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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!
LOL! American Freedom!
No shit! I honestly don't know of ANY 4 year old that's going to be graceful and cooperative about being taken away from a family member and groped. Sorry, this isn't some sicko loli fantasy. This is real life with real people, and some real perspective needs to be acquired here.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
Could we please shut down this joke of an organization? How many stories do we have to hear like this? Frankly, if you touch my daughter and yell at her like this I'll have you arrested for indecent liberties with a child, abuse of a child, and I'll do whatever I can to have you listed on every sexual predator website I can find and basically I'm willing to destroy your life. If a parent acted like this they'd be arrested and the kids taken away. But because "Floyd" watched a 15 minute instructional video, he gets a cardboard badge and the ability to make up any rules he wants and doesn't have to tell anyone what the rules are.
The TSA... where the agents are pedophiles, the supervisors are thieves and the ones pointing out flaws in the system are unemployed.
The grandmother was a 3 oz container of liquid.
If you mod me down the terrorists will have won
Now that US airports are treating their own citizens as badly as they do foreigners, they can no longer be accused of being racist.
Summation 2
It's been said before but it bears repetition, the TSA is security theater, that's all. And all paid for with our tax dollars. We are a nation of sheep.
Ok, the new paradigm has arrived and we all need to teach our kids and grandkids that it is OK if strangers touch you...even "down there" because it's for the good of the country.
Keeping you safe from 4 year old girls and their grandmothers since 2001.
The agent takes you out to see a movie, buys you dinner and then gets frisky. Without the movie and dinner.
the agents are pedophiles, the supervisors are thieves and the ones pointing out flaws in the system are unemployed ...and the architects are multi-millionaires.
So what? The cockpit door is locked and the rest of the passengers won't let anyone hijack the plane anymore anyway.
You should RTFA which you clearly didn't.
It's not a case of never screening children. The child had passed the metal detector once, but after that she had contact with her grandmother who hadn't been screened yet, so she had to be screened again. For some reason just sending her through the metal detector again wasn't enough, which makes no sense as it was clearly good enough the first time.
I don't see how my civil liberties are being violated when boarding a plane; everyone should have the same equal protections and confidence that each and every passenger is not going try and hurt anyone on the plane
You don't see how civil liberties and privacy are being violated when you're forced to be patted down and searched when trying to travel?
If you're so scared of terrorists, never leave your house. There is no right to feel safe at the expense of everyone's freedom and privacy. Not only that, but increased cockpit security and civilian awareness of the consequences of plane hijackings is more than enough.
I think the terrorists have gotten more then they have lost. We live in fear, giving up our rights and freedoms in order to gain the illusion of "security". Then again, this is a police state's wet dream - a passive, docile, and accepting population who never question. (Meaning population as a whole, we know there are plenty of individuals and small organizations that do question the state.)
Read the article. The complaint (at least from the family) is about the manner in which the agents approached the task rather than the task itself.
Owl tried to think of something wise to say, but couldn't.
Is it really that hard to search wikipedia?
If you find a typo, you may keep it.
People have been known to mule all sort of things up their assholes and vaginas. Therefore, everyone should get a free cavity search (women get a two-for-one of course) before being allowed through security. As long as EVERYONE is probled I don't have a problem with it. This should of course also include staff. Get up in there and have a good feel'around!
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.
Yesterday it was a seven year old kid with cerebral palsy.
http://newyork.cbslocal.com/2012/04/26/father-tsa-got-aggressive-with-cerebral-palsy-stricken-7-year-old-from-long-island/
~~ Behold the flying cow with a rail gun! ~~
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.
This posting is provided 'AS IS' without warranty of any kind, implied or otherwise.
The TSA has now shown they are just an organization of child molesters. How can they justify molesting a 4 year old. If anybody else performed this action they would be arrested and thrown into jail.
I realize this quote is way overused these days, but its worth repeating here. Ol' Ben Franklin said it best..."Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
I want a new quote. One that won't spill. One that don't cost too much. Or come in a pill.
