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87-Year-Old World War II Veteran Takes On the TSA
McGruber writes "Orlando Sentinel columnist Lauren Ritchie has written about how Transportation Security Administration (TSA) checkpoints handle her father Sam, an 87-year-old who has a propensity to question authority in a quiet way, and make his target feel stupid. Sam points to the signs that the TSA posts stating that those above the age of 75 don't have to take off their shoes for screening. Maybe the TSA thinks all old people wear floppy tennies, but Sam's favorite pair have metal. So every time Sam goes through the screening, an alarm goes off, and an officer makes him remove his shoes. And every time he feels compelled to test the TSA. Sometimes, Sam spots them a few points by warning them ahead of time that his shoes have metal.... it got to be a ritual for a while, ending with him throwing his hands up and remarking to the TSA person: 'Hey, something's not right here.'"
They did willingly sign up to work for the TSA. They have also witnessed and participated in violations of American's rights, and they remain at their posts. Therefore they are culpable as traitors to the cause of liberty. Should justice ever prevail, their heads will line the streets of our free cities!
I am the penguin that codes in the night.
I do my part, as a European I actively boycott travel to the USA. There have been several opportunities for both myself and others to take trips to the USA, and I have proposed and worked with alternative plans every time. It's not a lot, but it's what I can do.
As long as the USA has insane paranoid immigration policies and the TSA I will not travel there, and neither will my immediate family. (I did go to Miami many years ago for a conference, but that was back when things were still sensible)
"Visa Waiver" my ass, that's just a visa-lite. If I need to apply to enter, they can forget it. The last countries I needed to request a visa to enter were Mauritania, Mali, and Burkina Faso, and as far as I could tell that was just a glorified way of squeezing extra cash out of visitors - and at least they didn't demand fingerprints and invasive grilling by border-guards. Mauritania border guards just wanted a small cash donation, and the others were happy with a ballpoint pen, an apple (he actually wanted sweets, but all we had was fruit) and an empty fuel-canister.
-- Pete.
Monochrome - Probably the UK's largest internet BBS
Those passenger screenings are as we all know a big charade. Here's an anecdote of Munich Airport in Germany - probably the most idiotic airport in Germany I had to travel through.
While most airports in Germany don't care about cameras, Munich airport has a special fetish for controlling cameras. 2 times out of 3 they want me to take my dSLR out of my Backpack to finger it. Usually they want me to turn it on and look through it, but my friendly offers to take an image to prove it works usually ends it panicky horror. Whatever.
So I got a little pissed of and decided the next time to take out the battery of the camera. And sure enough they wanted to to search it again and asked me to turn it on. As usual, I turned the Power switch to on, but without battery nothing happened, and handed the camera to the goon. I don't know what he ascertained with his ritual, but after looking through it, he was happy the camera without power is real.
As at that time I was playing around with long-exposures during daytime, I carried with me an ND1000 filter. This is basically a piece of black glass that lets through only minimal light. It's about as dark as welders glasses or those things you used to observer the sun during an eclipse. In the rather low light at the airport, you don't see anything through that filter. So evil me removed the battery again and screwed that filter on in front the next times I flew out of Munich. Out of about 5 manual checks, here's the breakdown:
2 checked the camera after the power-up without battery and the black glass in front of the lens the usual way by looking through it and doing their magic ritual. The fact that the camera was dead as a brick and the didn't see anything didn't faze them to hand it back satisfied without comment.
2 wondered why the didn't see anything and looked if the lens-cap was still on. After they saw that no it isn't on and the front is some kind of glass, they relooked through the camera - without seining anything more - and were happy with the results.
Only one out if the 5 asked why he can't see anything and when I told him, that this is a special filter for long exposure was also happy to let me pass. Asking to remove it for the check wasn't in his book.
So 5 out of 5 weren't bothered by the fact that turning the camera on has no visible effect and the same 5 in the end were also happy that they didn't see anything when they looked through the camera.
What a strange world we live in!