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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.
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?!
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.
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...
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 *
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
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.
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.)
rule 1 ) the person with the badge is always right
rule 2 ) if the person with the badge is wrong, see rule 1
usually this doesnt make it all the way through court, but this is completely true of any interaction on a personal level
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...
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?
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.
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.