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Mother Found Guilty After Protesting TSA Pat-down of Daughter
Penurious Penguin writes "In 2011, en route to Baltimore, Tennessee mother Andrea Abbott was arrested after squabbling with the TSA over their pat-down and "naked" body-scan process. Initially Abbott had protested a pat-down of her 14 year-old daughter, though eventually backed off. When her own turn came, she refused both a pat-down and body-scan. This week, despite having no criminal record, Abbott was found guilty of disorderly conduct and sentenced to one year of probation. A surveillance video of the affair shows what appears an agitated Abbott surrounded by various TSA agents, but seemingly contradicts the premise by which she was convicted. In the case against Abbott it was claimed that her behavior impeded the flow security-lines and lawful activity. Beyond Abbott's confession of issuing some verbal abuse, the video does not appear to display a significant blockage of traffic nor anything noticeably criminal."
Scum like that should be executed!
She didn't want to be fondled by total strangers in public. There's your crime right there!
the video does not appear to display a significant blockage of traffic nor anything noticeably criminal.
She was defying the TSA.
If they let her get away with it then pretty soon other people would be defying them, too. All protesters must be stamped on, hard.
No sig today...
... Land of the Freedom to abuse
I love stacking my barbecues in the shed at the end of summer - you can't beat a bit of grill on grill action.
Let this be a test case for the tweedledee and tweedledum, who wants the job at the White House so badly --- do they support a public fondl... [ahem] a pat down of a 14 year old American girl, in an American air port?
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
She wanted to deny the TSA staff their legal right to watch naked 14 yo girls!
Questioning the system will get you in trouble every time. It helps make sure that the cost of complaining or asserting your rights or asking for consideration or doing anything but keeping your head down and doing whatever you're told is too high compared to the (relatively) momentary discomfort and inconvenience. And it's pretty effective too. I know my rights- in encounters with the police, or when going through security at the airport - but when if a cop stopped me for no reason walking to the store (as frequently happens to my sister) and demanded to see my ID or search my bag....I can't say I wouldn't do exactly as she does and just go with it. I certainly do with the TSA's nonsense. The possibility of getting dragged off for some bullshit reason is a good threat. Even if it doesn't stick, it still sucked. You still endangered your job/vacation/whatever.
...one of them would jump right up to fund fighting her case all the way to the Supreme Court. What the hell, lunch money.
But they won't of course, because you can't be a decent person and be a billionaire.
This space available.
When was the last time you heard of an airplane hijack after we pumped up security?
Yupp, the bear patrol is working like a charm.
I am putting myself to the fullest possible use, which is all I can think that any conscious entity can ever hope to do.
Yes, I do suppose this logic is "interesting."
I would personally prefer this "humiliation" to losing one of my family members because one woman would rather be free from the pat-downs/security scanning etc.
So you're saying you'd rather have everyone who wants to get on a plane have their privacy violated because you're afraid of the minuscule chance that a terrorist might attack? I guess privacy isn't important at all as long as you can have your security theater.
But how about we install surveillance cameras in everyone's homes? It's for your own safety and could stop a few crimes, so it's all worth it. Rights mean nothing at all.
When was the last time you heard of an airplane hijack after we pumped up security?
When was the last time you heard of an airplane hijack since I received my anti-terrorist rock?
And more than likely, it's not because of the TSA's security theater, but because of secured cockpit doors and the willingness of citizens to fight back.
Filthy, filthy copyrapists!
"If you love wealth more than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, depart from us in peace. We ask not your counsel nor your arms. Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you. May your chains rest lightly upon you and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen."
- Samuel Adams
(Captcha - unneeded)
Except that there are two technologies that make pat down irrelevant. The first is the good old "metal wand" and the other is the newer "electronic nose". Two devices that can be implemented into hand held devices (probably even combined). I have not flown through Britain for a while but there there they never touch you. Metal detector went bleep, then they tell you to step over and wand you; oh it was the belt buckle. Have a nice flight Sir. As far as I remember they are also deploying back scatter and terraherz scanners, but I still doubt they pat you down if that fails / you refuse the scanner. Why is the US in the stone age when it comes to security?!
Hey, I have an idea: why not just force everyone to fly naked!
Ahhh...the great dumpster continuum. Many a free computer will be found there. -- sowth (748135)
I would personally prefer this "humiliation" to losing one of my family members because one woman would rather be free from the pat-downs/security scanning etc.
