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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.'"
Stuff that mattressssssss
The TSA missed an opportunity here for further insulting the general populous. They could have applied logic and come up with the reasoning that old people have less years to live, therefor less to lose and are therefor are more likely to be a suicide bomber. The logical consequence would be that old people need more and closer inspection. not less.
Here the headline led me to believe a member of the Greatest Generation was stepping up *again* to defend American freedom. You know, maybe filing a lawsuit or something. But no, TFA is just about the author's father being a passive-aggressive jerk in the airport security line. As if that helps anyone. If all you are accomplishing is to make yourself feel smarter than a TSA screener, you are not accomplishing much at all.
[Sir Garlon] is the marvellest knight that is now living, for he destroyeth many good knights, for he goeth invisible.
Am I right in thinking that whole jabbering mess could be condensed to "my deaf relative annoys TSA people in airports"?
Also FatPhil on SoylentNews, id 863
It's unfair and unconstitutional.
I shouldn't have to lose my right to be seen naked just to get the groping.
Both the groping and the nude pictures are paid by my taxes! If I want them both I should get both!
Poor schlub is just trying to take home a paycheck. He (or she) did not make the stupid rules; she (or he) just has smell feet all day.
Take the TSA to court, or send letters to your congresscritter, or something. Don't make life more miserable for the privates.
(Did I mention that the TSA is just a depression-era jobs program wrapped up in patriotism and fear?)
Cranky old man causes shit in lineups. News at 11.
WTF is this doing on Slashdot?
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
Damnit now you've given them another attack vector to explore! You've helped the terrorists win, are you happy now?
Harrison's Postulate - "For every action there is an equal and opposite criticism"
Muzzie heaven, were all the terrorists are disappointed and all the virgins are male.
People don't like having pointed out the logical inconsistencies of the way the do things, and it has a tendency to piss them off. This is not limited to TSA personnel. However the consequences of pissing off certain people (especially those who hold power over you) is something that you need to take into consideration before you do so.
I am Slashdot. Are you Slashdot as well?
What amazes me is that we have a raging younger generation upset about loss of freedom, but it is the oldest generations that are actually standing up to the system.
I guess you could count Snowden and Wikileaks as contributions from the tech generations.
Sign of the times and our culture. I'd certainly support more civil disobedience, as long as it wasn't me... and I feel that is why big brother is still doing what they are.
while(1) attack(People.Sandy);
Why is this comment here? It's not contributing, it's barely a comment at all - this isn't a comment, it doesn't matter, and it's not for people.
Why is this here?
Blindly following the rules doesn't seem like standing up to the system.
He doesn't take his shoes off because the sign says he doesn't have too even though he must know that his shoes will set of the metal detector he is about to walk through. So he blindly obeys the commands on the sign - "yes sir, how high sir".
He then consents to the more thorough search without raising any complaints - civil obedience if anything.
You can bet there are some 87-year old Muslims out there who would love to take a shoe-bomb if they thought they could get through.
Radical Islam specializes in young men for their operations, not old. It's only logical for a polygamous religion. Allowing men to marry as many women as they can afford means that you're going to have a lot of horny, angry young men on your hands who don't get ANY wives (or even get laid, since they don't like that either). So, assuming a equitable birthrate of males and females, you need some way to get rid of all those angry young men. So either you have a war or you con them into believing that they can have all the wives they want in heaven if they'll just walk into the nearest mall and blow themselves up. Sure, it's dumb as shit. But when you're talking desperately horny, poor, illiterate goat farmers--you can talk them into pretty much anything.
If someone has made it to 87 in this environment, odds are that they're one of the smart ones at the top of this big religious pyramid scam who actually have something to lose. Notice that Osama Bin Laden wasn't one of the 9-11 hijackers. He was sitting back safely in his bunker with his several wives, while the young saps killed themselves for Allah.
The cow says "Moo." The dog says "Woof." The Timothy says "Thanks, valued customer. We appreciate your input."
I'm all for baiting the TSA. Most of their security measures are just plain ridiculous. I swear that after the shoe bomber got them to make us take off our shoes, the underwear bomber was sent in to see if they'd strip search us. (And they responded with backscatter scanners. Discuss.)
But, applying the same security measures to everyone -- old, young, crippled, whatever -- is not among their failings. That's the only part of what they do that makes sense. Once you declare a "safe" class of passengers who get waved through the searches, you're tempting The Bad Guys to enlist members of that class. Do 90 year old guys get a pass? I'm sure The Bad Guys can find some disgruntled nonagenarian to stuff some C4 down his pants or carry the dreaded 3.1 ounces of liquid explosive. The only way security searches work is if they're applied to everyone.
Of course, the TSA can't even get that right. They introduced their Pre-Check program which reduces the checks to pre-9/11 levels for pre-approved travelers. So how hard would it be to recruit some guy who qualifies for the Pre-Check lane to be the bomb mule?
Psssst! Hey Bad Guys! Want to cripple air travel in the US? Just bomb a couple airport security checkpoints. Lots of people, tightly packed together, all standing in a nice line, and no chance of being discovered early. Hit a couple of those and we'll shit ourselves trying to figure out how to strip-search passengers without causing big, vulnerable holding areas. It's a pretty damned obvious target. The fact that it hasn't happened in the past 12 years is the best evidence that there really isn't a legion of Bad Guys out there just waiting for the chance to attack. They've had the chance. We've gift-wrapped it for them. Now let's just admit that the bogeyman is mostly in our imaginations.
