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TSA Defends Pat Down of 4-Year-Old Girl
cosm writes "With public outcry against the TSA continuing to spread, the TSA is defending a recent episode in which a four-year-old was patted down while kicking and screaming at Wichita Airport in Kansas. From the AP article: 'The grandmother of a 4-year-old girl who became hysterical during a security screening at a Kansas airport said Wednesday that the child was forced to undergo a pat-down after hugging her, with security agents yelling and calling the crying girl an uncooperative suspect.'"
Otherwise, despite increased cockpit security and civilian awareness, we'd all die from terrorist attacks! That's why you must surrender your privacy in exchange for the all-important security theater like a good citizen would do. Otherwise, you're just a terrorist!
The only agency with a well known 100% failure rate. 100% of the terrorist that we know of that tried to get through TSA security were able to get through and detonate their devices. The TSA's response is to add proven useless and potentially deadly scanners, and create new checkpoints at highway and post offices. These people are worse than useless. They take from the tax payers on so many levels that the monetary loss is the least of our concern. Give us our freedom back you assholes.
From a related article "One officer even told the girl's mother that the airport would have to be shut down and every flight cancelled if the four-year-old did not co-operate" My reaction to this was, yeah go ahead and close the airport because of a crying little girl TSA, let me dial that number for you.
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The very fact that is running to be a candidate for the Republican Party, and not running to be president, shows his lack of seriousness to actually change anything. He could be an independent candidate. He has the popularity, the resources, the name recognition. He, is, however more interested in profiting off the party system and big government rather than making incremental changes that will result in the more prosperous and libertarian society he claims to want.
How does he leverage big government? His district, for instance, is dependent on the government dole. Most people work directly or indirectly for the government. NASA controls everything at a time when it makes a lot of sense to privatize space travel using libertarian ideals. He has the federal government build bus stops and infrastructure so the locals can pay domestic help less, instead of letting the free market work. He has the government pay the shrimp industry huge sums of money to convince people to eat shrimp rather than, again, allowing the free market to work.
If Paul were serious about changing the world, he could do a lot. Unlike Alaska, Arizona, and the like, Texas does not need the government dole. We are fiscally responsible people. Paul could be more local to end the waste that results in million dollar bus stops with contracts given to buddies, government funding that promotes one industry over another, and government control of what should be free enterprise. His continuous affiliation with the republican party proves his unwillingness to truly fight for what he says he believes.
I think a Ron Paul presidential candidate would be cool, but the farce of a Ron Paul republican nomination just indicates the continuation of national office to generate personal profit.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
This isn't "poor training." This is "criminal negligence" on the part of those who provided such "poor training" and sexual assault on the part of those that perpetrated it.
Someone should be fired for okaying this. Out of a cannon. Into the sun.
But I hear the same thing a lot on message forums, where it's easy to hide behind a screen and a broadband connection....
The reality is, people aren't really doing anything about this stuff when it happens. When you're out in public, being ordered around by a bunch of people in govt. issued badges and granted the authority to have you strip searched, arrested, and blacklisted from ever traveling on a commercial airplane again -- it's funny how people tend to lose much of their willingness to fight back.
Every once in a rare while, someone makes a public protest (like the guy in Oregon who recently tried to go through the scanners in the nude). But it's quickly blown off and we're back to govt. control as usual.... (Right after he did that, I saw comments on the news stories to the effect of, "He was a computer programmer and I knew him... He was a nice guy and never did anything wrong. I can't understand what possessed him to do this!")
Nope ... it's all a grand experiment to slowly "boil the frogs". Keep adding regulations and restrictions slowly, and it's amazing how much the American public will tolerate. Most of us wouldn't "jump out of the pot" if we had a chance, right now... Too comfortable in here!
It's obvious that there is nothing we can do to bring a peaceful end to the TSA. Voting didn't work. A widespread campaign of ridicule didn't work. Refusing to fly didn't work, and simply leads to the government propping up at-risk airlines. It is time to try something a little different:
Publicly document the names of people employed by the TSA. Every single one of them, from their administration (John Pistole) all the way down to the nameless, faceless front-line gropers. It won't take long for a document like that to spread in the wild.
That's step one. It becomes unnecessary once the following step starts to gather momentum because these people wear uniforms, drive to work everyday, and are self-identified. They don't wear masks (yet).
Step 2: Make their lives as TSA agents unbearable. Everything from denying them loans and refusing to do business with them personally to stealing their cars and vandalizing their property. Hurt them, hurt their families, hurt them financially. Humiliate them and make them legitimately afraid for their lives and those of their wives, husbands, and children. Socially ostracize them completely or make them targets, whichever your morals and conscience dictates, but start such a campaign of fear that the TSA will never see another willing job applicant.
Make them ashamed and afraid of doing their job, because they should be.