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TSA Got Everything It Wanted For Christmas

OverTheGeicoE writes "It looks like Congress' recent jabs at TSA were just posturing after all. Last Friday, President Obama signed a spending act passed by both houses of Congress. The act gives TSA a $7.85 billion budget increase for 2012 and includes funding for 12 additional multi-modal Visible Intermodal Prevention and Response (VIPR) teams and 140 new behavior detection officers. It even includes funding for 250 shiny new body scanners, which was originally cut from the funding bill last May."

10 of 338 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Well, by ClioCJS · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Yes. Revolution is an extension of evolution.

    --
    -Clio
    Karma: Bad (mostly from not giving a fuck)
    Blog: http://clintjcl.wordpress.com
  2. Re:Well, by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    But when a long train of abuses and usurpations pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.

    Just sayin'.

  3. Almost 8 billion dollars... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    ...Not going to education, science, health care, yadda yadda because that would 'cost too much money'

  4. Re:How ? by BobZee1 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I thought Barack Obama was a democrat.

    --
    dumber people are doing harder things everyday
  5. Re:Meet the new boss by theVP · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Between this, Indefinite Detention, and SOPA, I am really struggling to recognize America this month.

    --
    "No one is more miserable than the person who wills everything and can do nothing." -Emperor Claudius 10 BC - AD 54
  6. Parties? Plural? by betterunixthanunix · · Score: 5, Insightful

    When did the difference between Democrats and Republicans amount to anything more than a distraction? We have a one-party system, except that the one party happens to be somewhat divide on minor issues like gay marriage and abortion rights. People are easily distracted, which is how these crooks get away with so many abuses of power.

    --
    Palm trees and 8
  7. Re:Meet the new boss by binary+paladin · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Hope and change my friends. Hope and change.

    Until we dump the two party monopoly in America, the current direction will not waver regardless of which presidential candidate gets elected.

  8. Re:no love lost for TSA but still by snarkh · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Well, their budget is larger than that of the National Science Foundation. If that is not obscene, I do not know what is.

  9. We are the enemy by koan · · Score: 5, Insightful

    It's pretty clear that the primary threat the Think Tanks envision is not shoe wearing, scrotum burning terrorist but rather the US population and what's likely to happen when it becomes obvious to every unemployed dolt that we are in a serious depression, that the chance of a multiple massive riots/race war/civil war starting is high and the sheer volume of military weaponry owned by the average citizen makes it a certainty that it will be bloody, very bloody.
    From the nut job militias, (Idaho, Utah and elsewhere) massive illegal immigration, record gun sales and ammunition sales, to the fact that the membership of the 18th street gang in L.A. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/18th_Street_Gang) is more than twice that of the police force, and that's just one gang, it's become clear that we are in serious trouble and it won't take much to set off the powder keg.

    I hope I'm wrong about this and it's really just some large corporate contract raping the wallets of the American people again but things are looking grim.

    --
    "If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
  10. Re:Well, by RoknrolZombie · · Score: 5, Insightful

    No big surprise that you posted this as AC...don't want to claim your own opinions? Revolution is necessary in a large number of situations - generally speaking, when all other avenues have been exhausted. The United States is not - YET - at that point, however (as many) I'm seeing the same trends happening around the world and, let's face it, the United States is not full of leaders. We are not, as you say, "stuck" with what we have. We have had (and continue to have) opportunity to effect positive change. We also have probably the worst case of National Apathy that I've seen in a long time. When people get pissed off ENOUGH, then the Apathy will go away out of necessity. I see this playing out in one of three different ways (there may be more, lists are for goobers): 1) Citizens pull their heads out of their asses, get educated, and start participating in effecting positive change. That needs to happen before: 2) The Government manages to strip the last of our remaining rights away. If #1 doesn't happen, then #2 certainly will. As soon as people wake the fuck up, then we can expect to see: 3) People rebelling against the government that treats them as a consumable to be bought, sold, and abused as They see fit. I can't say that there will or won't be a revolution, but I will say that it's likely to help things more than hinder them (in the long run)