Chelloveck
I give up on debugging. From now on, SIGSEGV is a feature.
You can bet there are some 87-year old Muslims out there who would love to take a shoe-bomb if they thought they could get through.
But when you're talking desperately horny, poor, illiterate goat farmers--you can talk them into pretty much anything.
If someone has made it to 87 in this environment, odds are that they're one of the smart ones at the top of this big religious pyramid scam who actually have something to lose. Notice that Osama Bin Laden wasn't one of the 9-11 hijackers. He was sitting back safely in his bunker with his several wives, while the young saps killed themselves for Allah.
While OBL wasn't one of the 9-11 hijackers, some of the ones who were were university educated.
This meme that the archetypical Muslim terrorist is poor, illiterate, and has no other options needs to go away. We can't address the problem with incorrect presumptions floating around.
The guy has a point about his wallet. I "lost" a $10 watch (really nice looking, but a cheap birthday gift from my daughter, bought with her allowance money) on their belt. When I complained, everyone claimed ignorance and with the clock ticking and the line stopped I became aware of one interesting social feature in the security line system design: With the level of inconvencience already high, the impatience of your fellow travellers is a very effective cudgel that the TSA uses as a resource.
As I tried to plead my case I noticed the uninvolved TSA folks were playing to the crowd with how they talked and their body language -- "look guys, it's THIS guy who is gumming up the works and making you late." And I could certainly feel the love...
In the end, regardless of the sentimental value it was just a $10 watch. I think the entire affair lasted a bit under a minute and a half, but I knuckled under and the TSA thief won. I sometimes wonder how much of this was anticipated by the thief -- that at some set rate you can just snag an item of not much consequence and let the time pressure work for you...
Just remember, while you arguably benefit from their services, these people are not actually on your side here (you *are* the suspect after all) and it's not like their uniform implies any particular level of integrity.
Violating people's freedoms and the constitution is not and never will be "sensible." Even if this nonsense did make us safer (And it doesn't; secured cockpit doors and the willingness of passengers to fight back are the important things that have changed, and neither violate anyone's rights.), freedom is more important than safety from some bogeyman.
Ignorance is a choice
wasting the time of innocent people trying to catch their planes.
Blaming the victim, are we? Who's really wasting everyone's time here (and violating everyone's freedoms)? The government thugs who harass people who simply want to get on a plane, or the innocent people who... simply want to get on a plane. Heaven forbid anyone even do so much as slightly question evil authority figures; that might inconvenience the people in line behind you! Woe is them!
Ignorance is a choice
Being university educated doesn't necessarily mean you aren't gullible and stupid.
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
Let's be honest with ourselves, that generation doesn't have much to lose at this point. Who wants to be the guy that puts a WWII vet in jail for stupid shit like this? An elected official's career would be over at that point.
I'm 34 with a wonderful family and a good job. No one is going to care when they throw me in jail and charge me with a few lame charges.. and that will follow me around for the rest of my life. Even if the charges are dropped, they'd be associated with my name via the internet.
Also remember which generation most of the politicians represent. I feel that our country will continue going backwards until the baby boomers are gone... then we can start making positive change.
"Action without philosophy is a lethal weapon; philosophy without action is worthless."
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!
As opposed to the imperialism of western, mostly Christian nations, which is noted for sending women in their 50s off to invade other countries.
The use of young men as cannon fodder is unrelated to polygamous religion.
Some of the 9/11 hijackers were married. Some had been to college. Most were middle-class.
But don't let facts get in the way of your ignorant Islamophobia.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
Neither does histrionics and paranoia. The simple fact is that airport security has nothing to do with keeping you safe and has been shown to be highly ineffective at stopping any real attempt to circumvent them. It's security theater, not actual security. Terrorism and the war on terror isn't about saving lives or fighting bad guys, it's about suppressing freedom and oppressing the populace. If you think otherwise, you're ignorant to reality.
I got here through a series of tubes
I'd like to address this, as I have personal experience.
First of all, nut allergies are not caused by crazy overprotective parents (yes, I know he didn't say that, but it was kind of implied). When our daughter was 4, she ate some pecan turtles, and swelled up like a balloon. We took her to the doctor who tested her and said, "Nut allergy".
Second, nut allergies can be deadly. Anaphlactic shock can kill someone fairly quickly.
Third, I never tried to regulate what other kids brought to school for *their* lunch. My only request -- stated to the teacher and to other parents -- was that if they are bringing goodies *to share with the class*, that they avoid nuts in such items.
As for the "no nut/peanut zones" in schools, I think they're CYA for the schools.
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
The real difference is more likely to be that Italians don't have to fly everywhere as they have a functional rail system and a relatively small country. So it's probable that at any one time, most haven't (yet.)
My experience is that people who "dress up" to fly either have to, because they're flight attendants (or whatever - I feel for you), or they're unfamiliar with flying, how uncomfortable it is, and think it's realistically portrayed in commercials as some kind of high living sorta-good-taste-in-a-Donald-Trump-would-say-its-classy-way activity epytomized by the term "jet set".
Americans, thanks to the destruction of the rail network in the 1950s and 1960s, really don't have any alternatives, so most Americans have flown at least once, so most Americans know you wear loose or stretchy clothing, comfortable footwear, and leave the uncomfortable suits at home.
The TSA's security checkpoints really haven't made much difference to anything. I flew in the 1990s. I flew after 9/11. There always were security lines. They're just worse - more invasive, with nastier consequences for being suspicious - than they were then.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.