Slashdot Mirror
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?
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
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.
'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?
Yeah, but you should love them for what they actually said:
"They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." - Ben Franklin, 1775
Airport security was way beyond giving up essential liberties (search and seizure, anyone?) long before 9/11, and the safety gained from it is not temporary if it applies to every flight.
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.
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.
Boycotting traveling by plane would do it.
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.
I would be surprised if the definition of Child Pornography is centered around artistic purposes. Medical publications likely have unclothed minors, and medical textbooks for GPs and Pediatricians probably do as well.
If anything, since artwork is often provocative and designed to stir the observer, art involving unclothed minors or representations of them is closer to Child Porn than body scanning images, which aren't designed to stir the observer. There's a classic painting in the Getty Museum in Los Angeles of an adolescent girl pushing cupid away from her, named something about a girl trying to resist love. I would be very much surprised if the subject was intended to be over eighteen, or if the painter's model, if there was one, was.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
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."
Yeah, America is much more fun :)
All liberty is essential, and the safety gained by these measures is nonexistent.
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.
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#######
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.
He didn't say that either.
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
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.
making a disturbance? what, she raised her voice? OMG.
no, no, no.
it was CHALLENGE TO AUTHORITY that she was punished for.
stop bullshitting, people.
--
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
Are you seriously implying fascism isn't an art form? WTF!?!
Stupid sexy Flanders.
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!
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...
What if they arrested here for refusing to let her children be scanned but they used the "making a disturbance" free card to get away with it?
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.
The summary is typically misleading. She was not arrested for refusing to let her children be scanned. She was arrested for making a disturbance. Disturbing the peace, they call it.
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.
No actually it's not. It's much more like being arrested for yelling at police officer who refuses to stop trespassing on your property. You are completely within your rights, but they have the benefit of unlimited gov't legal support, so they pick something and charge you.
Life is too short to proofread.
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
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.
The summary is typically misleading. She was not arrested for refusing to let her children be scanned. She was arrested for making a disturbance. Disturbing the peace, they call it.
Yeah she was making a disturbance cause she didn't want her child being touched by some stranger, it's a bit hard not to make a disturbance when doing that.
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.
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.
No actually it's not. It's much more like being arrested for yelling at police officer who refuses to stop trespassing on your property.
No, actually it's not. It's like getting into a line at the airport where you know that you are either going to be scanned or patted down, then yelling obscenities and creating a disturbance when you are asked to go through the scanner or be patted down.
It's not like she didn't see this happening to every person ahead of her in line, even if she was totally ignorant of it prior to getting in line. She could have gotten out of line at any time. No, it seems she thought that she was going to get special treatment because she objected.
When she didn't, she chose to create a disturbance by yelling obscenities at the screener. Did you bother reading the article? No, of course you didn't. The article was pretty clear about saying why she was arrested, and simply "refusing to let her children be scanned" wasn't it. The manner in which she refused had something to do with it.
I've had cross words with TSA screeners before, but I've never found it advantagous or productive to scream obscenities at them. I've also never been arrested. What an odd coincidence, wouldn't you say?
You are completely within your rights,
Really? To stand in an airport and create a disturbance? That's your right?
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.
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.
When the terrorists from Hamas learned that the Israelis were willing to give Palestinian women less of a search than men, they tried two tactics: dressing men in burkhas, and recruiting women suicide bombers.
When they learned it was little kids that wouldn't be so thoroughly searched, they started sending bombs in strollers.
Either you screen everyone, or screening is pointless.
... it's a bit hard not to make a disturbance when doing that.
No, it is actually very easy not to make a disturbance. 1. Don't raise your voice. 2. Don't use obscenities or "curse". Simply say "no".
I could have added the first step: don't get into a line where everyone is either scanned or patted down in the first place. That's a trivial option.
There is an insightful xkcd, the number of which I do not know, that has someone asking a TSA screener why he's not concerned about the laptop batteries he could overvolt and cause to explode. He then tells his girlfriend that don't worry, the TSA fellow will see the error of his ways and return the guy's bottle of water. I think the point is, trying to debate your way out of the screening taking place at the front of the line by rapier wit isn't going to work and you know it, so expecting it to work and then getting irate when it doesn't isn't productive or reasonable.