Perhaps it's time the TSA realized that no planeload of passengers is ever again going to quietly allow anyone to take over an aircraft. If we assume that there are fewer terrorists than defenders on the aircraft, and that all have been through a metal detector, the chances are pretty damn good that an aircraft full of uncooperative passengers can and will subdue any reasonable number of attackers, even if they have hostages and even if they have knives.
If TSA were to mount a publicity campaign to encourage fighting back (in the appropriate circumstances, of course), the odds would be even further improved.
But that would make far too much sense, and nobody would get rich selling useless tech to the government...
This isn't just happening in the US anymore. My wife flew from Ottawa to London, Ontario with our two kids (2 month old daughter and 2 year old son) last July. They made my son take off his jacket, hat and teddy bear, put them through the x-ray, then wait on one side of the metal detector while my wife went through with our daughter. At that point he starting crying and trying to pull away from the big stranger forcefully restraining him from his mom. After verifying that my wife and daughter didn't set off the alarm, they waited for all the items to go through the x-ray. Only then did they sent my son through the metal detector, on his own. I got to watch the whole scenario from the dining area on the next floor up, and I've never in my lunch wanted to just hit someone as badly as I did then.
Can anyone venture a plausible reason why they couldn't have sent my son through with my wife, and then just scanned them individually in the event that the detector went off?
A recursive sig
Can impart wisdom and truth
Call proc signature()
It's true. The TSA is correct when they say they were following the correct TSA procedures.
So let's not work to get those agents disciplined. Let's take this as a wake-up call that the TSA's procedures, and possibly their very existence, need to be re-thought.
If following the rules leads to this sort of incident, then the rules are bad and need to be changed. Simple as that.
This is not so much isolated to the TSA as it is the government not being monitored. The knee-jerk reaction of all government people is to hide information. Organizations like the TSA think they can use "Security" as their reason for hiding information. But that hiding what they do combined with the fact that the public is there interacting with them every day is why we know they stink so bad. I can't imagine the waste, rot, and wrongdoing that takes place within the CIA and the NSA as we neither encounter those organizations and they really get to hide behind security. The FBI is probably not so bad as defense attorneys have at them all the time.
So keep in mind that while we get to see the TSA acting like they only hire from the head injury pool that is only because we are getting a behind the curtains taste of what is going on. The entire government hires from the head-injury pool and the few gems are inside a head-injury designed system.
The simple solution to the TSA along with all other government organizations is to open up their records. In this day and age it would be of little effort to post all internal documents, emails, phone records, etc. As for any security/privacy concerns: any "enemies" already have the information, and a tiny few exceptions could be made such as medical records. But otherwise if you deal with government then expect to have it on the public record.
The TSA does tests where they slip crap by their screeners. They hold on to this information dearly, not to keep it from the bad guys but to keep us and our elected officials from laughing them out of existence.
BTW someday somewhere the baddies will strike again and the TSA will say "See you interfered with our ability to do our job and look what happened." They seem to forget that they themselves have become the baddies. I feel zero threat from baddies but I can feel my blood pressure rise from the tension of what ludicrous encounter I might have with the TSA. Also this has resulted in my cutting back on travel to the US by a huge amount. Not only because of the TSA themselves but because of the huge security fees on any flight to the US. This has made flying a huge distance the same price as a short hop to the US. Security types don't seem to realize that this sort of cost (a small price to pay) is compounded. Year after year, decade after decade of making people miserable and avoiding your country will add up to the US falling behind the rest of the world. And guess what a poorer unhappy population is probably more likely to engage in the very activities that you are trying to prevent.
The worst part is that the US population is developing a "They're just doing their job" attitude and get upset when videos of people given viper checkpoint thugs a hard time. You read the comments in any posted video and a good half are "Why didn't the douche just answer the cop's question." after the guy repeatedly asked something like "Am I being detained?" If most people didn't cooperate at all and only voted for the politician who promised to eliminate these McCarthyist institutions they would be gone in no time. But instead I hate to say it but you deserve the government you vote for.
Stop flying you fucking retards. Eventually the message will get through. Money talks.