What about the kid who died in the wheel well of the jet airplane? If he could get in there then anyone could. Hell, just this week I saw a story about a guy who was stranded and hopped the fence into an airport, hoping to be confronted immediately by security (and thus saved). He walked around all the airplanes out on the tarmac, and right up to where the passenger terminals are. So, what good is getting groped or scanned other than to acclimate you to personal intrusions? None. It's the illusion of security. The scanners don't even work. Remember that story about the guy with a pocket on his sleeve? He put a metal cigarette pack in the pocket and since it was off his body, and appeared black as the background, they didn't see it at all on the scanner and he hopped on the plane with it.
Whatever happened to, "Give me Liberty or Give me Death?" Or that bit Ben Franklin said about trading your freedom for security and having neither? You've lost your way somewhere. You've become an irrational fear slut. You're thousands of times MORE likely to be killed in a car wreck and you don't run around spouting BS about how a TSA agent needs to ride with every car load to ensure safety. FUCK YOU. It's fools like you that are letting them turn the US into an oppressive regime, just like the ones we so hated in the 80's.
But WTF : In the case against Abbott it was claimed that her behavior impeded the flow security-lines and lawful activity.
Is that a crime? Seriously?!
Privacy is terrorism.
Actually, despite the massively unpopular wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, it is because the US chose to fight jihadis on foreign soil. Both Iraq and (especially) Afghanistan are fights out of the way of the general US populace and suck up jihadis from all over the World into a meat grinder where NATO has the complete upper hand. Despite the "if you kill on you'll just anger more" bullshit the fighting overseas has actually worked and killed many of the enemies of civilization.
As long as you keep killing jihadis overseas and have moderate security checks you'll be reasonably safe (nothing is perfectly safe). There is no need to accept the humiliation of the TSA security theatre. It is not the TSA that has kept you safe, it is the killing of the violent extremists overseas that has - they are drawn like moths to a flame - this was a very smart move of the US to do this (even if most people don't grok it and the wars remain deeply unpopular due to superficial 'reasons'). The West is at war at the moment not against terror, but against the revival of a Caliphate that will not accept the progress of the Enlightenment. That is what is at stake (and has nothing to do with meekly accepting the fascism of the TSA).
...where absolute conformity and submission to the machinery of bureaucracy and state surveillance is a precondition for being able to function for any and every citizen. The police state is strengthening its grip upon us. Upon you. Upon me.
Religous speak to God. Insane are spoken to by God. When all shut up, one can finally hear Shostakovich in peace
Who says they have to "slip by"?
This is the thing I really don't get. Who created the belief that terrorists have to get past airport security to do anything and why do people believe it?
If I was a terrorist leader I'd blow up a few bags of ball bearings in the lines of people waiting to nudie-scanned. The country would implode overnight...
The only reason this isn't happening is that there are no terrorists.
(nb. If they want to "slip by" they can just put the C4 up their asses or whatever... Drug smugglers do it all the time, why not terrorists?)
No sig today...
Why is the US in the stone age when it comes to security?!
Hint: "Security" isn't the reason the TSA does what it does...
No sig today...
TSA - Terror Supply Agency.
You never really thought that the TSA was about preventing terror, did you?
Only if they install stripper poles for the flight attendants. I wouldn't want to be objected to that much unscripted nudity. Fat ugly hairy bodies everywhere.
Learn to love Alaska
Despite the "if you kill on you'll just anger more" bullshit the fighting overseas has actually worked and killed many of the enemies of civilization.
Years ago, they noticed the death toll of "terrorists" was above the sum of all "terrorists" on the planet. Either the war manufactured terrorists faster than we were killing them, or we were just killing innocent civilians and calling them terrorists to justify out mass murder. Either way, we are as bad as they say we are.
Learn to love Alaska
Bruce Schneier will point out that there have been several attempts since, all of them stopped effectively - and all stopped by security that was already there BEFORE 9/11.
In fact the TSA has made no difference to security and the attempts since then would not have been caught by them.
Only two changes since 9/11 has actually IMPACTED on security.
1) Passengers changed their mindset from "do as we're told" to "fight back" - because the terrorists were no longer going to let you live if you obeyed.
2) They reinforced the cockpit doors (one could argue THAT should have been done in the FIRST place).
Unicode killed the ASCII-art *
I'm not so sure, I'd want that either. After 9/11, I noticed an increase of ugly male flight attendants. The hot female flight attendants, seem to be a thing of the past.
