordinary method of locomotion, or even an extraordinary method, if it is not, of itself, calculated to prevent a reasonably safe use of the street by others. Chicago v. Collins, 175 Ill. 445, 455; 51 N.E. 907, 909 (1898).
That the use of automobiles on the highways for business or recreation is lawful, is no longer open to question. Such use involves only the application of a new appliance and mode of travel, rather than any new legal principle. It does not exclude or seriously interfere with the original modes in which the highways were used, but simply adds another use in furtherance of the general object for which they were dedicated. Deputy v. Kimmell, 73 W. Va. 595; 80 S.E. 919 (1914).
The right of a citizen to travel upon the public highways and to transport his property thereon in the ordinary course of life and business is a common right which he has under his right to enjoy life and liberty, to acquire and possess property, and to pursue happiness and safety. It includes the right in doing so to use the ordinary
"A government is a body of people usually -- notably -- ungoverned." -Shepherd Book
This would result in higher prices for tickets, which people already complain about
Alternatively if this meant making the cabin smaller you either would have less bathrooms or less seats, again resulting in fare increases
www.RacquetUp.org - Helping Detroit Youth
"The right to travel is a part of the liberty of which the citizen cannot be deprived without due process of law under the 5th Amendment." Kent v. Dulles, 357 US 116, 125.
from http://www.usconstitution.net/constnot.html#travel,
The Right To Travel As the Supreme Court notes in Saenz v Roe, 98-97 (1999), the Constitution does not contain the word "travel" in any context, let alone an explicit right to travel (except for members of Congress, who are guaranteed the right to travel to and from Congress). The presumed right to travel, however, is firmly established in U.S. law and precedent. In U.S. v Guest, 383 U.S. 745 (1966), the Court noted, "It is a right that has been firmly established and repeatedly recognized." In fact, in Shapiro v Thompson, 394 U.S. 618 (1969), Justice Stewart noted in a concurring opinion that "it is a right broadly assertable against private interference as well as governmental action. Like the right of association, ... it is a virtually unconditional personal right, guaranteed by the Constitution to us all." It is interesting to note that the Articles of Confederation had an explicit right to travel; it is now thought that the right is so fundamental that the Framers may have thought it unnecessary to include it in the Constitution or the Bill of Rights.
See also http://supreme.justia.com/constitution/amendment-14/96-right-to-travel.html
I'm too lazy to compose a creative sig.
Kind of eerily fascinating this: America's two extreme moral panics of the last 30 years - the fear of terrorism and the dread of pedophiles - in direct collision! All driven by an irrational belief that we can be completely safe if we can just get safe enough - and that all rights are subordinate to this goal.
I know its feasible and all with auto-pilot, but I'd think that'd never happen. Well unless you were paid to by Lao-che...
-- A computer without COBOL and Fortran is like a piece of chocolate cake without ketchup and mustard
Better yet:
(afterward) "Was it good for you, too?"
(when agent finishes search) "Did I *say* you could stop?! I wasn't finished!"
(during) Make gentle whimpering sounds, moans, grunts, and look like you're trying to hold back smiles and O-faces. If you can read their nametag and call out their first name once or twice, even better!
(afterward) "It's too bad there's nowhere I can duck out for a cigarette with you now that I'm through security."
(afterward) "... Call me?"
(when about to go through the backscatter) [genetic male:] "It really IS that big, but sorry, I'm taken!" [genetic female with C-cup or larger:] "Yep, they're natural, but sorry, I'm spoken for!"
TSA agents are prepared for people to be angry. It's probably more effective to embarrass them; then, they'll be more likely to complain to their supervisors about having to do the pat-downs or screen the nudie pix.
-os
and even if it is redundant the point is there is always one pilot (at least) locked away behind bullet-proof shield
www.RacquetUp.org - Helping Detroit Youth
i've heard recently that people are calling and writing to airlines and congress people saying that they won't go on vacation because of these searches. tourist based economy areas don't want to hear this. i don't know how many people are voicing their anger over this issue to people who are supposed to do something (not saying they will) about this, but that was something i heard.
so, yes, i'm supporting the rumor mill.
"To stop the terrorists."
I often wonder idly, if that isn't the whole point.
Requiem for the American Dream
I notice that the YouTube video has been rather rapidly taken down. Here's a linky to the story, with a working link to video (at least it worked around 5:15 Central Time) ... :: http://www.myfoxtampabay.com/dpp/news/national/screaming-toddlers-airport-patdown-111710
This is just fucking ridiculous ... THIS is what "security" has come to?? Well, welcome to the 4th fucking Reich; a Corporate Republic.
I don't even fly, and this whole thing is REALLY starting to piss me off!!!!
I'm gonna stop ranting now, I'm pretty irritated.
by Executive Orders ('the government' being controlled by FEMA)
10990 allows the government to take over all modes of transportation and control of highways and seaports.
10995 allows the government to seize and control the communication media.
10997 allows the government to take over all electrical power, gas, petroleum, fuels and minerals.
10998 allows the government to take over all food resources and farms.
11000 allows the government to mobilize civilians into work brigades under government supervision.
11001 allows the government to take over all health, education and welfare functions.
11002 designates the Postmaster General to operate a national registration of all persons.
11003 allows the government to take over all airports and aircraft, including commercial aircraft.
11004 allows the Housing and Finance Authority to relocate communities, build new housing with public funds, designate areas to be abandoned, and establish new locations for populations.
11005 allows the government to take over railroads, inland waterways and public storage facilities.
11051 specifies the responsibility of the Office of Emergency Planning and gives authorization to put all Executive Orders into effect in times of increased international tensions and economic or financial crisis.
11310 grants authority to the Department of Justice to enforce the plans set out in Executive Orders, to institute industrial support, to establish judicial and legislative liaison, to control all aliens, to operate penal and correctional institutions, and to advise and assist the President.
11049 assigns emergency preparedness function to federal departments and agencies, consolidating 21 operative Executive Orders issued over a fifteen year period.
