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Sen. Rand Paul Introduces TSA Reform Legislation
OverTheGeicoE writes "Over a month after Sen. Rand Paul announced his desire to pull the plug on TSA, he has finally released his legislation that he tweets will 'abolish the #TSA & establish a passengers "Bill of Rights."' Although the tweet sounds radical, the press release describing his proposed legislation is much less so. 'Abolition' really means privatization; one of Paul's proposals would simply force all screenings to be conducted by private screeners. The proposed changes in the 'passenger Bill of Rights' appear to involve slight modifications to existing screening methods at best. Many of his 'rights' are already guaranteed under current law, like the right to opt-out of body scanning. Others can only vaguely be described as rights, like 'expansion of canine screening.' Here's to the new boss..."
The TSA wouldn't bother me so much if (a) it was just the airport and (b) they operated with professionalism. BUT in reality the TSA is expanding its operations to our streets, with random stops-and-searches along interstates (border states), bus stops, train stations, and publicly-open facilities like malls, unemployment centers, hotels, post offices, and most recently: Chicago parks.
As for (b) I have close to 1000 stories about the TSA groping women's breasts, men's penises, forced strip searches of elderly women, dumping urine or feces bags on the floor, forcing a woman to demo a breastpump (else they'd steal the ~$100 device), tackling a woman like she in a football game, holding a man in St. Louis because he was carrying ~$3000 in cash (not a crime), detaining a Senator because he opted-out of being groped & wanted to be scanned, forcing a woman to stand inside a glass jail for over an hour because she had milk for her child (which was then dumped & she missed her flight), and on and on and on.
My AC stalker: " I personally agree with your posts most of the time, but that won't keep me from modding you troll"
"Pilots can't simultaneously defend the cockpit and fly the plane. If somebody on the plane is going to be armed, it needs to be somebody who can spare enough attention to police the situation."
Complete bullshit. Not only are there 2 pilots, for some decades now there has been a little device called an "autopilot".
And autopilots are sophisticated enough that today, they can even land the plane without the pilot having to touch a control.
Top 5 Contributors, 2007-2012, Campaign Cmte
Alliance Resource Partners
$40,650
Koch Industries
$17,000
Mason Capital Management
$16,800
Murray Energy
$14,613
http://www.opensecrets.org/politicians/summary.php?cid=N00030836
Even more:
http://images.nictusa.com/cgi-bin/fecimg/?C00462069
YOU need to wake up to the fact he wants to turn everything over to unregulated corporations.
Do we need a 3rd party? yes. heel a 4th and 5th party!
That does not me we should blindly jump on board anyone who shows up as 3rd party. Since you are ignorant of who donate money to them, I don't think it's not too far of a stretch to say you are blindly jumping on his bandwagon simply because it's a new band wagon.
The question is: Have you rapped yourself so emotionally into the Paul's that you won't change your view in light of the new evidence?
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
All undercover TSA agents and any armed pilots use ammunition specifically designed to not rupture the hull.
Nonsense. They carry regular jacketed hollowpoints, just like any other police officers, or civilians for that matter. A gunshot in a pressurized plane just pokes a small hole which the plane's normal pressure-maintenance systems can easily compensate for.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
Sorry, your comment above where you say the steel can't "melt" is not only incorrect but missing the point (it doesn't have to melt to lose a lot of strength), and that abstract doesn't say what you suggest it says. Just because the dust ends up having properties similar to thermite (which is what is says) DOES NOT MEAN THERMITE WAS PLANTED IN THE BUILDING, it just means another unexpected thing that may have added to the flames. Since it was found as dust and not as a melted mass doesn't that rule out deliberate ignition anyway? That huge quantity of dust didn't ignite.
While you don't know me from anyone and I've never published any papers I did work as a metallurgist in a steel rod rolling mill for a little while in the early 1990s and in an electricity generating company after that. I've seen a lot of steel lose strength as it heats up, both the obvious red hot stuff (rod rolling from 600mm thick to 5mm), in boilers (a bit cooler) and in a crude oil heater in an oil refinery (just hot enough to lose strength and split).
Now you make thermite with metal dust, which means any metal dust made any way (eg. huge building collapse) is superficially going to look similar and unfortunately going to behave a similar way in a fire (see also flour dust explosions). In the case of a building made of steel and aluminium with a lot of organic material (wood, paper, plastics) and you grind it all up with a huge collapse then it is no surprise that it ends up as the material described in the abstract and we can all be thankful that the dust did not ignite after the buildings fell or there would have been an even larger death toll. I did some stuff with powered metal in the late 1980s at University, and the really fine stuff has to be handled very carefully due to the fire and explosion risk. The titanium powder came packed inside two tins, with the outer tin filled with an inert gas. Something like that would make a bigger bang, or actual thermite would have melted a lot more than what actually happened, or if that dust ignited there would have been a huge fireball.
Cherry picking key words appears to have led you to the wrong conclusion. There's conspiracy theorists that think a government is so powerful and omniceint that only an act of government can possibly hurt them. The real world doesn't work like that. Governments are made up of real fallible people, especially governments where Horse Judges are appointed to key positions.
What I get from that abstract is the sense that things could have been even worse. I do not see anything in it that implies that thermite was planted. Is there something in the entire paper that clearly implies that instead of just that the dust from a building made of steel and aluminium contains steel and aluminium? Have you read and understood the paper?
Blowing out a window's less dramatic than the movies make it out to be. Seriously.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas