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Women Arrested For Refusing TSA Search of Children
CelticWhisper writes "A Tennessee mother was arrested for refusing to allow TSA screening clerks to subject her child to a body scan or patdown. This comes in the wake of a promise by the TSA Administrator to make repeated attempts at non-physical screening of children, after which another video of a child patdown surfaced. This event may signify a tipping point in the public's willingness to tolerate invasive and inappropriate security procedures at airports."
"Think of the children" actually gets people to listen.
Not the groping, not the invasion of someone putting their hands on you (think about those that hate being touched, or fear of germs, etc), or 3d images of your body for all to see.
Nope, its fear of pediophilia and children being touched.
We have come far.
Is everyone enjoying their freedom? You know that choice you have which you really don't...
She wasn't arrested for a refusing a patdown. She was arrested for being belligerent.
The "think of the children" argument has managed to get all sorts of ridiculous legislation passed, so it's clearly an effective argument. It's about time we started using it to protect some of our rights.
From TFA:
“No, it’s not an X-ray,” she told Abbott. “It is 10,000 times safer than your cell phone and uses the same type of radio waves as a sonogram.”
The TSA scanners aren't comparable in any useful sense to cell phones or sonograms. (Cellphones are non-ionizing radiation and sonograms are pressure waves.) Is it any wonder that these guys don't get the benefit of the doubt?
This device creates a picture of a child's body, for non artistic purpose.
No one saw the latest test ?
Where a local TV show performed a test with regards to security. Guards easily managed to pick out a forbidden (and extremely dangerous) bottle of water from a bag of luggage, but a potential dangerous explosive substance was easily overlooked.
US security measures are hypocrite and only good for the ego's of the security guards themselves. Not for the public safety.
Get used to it, you're the ones who voted for it.
Even the TSA workers aren't too happy about the possibility of getting cancer from the scanners.
http://healthland.time.com/2011/06/30/did-airport-scanners-give-boston-tsa-agents-cancer/
"The average reporter we talk to is 27 years old......They literally know nothing." - Ben Rhodes
the man who would choose security over freedom deserves neither.
gotta love those founding fathers.
Or, could be that she's a self-entitled prat.
She wasn't arrested for refusing to allow the screening, she was [...]"belligerent and verbally abusive to security officers"[...]"After the woman refused to calm down, airport police said, she was charged with disorderly conduct and taken to jail"
Short version, she got her knickers in a twist and threw a hissy-fit without even a modest attempt at politely refusing. I'd be right behind someone with calm and rational objections, but immediately going on the offensive hardly qualifies.
Another word for not being properly subservient to our masters.
"The average reporter we talk to is 27 years old......They literally know nothing." - Ben Rhodes
This event may signify a tipping point in the public's willingness to tolerate invasive and inappropriate security procedures at airports.
I'll believe that when I see it. People bitch, but they comply. And only compliance is necessary.
That is all.
Because the overwhelming goal for the private company isn't security, it's the profit margin.
Replicating what the Israelis do costs real money; as in involves hiring intelligent people and training the said people how to spot real threats. That kind of thing cuts into profit margin and executive bonuses, and just absolutely won't do.
ELOI, ELOI, LAMA SABACHTHANI!?
This woman should be applauded, her sticking up for the health of her children (those backscatter machine REALLY safe?) and their dignity (because "pat downs" are degrading). She was willing to get herself arrested to stand up for her children. We need more people like her.
Short version, she got her knickers in a twist and threw a hissy-fit without even a modest attempt at politely refusing.
How do you 'politely refuse' someone who's demanding to grope your children?
Or, could be that she's a self-entitled prat.
I think the old word for that was "citizen".
I also had to google "prat", you prat.
I am not a crackpot.
Okay, I get it- they screen children, the infirm, and the elderly not because they expect these people to be terrorists, but because it would be possible to use them as mules to carry the payload for someone who themselves would definitely be screened. Many of us understand this. Thing is, in the case of children, they need to have actual medical staff like RNs and MDs on hand to handle children and teenagers. One RN per security checkpoint, one Doctor to every four or five checkpoints or per terminal or airport, depending on the size of the terminal or airport. But, that would probably be expensive in an era when we're short on doctors and nurses. I suppose that they don't have to be especially good doctors, but since they're inspecting the body, having someone trained in the body probably would be a good idea.
The trouble is, they really, really need to find a better way to screen, and they need to understand that paying low wage workers to do the screening isn't helping. They need employees who actually care and are fairly intelligent people, and they need enough of them to offset the grueling nature of the job. That probably means a four-fold increase in the payroll, with 1/3 going to wage increases and the rest going to doubling the number of workers. They also need to institute their own Internal Affairs, complete with undercover placing (which could easily be safely hidden by the sheer size of the organization through the use of random gate reassignments for employees as well as transfers between airports and cities) to help stamp out the current problems.
When I went through security in London Heathrow, about a week after the Christmas Underwear Bomber attempt, and I accidently set off the metal detector because of a foil-lined wet wipe in my pocket, their security was quick and intelligent. They didn't feel the need to extend their patdown into a bag search, and once they found the wet wipe manually in my shirt pocket they wanded me quickly again, passed me, and gave me back the wet wipe. It took something like a minute for the whole process. Granted, they were smart enough to leave enough space in the airport for security, which is probably triple what we have in the US, but their employees seemed to actually care about what they were doing, didn't joke around in a way that made me uncomfortable, and treated it all as important but routine. I didn't get the "guilty until proven innocent" feeling that I get in our own airports.
I've heard lots of good things about El Al, as everyone on here talks about. I really wish that our policy makers would stop thinking that the technological approach is the way to go and start thinking about the human interaction approach. I'd bet that we could go back to simple metal detectors again if security actually made conversation with passengers instead of treating them like cattle to be mechanically put through the processes.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
There is no such thing like groping the balls of people, or manhandling children or elderly regularly in the most repressive regimes of the world.
what's needed for you americans to actually stand up to this ?
Read radical news here
'nuf said.
Nope, its fear of pediophilia and children being touched.
We have come far.
We have come far.
But the thing is, people groping children is utterly senseless and, to many people, disgusting. There is no way to defend or condone it.
That is why people are against it, not of some odd pedophile fear but because it's stupid and gross.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Thing is, in the case of children, they need to have actual medical staff like RNs and MDs on hand to handle children and teenagers.
Ok, I'll bite. Why? What is inherently medical in nature in a TSA search that requires the skills of an RN or MD to do it?
Sensationalist headlines on /. ? Nooooo! Never.
Short version, she got her knickers in a twist and threw a hissy-fit without even a modest attempt at politely refusing.
How do you 'politely refuse' someone who's demanding to grope your children?
Pretty much the same way you "politely refuse" someone offering to commit any other crime against you or your family. "I think I'll just take a pass on this mugging, sir. I wouldn't want to be arrested for disorderly conduct, you know."
I am not a crackpot.
Or, could be that she's a self-entitled prat.
She wasn't arrested for refusing to allow the screening, she was [...]"belligerent and verbally abusive to security officers"[...]"After the woman refused to calm down, airport police said, she was charged with disorderly conduct and taken to jail"
Short version, she got her knickers in a twist and threw a hissy-fit without even a modest attempt at politely refusing. I'd be right behind someone with calm and rational objections, but immediately going on the offensive hardly qualifies.
I think more people should throw hissy-fits about the fascist police state. The developments in the US are outrageous and so should be the response from the populace.
Some of my favourite people are from th US; Vonnegut, Chomsky, Bill Hicks.
cos she's freaken ugly
Who?, the TSA? , naaah, we are the goverment, we can do anything. Now, papers please ...
We have to stop invasive TSA procedures, whether x-rays or pat-downs. This is unconstitutional.
Circle the wagons and fire inward. Entropy increases without bounds.
It is not the system that "greed-head airlines" put in place, it was put in place by Federal Government, namely DHS. If it were individual airlines putting the system together, we would probably have a wider range of options, and you could choose to fly the airline which offers screening on the level that you personally consider acceptable.
When this screening was first introduced (was not it in PATRIOT Act? And I though that more than half of /. HATED it, up until it was re-signed by the mechanical pen of their favorite President), I think it allowed for either DHS doing screening, or allowing individual *airports* make contracts with private security firms -- since then DHS fought that option, and is winning.
Paul B.
Why is it that if you or I were to do this we would be charged criminally with either sexual assault or child molestation. Yet, it is perfectly OK for a TSA employee to sexually assault an adult or molest a child and be able to fall back on "I was just doing my job". That shit did not work for the nazi's when they used the "I was just following orders" so why do we let them do this shit now? As Ben Franklin said "They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." We have given up liberties for security and look at where we are at now. We are NOT any safer than before 9/11 and IMHO we do not deserve to be.