11921 allows the Federal Emergency Preparedness Agency to develop plans to establish control over the mechanisms of production and distribution, of energy sources, wages, salaries, credit and the flow of money in U.S. financial institution in any undefined national emergency. It also provides that when a state of emergency is declared by the President, Congress cannot review the action for six months. The Federal Emergency Management Agency has broad powers in every aspect of the nation.
All they need is a disaster... they have been caught setting up patsy terrorists a lot lately. This narrative is farther along than you think.
A few months after the 9/11 attacks, I was discussing with my brother how ceramic knives might be able to make it onto a plane. He paused for a moment and confidently said, "Yes they can".
How did he know for sure? He was attached to a Seal Team at the time, and one of the Seals strapped a ceramic knife to his leg when he went home on leave in December 2001.
The problem then is that the terrorists would hijack the unsafe planes and smash them into skyscrapers again.
This is not true. Scramble time alone is around 40 minutes near Washington, that's why they had those "stay in your seats" periods, and that's pretty much best-case. And you can be very sure that they aren't going to shoot that plane down right away, they'll give it every chance; a mistake would be very, very bad.
But it is moot. The ability to take airliner 9/11 style didn't even last out the day of 9/11. Once passengers got the idea that the best thing to do was take down the terrorists, they did so on their own. All of the terrorist attack attempts on planes since then were defeated by passengers, not the TSA or air marshalls.
We are not going to see another 9/11. We are almost certainly going to see another Lockerbie though.
jim frost
jimf@frostbytes.com
insanely enough, "toiletry" aerosols are now allowed again.
No, it isn't. That does not mean you have the right to travel any way you wish without restriction.
Oh that had to hurt!
I would say that yes, you/we have no right to travel by car without restriction. For example, you can't drive on other people's lawns. You must have a valid drivers license. You must have car insurance. If you are under 18, you may not drive after curfew.
Your car can also be searched at any time, without warrant.
"nonroutine" searches must be supported by "reasonable suspicion"..
These pat downs are routine, therefore you don't need reasonable suspicion.
"Unfortunately, the Constitution doesn't provide average citizens with any way to punish the people in power who perform these illegal acts or who mandate that these illegal acts be performed"
2nd amendment?
I have yet to see anything specific that gives the TSA screener individual specific immunity against charges of sexual assault.
An adult can consent, presumably, but a child cannot. If there is a definition that makes this action a crime, I don't see how the TSA agent personally has immunity from civil or criminal prosecution. I know that they don't have general immunity from any and all criminal charges, so there must be something that gives them immunity in the specific case of what they do in their line of duty. It would have to be tailored sufficiently to not give immunity for an agent who actually does purposely commit assault on someone while in uniform and on the clock, and I'd like to see the wording of that.
-fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
And as much as I'd like to dismiss it all as theater I honestly don't think the TSA really cares deeply about keeping sharp objects off the plane, because they are simply too easy to come by or even make, too hard to detect, and unlikely to be effective against the security of the plane itself anymore.
Surely making a big song and dance about confiscating items that they know are a minimal danger and thus (quite rightly) don't particularly care about is the definition of theatre?
Tell me, exactly what does the US government have to do to its citizens for it to be newsworthy?
10 years ago it would have been a ridiculous and laughable to suggest 'publicly fondle them' as a response to that question.
You know, these "enhanced patdowns" are nothing new. I got this treatment on my trip to the US in 2006 when I was pulled aside. It's just now, they're extending it to everyone (or at least, everyone who refuses the xray). Not excusing it, I think it's stupid. Just saying.
That's the best case. And as we've seen, with all this, zillions of bucks and unmeasurable inconvenience and losses for airlines and the people who might spend money at some tourist trap that now won't -- not one single credible threat has been apprehended by any of this.
That's an almost unbelievable fact -- not one, zero, nada, zip -- by chance you'd think maybe one, right?
Therefore if there's any rationality involved by anyone, you have to find a credible reason. One that was frequently given is the nature of government bureaucracy to just grow and grow, getting more people, more money, without limit.
That one's flat out now -- they are endangering that by outraging everyone, which puts that at risk, and no sane government agency would do that.
Therefore, there must be another reason. From all that wiretapping and so on, not to mention the last election, they have to know how mad we all are about how badly this place is being run. Being afraid of losing power overall, they are, and have been, finding ways to implement the very totalitarianism the terrorists wish they could claim we have, and are being successful at it. This isn't a partisan observation -- both Dems and Pubs are doing it, nothing changes with those parties about the various unconstitutional behavior our government has been increasingly engaging in.
They know we've tried the ballot box, and don't like the results. They know we've tried the soapbox, without result.
They are really afraid we'll remember that last box -- the ammo box.
They've made it basically impossible to organize without detection, which was required even for the American Revolution in which we had the huge advantage of being at the far end of a difficult supply chain for our adversaries.
They've made sure everyone knows this. Gitmo, patiot act, Calea, and a bunch of others, and now this -- training to submit to invasive personal searches in public places merely to do travel -- which is the only other way to organize that can't be tapped now and isn't.
Conditioning that the police/agents etc are all powerful and cannot be resisted -- even that guy who refused and walked out is now liable for a fine! For just leaving! Private propterty! Without "permission" after refusing the invasive, warrant-less search. By not a law officer.
Of course, one could suppose a more benign reason -- they want to find out our limits before we really start fighting back, but why would they want to know that?
I am now officially ashamed to be an American, an old cold warrior, because I thought we'd won that one, and stopped, but it's obvious we lost -- and we are providing and excuse for other countries to follow suit, setting the worst possible of examples. I never thought I would ever say that -- I've shed blood for this country, and evidently it was a complete waste. No, I'm not going to try and overthrow the government, but I'm actively looking for a better place to move to right now. That's enough for me, for now. It should be enough for anyone -- this is so over the top by a government to do, I can't believe they can say "of, by, and for the people" with a straight face. If they can, they should be shot on sight, as they are obviously sociopaths.
Why guess when you can know? Measure!
searches of a traveler's body, including strip, body cavity and involuntary x-ray searches, are considered "nonroutine."
You are entitled to your own opinions, not your own facts.