Ahhh...the great dumpster continuum. Many a free computer will be found there. -- sowth (748135)
Jet Skier Breaches JFK Airport Perimeter, Wanders to Terminal 3 Undetected
Questions now are raised as to why the Port Authority's $100 million Perimeter Intrusion Detection System (PIDS), loaded up with closed-circuit cameras and motion sensors, failed completely, and how a man can walk such a distance unnoticed. This is not JFK Airport's first perimeter breach, however. In early 2009, a trio of boaters ran ashore at the airport, wandered across a runway and showed up at the Port Authority Police rescue station themselves. They had become lost in their inflatable fishing raft during a storm.
Former NYPD veteran and former MTA deputy security director told ABC News âoeI think he should be given dinner and a bottle of champagne for showing us our faults,â but after a 3-mile swim, breaching an airport perimeter and a 2-mile walk in heavy, wet clothes, perhaps he should be given a trophy and a Navy SEAL Trident as well.
we were just killing innocent civilians and calling them terrorists to justify out mass murder
Relevent to this: The US military defines "militant" as any male person in any country of the Middle East except Israel between the ages 13-50. Consider that the next time you hear a news report that says that "4 militants and 6 civilians" were killed: That could well be a random extended family meeting up for Eid, not a terrorist cell.
I am officially gone from
I would personally prefer this "humiliation" to losing one of my family members because one woman would rather be free from the pat-downs/security scanning etc.
Then the terrorists have won. This is exactly what they've set out to achieve.
(By the way, I nearly lost a family member on 9/11)
So a person wearing a bomb is going to be afraid of a gun? If they are willing to blow themselves up, then threatening to shoot them after the fact is not going to dissuade them.
I do security, so I get defense in depth and agree a layered approach is the correct one. Ineffective controls however have no place.
They still irritate people who are not threats leading everyone to not take security seriously, at any point and causing them to thwart other controls rendering them less effective.
You are correct in that no plane has been hijacked after the new security measures were enforce, but its also true that terrorist organizations have succeeded in getting explosives on planes, they just did not work or were prevented from use by passengers.
The passenger screening controls don't match the threat model. Most organizations who can construct a bomb small enough and powerful enough to bring down and airliner can also design it to evade the controls. Even the new scanners still won't detect the underwear bomb for example. The patdown would be unlikely to find it either.
The effective control that has prevented additional attacks is the reenforced cockpit doors; which are locked throughout the flight and pilots who are trained never to open them no matter what. You can't from the passenger cabbing gain control of an airliner today.
So the best you can hope to do with small arms is cause chaos in the cabbin which you might just as well do literally anywhere else. Or you could try a Lockerbie type attack where you attempt to bring down a plane which will already be over you target at the proper time. With the security in place today the latter is still quite possible; but again the reason it has not happened is because the terrorists that have tried it were ineffective, not because the TSA was effective.
TSA is infighting on rights, enabling and engaging in theft, costing billions, and adding no real value.
Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
The government should set up an agency whose sole function is to prosecute people who object to the setting up of this agency.
"What a stupid idea!" I hear you say? You're another dangerous malcontent who must be investigated!
I am anarch of all I survey.
they were all hot, 35 years ago when they got hired. Somehow 60 year olds with 3 kids and 6 grandkids just lose the hot factor along they way.
Did Obama order DHS to comply with the court order requiring the TSA to publish various statistics that'd make the nuddy scanners look bad? No
Anyways, you should always refuse the nuddy scanner and accept the pat down instead, if only for the radiation hazard.
The Christian religion has been and still is the principal enemy of moral progress in the world. -- Bertrand Russell
I wish Obama would be in some office where he could wield some executive power so he could show us how Democrats value freedom more...
(If I lived in the USA, I would probably vote for Obama as smaller of two evils... but it's not as if the security theater would be a partisan issue.)
This is one of the reasons I DONT FLY anymore, I've taken several long distance trips in recent years, each one I rented a car and drove. I didn't have to worry about running up against some wannabe SS officer, I didn't have to worry about what in my luggage (I actually brought a rather large rifle on one of my trips because I had just bought it and wanted to get some shooting time in with it at my destination), and don't have to get felt up by some rent a cop. I find it disturbing that we've sunken so low here in the US, fifteen years ago if you would have said that in order to fly commercially you would have endure a pat down, or a virtual strip search they would have looked at you like you had just talked about being abducted by aliens.
Whatever happened to, "Give me Liberty or Give me Death?"
He got liberty. The TSA isn't being imposed by a king. It came into existence after popular demand for increased security. The agency was voted into existence by an elected congress and the detailed rules created by an elected executive. There have been multiple hearings with public comment on procedures. The elected congress has considered the proper balance and weighed in in favor of the enhanced security. The population has consistently favored the TSA when polled.