It's like saying someone was arrested for driving a car when the truth was he was driving a stolen car at 100MPH down a residential street. It is more sensational to read about the guy who was arrested for no apparent reason than to actually say what the reason was.
Now, the TSA person who lied to her like that should be fired, yes indeedee doo. And THAT would have made a good headline, focussing on the stupidity/ignorance/deceitfullness of the TSA.
The above statements are true in C, C++, C#, Perl, Java, Ruby, Python etc. but not the USA.
That's why they should teach programming in grammar school.
nope, sorry. the will of the people don't matter anymore.
we lost our country to our own appointed goons. the goons have control and won't give it up.
soap box? election box? they have not worked for us...
--
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
It does no good whatsoever, but it is nice to see the very few brave people that stand up and say "no" to the TSA's searches and seizures. Rosa Parks would know just how these people feel.
Legal right to touch a minor I think is the theory here. And in theory it's correct, police officers even have special officers trained and legally sanctioned in touching a minor versus an adult. Security Guards are by-and-large warned flat-out "DON'T TOUCH MINORS, EVER!" by many larger security-guard companies I've worked under over the years.
they're not doing this to catch fucking terrorists.. they thought that woman was using her kid to ferry "contraband". SURE!!! they're looking for terrorists - but that's not all they're looking for, they found a great way to perform illegal searches. now wtf are you gonna do about it? ######subliminal#suggestion#of#armed#and#bloody#revolution#######
A registered nurse or a medical doctor has been taught how to handle those regions, whereas a TSA agent would probably tug on them or try to stick a finger inside to "check for bombs".
"It's what I do to check myself every night, and it feels good, too!" or "I know that they like a finger in there, I saw a video online one time about it!" would probably be the excuses given, and, of course, the TSA behind these horny "agents" who said that stripping an old, cancer-ridden grandmother of her diaper was A-Okay would probably give the same overarching "our agents said to do it, so it must be for the security of our nation" spiel.
If enough Americans had the balls this woman's got, we might have a functional fourth amendment.
Thank you, Edward Snowden.
"Arguments from authority are worthless." —Carl Sagan
...Thing is, in the case of children, they need to have actual medical staff like RNs and MDs on hand to handle children and teenagers. One RN per security checkpoint, one Doctor to every four or five checkpoints or per terminal or airport, depending on the size of the terminal or airport.
Er, considering that quite a few parents would agree that any sort of patdown down by a stranger is more of a psychological impact than a physical one, how exactly is your solution going to help at all when the child is still standing in the middle of a damn airport with thousands of people around them, all impatiently waiting for the good "doctor" to get done with their screening?
Sorry, but in the big picture, even a lollipop ain't gonna help. This bullshit needs to stop. When attacking the obscenities against our Rights, it's best to go for the throat, or root cause in this case, which is questioning why in the hell we even need the continued "support" of the TSA.
Trying to figure out a more polite way to fondle my child in order to board an airplane is not the answer.
Okay so if i dressed my daughter in tights and a sleeveless leotard she still would have to be scanned and or searched??
Somebody with a handy lawyer needs to try an experiment and then
SUE THE TSA (and the airport and the airline and anybody else) if they try.
Any person using FTFY or editing my postings agrees to a US$50.00 charge
The whole enterprise of gaterape as a security measure is flawed; but it isn't more flawed in children than it is in adults.
No, but that doesn't matter. It's just that people "know" a child isn't going to have anything on them. It might be irrational but it's a stronger feeling that makes the whole thing more obviously stupid.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
They search the children and the 'in firm' because sociopaths put bombs on them.
Exactly. Since doctors and nurses are by definition trained to deal with the body and it is an expected part of their daily jobs, I would trust a doctor or nurse to have passed the scrutiny to do it correctly. Sure, there are doctors and nurses also busted for indecencies with minors from time to time, but it doesn't seem to be very widespread. Hell, you wouldn't even need Doctors that completed their internships for this kind of work- someone who graduated from Medical School alone would be enough. That could mean Doctorlings who can't afford their internship, Doctorlings who decided they don't like medicine but decided such too late, or those whose grades were bad enough that practicing actual medicine isn't really for them. Couple that with some training for the medical person to ask about events earlier in the day (to determine if the child was asked or forced to take any contraband into their own possession) similar to how pediatricians speak to children to find out what's wrong and you could probably have a fairly noninvasive, nonhumiliating way to screen those who really shouldn't be screened by regular security guards.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
They do it better, TSA needs to wake the eff up and go learn from someone that's been doing it for years. They train people, well, smart people, to use their brains to detect fear, someone being nervous, etc. But no, TSA is basically fast food secuirty, you can work at TSA one day and MacDonalds the next.
TSA says it will instruct screeners how to make repeated attempts to screen young children without invasive pat-downs. The instructions should reduce the number of pat-downs on children, TSA says.
Introducing the new, and improved TSA...NOW WITH 10% LESS GROPE! Fly the friendly Skies!
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
expect child terrorists hijacking airplanes in 3... 2... 1....
She was arrested for allegedly being "belligerant and verbally abusive" to TSA personnel, not for the refusal.
Of course, I suspect a lot of parents could get to the same point if they were in a similar situation. I'd certainly try to be polite while resisting the insistence that my child would have to be patted down or be sent through an X-ray machine*. I don't think I'd blow up like this woman apparently did. However, if it was an expensive trip that was long-planned, or there was some urgency behind it, and/or the child became greatly distressed over it, I'd be pretty miffed about being put in the difficult position of choosing between subjecting my child to an invasive search or canceling the trip. It certainly would be tough to stay cool, and I can picture some pretty harsh words being deployed if the security personnel were not being considerate.
[*although in this case it appears to be one of the millimetre radio-wave devices, which I consider less harmless, but I still wouldn't want my child subjected to it out of concern they'd start thinking they had to passively accept it all when they grew up. Also what's quoted from the TSA employee isn't correct, because sonograms use sound, not radio waves, so their confused claims don't inspire confidence.]
A large-scale, coordinated boycott of all air travel would probably have some effect.
Might not even take much more to set off than a few major "think of the children" ad campaigns funded by companies with a vested interest in increasing road travel...
I am not a doctor yet but I am in med school. I have a bachelor's degree in mathematics and I previously worked as a IT consultant developing business applications. I have decided to switch careers because I want to do something with my life that is more fulfilling. Why on earth do you think that I or any other doctor would ever consider taking a job that is completely meaningless.
I could spend a few minutes suturing a small cut on some kids arm in an ER and I would have done something that is more meaningful than I could do working a whole year for the TSA.
Doctors and nurses can actually save people from dying. If you want to waste resources on the TSA, that has as far as I know never saved a single life, then that is your choice. However please don't reallocate resources that are saving lives today to something that is completely useless.
Or, could be that she's a self-entitled prat.
She wasn't arrested for refusing to allow the screening, she was [...]"belligerent and verbally abusive to security officers"[...]"After the woman refused to calm down, airport police said, she was charged with disorderly conduct and taken to jail"
Short version, she got her knickers in a twist and threw a hissy-fit without even a modest attempt at politely refusing. I'd be right behind someone with calm and rational objections, but immediately going on the offensive hardly qualifies.
I think she showed a great deal of restraint. If it were me I may have been arrested for assault.
Any insufficiently advanced magic is indistinguishable from technology.
... we can't believe you let yourselves be driven to a point where you have to be strip-searched, molested and interrogated before they let you on a plane - and all that while maintaining an attitude of utter submission to your TSA masters.
Seriously, guys, you're the only ones doing this shit. You need to stop it, you're beginning to look silly.
“No, it’s not an X-ray,” she told Abbott. “It is 10,000 times safer than your cell phone and uses the same type of radio waves as a sonogram.”
(emphasis mine)
What. The. Fuck. I was told almost the opposite, but still wrong at BWI--that the mm-wave scanner was sound waves, not EM. How is this getting twisted? Is there some statement that the mm-wave is "as safe as a sonogram" and the agents are mixing and matching at will?
I don't expect the security screeners to be physicists, but they really need to know what the equipment they operate emits. At this point, I barely trust their magnetometer to not blast me with ionising radiation.
You should argue for the raising of the age of majority, or whatever it is you use to define 'child'. I think this would be easy for most men, judging from what my wife says about men anyway.
Max.
I agree, is there some type of medical training for searching people? Or kids? I doubt it. Before I go any further, TSA do not qualify as Law Enforcement to me but... Law Enforcement officers undergo fairly sophisticated training for doing complete searches that don't have sexual overtones. So I would say that a cop would be a better choice than a Doctor, Just cause a Dr. is a Dr. doesn't mean you won't feel violated when they touch you, especially if it's not your doctor.