>>Unless the law specifically conflicts with a right stated in that agreement (the Constitution)... the majority of the elected representatives has decided you will be subject to it.
James Madison would like a word with you outside.
This might be how it works under European Constitutions, but the American Constitution has it the other way around. Unless the government has been granted a certain power, it cannot use that power.
Or, at least it used to work that way before FDR (and the Civil War, to a certain extent).
That wouldn't work. The business of taking over the cockpit was solved on 9/12: Just lock the damn door and don't open it. Oh and since the pilot has 2 of his best friends (Smith and Wesson) with him, any attempt would be rather short lived...
"Be grateful for what you have. You may never know when you may lose it."
^W is the default for 'WERASE' (word-erase) on any unix terminal set in canonical mode.
RTFM: stty(1), termios(3).
It's supposed to erase words even when no line editing facility whatsoever is used.
The whole ^H, ^W meme has more to do with how actual terminals used to work than with those quaint ascii control codes.
This'll stop all this terrorists! Actually, no, this just proves that terrorism works. I also love how the video was heroically removed!
Stop flying on those planes if at all possible. Seriously, don't put up with this blatant invasion of privacy.
Filthy, filthy copyrapists!
All those defrocked priests need jobs once they get out of jail.
I too wish my friend good luck. The crimes he's been a victim of have traumatised him. He needs to see an end to them. I suspect my wishes are more sincere than yours.
Oh don't talk Daily Mail type bollocks. The vast majority of inmates are in prison for crimes that have long been illegal - violent crime, theft, burglary, rape, fraud etc.
Ok they've gone too far.
I notice the video is now under copyright, so presumably there is about to be a media explosion about this, as their rightly should be.
Good.
Ps. and yes I'd be bloody upset about my ted getting x-rayed too, but I'd get over it. Not so sure about the pat down!
They may have hung themselves with their new backscatter stuff and intrusive pat-downs -- I think all this extra coverage is indicative of people outside of Slashdot-types finally realizing that TSA is out of control and helping no-one.
Speak for yourself.... I could use an aggressive pat-down, especially while they wear those sexy uniforms.
That would cost too much. Airlines couldn't offer super-cheap tickets anymore.
Windows 2000 - from the guys who brought us edlin
Following a similar logic, using a scredriver to sabotage the cooling circuit of a nuclear reactor is a weapon of mass destruction too....
If you need a very specific set of coincidences for it to kill a big number of people, then, it's not a weapon of mass destruction.
I could see where the knitting needles could be a threat. Those old ladies could...wait for it...knit an afghan! Thanks everyone I'll be here all week. Don't forget to tip your waitress.
Anyone else see the irony in a bunch of geeks protesting a "more intimate" search procedure? Probably good fodder for "My First Time" submissions... :)
- If we aren't supposed to eat animals, then why are they made out of meat? - Steven Wright
Everything comes at a price. In order to be civilized, a society has to accept some risk. Similar as everyone accepts the risk of being hit by a car in order to be able to use advanced means of transportation a society has to accept the (mathematically negligible) risk of terrorist attacks in order to maintain essential freedoms which are vital and beneficial to a healthy community.
A country where children are routinely touched in a disturbing and embarrassing way by strangers in uniforms does not fit my definition of a free land. And I don't believe that was the only occasion of a child being subjected to such pat-downs.
With logic like yours, TSA should issue strict rectal controls because a terrorist might as likely shove some explosives up his or her ass. Oh, and no exceptions for children in that regard, too, terrorists could use them too.
Clearly we need more security in this new world.
Not only do we need full body scanners in airports, we should add them to schools, high schools and universities!! Did you know that in the last few years more high schoolers and university people have been killed by terrorists or crazy people in their schools.
I say we full body naked scan all kids before they get into school. That is the ONLY way to guarantee that no guns (or even drugs) get into schools. Those kids that refuse should be strongly groped by the school administrators!
We need should also add these to shopping malls and other vulnerable places! Who knows where the terrorists will strike next!!
Also, while we're at it we can store pictures. And those pictures could be resold on the internet and we pay off the national debt!! .. oh wait! maybe this isn't such a good idea..
Stop the TSA and its attempts to take away our 4th amendment rights!
Indeed, classic criminals like the 10,000+ people in for drug specific offenses like posession. Since over half of property crimes are drug motivated, with shoplifting at 85% and burglary at 80%, does it not make sense to deal with the source of the problem rather than apply CCTV band aids so my brother and your friend don't need to treat their home/property like a bank vault?
E.g. http://abcnews.go.com/Travel/john-tyner-tsa-security-check-sexual-molestation/story?id=12153388
I'm a USAmerican and while I'll admit to sucking at math, I think it's a stretch to say I suck "so badly." I'm not exactly sure what The Problem with America Today is, but if I had to guess I'd say a lot of it has to do with extremely large organizations motivated solely by profit (AKA news media) manipulating the international discourse in ways that are profitable, which has nothing to do with a sane representation of reality. It's probably not even that satisfyingly conspiratory, unfortunately, but I do know that I've never seen anyone ram together a few legitimate data points like I have in this blog post (which I'm reproducing in entirety here to save everyone the effort of having to click through to a foreign environment):
In the style of Harper's Index, if with so much less elegance...
Number of deaths in the USA due to fundamentalist Islamic terrorists in 9/2001: 2,996
Estimated number of those that were US citizens: 2,669
Number of deaths in the USA due to traffic accidents in the same month: 3,303
Number of deaths in the USA due to fundamentalist Islamic terrorists between 9/12/2001 and 12/31/2008: 0
Number of deaths in the USA due to traffic accidents in approximately the same period: 303,841
Total approved, as of 12/2009, for the three military operations initiated to combat terrorism in response to 9/11 (excluding funds for CIA, FBI, TSA, Homeland Security, etc.): $1,086,000,000,000
Estimated budget for the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration over the same period: $6,520,000,000
The NHTSAs budget, expressed as a percent of the amount allocated for these military operations: 00.