The woman got into that line knowing what was going to happen. It wasn't a surprise. That's still not the real point I'm trying to make, however. The SUMMARY of the article was deliberately misleading, trying to be sensationalistic about the event. OMG, she 'raised her voice' as someone else said. Read the article. Yelling and cursing are a step or two above that, but neither are simply "refusing to allow the screening". You can refuse without cursing or screaming.
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.
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
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.
and the safety gained from it is not temporary if it applies to every flight.
It is indeed temporary, and repeated.
No, it's like being arrested for drunk driving when you come out of the bar and the police tell you to get in your car and drive away or they will shoot you. She was given two choices, let her daughter be scanned by a device that emits radiation and has been reported (quite possibly erroneously) to potentially cause health problems or let a stranger run his/her hands all over her daughter. Leaving the airport and not flying was not one of her choices.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
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
A self-grope to find some balls, apparently.
I know I'm not willing to get arrested by the feds to make that point.
I'll just take a trains, or fly out of Canada if I'm going overseas.
This one will probably blow the lid off it, thankfully.
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.
Either you screen everyone, or screening is pointless.
The screening is pointless anyway, if the goal is to prevent a terrorist attack. The airport screeners were found to routinely miss knives and even firearms during the screenings in the last test.
Palm trees and 8
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
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.
You reason like a moron - which explains posting as an anon. coward since you're gonna get flamed like crazy.
If you believe in privacy, and believe you have "nothing to hide" at the same time, you're a goddammed idiot
The summary is typically misleading. She was not arrested for refusing to let her children be scanned. She was arrested for making a disturbance. Disturbing the peace, they call it.
They call it. Exactly, what they charge you with they can't think of anything else. Not being sufficiently docile in the face of authority? That'd be disturbing the peace.
As Harry Harrison put it:
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.
Except that from TFA there is no way to tell how much of a disturbance she made. It may have been no more than groveling insufficiently in the face of authority, or it may have been substantial. From TFA
Andrea Fornella Abbott yelled and swore at Transportation Security Administration agents
. "YOU DAMN WELL LEAVE HER ALONE" would meet that statement.
Note, I have no more idea than you what she actually did or said, but I suggest that in effect she was arrested for refusing to let her children be scanned---it's just that they actually charged her with something else because that was the best they could come up with.
Protoplasm. Quiet Protoplasm. I like quiet protoplasm.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Consider this:
The TSA will allow more than X ounces of fluid untested if it is declared or presumed to be for a young child. So in truth, exceptions for children and even adults with medical conditions are already being made. Sure, that baby's bottle probably does contain milk or apple juice, but if you were a bad person, would you not see the opportunity to bring more than X ounces of dangerous material in the same type of vessel?
Another fun fact:
You can't bring butane or similar fuel containers on a plane whether on your person or in luggage. The exception is, of course, unless it is also in the company of equipment used for hygiene or other personal care such as clothing irons or hair irons. (The same fuel containers are still prohibited for tools and other professional gear.) So if a person who wanted to carry such things on a plane (in luggage only) for professional purposes was aware of this exception, he would only need to include personal care gear along with the tools which uses the same (or even similar) fuel containers.
I have probably said too much already, but you don't have to be a [former] TSA screener to discover these things. Many experienced travellers already know these things. (Hell, on one of these discussions, someone pointed out that [properly] packing a starter pistol would result in your luggage getting first-class consideration when you are travelling... a nice trick I never considered before.) It's all how we learn to "hack the system."
My point is that these exclusions already exist and are increasing as incidents occur and complaints and attorneys and rights activists continue to press the issue. Change IS being made. I don't want the TSA to go away. They would be replaced by the same people the TSA replaced, and believe me, they are worse. What I want is something better than we have now but also better than what we had before the TSA.
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.
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.
The TSA will allow more than X ounces of fluid untested if it is declared or presumed to be for a young child. So in truth, exceptions for children and even adults with medical conditions are already being made. Sure, that baby's bottle probably does contain milk or apple juice, but if you were a bad person, would you not see the opportunity to bring more than X ounces of dangerous material in the same type of vessel?
Well, my friends with babies tell me that the TSA makes them taste the liquids they are carrying for my kids. They tell me they have even been forced to open sealed jars of baby food and taste them. I don't know whether that is a common procedure or not, but that would definitely mitigate the risks.
There is a bigger loophole than that, though. Pilots and stewardesses are not subject to the same screening as the rest of us. They are only sent through the metal detectors and the TSA agents will not prevent them from carrying liquids. I saw a stewardess go walking through security with a large bottle of water with no questions asked. And they go straight to the front of the security line . And if that is not enough, no one checks their ID. As far as I can see, showing up at the airport in a fake pilot's uniform will get you into the terminal with no questions asked.
This would all worry me when I travel except that, unlike the TSA, I am not afraid of people sneaking a bottle of shampoo onto the plane. The gaps in airport security are stunning when you pay close attention to what is happening at the airport.
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.
It's like getting into a line at the airport where you know that you are either going to be scanned or patted down
Why do you think she knew? These patdowns were put in place only after the underpants bomber, and it was what - a year ago? Is she a frequent flier? Did anyone explain to her that you can enter but you cannot leave? There are no other places in this country (except perhaps the border) where you can't revoke your consent and leave.
then yelling obscenities and creating a disturbance when you are asked to go through the scanner or be patted down
A certain Obfuscant went into a book store once. However inside he was told by a group of burly security men that he can't leave just like that - he needs to either have his left eye taken out, or his right hand chopped off. I wonder what will Mr. Obfuscant choose?
It's not like she didn't see this happening to every person ahead of her in line
You can't see a foot ahead of you, and TSA checks your boarding passes and blocks your retreat far before you can see what's going on. Besides, she had every right in the world to not worry about such things. When I enter a grocery store I don't make a mental plan of retreat in case there are terrorists inside.
She could have gotten out of line at any time.
She couldn't get out after she was told to choose between two unacceptable choices.
she chose to create a disturbance by yelling obscenities at the screener.
We are back to the little problem that Mr. Obfuscant has at a book store. Apparently Mr. Obfuscant is intent on keeping his eye and his hand, how silly of him!
(This example is shamelessly borrowed from Lexx, with Mr. Obfuscant playing the role of Stanley H. Tweedle.)
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.
You have weird information and/or a faulty perception. I can't speak to the liquid limits or exceptions to them except through my own experience as a passenger because those limits were imposed after I left the TSA. I can say that neither I nor my wife were asked to taste anything. If that has become policy, it is new policy. As for exceptions to screening? Doubtful. All airport and airline personnel are supposed to have RFID verified badges. They get screened for all the same things with no exceptions which includes water bottles. I have never observed exceptions being made for them except for having front of the line privileges which is only logical because they operate the flights which must be on time all the time.
The gaps are no longer stunning to me. They are all too obvious to me and anyone else who has been directly involved in airport security. There is NO ONE in the TSA who believes they are making the skies safer to travel. They know all too well what exceptions are made and what holes exist. This, of course, brings me back to my original assertion which is that most people are there to get paid and to do the job as instructed.
It has been shown that the TSA continually ratchets security measures backward as complaints persist. The best answer is to keep complaining, not giving the screeners a hard time. The TSA is already being worn down and continues to be so. The complaints are working.
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.
I can say that neither I nor my wife were asked to taste anything. If that has become policy, it is new policy.
I don't doubt that as I have not seen that either. But this was mentioned to me less than a week ago by two separate families. I have no idea if this is a policy thing or an uppity TSA agent.
As for exceptions to screening? Doubtful. All airport and airline personnel are supposed to have RFID verified badges. They get screened for all the same things with no exceptions which includes water bottles.
This happened right in front of me in RDU airport in May. A pilot and two stewardesses walked straight to the front of the line which was noticeable to me because I was next up. No one looked at their ID. One of the stewardesses had a liter bottle of water and put it in the bin with her shoes and was zipped right on through. At that moment there was no waiting for the scanner, but they were all put through the metal detector while I was sent to the scanner (which I opted out of).
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!
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.
Now now everyone try to remain calm when you're getting screwed over there's no need to raise your voice.