What you are talking about is anarchy not democracy. And that was not what Ben Franklin was pushing for.
Then the terrorists have won. This is exactly what they've set out to achieve.
No they didn't. The terrorists could care less whether the United States had a pat down policy on airplanes or not. You are not the center of the world. What they set out to achieve was:
a) An end of US support for the House of Saud
b) An end to US sanction against Iraq
c) An end for US support for Israel
with (a) beng the most important.
The problem was questioning authority. I'm a bit of an expert on this. I find when I start questioning authority, mainly in a loud, commanding voice, 1 of 2 things happens. Either they cave in because they are sheep. Or they get really butthurt and need to make an example of me. Authority does not like being questioned, mainly when they are doing fucked up shit that needs to be questioned.
Did she get out of line? Probably. Emotions get flaring, it's easy to get a bit overboard. But watching the video, it seems to me there was a point, when she could of just walked away, and instead she came back to argue, bitch, or whatever. It's possible she got edged on by something being said, it's possible she didn't. But there was a point there when she could of just left, like they were letting her do, and she didn't. I'm guessing that is why she didn't win her court case, because of that action there.
Be seeing you...
If I was a terrorist leader I'd blow up a few bags of ball bearings in the lines of people waiting to nudie-scanned. The country would implode overnight...
No problem, we just need an Airport Screening Line Pre-screening Line!
Good for you, neither did I. Even though he has about as much chance of winning this election, please consider taking the time to come to the aid of our (f)ailing democracy, and vote for Gary Johnson. The more people who vote for him this time around, the more likely the Demopublicans will have a harder time next election pretending (as they did in this one,) that no other parties or candidates exist.
It's not about sending a message to Obamney, or his party owners, they already know they're wrong. It's about sending a message to your fellow Americans who are nauseated at the thought of having to vote either for Obama, or for Romney, that it is NOT, I REPEAT, N O T a waste of time or effort to get together and vote for someone who IS on the ballot, but who isn't the nominee of the DemocRats or the Rapublicans.
Incidentally, I think Johnson wants to limit the TSA to checking out "high risk individuals only" and wants to legalize marijuana, and regulate it like alcohol and tobacco, either of these alone is enough reason to vote Gary Johnson, in 2012, but you get, as a free bonus, that he's not in the pocket of, or under the control of the D/R NC. Note, I'm not talking "medical" marijuana, I mean 'go down to the drug store, and pick me up a dime bag!'
Johnson believes in personal freedom and responsibility, and accountability.
Obama and Romney believe in keeping you scared shitless so you'll knuckle under and do what they tell you. Consider that as you get ready to cast your ballots.
This would be why I drove 17 hours to Florida with my family instead of flying twice in the last two year. It has actually been a fun and enjoying trip both times.
When was the last time you heard of an airplane hijack after we pumped up security? Uncomfortable, yes. Bothersome - heck yeah. But we live.
When was the last time you heard of an airplane hijack after people realized they could be crashed into buildings?
Before September 11, no one had crashed a commercial airplane into a building as a terrorist attack. But, airplanes had been hijacked. Civilians were told not to interfere with a hijacking. If your plane were hijacked, you could expect to be flown to Cuba, sit around for a week or so, and then end up back in the US. That dynamic changed on September 11. AS SOON AS people realized that terrorists were flying planes into buildings, they started fighting back. That is why that plane crashed in Pennsylvania. Because the terrorists had hijacked the plane, but the passengers found out (from cell phones) what was probably going to happen and tried to take the airplane back. There is almost NO chance of a commercial flight being hijacked by terrorists now. Even if we didn't humiliate people with the TSA. Because the other 100 people on the plane would sacrifice their lives to stop them. No one would believe the hijacker WASN'T going to crash the plane into a building, so there would be no point in anyone NOT being a hero (you know you are going to die if you don't fight back, so you might as well fight back and try to live).
I fly quite often (at least a couple times per month). I would be perfectly fine with increasing my chance of dying on a plane by 0.00001% if that meant getting rid of the TSA. I would also be fine with the increased risk to my family because I believe their freedom and happiness are more important than their security.
You sir, are a coward. And it is people like you who allowed the Hitlers and Stalins commit their atrocities.
TSA screeners aren't law enforcement.
Any other fallacious bullshit you'd like to spout while you're here?
That's the 1837 Upper Canada revolution, you understand!
We revolted against an oligarchic government of the rich and connected, known as the "family compact", and eventually gained "responsible government", in which the rulers were required to obey the law and could be thrown out for malfeasance. Heck, we could even defeat them in an election!