Estimate, in 2008, for the final total cost of the Iraq war alone: $3,000,000,000,000
Amount allocated to the military per terrorism related US citizen death in the USA since 9/11/2001: $406,893,967.78
Amount allocated to the NHTSA per traffic related death: $21,458.59
Amount allocated to the military per terrorism related US citizen death in the USA since 9/12/2001: Undefined
Percentage of causes of death in the USA that kill more people than terrorism: 100
Percentage of causes of death in the USA that receive more public money for prevention than terrorism: 0
Percent change in gross federal debt between 2001 and 2010: 232.97
Percentage of gross federal debt in 2001 that would have been eliminated by 1.086 trillion dollars: 18.8
Amount each US household would receive given 1.086 trillion dollars evenly distributed: $9443.48
Rank of defense, excluding expenditure on active military operations, among all categories of federal spending: 1
Percentage of federal spending in 2009 that went to defense: 23
Percentage of federal income in the same year that came from individual income tax: 43
Percentage that came from social security/social insurance tax: 42
Percentage that came from corporate income tax: 7
Sources: http://www-fars.nhtsa.dot.gov http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casualties_of_the_September_11_attacks http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NHTSA Global Terrorism Database, with specific query used The Cost of Iraq, Afghanistan, and Other Global War on Terror Operations Since 9/11, by the Congressional Research Service (pdf) The three trillion dollar war
the most powerful intellect is that unbounded by indubitable preconception
And there is something wrong with the whole security theatre to begin with...
http://www.thestar.com/news/world/article/744199---israelification-high-security-little-bother
That article is definitely worth a read. I would happily accept a shift to an Israeli model of airport security, if only for the simple reason that it would get you through airport security in 25 minutes. The additional security and nobody handling my junk or ogling my nakedness, and we have ourselves a winner.
Oral Roberts damned all of Australia to Hell for eternity after a baggage search at Sydney airport - how is conservative America going to react to the extreme measures in place now?
That's right, they'll blame it on having a black man in the white house, but they'll call him a communist or socialist so that they don't look racist.
That's not entirely a bad thing since the TSA will probably be put under adult supervision or abolished before the next election as a matter of political survival.
The problem is 90% of America doesn't ever step foot on an airplane.
That may not shock people as much as it should. You'd think the tea party crowd would be shouting angrily about homosexuals getting to squeeze their balls in airports by now but for some reason they are not. I suppose it won't happen until somebody pays Glenn Beck enough for a weekends worth of cocaine to talk about it.
So you accept the point. The record numbers in prison are not there because of new laws. So why spout such bollocks in the first place?
Since over half of property crimes are drug motivated, with shoplifting at 85% and burglary at 80%, does it not make sense to deal with the source of the problem rather than apply CCTV band aids so my brother and your friend don't need to treat their home/property like a bank vault?
There was nothing stolen in any of the incidents I related to you. There's nothing to suggest they are drug related.
You present a false dichotomy. CCTV is on balance positive or negative on it's own terms. What, if anything, to do about drugs is an entirely different issue. It's not an either or.
I'm not contesting that that's how it works right now, I'm contesting whether or not that's legal.
The second amendment is really only useful if the majority of the population supports an armed uprising. I have a feeling that, no matter how bad it gets, the government will still make sure that 75% of citizens would rather turn in their 25% fellows and return to watching the latest reality show.
It must be something I picked up from the TSA guys gloves.
If you set the metal detector off it's never a "oh, must be your shoes, you can go." It's always, take whatever you have on off, and if you set it off a 2nd time you get the full pat down.
I had a different experience flying out of Dulles last month. It was 5am, and I was barely awake. I set the metal detector off three times - once I forgot the belt, then the coins in my pockets, then for no particular reason whatsoever. I was so tired, I seriously remember thinking, "Remember not to act like a terrorist in airport security." So the red-mustached (I swear to God) man guarding the thing said,
"Sir! I want you to listen and pay very careful attention to what I say."
I nodded. His mustache twitched.
"I want you to hold your hands out straight in front of you," and he helpfully demonstrated. "Now lower them to your thighs and pinch your trousers firmly, and walk through."
So I pinched them up about half an inch with all fingers, then looked up dumbfounded, since there was no way this was what he was talking about. But he nods, and I walk through. I spent the rest of the flight wondering what on Earth the exercise accomplished. Probably my hands blocked a rogue penny in my pockets, but I remember being pretty sure I got everything out.
Actually, he probably realized no terrorist would be stupid enough to try (and fail) to get through a metal detector three times. A terrorist would have passed the dumbass test, and I failed it.
It's not a monarchy, but it has become an oligarchy. With a population this large, way above subsistence level, catering to the bored, uninterested middle class will buy any politician an elected office.
Do the majority of people actually bother to even read the voting guides, or do they just listen to the smear campaigns that interrupt their favorite sitcom?
It's the same problem they had with Rome - past a certain point, it becomes bread and circuses, and I don't know of a civilization that's come back from that point.
Ah but leaving is, as I understand it, an offense under law?
So you can't just 'follow their rules or leave'.
In the free world the media isn't government run; the government is media run.
First metal detectors, then x-rays, then luggage searches, then shoe removal, then body scanners, then pat downs, then "enhanced" pat downs (are those anything like enhanced interrogation techniques?)
Nitpick: they used to do pat downs and luggage searches before metal detectors and x-rays were standard practice. This is ancient before most ./ers (including myself) were born. I've seen the luggage searches in old movies, but I'm sure they didn't go through the bags like they do today (back then they were looking for big pieces of C4, today they are looking for C4, toothpaste, a PS3...).
You don't understand how this kind of things work. It's always the same, no matter what. Security, taxes, changes to the social system. Here's the recipe:
1.) Someone in the mid-ranks of politics voices a totally over-the-top idea to judge public reactions (especially from the media)
2.) Depending on the amount of negativity, a slightly-less or a somewhat-less but still excessive idea is brought forward by someone higher-up
3.) Said idea is lauded as much more moderated, implemented and assisted by some publicity (terror warning, or digging up old examples of tax or welfare abuse, etc.)