Not all life is cyber. Extra Income
Yeah how dare a mother exhibit "quite a bit of attitude" in defending her daughter from unreasonable search and touching. The shame! The horror! It is the TSA agent's privilege and power that is shameful in this situation, and to a far greater degree, the TSA itself along with its needlessly invasive security theater.
Interestingly enough the woman attempted to take a video of the incident:
It looks like:
and you get stuck with disorderly conduct and sent directly to jail.
Ask to speak to a supervisor?
Say no and leave the airport?
paintball
Patting down children isn't any type of security measure. It's about conditioning the children to unquestioningly accept invasive and ridiculous breaches of freedom and human rights. Children who travel frequently will become accustomed to these types of searches.
The trouble is, they really, really need to find a better way to screen, and they need to understand that paying low wage workers to do the screening isn't helping. They need employees who actually care and are fairly intelligent people, and they need enough of them to offset the grueling nature of the job.
Problem with that is most intelligent people realise you do not need to pat down every. single. person. who comes through an air port...
Though not in the Constitution, it is firmly established in precedent. In fact it was explicit in the Articles of Confederation, it is thought it was such a fundamental right that it was unnecessary to include in the Constitution, the sort of thin covered by the 9th amendment. One should not have to waive one right to exercise another.
See: ... it is a virtually unconditional personal right, guaranteed by the Constitution to us all."
U.S. v Guest, 383 U.S. 745 (1966) - "It is a right that has been firmly established and repeatedly recognized."
Shapiro v Thompson, 394 U.S. 618 (1969) - Justice Stewart noted that "it is a right broadly assertable against private interference as well as governmental action. Like the right of association,
The important part there in case you missed it "against private interference as well as governmental action."
Sorry, teleporters just kill you and then make a copy. A perfect, soul-less copy.
Not surprising that Governments do this and citizens revolt.
I am sensing from people I meet that a big societal change is about to occur.
I do not give our current Dictator any chance in hell of being reelected given the comedians he brought into his Regime.
You've got the Random Capitalization but lack the random italics and random bolding to really be a screed. You do get some points back for Dictator and Regime.
do you have any evidence at all that an elderly, infirm person or child has ever been known to attempt to get contraband on a plane in any related terrorist attack? or is it more realistically, to use your logic, that you too have yet to reach a particular stage of maturity where you can recognize when you're being lied to by an authority figure.
Bwahaha!
As some writer portrayed, TSA regulations will end up to require flyers to be naked and cuffed on the flight. The use of anal probe is not beyond my imagination.
PS. to be forced to buy safety for freedom, my choice is obvious even if it's costs time.
Again the be all, end all of all this searching, will be terrorists with bombs either in their rectum, or surgically implanted.
This has already been done SUCCESSFULLY in Saudi Arabia in 2009 ., and they used a cell phone trigger. Suicide bomber died, but didn't kill the Saudi Prince. There happened to be audio going, and it catches the cell phone going off inside!! the bombers abdomen - wow....
NPR link
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=113509667
..........FULL STOP.
She wasn't arrested for refusing the screening / pat-down.
She was charged with disorderly conduct for screaming and yelling.
The better approach would have been to refuse, and then simply walk away. Why make such a drama out of it?
It's not the children. It's not the elderly. It's not the pregnant women.
It's the people.
Nobody deserves the kind of privacy invasion that the TSA imposes in the US.
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
A friend had a similar situation when his 2 year old was patted down a few years ago. She hadn't been walking for 12 months! Crazy.
she was arrested for disorderly conduct, not 'refusing a child pat-down.'
had she simply said, "no thank you, i dont approve of your practices or the safety of your technology" and accepted the fact that without a security screening
no one gets on an aircraft, everything would have been OK. She could have taken a car, a bus, or a train likely to her destination
of choice. instead she was visibly belligerent. So yes, she was arrested with cause.
Good people go to bed earlier.
Hey, many people have asked for it by allowing TSA to take a little more and a little more dignity and freedom. So I say to them: eat it. Need I remind anyone the recent article pointing out these scanners are not regulated? No one is auditing these machines for safety like radiology equipment in hospitals.
Chewbacon
The Bible is like Wikipedia: written by a bunch of people and verifiable by questionable sources.
Oh my god, people are getting a 5 second patdown before getting on an airplane, it's so terrible! I'd like to bust out that quote about people who would compromise with their freedom not deserving it, but I think maybe it would be better to compare this to George Orwell instead.
Operating X-Ray machinery?
OR, how about this? We f*cking accept that life carries risks and stop this futile everyone-is-a-terrorist airport security crap right now. We all know it's all only a smokescreen for bringing totalitarian practices into our country anyway.
My word, a stern voice you say? How awful that must have been. Certainly the screener made the right call in involving the police. Can't have people going around speaking in a stern voice, now can we?
Thing is, in the case of children, they need to have actual medical staff like RNs and MDs on hand to handle children and teenagers. One RN per security checkpoint, one Doctor to every four or five checkpoints or per terminal or airport, depending on the size of the terminal or airport. But, that would probably be expensive in an era when we're short on doctors and nurses. I suppose that they don't have to be especially good doctors, but since they're inspecting the body, having someone trained in the body probably would be a good idea.
Seriously? This doesn't seem any bit crazy to you that we are at this point? Please don't help rationalize this any further.
With doctors at each checkpoint, I can get a physical while in line at the airport. *cough*, *cough*
I personally don't fly unless my employer forces me to. My 2 year old daughter will certainly not fly since the porno scanners have been installed. She has flown twice before the porno scanners were installed. My family has chosen to drive to our destinations the last couple of years. The TSA is a joke. Right after 9-11 when President Bush announced the TSA and Patriot Act, I knew we were in for a knee jerk reaction which won't solve anything. President Obama is just accelerating the stupidity.
I want my rights back. I was actually using them when our government stole them after 9/11.
ID checks, fondling, etc provides little added security and any honest person knows this. Observation by trained professionals and random checks keeps us safe. These are the type of things that protects us against real threats, and not just movie plot threats. The problem is that though they are less expensive, they employ fewer people, and would tend to not funnel tax payer money to expensive insider government contractors, like halliburton.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
People get the government that they deserve. I am proud of this mother and I am glad I wasn't there. I would be doing hand-to-hand combat with them trying to arrest a mother for not wanting her kid groped. They would have a REAL threat on their hands. They have to be trying to provoke us. Are they trying to brew up some home grown "terrorists" with this kind of disrespect of our basic human rights? It's this kind of shit that brings things to a head real fast. I know if this pisses me off to read about, it will seriously piss off others. Keep playing those odds and you will end up with a "winner."
Take the Red Pill.
did you read the article, ther person she was "belligerent" to said that " she said in a stern voice im not having my children groped!" this is the suposed "victim" of her abuse....
if thats what passed for verbal abuse these days.... well i dont know what else to say
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
Nothing except the oath to do no harm.
Also, RNs and MDs have licenses that could be revoked via private lawsuit..
On 07/09/2011 at approximately 1340 hrs I was dispatched to the central screening point at the Nashville International Airport for report of a passenger that was refusing screening. Upon my arrival, I made contact with the subject, identified as Andrea Abbott, who was involved in a verbal altercation with TSA screening agents. Abbott was being verbally abusive toward the TSA agents stating her daughter would not be screened. I advised Abbott that she and her daughter would have to be screened or they would be escorted by me out of the secured area of the airport. Abbott then became verbally abusive toward me as well as the TSA agents. Abbott stated she did not want her daughter to be “touched inappropriately,” have her “crotch grabbed,” or be further screened. Eventually Abbott agreed to allow her daughter to be screened by TSA. Abbott retrieved her cell phone and was attempting to film her daughter being screened. I advised Abbott to put her cell phone away. Again, Abbott was verbally abusive [Emphasis Added] . After her daughter was screened TSA advised Abbott would have to be screened as well to continue down the concourse. Abbott stated this was “bullsh!t” and became verbally abusive toward TSA and myself again. I advised Abbott numerous times she was disrupting the screening process and flow of passengers through the area. Abbott refused to calm down. At this time I placed Abbott under arrest for Disorderly Conduct (TCA 39-17-305). Ms. Abbot was loud in her speech and very belligerant therefore she was arrested for disorderly conduct.
The citizen was engaged in perfectly legal behavior, which the cop ordered her to stop. When she declined, he arrested her. This is why "disorderly conduct" is frequently referred to as "contempt of cop" by district attorneys.
Absolutely fucking unbelievable http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-3sH1GaO_nw
Insert signature here...
Eh, according to TFA:
"After the woman refused to calm down, airport police said, she was charged with disorderly conduct and taken to jail."
Headline should read "Woman Arrested for Yelling, Swearing, and Waiving Video Camera at Security Checkpoint"
Of course she was arrested. What a dope! Nothing to see here, please move along.