Instead of being afraid of terrorists, we are now afraid of the TSA. I guess it's just trading one form of terrorism for another. Since the TSA has come around, I have refused to take my children on vacations that involve going through airports. Sorry Disney World, you're too far away to drive. We've been going to local attractions which have been just as much fun, if not more interesting. Nothing like family bonding on a camping trip!
"It's not hard to imagine scenarios"
That is the problem. That right there.
I choose not to live in fear.
Fear is the mind killer. Or society in this case.
"Gold still represents the ultimate form of payment in the world." - Alan Greenspan, 1999
but I'm a business traveler and know how these things look.
You're defending the molestation of a four year old girl because the government thought she was a threat to national security because she wanted to say goodbye to her grandmother. This is one of those McCarthy era moments where I have to ask, do you have any sense of decency or shred of humanity left in your body? Or do you really believe that molesting children and the elderly makes you safer? Even if we pretend that's true, why in the hell do you find that acceptable?
The threats we should accept as the price to live in a free and open society are tiny in comparison to the injustice of living in a militarized police state. Giving the government more power to molest, imprison, search, and detain people with impunity are the real dangers to our democracy, not the memory of a single terrorist attack 10 years ago. We have locks on the cockpit doors. We have Air Marshals in the cabin. We can retain some reasonable security checkpoints. But when your society tells you that it's acceptable for an adult to put their hands all over a child because they are a threat to national security, you can be damn sure you don't live in a free and rational society.
I also travel for business, and I would rather die in a terrorist attack than live in a police state where people who want to travel are subject to molestation.
And this is what is wrong with the TSA. They are no better trained than the private companies that used to do the same job but they do cost us nearly 1000x as much.
After years of incompetent "protection" and/or "service", gratuitous bullying, and general thuggery, I can say the same about most "Law Enforcement" here. I understand its worse in most of the world, but you'd think progress would not be stalled quite in the Bronze Age.
They feared that it could be used to suppress protest or support unpopular rule.
I used to travel for business, but then I posted on the internet about how I would rather die in a terrorist attack than live in a police state where people who want to travel are subject to molestation.
FTFY. See, I don't travel for business, and I wouldn't take a job where travelling to the US would be mandatory because I outright refuse to kowtow to your outrageous border policies. No, you shouldn't live in fear of your government, but you actually have something to lose by pissing them off. I do not, as I've already resigned myself to never return to America. Being put on their No Fly list is moot; the USA is on mine.
Finally had enough. Come see us over at https://soylentnews.org/
It makes me sad to see this modded troll, because that's exactly what I came here to say.
Then you haven't thought it through very carefully.
blah blah irrelevent stuff blah blah
The TSA could have done any number of sensible things instead of none, which they chose to do.
They could have simply told the grandmother to take her granddaughter back outside the security line, and made them just go through like normal.
They could have not acted like shouty pedo-kidnappers and not grabbed a terrified 4 year old and kept her away from her carer.
Or, they could have directed the grandmother to take the 4 year old to one of those secluded pat-down rooms alone to let the grandmother calm doen the child quietly and alone.
Instead they chose to yell itiotic slogans at a person simply too young and scared to understand.
Can you really not see how they acted like complete morons?
SJW n. One who posts facts.
You remember everything we thought you about strangers, and how you never have to let them touch you in ways you feel uncomfortable about. None of that matters any more when you're flying.
Response from TSA: Blah blah blah, procedures, blah blah blah, terrorists. The little girl violated our procedures because she was scared, therefore we MUST subject her to more terrifying treatment. Honestly surprised that the mother who walked past the TSA agent to try to calm her daughter was not arrested for her suspicious behavior.
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!
This B.S. about being so concerned little kids are "security threats" because of a potential to strap a bomb to their body is just that.... utter paranoia.