4.) Idea is implemented much more strictly than advertised
5.) Public outcry
6.) Idea is slightly reduced. Outcry ends, a policy that wouldn't have been possible before is now in effect
7.) Everyone gets used to that being the norm, after a few years the cycle starts again, to reach the next level
My guess is we're at 5. You can quote me when we reach 6, and remember me during 7.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
Shortly after 9/11 (Oct/Nov 2001 in fact) I took my family on a vacation trip from Norway to the US, to go on a cruise from Miami.
We flew Oslo-Copenhagen-Chicago-Miami and the same way back on the return trip.
There are four of us, our kids were 12 and 10 at the time, and for some very strange reason our youngest was flagged (with "SSSS" on her boarding card) for extra security checks on all the US airports.
The M16-toting National Guard got really upset when I wanted to accompany my kid, but finally relented when I explained that she didn't speak english.
Terje
"almost all programming can be viewed as an exercise in caching"
I believe that has been taken out of context. We do not know where (this guy that left the TSA search), ended the search. Did he end it in the middle, before it started, etc? No one has bothered to ask because deflating a "fear" part of the story ends the drama. Your News reporting at its best.
Unfortunately, it is possible for a toddler to be used as a weapon delivery system.
Under that warped and paranoid point of view, we have no choice but to pat down little Timmy.
The creepy part is the TSA agent who saves the teddy bear's full body scan for later viewing.
>>>Sorry, but you getting from MD to California so you can attend a meeting on Friday is not a right.
By that reasoning, you don't have a right to not be shot in the head by my laser, because it's not listed in the Constitution. (takes aim). I strongly suggest your reasoning is flawed and that you should reconsider.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
I agree, 9/11-style attacks were not a problem as of 9/12.
That said, an "absolutely no screening" line really is a horrendously stupid idea. Why WOULDN'T they attack it? Pack a bomb in the 'ole carry-on. Or fuck, just a pistol. One attack is all it would take to completely decimate the idea of "no security" flying and probably, for no real good reason whatsoever, once again devastate the airline industry as a whole. Which is exactly what the terrorists want; death tolls are well and good, but billions of dollars of economic harm as a result of them? Yes please.
I don't know why people always insist on the extremes. The government forms the TSA who immediately runs to the full body scanning, pat down, toothpaste in a plastic bag, behavioral profiling police state security theater nonsense side, so other people feel somehow justified in going to the batshit crazy, guaranteed to be attacked, just playing the odds that somebody else dies before I do while this minor convenience continues to exist side. I assure everybody: There is a medium.
The body scans can take a hike. I have no problems with the bomb detection devices, particularly since we already bought them. The attempt at some quasi-psychic behavioralist profiling police squad can go. The reinforced cockpit doors and requirements they be secured during flight can stay. Limitations on liquids can go. Guns in the hands of (properly trained) pilots and air marshals can stay. Fondling the three year old girl is straight out. Hell, I'll even let them keep the taking off the shoes thing because while it's pretty stupid, it's just not that big of a deal.
Practical security measures that actually might have a chance of stopping something real -- that's what I'm looking for. An apparent goal of somehow alternating every other seat on a plane with an armed national guardsman to show how tough and secure we are... not so much. Sensible policy. On both sides. It's not asking that much.
You have a right to a livelihood, you also have a right to travel freely between the states.
If the detectors can detect all possibly harmful substances, then why does the pat-down procedure exist?
Unfortunately, the Constitution doesn't provide average citizens with any way to punish the people in power who perform these illegal acts or who mandate that these illegal acts be performed.
Do you even know what the whole point of the Second Amendment is?
However the TSA doesn't grope you to completion, no happy ending.
I don't disagree with that notion, but the problem is of our own making, the means of correcting it are within our control, and sitting around lamenting it without doing anything and exhorting your fellow citizens to take action is simply adding to the circus aspect.
Get involved. Run for office or support people who do. Work to put third party candidates in office. Tell everybody who will give you the time of day what the problems are today, and don't do it in an echo chamber - talk to and seek out people who DISAGREE with your positions, and listen to their positions and try to find common ground with them -- don't just shout slogans at each other.
Politics are broken in this country, you're right. But they're broken because of what we've made of them, and allowed other people to make of them. The only solution to that is to roll up our sleeves and start digging our way out of the mess we've made for ourselves.
I have a little girl (18 month old). If anyone tried to touch my daughter,(doctors/daycare workers aside) I would kill them, no joke. You really you have to wonder why they (the parents) didn't take charge and MAKE the little brat go through the metal detector. I mean really... the child REFUSED to walk through. Imagine this in a security setting where everyone is stressed and waiting. This is clearly the parents fault.
If the police are looking for a suspect of a crime, and the suspect is described as a male in his 30's dark short hair and medium colored skin. The police would not be stopping people who do not fit the description. If most acts of terriorism are being committed by Young Males from 18 to 30, usually middle eastern of origin, why would be checking white females in there mid 60's. Common sense screening of passengers is not racial profiling. It is applying logic to the situation. The death of this planet will be us drowning in the insanity of political correctness and having it used as a tool againist us.
I very much agree with this post. Thanks to the original poster.
You are correct. I should've known that; I'm an old unix user from way back. I learned about raw vs canonical in my UUCP days.
The whole ^H, ^W meme has more to do with how actual terminals used to work than with those quaint ascii control codes.
The reason old terminals worked that way was because of those 'quaint' control codes.
Since you brought that up, I'd like to see a resurgence of control codes. You know all the trouble using 'in-band' printable characters to denote special functions like grouping, field separation, etc? The whole issue of quotes and commas in the data in a CSV file, for instance, or a single quote in an SQL statement literal? Those old coots that developed bisync had this figured out - they had codes for start of text, end of text, start of header, etc. I propose we start using the old control codes for that. Give them a glyph that's similar to the character used currently (for instance replace the use of quoting with the ASCII character STX (Start of Text) and give it an inverse video " appearance). That way you never have to deal with figuring out what characters have special meaning and which are data.
You could do the same thing with XML - no more '<' to open a tag. Instead use an old ctrl code (SOH?) with a similar glyph.