What I want to know is, what are these "repeated attempts to screen young children?" It sounds a lot like they are going to pressure parents into putting their children into the backscatter machines.
Palm trees and 8
Canceling the trip was not one of her options.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
The irony is that any terrorist with half a brain is never going to attempt to get a bomb or weapon onto a plane again. The next big terrorist attack in the US will not be on an airplane. It may be at an airport though but it would be in the lobby or curbside maybe. Bombings in Mumbai today, all in outdoor public areas where the bomber never once had to pass any security screening or metal detector or road block, etc.
Security theater is the correct term for this. Because the TSA is in no way trying to make things safer for US citizens, and nothing they are doing is providing extra safety. Instead they provide merely the appearance of security and they allow lawmakers to go home during the elections and say "look, we're doing something!" If we really wanted to stop terrorism we'd do something to eliminate the causes of terrorism.
Probably because this was the knee-jerk response to the issue. Doctors and nurses are allowed to touch children without parents complaining therefore, QED, using doctors and nurses in the airport will eliminate parental complaints. Never mind the completely different context...
!search == !fly, !search != arrest, but !grope != !search
If you believe in privacy, and believe you have "nothing to hide" at the same time, you're a goddammed idiot
Law Enforcement officers undergo fairly sophisticated training for doing complete searches that don't have sexual overtones.
Impossible. They can have none for the LEO, however, to have no sexual overtones for someone getting touched in the privates is something that they can ever get rid of. They may lessen it as much as possible, but elimination is impossible.
FUCK YOU TSA.
giggity
I tried to help out the TSA agents by giving myself a thorough pat-down and strip search while still in line. Boy you wouldn't believe all the angry looks I was getting.
to clarify: in the US, fanny is slang for buttocks, in Britain it's slang for vagina
I listen to both RIAA and non-RIAA stuff if I like the music, tangential business/politics nonwithstanding.
This is why I refuse to fly, and will not take my family on a vacation where we would have to.
Logic is the beginning of reason, not the end of it.
Is that those scanners give all the TSA agents nut cancer.
Especially the female TSA agents. I hope they mutate to grow nuts and those nuts get cancer too.
I am sensing from people I meet that a big societal change is about to occur.
It is even easier to sense it from the Recent Financial News and the Government Bond Ratings talk. When the Government can't pay its Police and Military, you can bet that big societal change will occur.
The question that remains to ponder is Who Will Drive Them and will they be for Good or for Bad.
You all do know that you can cuss the ever loving fuck out of an officer of the law and there isn't a damned thing they can do about it.
And the sonogram bit, that's as ignorant as you can get. But then, there's also the news that they're seeing increasing cancer rates in TSA workers exposed to those machines. So much for it being 'safe'.
...The trouble is, they really, really need to find a better way to screen...
You and others like you are a big part of the problem. You believe that this screening is needed and that it makes us safer. It doesn't. But because so many of you do, you force those of us who do not (and who would, if we had a choice, willingly risk flying on an airline with no screening, i.e. pre-2001 screening at most) who FORCE YOUR WILLS ON US because you are SCARED. Useful things to prevent 2001 again? Reinforced cockpit doors, a flying population that will NOT allow a takeover again.
Is there risk by keeping FREEDOM? Yes! But it is SOOOOO worth it!
I'm not sure that all of this screening doesn't open up a bigger risk vector. Ever since this uber-screening started taking place (post 9/11), the waiting lines at my airport regularly hold at least several hundred people tightly packed together. It seems like that line would be just as attractive of a terrorist target as any airplane and there would be nothing that TSA is currently doing that would prevent it.
All his false promises ( some people call these lies, and they would not be wrong )
lead us to this conclusion :
Obama should NOT get a second term.
If he does, I am leaving the country for good.
I was in America a few years ago now so it might changed (if anything for the worse by the looks of this) but when going through security for a national flight, I had to take shoes and crap off that I didn't have to do in Ireland (had to take anything metallic off in Ireland to get through security gate because it set off metal detector obviously). I didn't need a visa because Ireland was exempt at the time (not sure if that is still the case) although America has security in Ireland who take finger prints etc... before Irish Citizens can go to the US. Anyway I got to America off my Aer Lingus flight which was fine and then after a few days was going to San Fran from LA and security was a nightmare, the flight was so late and we were put on the plane and then taken off again and told we'd be put on a different plane by American Airlines. Our luggage was lost and they told us it had a tag to get to San Fran and they were sure it would turn up which is unbelievable in itself but 3 days later it turned up and my iPod Video had been stolen out of it (luckily I had already broken it :P). I've been on about 10 flights with Ryanair who are notorious for bad flight experiences and not once have I ever had such a poor experience, even when I got my flights for free. I can't believe American's put up with domestic flights like this to be honest. I thought American's knew how to stand up for themselves and good customer service.
If people aren't forced to fly, then why not tell those people who are so easily terrorized that they need unnecessary and invasive "security" screenings to feel safe that they're the ones who should go take the bus?
Space game using normal deck of cards: http://BattleCards.org
Doctors and nurses won't eliminate parental complaints, but it puts the TSA in a much better position to defend their actions and to show more professionalism. It certainly won't make it perfect, but it'll make it a lot better.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
The problem is that there are only two times when it's acceptable for somebody to touch my junk, if I get sick and need medical assistance or with my consent. Telling children that there are times when somebody can flash a badge and touch their genitals is not something that is acceptable to any reasonable person.
I personally won't fly because I care about my body and my rights apparently more than you do. These machines are known to be ineffective and all the TSA is doing is moving the vulnerability from a plane with a fixed payload to a security checkpoint with a lot more people.
There is strength in random searches. However, bias in the search criteria weakens our security.
Sure, no thinks a child will carry explosives...hmmm are terrorists aware of this?
Government and its agencies should Stop to hide sickness, perversion, abusive behavior on people with security excuses. Anyone who make a complaint is treated as criminal or terrorist. What Freedom are you talking about? What privacy are you talking about? What democracy is that?
Put a secure door on the cockpit and have each flight with a air marshal onboard? Or a TSA armed officer? Surely its a lot more cost effective. Hell give the officer a pistol with rubber bullets so they dont pierce the planes hull, give him a taser also. Hell put two of them on each plane. It would cost less and would cut down on all the senseless security they have now.
Everything the TSA does now is basically just for show.
But this is americas fault. US citizens allowed this shit to go on and any moron can tell you if you give authority a inch they will take it a mile.
The choice was scan, grope or arrest for attempting to leave. It's apparently not clear until you get into that trap that you are legally trapped that way. If you don't know that's going to happen then you don't know you have the choice to drive instead.
As for me I've been avoiding the USA entirely. After working with radioactive materials I'm a bit paranoid about poorly trained people in airports doing anything with x-ray equipment anywhere near me.
Finding that out would cause just about anyone to use "some pretty harsh words", which can of course be perceived as "belligerant and verbally abusive".
I can see how getting dragged in front of a Judge is probably better than putting your child through one of the other two choices.
Science News carried a piece about how those machines are causing provable DNA damage. I would not let a child anywhere near one.
whois gawk date unzip strip find touch finger mount join nice man top fsck grep eject more yes exit umount sleep dump
A jump seat at the front and rear of every plane occupied by a uniformed marshal with a clearly visible assault rifle would stop pretty much all of this nonsense.
I predicted this would happen. Either we pass legislation to end this invasion of our persons (and enforce it with police or agents ready and willing to stop these apes), or it's gonna be the law of the jungle out there. God help us.
I really wish that our policy makers would stop thinking that the technological approach is the way to go and start thinking about the human interaction approach. I'd bet that we could go back to simple metal detectors again if security actually made conversation with passengers instead of treating them like cattle to be mechanically put through the processes.
This. The reason why we won't do this is our country's obsession with political correctness. BTW, this is also half the reason why we scan the infirm, the old, the pregnant, and the children.
What we need is a caldron of volunteers to man rocket propelled granades, sharp shooters and a line of flame throwers at all US Airports.
The objective is to kill all and any TSA personnel.
Back in the "Third Reich land of DC", we need sharp shooters to take out high level persons of intersest within DHLS, and OoTP.
"Mam ... where is the rally point?"
"TO WAR!"
TSA is actually teaching us a valuable lesson, may be unintentionally.
The thing is that we as a country subject millions of people to more horrendous and heinous treatment than this. All TSA wants to do is lets us understand some of the pain of the people of the countries we allow our government to invade and destroy.
Don't you think we deserve this, or that TSA is not letting us taste a mild sample of what we dole out to a whole bunch of "forin peepl"?
there is a choice scan or getting felt up, go for scan people
Hand everyone a Louisville Slugger when they board the plane. If someone acts up.. WHACK
This works on unruly children kicking your seat too.