What I find extremely odd about all of this is the fact that so many of us accept this nonsense while in line to get on a plane, yet if similar policies were enacted in other public places, there'd be a huge outcry (primarily because it would suddenly be a regular inconvenience instead of a novelty). If we're *truly* concerned about this being an issue, we need to start searching all the babies and toddlers as they enter the grocery stores, movie theaters and sports arenas - and definitely at least pat down and wand everyone before they start to use a gas pump at a filling station! Huge potential for disaster otherwise, there.
At some point, I just want to grab some people by the collars, shake them, and yell, "Life is NOT safe, ok!?! Get OVER it!" Maybe, in some isolated case, one of the days, someone really WILL bring a 4 year old kid onto a plane with a bomb under his shirt. Ok, fine! That's horrible, but it MAY happen. Someone may walk outside on a stormy night and get struck by lightning and die, too. Someone else may get in their car to drive to work and get in a fiery multi-car collision, killing dozens of people. (Better odds of that than the baby/bomb scenario.) Should we just stay in bed all day and do NOTHING in public, to protect us from all these possibilities?
http://www.southparkstudios.com/full-episodes/s16e01-reverse-cowgirl
When the TSA becomes in charge of restrooms...
And I agree with you. The rest of you of the paranoia seems awfully troll-ish and they should be put away or on Xanax.
If someone wants to blow you or some place up, they will. Period. You're dead so get your affairs in order and stop waving guns and police forces and armies around. Niet. Gone. Nada mas.
Fortunately, terrorism is NOT the norm. People don't really want to blow themselves up until they feel they're backed into a corner and have nothing else to live for. So, try a little empathy first. It would go a long way toward ensuring a safer, happier humanity instead of this "Well I carry a gun everywhere because it's better me than him." Are you fucking retarded? Try understanding why someone might flip out and start shooting up a post office, for instance.
I'll give you a hint: It has to do with desperation and scarcity mentality. There are WAY more than enough resources to go around, and if we actually had a society that valued something besides money and had a more interconnected one that actually has sympathy for people's situations, we'd have a lot fewer anxious, crazy people walking around. You! Hey you! Yeah, the one who bought that pistol that you got a conceal-carry permit for. Yeah, and you tell your friends it's your Constitutional Right? Yeah you. You know, if you got more hugs as a child, or hadn't been bullied to death in grade school, or had a friendly network of confidants who positively support you, instead of all the toys in your house that keep you "entertained" I'll bet you wouldn't need to walk around thinking you're some sort of badass who's going to hold out at the Ok Corral when the bullets start flying in Nowheresville, Suburbia.
Good lord, I'm so sick of selfish asshats walking around talking about security. You're the dangerous ones. You ARE CRIMINALS ALREADY. You've committed crimes of blowing someone away, without judge or jury, thousands of times in your head. You've made it real in your mind, so your reality is that one day it will happen and you want to be ready for what you actually think is an inevitability.
This security thing is just another manifestation of that mentality, and at the top sits a sick fuck who beckons with a finger and thousands can die, sitting at a little desk feeling smug and superior that,"I know what's best for everyone else."
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I have to respectfully disagree with your assertions here. It's a well thought out set of ideas you have, but I know too many people actively involved in the Ron Paul campaign to believe you're correct.
Ron Paul already *did* run for president in 2004 on the Libertarian party ticket. He's TRIED the "run as an independent" thing already. All that led to in '04 was dissent among the independents. I even recall Chuck Baldwin (Constitution party platform's running mate) urging all the independents to unite and stop bickering amongst themselves, even if that meant going with a Green party or a Libertarian party candidate instead of their own party. Few listened.... Looking back on all of it now, I really believe Bob Barr got involved in the campaign as a Libertarian simply to ensure it was fragmented. (Look at his past history.... CIA connections and all about "big government". Sure, he had a story about how he "saw the light" and changed -- but he essentially came out of nowhere, and proceeded to parrot all the press releases put out by "Campaign for Liberty" and Ron Paul. I was signed up on both mailing lists for a while, and I swear, EVERY time Ron Paul released something? Along came Bob Barr with his "Raising the Barr" newsletter the next day, with utter plagiarism of the Ron Paul letter.)