Tiller's Rule: Never use a word in written form that you've only heard and never read. You will end up looking foolish.
Actually, that is covered in the first Amendment. "One’s right to life".
So then do I have a right to ride my rocket car anywhere I want because I made a lunch appointment in China in 2 hours? No. Sorry, you don't have the right to travel by any means you want.
FBI - Most Wanted Terrorists
Does any of these pictures look like your daughter? I didn't think so.
If this FBI page shows the people we are looking for, then why are we checking 3-year-old blond girls and 65-year-old gray-haired ladies for hidden bombs?
For crying out loud, have some common sense and investigative skills.
What on earth does this mean? Some TSA PR woman offers to follow him around to make sure the other TSA goons don't molest him? Or was this said in a seductive tone of voice?
Just like the mafia hitmen. It's their job: kill people for money and the Mafia.
So why do we go and put them in jail, JUST FOR DOING THEIR JOB???
PS in case you harp on about how it's legal, it was legal for Saddam Hussein to gas the Kurds. BECAUSE HE'S THE BOSS.
I would say that yes, you/we have no right to travel by car without restriction. For example, you can't drive on other people's lawns. You must have a valid drivers license. You must have car insurance. If you are under 18, you may not drive after curfew.
Way to miss the point.
Your car can also be searched at any time, without warrant.
Bullshit.
E pluribus unum
The first amendment to the US constitution:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
I think you have some reading to do.
E pluribus unum
>>>That does not mean you have the right to travel any way you wish without restriction.
Frak it. (pulls trigger) Anymore tyrants wish to take-away my Right to drive or fly via the Common property which belongs to all the People? C'mon. Line up over here..... we'll deal with you the same way we dealt with Julius Caesar, Nero, Robespierre, Mussolini, and so on. The People are the ultimate authority to wish all government servants must eventually bow.
"Live Free or Die [tyrant]."
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
It's not molestation when the good guys do it!
We're screwed then, because eventually these people will put bombs _into_ their children?
We'll end up with mandatory cavity searches of every passenger, including children ; and the terrorists will laugh their asses off, thinking of the humiliation the heathens are subjected to every time they fly, thank to a small effort on their part in 9/11.
The answer: maxi thins.
Someone I know in the TSA told me that the scanners cannot see past moisture, and that elderly, female, and very young travelers effectively block the scanner around the crotch area. This is apparently part of their training as well.
The answer: install a slightly moist maxi thin just before going through the line, get rid of afterwards.
Even if the first option does exclude all terrorist based plane deaths. Boring old aircraft crashes are still far more likely to "kill" you. The Fact is that there really just aren't that many would be terrorists out there, and the few that are, are so stupid that all they can do is set their own scrotum on fire.
If information wants to be free, why does my internet connection cost so much?
Running the printing presses doesn't help either, when you have lots of short-term debt, because lenders can see what you're up to and raise interest rates accordingly. As the glorious Fed has shifted the US debt balance sharply from long term to short term, we're pretty much boned. Pay attention to the PIGS (Portugal, Ireland, Greece, Spain), as that's our future, and not our distant future either.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
Even if the first option does exclude all terrorist based plane deaths. Boring old aircraft crashes are still far more likely to "kill" you.
In fact, I quite agree. But changing the interpretation of the question to reflect the way people actually interpret it brings that answer down from "flatly impossible, logical contradiction" to the realm of merely "unlikely".
Bow-ties are cool.
So what you're saying is that if there's a 0.00001% chance that somebody who looks like a nun is a terrorist, and a 0.01% chance that somebody who looks like a young Arab male is a terrorist, we should search every young Arab male and miss the terrorist nuns? Oh, and there's also the not-insignificant problem that any terrorist who notices this sort of profiling will simply recruit a lighter-skinned female terrorist and dress her up like a nun.
What I think you're actually saying here is "Go ahead and violate other people's rights, just don't mess the rights of people like me." They came for the communists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a communist...
So the young arab male is 1000x the chance of being a terrorist than the nun, and somehow that's not a good enough odds to prioritize? It sure is.
Your math, btw.
In any case this airport screening is a complete waste of time. It's just that the government is able to spend our tax money on it, so they do.
Terrorists have many targets, if they can't blow up planes they will just blow up buildings, bridges, subway trains, the target is immaterial. These very same Al Qlaeda terrorists have already attacked all those.
How long before people are comfortable with being accosted on the street by stormtroopers asking "where are you going?"
I for one don't ever want to live in a world like that.
Disarming everyone at the airport is not the answer.
The better solution for air travel would be to give qualified passengers who have a concealed carry permit a 30% airfare discount if they take a class and become certified as an auxiliary air marshall.
I would get a CCW.
If there were 30 or 40 armed trained civilians on every flight the terrorists would be unable to do anything. How would it be to try to blow up or hijack the plane and have 20 people pull guns on you?
Heh.
This does not solve the problems of terrorism in the world anymore than sexually assaulting three year olds would. The solution to that, well, I have one but it would be very messy.
.
Do you understand the concept of discouragement? Screening procedures DISCOURAGE would-be terrorists from bringing bombs on planes because they are likely to get caught. If there was no screening, then I would anticipate the frequency with which these attacks occurred would go up; do you disagree with this?
Use of hyperbole ("disturbing and embarrassing") doesn't change the fact that you do live in a "free land" - you are free to stay at home or travel by ground.
Sigh. It is a complete misconception that the constitution enumerates all our rights. One of the reasons its writers were hesitant to list any rights in it, is because idiots like you would thing that it was a complete list.
God, not another one. The constitution is NOT a document that lists our rights. It defines the limits of government's power. The founding fathers were hesitant to including amendments like the first, because boobs like you would like it defined the totality of our rights. It does not.
Sure you do, you've just been brainwashed into thinking you do not have that right.
Ok ok, we'll try it your way. We'll let you fly, and person 2 fly, and person 3, and person 4, [...] and person 5,345,723, and... (someone comes up and whispers) what do you mean all the planes crashed into each other because there were no regulations in place to properly supervise use of the limited space that is the airways?