You should argue for the raising of the age of majority, or whatever it is you use to define 'child'. I think this would be easy for most men, judging from what my wife says about men anyway.
When a woman complain that a man acts childish it means one of two things:
#1 He isn't doing the things I want him to do.
#2 He does things I don't approve of.
It's one of their methods of control. They use it to shame men into behaving the way THEY want us to behave.
"Liechtenstein is the world's largest producer of sausage casings, potassium storage units, and false teeth."
Your suggestion sounds scarier than anything else I've read today. Last I checked you had the right to refuse medical examination under most circumstances. I'm sure the mother wouldn't be happy if the state had a right through some TSA doctor to give her daughter an internal pelvic exam.
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
naked scans of your child or groping of your child. Bin laden could not have dreamed of how successful he would have become.
in the case of children, they need to have actual medical staff like RNs and MDs on hand to handle children
Or we could use other respected professionals. I hear that some Catholic priests have extensive experience in the field of child groping.
The cosmic radiation you might be exposed to, will be going through your body as a full volume , where as the backscatter machine concentrate on the thin volume of skin. So saying that one is greater than the other by looking at the quantity in absolute is invalid. If you take into account dose per volume, backscatter is actually as damaging as your iner continental long haul flight. And *YES* it is estimated that *SOME* passanger will get skin cancer from it, but that the number is low enough compared to the "supposed" benefit of stopping terrorist.
Now if you take account that in reality those scanner never stopped any terrorist, and the people in other country without the scanner are not falling dead "en-masse" by terrorist smuggling bomb thru the normal portics checks, the backscattering technic is EQUIVALENT, to the infamous anti-tiger "stone" fable, but with the added twist that carrying the stone can give you skin cancer.
First off all of this 'Security Theater' all assumes that the bombers are stupid.
Here is what a 'smart' bomber would do.
If there doing Pat down at particular airports, use airports that don't do pat downs.
If they change that so that ALL airports do pat downs, hide the bomb or whatnot up your ass.
If the figure out a complete system that stops anything what-so-ever from making it past the screening area....
BLOW UP THE SCREENING AREA. That would have just as a effective result as blowing up some plane. (and if they have a screening area you have to go through before getting to the main screening area blow that one up instead)
As far as I can remember this TSA Screening crap has not stopped 1 single attack, but has come at a huge cost of money and loss of personal freedoms.
Living in a free society has its risks. No one is forcing anyone to live here. If you want to live in a place where its OK to trade liberties and freedom for (the illusion) of safety and security please feel free to leave.
We have simply refused to fly with our kids since the gaterapes started.
"Women?" It's woman, samzenpus. It's called the "singular." For the sake of education, man.
The thing that bothers me as much as the security theater, inconvenience, waste of money, and turning airports into true police states, is the constant lying. From the article:
"No, it's not an X-ray," she told Abbott. "It is 10,000 times safer than your cell phone and uses the same type of radio waves as a sonogram."
* Backscatter X-rays *are* an X-Ray.
* The safety is under debate. Some say the low powered X-Rays are actually worse, because instead of the dose being spread throughout the body, it is all absorbed in the top millimeter, a much much lower volume. This isn't a concern from those knobs that go on about "radiation", claim antennas are making them sick (and just get outraged when they find out the antenna that was "making them sick" didn't even have a transmitter hooked up yet..) and so on, these are concerns from actual university researchers.
* Sonograms use sound, not any type of radio waves.
The TSA lies and lies and lies. They've attempted to whitewash scientific concerns about the X-Ray machines (as has the FDA). They've lied and claimed the images are not stored. They've lied by showing these vague, blurry images in any information about the imagers, when in fact the images are quite sharp. They've lied regarding all sorts of statistics to make it sound like they are doing more than they are. The TSA is a useless organization but by using lies as an integral part of their PR campaign, this just makes them that much more unpopular when these lies are inevitably revealed. Shame on the Tennessean for not calling the TSA out on this.
Seriously... Search for "TSA Stops Terrorist", "TSA Foils Terrorist Plot", or any other combination of words that might suggest this lucrative ass-hattery is accomplishing anything. The only links you'll likely find are to stories of stupidity like this: http://www.fox2now.com/news/ktvi-play-doh-pitney-010410,0,2130327.story
Ask me about my sig!
I'm thinking joy buzzers with >0.5 Amps in the capacitors. I'm thinking an X-Ray emitter to jam the scanners. I'm thinking x-ray-opaque materials spelling out "If you can read this, you're a fascist dickbag." More easily, I'm thinking buy a few surplus TSA uniforms (one per security checkpoint on your trip) and just waltz right through the employee side. Step into the bathroom, ditch the uniform, and go on your merry way.
CAPTCHA: consent
^ is Locke's ghost lurking this thread?
If flying is so dangerous that we need more oppressive security than riding a bus in Tel Aviv or crossing a check point in Afghanistan, then why in the hell do we continue to fly?
it is probably too late now.
If people of USA would somehow manage to pressure government into disbanding TSA, you can be pretty sure that something would blow up.
And of course, it would be blamed on 'terrorists'.
You have no way out.
Good thing I recently became a gun owner!
"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants." ~Thomas Jefferson
Where is the picketing with signs at airports? Where are the demonstrators exercising free speech? In a country where people are willing to picket over anything and everything, why never at airports? The silence is deafening - could it be they are prevented from doing so??
mov ah, 4ch
int 21h
Try to remember what it was like when flying wasn't an absurd, living hell.
Try to remember what it was like before TSA agents hid in the boarding tubes and "randomly" pulled people aside and groped them.
Try to remember what it was like at the airport, how friendly people were, the wonderful strangers you used to meet and converse with.
Try to remember what it was like, I know you have amnesia, but I'm here to remind you that there were nice people, friendly people, people that enjoyed meeting people and talking and sharing stories while they waited for their flight.
Try to remember what it was like before we made excuses for our government putting it's filthy hands all over you, your grandmother, your children....
It's OK, I know it's hard, we'll just keep reminding you, and hope, hope that someday you'll remember, someday the person you were before you were stricken with amnesia, that wonderful person that's been lost that doesn't remember all the people that were your friends.
I am 100% convinced nothing bad would have happened if she said "If my Children have to be patted down or should enter an backscatter device, when we will just not enter the security zone" and turned around. There is no law which forces you to continue passing trough the security once you are in an airport.
But getting verbally abusive to the employees and trying to film in a zone where filming is prohibited, is just not a good idea. The men or women standing there may be not very well paid, have a boring job and are constantly in contact with people with a bad mood. They have no power for decisions at all, and verbally threatening them is not helping anybody.
In todays world, if you believe that somebody is not doing you right, ask very politely for his boss.
What the hell is it with you americans and nudity ( or actually, not even nudity, but some x-ray ghost image )? I can understand medical concerns but i sure as hell don't understand your "porn fear". Nude people are not porn. Nude children are not child porn. Just make sure the scanning machines don't have the ability to save images and you should be ok. No ugly fatass pictures of you in the internet.
Well, if I were I terrorist I'd attack the passengers' queues waiting to get backscattered or patted. I'd even throw in a little fuss just to get myself selected for the dreaded TSA patdown. Then I'd open my jacket and go all ALLAHU AKBAR KABOOM! on them. It's a shame suicide bombing requires suicide, because it would be barrels o' fun watching the terrified faces of the TSA clowns as they're torn apart by the explosion, pieces of their bodies splattering on the ceiling and raining down, the ordered lines of passengers near by scattered by the shockwave as hundreds and hundreds of ball bearings slice into bodies like a red-hot scythe through wax mannequins. Then the long, shocked silence. The immobility of it all. The unreality of the carnage. And then the wail of the fatally wounded rise in the air, a little kid shakes her mother's torn, still body ("mommy, wake up, please wake up"), then a high-pitched scream pierces the air and all hell breaks loose. We'll save the second bomb, incendiary type, for the next time. Just as the rescuers arrive.
Geeks are so full of shit that "beating the crap out of them" takes a whole new meaning.
Even for intra-European flights, I've been asked to take off my shoes and belt (and my pocket watch) and waddle through the metal detector gate while I hold up my pants with my hands. It's embarrasing, and certainly seems ineffective.
"Good news, everyone!"
Exactly. We're spending nearly half of NASA's budget ineffectively attempting to protect something that probably isn't even a major objective anymore.
According to TFA, the security officer told the woman “No, it’s not an X-ray,” she told Abbott. “It is 10,000 times safer than your cell phone and uses the same type of radio waves as a sonogram.”
There is so much wrong with that statement I hardly know where to begin, but I'll try
1) A sonogram does not use radio waves
2) there are medical doctors that are unconvinced that a sonogram is perfectly safe. There are for instance worries about cavitation damaging tissue.
