Slashdot Mirror
Federal Appeals Court Orders TSA To Explain Delay In Body Scan Public Hearing
New submitter rhsanborn writes "One year ago the District of Columbia Court of Appeals ordered the TSA to hold public comment on the use body scanners in EPIC vs. DHS. The order has been ignored prompting a WhiteHouse.gov petition asking for the Obama Administration's response. One year later, Wired reports, the court has ordered the TSA to explain why it hasn't responded to its original order (PDF). The TSA has until August 30th to respond."
Oh, this ought to work wonderfully.
Watch this be ignored as well.
Obama is above the law, and the Appeals court is powerless to do anything to force the TSA's hand. How many divisions of bailiffs can the Appeals Court muster?
The only solution to this is to get rid of the Security Theater senators and congressmen and start cutting budgets and repealing ill conceived panic legislation put in place a decade ago.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
I would love to see some bench warrants going out on this stuff!
In case the judge is reading this, let me do your job for you. The order needs to be:
DHS will respond by _________ or I will hold ________ in contempt and order them jailed until you respond.
Without consequences, your order is something to laugh at, frankly. And that's what they're doing. They've been laughing at you for the last year.
Do you have ESP?
All the judges on the District of Columbia Court Of Appeals have been added to the "No Fly" list.
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
What in the world kind of justice is this? "We're going to tell you to do something, and then, if you don't, we're going to tell you tell us why!"
I'm sure the TSA are just quaking in their boots.
Why don't the courts and judges grow some balls, and start issuing warrants for arrests, for contempt of court, if nothing else? At this point, the system is so laughably broken I don't know why anybody even bothers using it in the first place. Vigilante justice is more justice than this farce.
Actually you DON'T need to follow any TSA orders... The TSA 'officers' may not know this, but they have no legal authority to detain you as they are not law enforcement officers. The local police are the only ones who can arrest you. Of course good luck getting that to work for you in court.
Yes it's an anecdote! Were you expecting original research in a Slashdot comment?
I am ordinarily not a fan of e-petitions because they're generally useless; but at least the petition system at whitehouse.gov will require *some* action from the administration. Even if it ultimately serves to highlight how there is no accountability, there is value in that too.
I know from the 'slashdot effect' that we have far more than the required 25k readers necessary to get this petition through, yet instead people would rather complain about how nobody is doing anything.
Folks, it doesn't get any easier to "do something" than this.
Or do you think that the BATF is going to come barging down your front doors because you gave your email address and zip code to register to sign the petition?
You know, if one person, just one person does it they may think he's a 'bro and they'll just taze him. And if two people, two people do it - in harmony - they may think they're both faggots and they won't take either of them anywhere except Chick-Fil-A. And three people do it, three, can you imagine, three people walking through the scanner singing a bar of Alice's Restaurant and walking out? They may think it's an organization. And can you, can you imagine fifty people a day, I said fifty people a day walking in singing a bar of Alice's Restaurant and walking out. And friends they may think it's a movement.
And that's what it is, the Alice's Restaurant Anti-TSA Movement, and all you got to do to join is sing it the next time it comes around on the guitar.
With feeling.
*pause*
That was horrible. If you want to end war and stuff you got to sing loud. I've been typing this post now for twenty five minutes. I could type for another twenty five minutes. I'm not proud... or tired.
Now friends there was only one or two things that Obie coulda done at the secondary inspection, and the first was he could have given us a medal for being so brave and honest at the counter, which wasn't very likely, and we didn't expect it, and the other thing was he could have made us dump out our water bottle and told us never to be seen bringin' water bottles around his station again, which is what we expected, but when we got to secondary inspection, there was a third possibility that we hadn't even counted upon, and we was both immediately arrested. Handcuffed. And I said "Obie, I don't think I can dump out the water bottle with these handcuffs on." He said, "Shut up, kid. Get in the back of the luggage cart..."
- with apologies to Arlo Guthrie and various sources
"by the people, for the people" gets so corrupted in DC because of all of the lobbying and grandstanding that goes on. This whole hype of the TSA was unnecessary and now we've created a bigger bureaucracy in Washington. The whole body scan thing was a lobbied effort. Since we know nobody in DC actually does their own work and relies on lobbyists and staff to come up with things to do, twist enough arms, throw enough cash around and you can usually get what you want. Also don't forget all of those ex-government directors and leaders who've gone into lobbying for those companies as well. All under the guises of
“Lobbyists are not the problem. Terrorists are the ones who can do harm to innocent victims."
Really? what an astute observation from somebody who gets paid to lobby in favor of this horseshit.
Blah
Lobbyists and the way Washington DC operates are at the core of our greater ills and as long as we have revolving door policies allowing ex government officials to join lobbying groups and legal practices that attempt to influence our government, it will always be driven by money because we all know fear pays. Especially for Chertoff.
Eventually people in this country will come to their senses and realize that this is all theater and doesn't make them safer, it does cost them more and makes their lives inconvenient and more exposed. So much for the land of the free.
Until then I shall continue to work on my mind scanning device that will sense brainwave patterns and automatically recover memories and thoughts so we can weed out terrorists everywhere. Once I've figured out the electronics and made it sufficiently unsafe in terms of radiation exposure, I will then get a lobbying firm and sell it on the hill. It will eliminate the need for body scans entirely however there will be some side effects I fear: Loss of Memory, False prosecutions, Secret Lists and longer lines at the airport, bus terminal, subway and any other public transit location where people congregate.
Harrison's Postulate - "For every action there is an equal and opposite criticism"
The Federal Appeals Court should repeat ultimatum in an even firmer tone of voice. Add the words, "or else".
Because fuck you.
I'm not sure that slowing down airport lines for a protest is the best way to make people mad at the TSA. They're more likely to get mad at you for fucking up their travel plans. Write your damn congresscritter or protest OUTSIDE the security zone, please.
What about going through the security line stating you don't want to be groped or scanned and then turn around and leave?
You didn't break any laws but have the same effect. If enough people did it with insured/refundable tickets a point would be made at several levels. The airlines have bigger lobbying pockets than rape-scan.
What the TSA is allowed to do is sick and discusting. If people are only annoyed by being inconvienced it is really rather difficult for me to to find enough sympathy to care.
What about going through the security line stating you don't want to be groped or scanned and then turn around and leave?
You didn't break any laws but have the same effect.
Sure you did. Once you enter the line you must complete the security scan. You can not say no thank you and turn around. It's a $10,000 fine, too.
Michael J.
Root, God, what is difference?