And no, this is not a strawman. You desired to travel with zero restrictions, so we had to get rid of that pesky FAA. And I know you desire zero restrictions because you "killed" someone for having the audacity to suggest having restrictions. Not specific restrictions, but any restrictions.
If your friend really had a disruptor pistol, I think he could have gotten on the plane just fine without breaking it down. All he'd have to do would be to wave his hands and say, "There is no pistol" to the TSA agents.
Nah, this guy wasn't really any kind of a charmer. In fact, he seems to go through life generally disagreeable and pissed off, except when he's drunk and partying all rowdy-like. If the TSA guys had given him any trouble he'd probably retort with some kind of "kill you where you stand" comment, which of course would just get him in more trouble. So I guess he was being uncharacteristically clear-thinking in his decision to resort to this kind of subterfuge.
Bow-ties are cool.
Just to give you a quote for your "not a right" in the Constitution: Bill of Rights, art. 11 "The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people."
Without doing anything? I've voted for write-in candidates, gotten involved with grassroots campaigning, etc. None of it matters, because at some point it's no longer within OUR control.
When there's a majority of the population that doesn't care, won't care, and will just hate you if you try to reason with them, what do you suggest we do? It's a lose-lose situation.
You say our current state is a result of us "allowing other people to make it this way". Last I checked, we didn't have a choice! We did the right things, we voted, we warned people, we called and wrote our senators, and for what? It got worse!
I think it's time to stop blaming ourselves for this, (unless you voted partisan in the elections) and focus on blaming the mass apathy that afflicts the consumer middle class. We can dig all we want to, but I'm beginning to think there'll always be twice as many people filling the hole back in.
>Do you understand the concept of discouragement?
The concept of discouragement is "moving the problem some other place". To Subway, maybe? Public buses? Concerts? Other crowded places? You can't screen everyone everywhere, you just can't.
>If there was no screening, then I would anticipate the frequency with which these attacks occurred would go up; do you disagree with this?
I do, in fact, disagree with this. First, we don't see bombers exploding themselves in crowded lines before screening at the airports which they could do with almost zero hassle, but no less publicity.
Second, security can be made differently, see Israeli airports. They don't do security theatre, they do security.
Last but not least, if a terrorist attack occurs I'd like to live in a society that can deal with it without hysteria by the media and without politics appealing to fear, rage and vengeance. The point of terrorism is to spread fear, a society which does not bow to the fear is immune to such a threat. Face it - resulting hysteria deals much more damage than any terrorist attack would ever do.
>you are free to stay at home or travel by ground.
Freedom of movement and freedom to travel mean more than just being able to walk some place. And I am not exercising my freedom to travel to the fullest if the only freedom I have is that I am "free to stay at home or travel by ground".
>Use of hyperbole ("disturbing and embarrassing")
It is not a hyperbole. I insist on carefully picking persons who are allowed to touch my genitalia and I'd like it to stay this way.
Justice Robert H. Jackson wrote, "the very purpose of the Bill of Rights was to withdraw certain subjects from the vicissitudes of political controversy, to place them beyond the reach of majorities ... One's right to life, liberty, and property, to free speech, a free press, freedom of worship and assembly, and other fundamental rights may not be submitted to vote.
Theater within theater.
In the free world the media isn't government run; the government is media run.
What amazes me the most here is that this occurred over two years ago and you people are just now catching on. Hell, I even submitted it to /. back then. What the fuck folks?
I think you have a reading comprehension problem.
You were originally talking about the first amendment, not the whole bill of rights. And I don't disagree with Justice Jackson.
E pluribus unum
That's funny, because my gun says that you're the idiot.
Y'know, coupled with this post, you're not exactly helping your claim that you don't want anarchy.
So then by your own logic, you have the right to do 200mph on residential roads in order to make it to work on time because you couldn't be arsed to get to bed / out of bed at a decent time.
Moron.
Actually that was a quote from the justice regarding a first amendment case. I will leave it at that. I'll disregard your need to share your thoughts about me as a defense mechanism. It would be good if you brushed up on your social grace; You really don't need to stoop to that level to make a rational point.
My suggestion is totally much more in line with the TSA thinking and extremely rational as well!
All we do is we eliminate colons. That's gonna stop most terrorists right there. In fact, it will stop all terrorists, I have never hear of a terrorist without a colon, so all terrorists have colons, so clearly, if you have a colon, you just might be a terrorist, but if you don't have one, you are free to go (to go, get it?)
You can't handle the truth.
http://www.usconstitution.net/constnot.html
Your position falls apart pretty fast if you actually try to apply it to the real world instead of as a smartass remark on the internet.
A bullet may have your name on it but splash damage is addressed "To whom it may concern."
A 3 year old has no need for special privileges. A security risk *is* posed by a child, potentially. If that bothers you too much, don't take your 3 year old on an airplane. We'd all appreciate it. Small children can be almost as irksome as the TSA, And yes, I'm a frequent flier.
Please read the 27th link on the page you just sent me entitled "The right to travel" under things NOT in the constitution.
Maybe you should read it first before, again, trying to be a smartass on the internet:
As the Supreme Court notes in Saenz v Roe, 98-97 (1999), the Constitution does not contain the word "travel" in any context, let alone an explicit right to travel (except for members of Congress, who are guaranteed the right to travel to and from Congress). The presumed right to travel, however, is firmly established in U.S. law and precedent. In U.S. v Guest, 383 U.S. 745 (1966), the Court noted, "It is a right that has been firmly established and repeatedly recognized." In fact, in Shapiro v Thompson, 394 U.S. 618 (1969), Justice Stewart noted in a concurring opinion that "it is a right broadly assertable against private interference as well as governmental action. Like the right of association, ... it is a virtually unconditional personal right, guaranteed by the Constitution to us all." It is interesting to note that the Articles of Confederation had an explicit right to travel; it is now thought that the right is so fundamental that the Framers may have thought it unnecessary to include it in the Constitution or the Bill of Rights.
A bullet may have your name on it but splash damage is addressed "To whom it may concern."