3) The safety of cell phones is subject of a debate, it is therefore not very useful to compare the safety of something with the safety of the cell phone.
4) The number 10000 times safer is meaningless, even if the safety of cell phones was a known quantity. Does it mean you are 10000 times likely to
get injured? Or to die? Does it shorten your lifespan by 10000 times less? There thing are hard to determine even after years of testing and body-scanner
have been rushed to market.
5) A lot of body-scanner are in fact X-ray machines (precisely: backscattering X-ray). It is true that you receive a much lower
dose than a medical X-ray, but it could still an X-ray. This particular scanner could be a millimeter wave scanner, but I wouldn't
rely on the reassurances of an officer who is so blatantly misinformed.
Furthermore, I think the woman is completely justified in not wanting to have her child groped by others, particularly in a country that is so paranoid about
child pornography that they arrest toddler for playing nude together.
don't understand why you still get on a plane these days?
you need to travel and that cars are slow and dangerous and tiring. as much as possible, cut back on air travel
for a vacation, look into bulk rate private charter. more expensive, but not much more. AND there's no security.
for business, ask for a travel bonus for the bullshit. even if they don't give it to you, keep asking quietly. point out that it's not company policy to have their employees scanned and touched. enough businesses complaining, things change quickly.
quit flying so damn much. more pain for airlines and tourist destinations, the sooner TSA goes away.
to stop terrorism you just do the same you do to stop the drug violence. legalize drugs, in afghanistan they make money on opium. give terrorists and drug gangs real jobs. they can farm other stuff, get educations, and all the violence stops.
it is not hard. just basic economics. oh wait, government is not good at economics. crap.
A locked cockpit door or an undercover air marshall, who is armed with pistols will not prevent someone bearded from attaching a C4 explosives brick or a posion gas plastic canister to his / her body and smuggle it into the passanger compartment to make a mass culling of all "crusadrs, infidels and zionists" onboard. TSA is there, because 9/11 must not happen again!
Let's remember that.
Wondering will TSA do the same to Malia and Natasha.
Slashdot = Sarcasm
Ban muslims from air travel, except special one-way flights taking them out of Western countries.
I'll post anonymously for a change.
A while back, I looked at what was happening to the country I lived in and thought about what it would take to fix things and put it back on track. What I discovered is that it can't be done; the system is corrupt and anyone who could do anything about it has already sold out.
So what I did was move to another country where this kind of stuff isn't considered to be "right" or "normal". It's much nicer here and now I'm much more free than you in the "land of the free" are. I just got back from some international air travel and while there was some limited screening - bags through the x-ray, walk through the metal detector, there was none of the outrageous TSA bullshit. And considering that there are actually real live terrorists living in this country, there are no incident in the airports or on the airplanes.
What happened to America? How is it that you're arguing about whether making nude images of or groping children is OK? If this is what you find acceptable, then rest assured that the US government will feel free to tighten the screws even tighter.
As I said, I saw what was happening and left the country. What's your excuse?
Why don't people understand. They use children to deliver bombs, women to blow up buildings. They hide explosives in dead bodies on the side of the road. They will do ANYTHING to kill those they hate. They will try to attract the dogs of soldiers to kill the soldier and the dog. They will strap explosives to a dog. They will do absolutely anything they can to kill just one of us.
The FIRST time they find out a stroller gets through, or a baby, or a kid, without being checked? There will be diapers full of plastic explosives before you can get through the line.
ANYTHING out of bounds will immediately be exploited
Do you think the TSA folks like checking under rolls of fat for weapons? Do you think they like scaring kids? They are suffering for our safety.
This is the result of being at war with terrorists. No one likes it, but it's reality.
Don't like it? Don't fly.
Modern day Rosa Parks.
Just this time, it's hard to tell if she's black or white or blue, due to all that backscatter thingies.
When I went through security in London Heathrow, about a week after the Christmas Underwear Bomber attempt, and I accidently set off the metal detector because of a foil-lined wet wipe in my pocket, their security was quick and intelligent. They didn't feel the need to extend their patdown into a bag search, and once they found the wet wipe manually in my shirt pocket they wanded me quickly again, passed me, and gave me back the wet wipe. It took something like a minute for the whole process. Granted, they were smart enough to leave enough space in the airport for security, which is probably triple what we have in the US, but their employees seemed to actually care about what they were doing, didn't joke around in a way that made me uncomfortable, and treated it all as important but routine.
Enought space sounds like T5, were you on BA?
I didn't set the machine off in Heathrow last November, the first time in months I hadn't. I was shocked, and looked at the guard. He obviously didn't like the way I looked at him and frogmarched me over to the backscatter machine. No option for a patdown in the UK.
I asked how it worked, if it was a backscatter or MMW scanner (I knew it was a backscatter). They said it used both. These goons haven't got a clue.
Keep your head down, make sure you don't set the WTMD off, and you should be OK.
I set the metaldetector off in Bangkok yesterday. Was told to remove my shoes (boots, not steel ones though) and walk through again. This is what security used to be about, find the metal and you're fine.
Couple of years ago in Lisbon, they confiscated a butter knife off my 82 yearold grandmother. The type they serve on planes. They don't confiscate large glass bottles from duty free, which make a formidable weapon.
I didn't get the "guilty until proven innocent" feeling that I get in our own airports.
I've heard lots of good things about El Al, as everyone on here talks about. I really wish that our policy makers would stop thinking that the technological approach is the way to go and start thinking about the human interaction approach. I'd bet that we could go back to simple metal detectors again if security actually made conversation with passengers instead of treating them like cattle to be mechanically put through the processes.
Last time I came through Tel Aviv I was interrogated for about an hour before checkin, and story collaborated with a colleague. I Had to boot my laptop up, load eclipse, VPN into our work system to show what I'd been doing for the previous 4 days. I'm just glad my Pakistan/Egypt/Afghan visas are in my "clean" passport, with Israel and the U.S. in my "dirty" passport.
Didn't need to remove my shoes or get rid of my water bottle though. They actually look for real threats (people).
The irony is that any terrorist with half a brain is never going to attempt to get a bomb or weapon onto a plane again
Terrorists with half a brain never did. The ringleaders don't get their hands dirty, they want to get the thick and brainwashed.
That said, the ring leaders know that people willing to kill others, let alone blow themselves up are rare (hence you generally don't have people blowing themselves up or going on gun rampages), and any they get will be targeted to get maximum effect. This is pretty much a failure though -- the Glasgow airport attack were a bit of a fizzle, the Intercontinental attack in Kabul recently has made me happier about staying in Kabul. I'm more worried about traffic and road conditions than I am about Mumbai bombings.
lol, nice work. Probably wouldn't have caught it if not for your username.
Ah, but the next step in "security" will take place after a non-airplane terrorist attack. The "security" forces will assert the need and requirement to search people going to parks, movie theaters...sitting at home watching television.
The Bilal Abdullah / Kafeel Ahmed attacks really were mystifyingly stupid. I mean, it seems clear now that Al Qaida made itself vulnerable by operating in the flashy way it did, resulting in being thoroughly penetrated by intelligence agencies and many of the A-Team members who really knew what they were doing being arrested or killed, but these people were a DOCTOR and an ENGINEER STUDYING FOR A PhD IN COMPUTATIONAL FLUID DYNAMICS respectively. They must have been fairly intelligent, and wrote papers that they had to research. How was it, then, that they somehow thought that petrol + propane cylinders = effective anti-personnel bomb? Okay, a propane cylinder will cook off eventually, after a lengthy fire that's given everyone plenty of time to leisurely retire and for that matter probably time for the fire service to attend and put it out, but come on. Did they even type "bomb" into google? Any 12 year old who's read some incarnation of The Anarchist's Cookbook - as dangerously incomplete / inaccurate as it is - knows that to make an effective bomb you need, y'know, actual explosives. At the very least they should have found an abandoned quarry somewhere to test their crazy gas canister idea (on a smaller scale with a camping gas burner, perhaps.)
Not that I'm complaining, I mean their 3 stooges antics that managed to hurt nobody but themselves were quite hilarious, but I really find this odd.
I'm not outraged that children are searched ...
I'm outraged that we've allowed adults to be searched in a similar manner. Kids can hide things just as easily as an adult. Get over it.
We need to demand a stop to this invasion of our privacy and "security theater." Look at how they deal with terrorism in the parts of the world where they've had it for 50 yrs. Do you see any groping in those airports?
Our sense that **everyone** needs to be treated the same is false. It isn't true either. I want every congressman, senator and President to be groped every time they fly. **EVERY TIME.** When that happens, let's see how long the TSA is forced to perform these searches.
I think the TSA is full of normal people happy not to be working a McDs. Most are just doing a job, but in any large organization, there will be deviants (whatever that means) who have found the job they love. Most TSA employees do not enjoy their jobs all the time. The average flier isn't exactly "hot" and feeling up kids isn't a turn on for 99.999% of the population.
No. The TSA, and Western airports everywhere, need to drop the PC bullshit and start discriminating against passengers base on their race, religion, gender, age and behaviour. Not this touchy-feely (in the most literal sense of the term) "we can't target dark skinned/muslim people because that's racist, so we'll target Texan mom's and their children instead".
âoeNo, itâ(TM)s not an X-ray,â she told Abbott. âoeIt is 10,000 times safer than your cell phone and uses the same type of radio waves as a sonogram.â
Could that be construed as medical advice and practicing medicine without a license ?
No no no no. They screen these people because they are "easy" and they get their screening points with little hassle. The TSA is in no way about security. They WILL NOT screen a "Middle Eastern Looking" male between 20 and 40 because that might wreck their day AND they might be accused of "profiling." The god of political correctness rules the day with the TSA. Hence they go after predominantly white, middle-aged females and children because they are safe and they make their quota of searches. Allahu Akbar!
She was perfectly right in blocking the TSA in searching the kid. Have it walk through a metal detector fine, but what the hell does a kid need a pat down for, is it smuggling candy or a cabbage patch doll.
There will never be a "tipping point" in the lay-down-and-take-it nation. The pornoscanning and groping of children by $12/hr public employees is here to stay. The gov't has already made its own case for doing so by invoking "terrorism." "Terrorism" as a means of control still really resonates with the Fox News/Teabag/security-statist ignoranti who otherwise claim to hate the the gov't.
Of course the screener wanted to grope that little girl. Look how she was dressed! She was practically asking for an enhanced patdown!
very true.
I went to the main airport in my country once, just to spend a few hours looking at jets coming and going, and one of my observations was that while getting onboard of a plane armed might be hard, getting into a stonesthrow distance from several fully fueled jets is easy. If a terorist would be able to acquire an RPG (or even a grenade launcher), smugling it into the main airport building (disguise as a backpacker, put it into the big backpack) would be trivial, then just walk up onto the observation deck, and fire it at a fully fueled and loaded 747.
It might not be in the same order of magnitude of 9-11, but you can still wipe out tens/hundreds of people, and really scare them out of flying
Dont even get me started on the posibilities when they could acquire a stinger, or when you attack a less well guarded target.
Finally, someone that gets it.
Think about it, should I go through security and blow up a plane with 300-400 people on board, or should I just blow up/derail a cross country train, or just strap tnt and nails around myself and stand in the middle of Time Square, or on a ferry, or in a shopping mall, or in the crowd outside of the Today show, or...
Seriously, creating terror is incredibly easy and there's nothing the government or TSA can do about it.
Looking at how much money is spent "securing" the people and robbing them of their rights, imagine what could have been accomplished instead... universal healthcare? Better school funding? Reducing the 14 trillion dollar debt?
~Syberz
Amen
...for the sake of melodrama. The title of this submission is "Women Arrested For Refusing TSA Search of Children"
Point in fact, this is not true. She was arrested for disturbing the peace. Nobody gets arrested for refusing a TSA search. A refusal will bar entry. She took it upon herself to make a spectacle and harrass people. Was she justified? I don't care. The point is she wasn't arrested for refusing a search.
The whole damn process is a jacked up bunch of security theater nonsense, intentionally designed to make everyone feel uncomfortable so that good old Uncle Sam can demonstrate how much he cares about us -- it's about the PRESENCE of the TSA, not about how effective they are, which is evidenced by the fact that there are NO metrics published about how many would-be-terrorists have been stopped by the TSA (although you can find metrics about how many tubes of toothpaste and tweezers they've prevented from getting on a plane).
The problem is, terrorism works because it's fear based, and fear is irrational. Your odds of dying on an airplane AT ALL are astronomically low -- way lower than the risk you take every day when you get in your car. Your odds of dying on an airplane in a terrorist attack are even lower than that by about three or four orders of magnitude -- it's a freak event. However, because the severity of a terrorist attack is very dramatic, we willingly give up our freedoms for the illusion that we're protected. As soon as some scum bag makes it through TSA screening at some major airport and commits another act of terrorism, the whole fascade is going to come under severe scrutiny. If we're lucky, it'll come under scrutiny around the same time some stupid TSA worker feels up a 10 year old girl and the family makes a big stink (like this mother did). If the conditions are right, maybe we can finally start having an adult conversation about what risk management actually looks like, and how you have to consider BOTH severity (high in this case) AND frequency (extremely low in this case) when establishing the scope of your counter measures. The most effective counter measures were already taken when they started locking the cockpit cabin doors from the inside. Add a plain clothed armed guard at the front and back of the plane for every flight (which is probably overkill, but it would be cheaper and more effective than what we've got), and we don't even need the rest of the TSA machine.
If you're going to do this, don't get belligerent. Calmly and politely refuse. Don't yell and scream, simply state that you do not consent to either the patdown or the scanner.
You'll probably still get arrested, but they will look even more like the bad guys.
Technoli
put an armed TSA officer on the plane
"Allright, everyone on the plane strip down and assume the position, or your relatives will have to claim your bullet-ridden body at the luggage carousel in Cincinnati!"
Not TSA Officers. Federal Air Marshals. Same agency, except the latter is actually trained as a law enforcement officer
As both a tax payer and flyer I don't see anything better in EITHER arena about paying someone with a medical degree to search for bombs and weapons.
Airport security should freakin' KNOW better. They know they're not supposed to scan or pat down a CHILD unless he looks middle eastern! what the F.
if you read the article you find out that she wasn't arrested for her refusal, the most they could do is send you out of the airport and you don't catch your flight.
she was arrested for disorderly conduct and "verbal abuse"
Personally I don't agree that a such thing as "verbal abuse" should be considered illegal in a country with a first amendment, after all if you have the right to express yourself you should have the right to do so in whatever tone of voice you want.
it seems to me that they should have (at the worst) just escorted her and her children out of the airport.
No terrorist who didn't want to get caught would put a bomb where a TSA-groper would find it.
Instead they would surgically implant it in the child or, if the child was too young or mentally impaired to speak, hide it in a body cavity where groping wouldn't find it.
Frankly, with hardened cabin doors and the post-9/11 "let's roll" mentality I'm not worried too much about anyone trying to take over a plane. Smuggling illegal drugs, illegal guns, and other contraband for eventual delivery/sale is a much more common problem in the United States.
Within 5-10 years we'll all be subject to x-ray or other non-touch searches that will make routine pat-downs a thing of the past.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
Well, being that they're all running businesses and piling into our country at high rates my guess is that they are building their army up right here in the country. We're going to get attacked from the inside, it's pretty obvious.
They are good are molesting people that is about it. Have they actually caught anyone with their pat downs? If so I must have missed the news that day, I mean the only people I hear about that have terrorist intentions on planes that are caught are the ones who get past TSA and on to the plane,
Just because you are wrong and I called you out on it doesn't mean I am a Troll.
So why do you think El Al have such a good record of not being attacked by nutjobs?
Hint: it's not because of the lighthearteed casualness of their security staff.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
Seriously. When I take my other half to visit my parents, it costs only slightly more (as in about 15% more than flying commercial coach), takes less time (5 hours instead of 7), and is a heck of a lot more interesting, fun, and memorable. No TSA Stasi involved. All the toothpaste and shampoo ya wanna carry. And decent home-cooked food. And wayyyy more comfortable seats. Less stress.
People are nuts when they obsess on "terrorists" around every corner. If they existed in numbers that were worth even casually thinking about, we would see the results. We don't. Ergo...one could (should) argue that there are other things more worthy of worry. In any 7 1/2 month period in NYC alone, there are more drunk driving victims than victims of 9-11. Fear inc. has a hold on the minds of the lowest common denominator's huevos, and my low expectations of most political outcomes don't anticipate this to change any time soon.
“No, it’s not an X-ray,” she told Abbott. “It is 10,000 times safer than your cell phone and uses the same type of radio waves as a sonogram.” - Sabrina Birge, an airport security officer.
Since when did sonograms use radio waves?
I am Homer of Borg, resistance is - Ooo Donuts!
Like every other TSA incident where people have said this, it won't.
People will continue to complain, and no one will do anything that matters.
The problem is that there are only two times when it's acceptable for somebody to touch my junk, if I get sick and need medical assistance or with my consent.
Most /.ers would like a third option - a girlfriend willing to touch their junk. Of course that would involve getting out of their parent's basement and finding a girlfriend that is willing to touch their junk. But who knows, miracles happen every day! Just be certain to apply a liberal coating of sun screen before exposing your pasty skin to the great outdoors.