Specifically regarding the situation in Paul's district in Texas? I think you're reading too much into the situation there. Ron Paul inherited it. he didn't create it. So complaining that his district is full of people who make a living from government jobs is hardly a failing on his part. At absolute best, all one can do to try to change that is to encourage the growth of new private businesses in the area, and hope the jobs they create will be lucrative enough to entice people away from their existing govt. employment. That is going to be a SLOW process that only changes things in the LONG haul.
I'm not from Texas myself, so I don't claim to know all the details of what's going on there with regard to new bus stops and what-not. But in general, public transportation is ALWAYS a money losing proposition. Our local bus system is NEVER profitable, nor is our light rail system here in St. Louis, Missouri. In a "perfect world", all of it would be eliminated if it can't make a profit and replaced with profitable alternatives that were NOT govt. funded at all. But again, all of this requires baby steps.... If the bus system ensures some people can maintain gainful employment as housekeepers, and that in turn reduces expenses for some of the folks paying the taxes that pay for the bus system? That's not the worst situation one could have.
It would go a long way toward ensuring a safer, happier humanity instead of this "Well I carry a gun everywhere because it's better me than him." Are you fucking retarded? Try understanding why someone might flip out and start shooting up a post office, for instance.
Actually, you'd find it surprising how few crimes are committed by people who are carrying firearms legally. The criminals don't bother to jump through the hoops of registering, training, getting a license, etc. You'd find it even more surprising how many crimes are prevented by armed citizens.
Not to mention the supreme court has explicitly ruled that it is not the responsibility of the police to protect you.
If you're so scared of terrorists, never leave your house. There is no right to feel safe at the expense of everyone's freedom and privacy. Not only that, but increased cockpit security and civilian awareness of the consequences of plane hijackings is more than enough.
This is so right on point it bears repeating.
So many TSA supporters say, "If you don't like having your rights violated, then don't fly. Travel is not a right." I think a decent response is, as you said, "If you are so terrified of being killed in a terrorist attack, then don't fly. Travel is not a right."
...has TSA ever admitted they've done a search wrong, or conducted one that wasn't called for?
Ferretman
Sic gorgiamus allos subjectatos nunc
It would go a long way toward ensuring a safer, happier humanity instead of this "Well I carry a gun everywhere because it's better me than him." Are you fucking retarded? Try understanding why someone might flip out and start shooting up a post office, for instance.
Actually, you'd find it surprising how few crimes are committed by people who are carrying firearms legally. The criminals don't bother to jump through the hoops of registering, training, getting a license, etc. You'd find it even more surprising how many crimes are prevented by armed citizens.
Not to mention the supreme court has explicitly ruled that it is not the responsibility of the police to protect you.
True. I looked up the statistics for Texas concealed carry permit holders:
http://www.txdps.state.tx.us/administration/crime_records/chl/convrates.htm
If you have a concealed carry permit in Texas you are about 90% LESS likely to commit a violent crime.
For people with signatures like ours? Unbelievable!
Or, even majority of mods suddenly become infuriated libertarians when the story is about cure 4 yo girl? ;-)
Paul B.
I hear that a lot, but your land where a whole lot of you go off with more confidence in violence than a Chuck Norris character is the place that let barely trained airport security guys get into a position to squeeze all those testicles. While you were all going on in about the rights of the individual an organised group that pretends to have a similar outlook to yourself took them away. It's the politics of "I want to do whatever I want and fuck the rest of you" - and the "rest of you" turns out to be whoever can't afford to bribe the right people.
Ranting about violence gets you nowhere and carrying out the violence gets you shot in the terminal so the above is really just helpless noise. There's guys you vote for and (sadly for the USA) guys that have those bought and paid for - but they are still vunerable to a lot of people organised to vote another way or boycott the products of those that bribe (face it - "lobby" is usually just a euphemism) the representatives.
Forget the lone gunman shit and the "land of heroes" mythology. Washington didn't kick British ass alone with nothing but the axe he cut the cherry tree with. I suggest if you care enough band together and do something about it or just be a death statistic or prison number if you try a violent singlehanded reponse.