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.
The airport screeners were found to routinely miss knives and even firearms during the screenings in the last test.
Also, they are very good at holding you up pointlessly, e.g. it happened to me several times that I needed to step back into the machine because they might have seen "something", which of course turned out to be nothing, one time they even "patdown"ed me after a repeated screening, only to see that nothing, after which I heard the guy telling into the radio to re-calibrate the machine. And of course all this didn't make me happier since I didn't have too much time between connections. So in the end this is a good way to turn not so patient people into possible suspects since they might become a bit "agitated" for being held up pointlessly.
Anyway, I generally just go with the flow, since - unfortunately - it's easier to just let them do their thing, scan, patdown, whatever, because otherwise it would cause you even longer delays. Thing is, part of my childhood was part of a since then disappeared communist era, but I still remember a lot of things, especially people's helplessness and defenslessness against authority, including police, and in such situations one has to concentrate on this being different.
I am putting myself to the fullest possible use, which is all I can think that any conscious entity can ever hope to do.
I just traveled on two flights this week with a prescription. I called it "medically necessary liquid" and was not asked anything more about it. 1 bottle was 8 oz, the other two were 4 oz. All larger than the allowable size, and all without a word. There could have been anything in there. Now, as I used those liquids on the plane, I'm happy that there is an exception (as I was a couple of years ago when I had a throat issue that meant all I could really deal with was meal replacement shakes, which I also brought on board), but it invalidates the whole process. One time I even brought a big bottle of No-Ad sun tan lotion on the plane, just by mistake, and it wasn't detected. That must have been 20oz or more.
The only good thing that came out of the liquids ban is that a few more people now check their luggage instead of carrying all of their crap on board and delaying the plane.
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.
Either you screen everyone, or screening is pointless.
Did you mean: "screening is pointless"
How would you/the USA react if a terrorist walked into a scanner tomorrow and blew himself up?
Think about that.
I mean really think...
No sig today...
Ban muslims from air travel, except special one-way flights taking them out of Western countries.
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.
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.
Extremely poor example. Israeli airport security has no full body scanners or full pat downs. In fact i'm sure the head guy there said that the way america does airport security is all wrong.
http://www.slate.com/id/2279753/
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.
Why did you get re-scanned between connections? Usually I arrive at a gate in the secure area, and walk (or run) to another gate, still within the secure area.
Of course the screener wanted to grope that little girl. Look how she was dressed! She was practically asking for an enhanced patdown!
He could've been flying through somewhere like New York where a "connection" could take you from LaGuardia to JFK or vice versa. I know that seems silly for a connection at different airports but I also know that at least British Airways considers the LaGuardia-to-JFK scenario a connection in their systems.
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
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
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.
Oh, man. That sounds like a huge pain in the neck.
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.
The problem is you can't single anyone out here. It has to be everyone or a random selection. Otherwise people get their underwear in a bunch and go frothing mad about institutional *ism and the security being *ists.
Just mention profiling and people go beserk, start screaming that racial and religious profiling doesn't work (as if those were the only things to profile).
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.
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
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!
Nope. Because the terrorists will penetrate the system by throwing enough people against it. Probability dictates that someone will get through the random screen. And if they are willing to die flying an airplane into a building, they will have no problem getting caught and going to prison. Knowing that their buddy farther back in line (or on the next flight) will most likely get through.
Have gnu, will travel.
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!
Then I (and I bet quite a few others) will go with "screening is pointless".
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.
The thing I never got about screening pilots for security reasons:
Why the hell would a pilot want to try to smuggle a knife on board to force himself in to compliance, or a bomb to blow up the plane, when he can just fly the fracking thing into any building en route anyway without any additional tools?
These skies are friendly with benefits.
"I see undead people" Warcraft III - Necromancer
Yes he did. He said it multiple times, and it differed slightly, but that's the earliest format I know of. It predates the Declaration by over a year.
Not if you're a pilot. Or an airline industry. Or a democratically elected government. Or a frequent flyer. Or under a flight path.
The burden of evidence is not on the person boarding the plane. You know why? Because this is America.
Hey, I finally got my first freak! Took you long enough!
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.