It's news to me that sonograms use radio waves.
Okay, I get it- they screen children, the infirm, and the elderly not because they expect these people to be terrorists, but because it would be possible to use them as mules to carry the payload for someone who themselves would definitely be screened. Many of us understand this. Thing is, in the case of children, they need to have actual medical staff like RNs and MDs on hand to handle children and teenagers. One RN per security checkpoint, one Doctor to every four or five checkpoints or per terminal or airport, depending on the size of the terminal or airport. But, that would probably be expensive in an era when we're short on doctors and nurses. I suppose that they don't have to be especially good doctors, but since they're inspecting the body, having someone trained in the body probably would be a good idea.
Someone else who equates a clothed pat-down search with a full intimate medical inspection. A poster above equated it with child sexual abuse, so this is at least slightly less hysterical.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
It is vastly amusing how in this thread all the slahdotters have become suddenly concerned over the rights of the precious little children. Here's a bit of a suggestion:: the only way that being patted down in a clothed body pat down will psychologically harm a child (other than those who are autistic or otherwise sick) is if their hysterical parents start screaming about child abuse and get carted off by armed police in front of the poor angels.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
"The TSA should be cut immediately by 50%"
The TSA should be cut immediately by 90%. Airport security should be left in the hands of the AIRPORTS, who wouldn't be wasting $370 million on this crap.
The TSA's role should be one of training, testing, and verifying. They should have a limited number of "secret shopper" agents that attempt to sneak weapons/bombs through the security check points to ensure that they are performing adiquetly. If an airport is failing to pass reasonable rates and is failing to improve, remove them from the "inside" network. Sure, you can still fly from there, but where ever you land you'll have to exit the terminal and re-enter through security.
Problem solved. You'll have the airports looking for the most effective and cheapest possible solution, the TSA to measure their performance, and we'll get rid of the back scatters AND fleecing of the US tax payers.
-Rick
"Most people in the U.S. wouldn't know they live in a tyrannical state if it walked up and grabbed their junk." - MyFirs
“No, it’s not an X-ray,” she told Abbott. “It is 10,000 times safer than your cell phone and uses the same type of radio waves as a sonogram.”
Well, atleast 2.
-Yes, it is an x-ray
-Sonograms use sound, not radiowaves.
-10000x safer than a cellphone is also absurd, though completely unverifiable, as it can be interpreted a dozen different ways
So apparently the TSA employee has nothing resembling a basic understanding of how a backscatter x-ray scanner works which means they can't possible understand the potential associated hazards.
Probably because this was the knee-jerk response to the issue. Doctors and nurses are allowed to touch children without parents complaining therefore, QED, using doctors and nurses in the airport will eliminate parental complaints. Never mind the completely different context...
I've yet to meet a doctor who will examine my daughter without *insisting* that someone else is in the room with them - generally a parent. Part of that is to help the kid feel safe (not only do they explain what's going to happen, they usually make a point of getting the parent's agreement so the child knows that this is OK), and part is to avoid lawsuits, and part is that it's just polite to ask people before you start touching them
Contrast with TSA, who (a) don't seem to see the need to be polite, and (b) have no qualms about making it clear that they will do what they please regardless of your wishes.
How christ-like. Why, they are HEROES!
Bite me you cowardly, authoritarian weakling. You and your ilk are evidence of the decline and fall of the USA.
Your kind of post disgusts me. YOU are why the terrorists have won; 'They' don't have to actually DO anything, tiny minds like yours can handle all the 'terrorizing' from now on. You would throw away anything that makes you American for the merest illusion of safety. YOU are the problem.
Paranoia is a Survival Trait!
Probably accurate though. Now that 'liberty==prosperity' and 'poverty==immorality' anything that made our Great Experiment admirable is rapidly being flushed down the toilet by the right in exchange for power. Short-term power, as they are destroying the nation long-term in order to make their profit now, all while crying "think of the children!"
Shame.
Paranoia is a Survival Trait!
i travel for work, and i've never been groped, grabbed, molested, NOR interrogated. you walk in the machine, stand there for 10s, show them your boarding pass, then get your shit and leave. it takes 30 min MAX, unless you have some idiot at the front of the line complaining about their rights as a citizen.
this is small peas, folks. get over it.
First, let me be clear - I think the TSA is meaningless, expensive security theater. They should be disbanded, security should go back to normal with intelligent threat modeling and scanning people that are real risks, and armed agents on the planes.
In regards to this case:
Who doesn't know that your choice is scan or patdown? It's been in the news for YEARS. This woman goes to the airport, gets subjected to an entirely-predictable situation, gets irate and abusive (Really? did you think swearing at the low-rent semi-cops is really going to make them say "oh, she said this is fucking stupid. Tom, let her through!"? Really?) and then continues to be a dick.
I think the scan-or-patdown IS INDEED a bullshit non-choice. But to be surprised by it today, or not be prepared to choose one - I'm a little incredulous that this wasn't set up. The mom's conduct in front of her small daughter is even more disappointing.
-Styopa
I didn't even realize how bad it had gotten until I flew domestically in Japan. All of the bureaucracy parts of air travel took five minutes. I checked in, checked my bag, and went through security in under five minutes at the start of the day in at the second-busiest airport in the country. The experience was efficient, polite, and noninvasive. I went through a normal metal detector, was not groped, irradiated, or violated, and was treated with respect by the staff through every portion of the process. Japanese airlines advise passengers to show up no later than *ten minutes* before their flights. In addition, there had a bottle scanner. If you brought liquids through, they put it on the scanner and pushed a button. It took two seconds. How is it that we don't have these devices in our airports, but we do have cancer-causing backscatter scanners that have stopped zero terrorists? We've gone off the rails.
"Enough of this wretched, whining monkey life." -- Marcus Aurelius, _Meditations_, Book 9, 37
This is one of those situations that can turn ugly quickly....if they don't, and someone smuggles a bomb on a plane, they are thought of as being not strict enough, and risked people's lives...where as if they do, they are thought as too strict...maybe if they can come up with a different approach then a pat down, maybe like
a lift your shirt for me....etc...???
Terrorist know they'll never going to bring down America by blowing up a plane or building. Hell they could blow up 1000 planes and it wouldn't matter. What they really want is to terrorize the citizens into changing their way of life and making them live in fear. I'd say they're doing a pretty good job on that.
Of course you don't, you only need to pat down the actual offenders or unwilling mules for said offenders, but how can you tell who is and who is not an actual offender or mule?
If we had a free media every one would know that Bush and Cheney planted bombs and flew drone aircraft into the WTC & murdered over 3000 people on 911 what we have instead of the truth is a law forbidding ANY mention of -twisted lies presented as 'facts' by the 'government' related to the 911 treason on any network under penalty of prison! Cowards and gangsters are running your lives to hell or why is there such a law!
The irony is that any terrorist with half a brain is never going to attempt to get a bomb or weapon onto a plane again.
Yes... BUT ONLY if the TSA stays in business! OK, it can be scaled back a bit, and things like fiddling kids are definitely a nono, but in the end the security theatre is actually stopping people from blowing up planes... right?
These skies are friendly with benefits.
"I see undead people" Warcraft III - Necromancer
"The irony is that any terrorist with half a brain is never going to attempt to get a bomb or weapon onto a plane again. The next big terrorist attack in the US will not be on an airplane."
Thank you. It blows me away just how fucking stupid our fellow countrymen are.
"'Terrorism' as a means of control still really resonates with the Fox News/Teabag/security-statist ignoranti who otherwise claim to hate the the gov't." While there are indeed those on the Right (such as former Bush speechwriter Marc Thiessen) all too willing to lick TSA boots in this regard, there are also those on the Left such as the ACLU which are AWOL as well on this matter. EPIC seems to be the only civil liberties organization trying to hold TSA feet to the fire in the courts. It was not Fox News but the broader media which was all too quick to report how the backscatter boycott on the day before Thanksgiving 2010 was a bust -- this, when evidence indicated that the TSA just shut many of the accursed things down in many airports at that time.
He takes your comments seriously. This is how he reacted to the initial outrage last Thanksgiving.
http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/SecurityandPr/start/1561/stop/1580
We started a Facebook group in support of Andrea: http://www.facebook.com/groups/181687235227187
There have been several public reports this year of outrage at the TSA patdown procedure, which many find invasive. Last December Khloe Kardashian likened the procedure to rape. Susie Castillo, a former beauty queen, released a distraught video after a patdown at the Dallas-Fort Worth Airport. Last month an elderly cancer patient was made to remove her adult diaper for TSA authorities. And earlier this month a Seattle woman accused the TSA of racism for inspecting her curly hair.