The similarities to the parent poster's state of arbitrary, unaccountable rule are striking, so much so that one of the regular discussion groups sponsored by our city councillor is known as "1837".
--dave (who was at 1837 last week) c-b
davecb@spamcop.net
On 9/12/2001, I purchased an anti-terrorist rock. It wards off terrorists hijacking planes in the country that it's located in. And sure enough, there have been no more hijackings inside the US. You're all welcome.
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
There is no "jury of peers" in the US. In fact that's one of the things the ideals of the US stand in direct opposition to. Sure once upon a time a commoner was not considered a peer of a noble and a commoner could never judge a noble, but the US (in theory) left that behind.
There is no mention of "jury of peers" in the consitution, it's just a Jury or "impartial jury"
"Trial of all Crimes, except in Cases of Impeachment, shall be by Jury" - Article 3 Section 2
"In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed" - Sixth Amendment.
A jury of peers as you describe would be just about the worst possible jury system. Do you really want a police officer on trial for beating someone in custody to have a jury of fellow police officers? Do you really want a Wall Street banker accused of misusing client funds to have a jury consisting entirely of Wall Street bankers?
Impartial has been interpreted to mean that the jury should be representative of the community - precisely not only peers of the accused.
The only reason this isn't happening is that there are no terrorists.
This. There was essentially no security flying from Mexico to the USA between 9/11 and somewhere around. 2009. Minimal perfunctory checking, no "take your shoes off" or "let me see you naked" crap. And guess what? not a single terrorist attack took place.
Americans complained about this around 2007 so the Mexican authorities created a special "security theater" line for Americans only, which seemed to make the 'tards happy.
Eventually the 'merkins clued into this, and forced a real pat down for everyone. There was no gain in security, but it makes them feel good, so we all have to go through it, even though it's useless security theater as already admitted to by the former head of the TSA.
No, they don't have guns. They're untrained, unskilled mall rentacops who have to be watched, else they'll steal things from their "customers".
Seriously. They've been told to refer to the people whose rights they violate as "customers" in an attempt to frame the situation in a way that distracts from the flagrant violations of the Bill of Rights they perform thousands of times per day.
Question everything
No, "disorderly conduct" does.
"Disorderly conduct" is what we call it when you haven't committed a crime but we want to punish you anyway because we don't like you. It's basically a bullshit charge for when nothing else sticks.
I am not a crackpot.
Obama is standing on the shoulders of giants. Funny that you say "expansion" and not creation. See, he is expanding what is already there. I'm not saying it's right, but that's fact. Our entire legal system is built on this principle.
REAL abuse of executive power is invading a soverign nation and overthrowing its government with no just cause, and in the process fabricating evidence to try and gain support for your actions. To this DAY there has never been a reasonable explanation for our invasion and occupation of Iraq. While Obama hasn't fixed the mess he inherited in our country, and may have made some things worse, what we do know is that the intent of his efforts were to try and improve things, and more importantly his policies have not directly led to the deaths of thousands of Americans and others around the world. That is where I see a massive difference between this and the former president.
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
Don't want a pat down. Get the fuck off the plane. Don't fly. There are rules when you fly.
So you think that the government should have the ability to arbitrarily declare that certain areas are constitution-free zones? Would you say the same if they did it to an entire city? "Don't want to be strip-searched? Get the fuck out of this city. Don't live here. There are rules when you live in this city."
Filthy, filthy copyrapists!
Nobody's in the streets protesting. Nobody but me is boycotting airlines. My letters to my Senator didn't even get a robo-acknowledgement.
Have we changed that much since the 60s?
You forget it is also the home of the brave. Where 'brave' means so scared of the extremely remote chance you might be the victim of terrorism that they gladly give up their freedoms.
Land of the oppressed, home of the cowards.
Fun fact:
"Brave" comes from roots meaning something more like "bravado", i.e. "bragging, boasting, showing off, posturing". Even in English usage since the 15th century, the core meanings for much of that time had to do with being "showy", and where courageousness was intended, the word meant "showing courage", rather than "being courageous" or "having courage" -- so one could be 'brave' by pretending to be a bad-ass, yet still ultimately acting like a chicken-shit.
Sadly, that seems rather apt when applied to the behavior on display in the US of late...
"What in the name of Fats Waller is that?"
"A four-foot prune."
If I was a terrorist leader, I'd do nothing. Why increase your risk of dying to make the enemy miserable when you can get the enemy's government to do it for you?