I did read it. Unfortunately other than the fact that the right to travel isn't in the constitution the rest is conjecture from the tard that wrote the site, which obviously conflicts with the current views on the subject as our current laws and TSA mandate prove otherwise.
Your stating that "the rest is conjecture from the tard that wrote the site" proves you didn't read it.
A bullet may have your name on it but splash damage is addressed "To whom it may concern."
Good idea. While you're at it, contact various airlines to let them know why they aren't going to get your money anymore. Let them use their deep pockets to effect change as well.
Your original point is that the right to life is specifically guaranteed by the first amendment. The quote from Justice Jackson was part of a broader point about how fundamental rights should be beyond politics and does not support your argument. Here is the opinion: West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette.
The Gobitis opinion reasoned that this is a field 'where courts possess no marked and certainly no controlling competence,' that it is committed to the legislatures as well as the courts to guard cherished liberties and that it is constitutionally appropriate to 'fight out the wise use of legislative authority in the forum of public opinion and before legislative assemblies rather than to transfer such a contest to the judicial arena,' since all the 'effective means of inducing political changes are left free.' Id., 310 U.S. at page 597, 598, 600, 60 S.Ct. at pages 1014, 1016, 127 A.L.R. 1493.
The very purpose of a Bill of Rights was to withdraw certain subjects from the vicissitudes of political controversy, to place them beyond the reach of majorities and officials and to establish them as legal principles to be applied by the courts. One's right to life, liberty, and property, to free speech, a free press, freedom of worship and assembly, and other fundamental rights may not be submitted to vote; they depend on the outcome of no elections. [319 U.S. 624, 639] In weighing arguments of the parties it is important to distinguish between the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment as an instrument for transmitting the principles of the First Amendment and those cases in which it is applied for its own sake. The test of legislation which collides with the Fourteenth Amendment, because it also collides with the principles of the First, is much more definite than the test when only the Fourteenth is involved. Much of the vagueness of the due process clause disappears when the specific prohibitions of the First become its standard. The right of a State to regulate, for example, a public utility may well include, so far as the due process test is concerned, power to impose all of the restrictions which a legislature may have a 'rational basis' for adopting. But freedoms of speech and of press, of assembly, and of worship may not be infringed on such slender grounds. They are susceptible of restriction only to prevent grave and immediate danger to interests which the state may lawfully protect. It is important to note that while it is the Fourteenth Amendment which bears directly upon the State it is the more specific limiting principles of the First Amendment that finally govern this case.
West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette wasn't a fifth amendment case, and as such did not mention it except in the broader point as quoted above. The right to life is specifically protected by the fifth amendment, not the first.
No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.
E pluribus unum
I'm not sure this solution would scale tho. Israel only has several airports to protect. US has hundreds. Ben Gurion is also a relatively small airport compared to usa and eu major ones. Israel because of its being small both in terms of size and population is much easier for soft intelligence. Israel also has very tight immigration controls and is relatively homogenous. Compare that to us or eu - huge distances,open borders, hundreds of airports, hundreds of milions of people, thousands of nationalities, some secluded and resistant to assimilation.
US-UK-Israel: The real Axis of Evil
The effect of radiation is not a linear function of dose; I believe (though am not expert enough to state) that the likely reason for this is that you need multiple mutations in one cell to start cancer; one single mutation tends to be corrected out by various mechanisms in cell and the coding of it's DNA. This means that a concentrated dose on one part of your body is much more likely to cause damage than a greater dose spread out through your body volume. The X-ray scanners deliver exactly that; a dose to your skin only (worse still; to the same area as you tend to get genetic damage from the UV light from the sun). Cosmic rays are highly penetrative, and so whatever radiation dose they deliver is spread throughout your body. This means that comparing the two can only be done by experiment.
The fact that the TSA and others are providing such assurances which they have no way to know the truth of is a definite sign of bad faith.
=~ s,(.*),<sarcasm>$1</sarcasm>,g if any_point_you_wish();
I concede, it is obviously protected by the fifth amendment.
http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/aviation/safety/the-truth-about-tsa-airport-scanning
A survey of Icelandic commercial flyboys, conducted in 2000 by the University of Iceland's Dr. Vilhjálmur Rafnsson, found that skin cancer rates for pilots were between 10 and 25 times higher than that of the general public.
www.RacquetUp.org - Helping Detroit Youth
I would imagine a ceramic knife laid edge on in the lining of a carry on bag would be undetectable with current methods, and while prone to shatter, ceramics are deadly sharp.
That said, an "absolutely no screening" line really is a horrendously stupid idea. Why WOULDN'T they attack it?
Because there are only a few terrorists in the world? Because they're mostly stupid and poorly organized?
I would definitely fly the "absolutely no screening" line, especially after the massive discounts they would likely give out if (in the extremely unlikely event) another attack did occur.
First off cosmic radiation does increase cancer risk.
That's a bit of a non sequitur. I never said cosmic radiation doesn't increase cancer risk. I said that it probably does so quite a bit less, dose per dose, than a back scatter X-ray machine. Secondly; I said that dose is non linear and I'll also mention that it seems that time spread of exposure is an important factor; if you take a large dose in a short time that is worse than the same dose spread over time. This means that air travellers should be seen as a vulnerable group. The moment when you have to travel by air is exactly the moment you should be trying to reduce your exposure to other forms of ionizing radiation.
A survey of Icelandic commercial flyboys, conducted in 2000 by the University of Iceland's Dr. Vilhjálmur Rafnsson, found that skin cancer rates for pilots were between 10 and 25 times higher than that of the general public.
It's very interesting that you don't mention what I found after two minutes of internet searching; that this is specifically skin cancer of the forearm likely caused by exposure to the sun at high altitude through non perfect UVB filtering glass.
So why are the people you are quoting trying to bring up non relevant facts to hide real and unknown dangers which clearly need actual research? These are people who have excellent X-ray scientists available but instead choose to talk about things which a random layman could see through. Could it possibly be that they have some machines to sell and know that that those machines are dangerous?
=~ s,(.*),<sarcasm>$1</sarcasm>,g if any_point_you_wish();