Bullies at the Airport – by Ron Paul — When are Republicans going to realize that they are now the Big Government, Big Brother Party?
If you traveled by air last week for the Thanksgiving holiday, you undoubtedly witnessed Transportation Security Administration agents conducting aggressive searches of some passengers. A new TSA policy begun in September calls for invasive and humiliating searches of random passengers; in some instances crude pat-downs have taken place in full public view. Some female travelers quite understandably have burst into tears upon being groped, and one can only imagine the lawsuits if TSA were a private company. But TSA is not private, TSA is a federal agency — and therefore totally unaccountable to the American people.
Problems within TSA are legion. In the rush to hire a new workforce, 28,000 screeners were put to work without background checks. Some of them were convicted felons. Many were very young, uneducated, with little job experience. At Kennedy and LaGuardia airports in New York, police arrested dozens of TSA employees who were simply stealing valuables from the luggage they were assigned to inspect. Of course, TSA has banned locks on checked luggage, leaving passengers with checked bags totally at the mercy of screeners working behind closed doors.
then there is this:
TSA has created an atmosphere of fear and meek subservience in our airports that smacks of Soviet bureaucratic bullying. TSA policies are subject to change at any moment, they differ from airport to airport, and they need not be in writing. One former member of Congress demanded to see the written regulation authorizing a search of her person. TSA flatly told her, “We don’t have to show it to anyone.”
related link:
New York City Sting Busts TSA Theft Ring — An under-reported story from August.
CBS 2 investigates a federal agent caught stealing on camera. We’ve obtained exclusive videotape of a luggage screener at a local airport that’s a little disturbing, to say the least.
Sources say he had four social security numbers and a conviction for shoplifting. Still, Clarence Henry became a Transportation Security Administration (TSA) screener at Kennedy airport.
Sources say it wasn’t long before Henry went back to his old habits. Port Authority police arrested him last week after a sting operation. And CBS 2 Investigates has obtained the exclusive videotape.
TSA screener Clarence Henry is supposed to be looking for bombs in checked luggage. Instead he’s looking for jewelry and cash
No one has freedom like Americans do!
America #1!!
Maureen Dowd’s recent column also discussed the public “breast exams” women are being forced to undergo – if they want to catch their flights.
First we have a single idiot with a shoe “bomb” causing everyone to take their shoes off – for years afterward.
Now, Chechen women blow-up Russian airliners – so American women have to be frisked – for years afterward??
Seems like the same kind of beauraucratic BS as you point to in your UN post about rogue “peacekeepers” not being responsible or accountable. ðŸ™
It also reminds me of Lewis Black’s riff on airport security – as I remember it: If you have to run the wand over me – after going through the metal detector – then that means the metal detector doesn’t work. If you have to pat me down – after using the wand – that means the wand doesn’t work. If you need to pat us down, just pat us down. Don’t lie to us, and tell us the metal detectors and wands actually work!
Remember ” If we don’t (name of usual activity here) like we always do, the terrorists will have won”?
It’s interesting to think back to Cold War criticism of the Eastern Bloc with their secret police, imprisonment without trial, and demands to produce your identification at the whim of some official-any of this sound a bit familiar?
without conducting background checks and just hiring was simply just to risky. TAS would have to face the consequences now. How did the police knew that some employees of TAS were stealing?
from complaints no doubt…
[Spooger,
You might want to read my post under “Bush Has Ottawa Buzzing.” I agree with your sentiments, and what you are talking about is what I was getting at in that post.]
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The following I had sent to John privately, just hours before he posted the TSA piece. Since it pertains to the general trend in how enforcement authorities view and treat the citizenry, I repost it here. Anyone who hasn’t noticed a change in attitude over the years just hasn’t been paying attention.
MY VENT OF THE DAY: WHATEVER HAPPENED TO FREEDOM OF MOVEMENT
A few years ago, a therapist friend of mine said that she
was convinced that we would be living in a police state in
her lifetime. I remember disagreeing, only because I felt
we already lived in one.
What really bugs me is when the “police are watching” when
you are doing the things that good citizens are *supposed*
to be doing. For example, until recently I walked 5-6 miles
a day at a local park track. I usually did so at night,
after the soccer moms had taken their noisy brats away. It
was pleasant and a nice way to pass a couple of hours (beats
the heck out of sitting in front of the tube), aside from
being good for one’s health and waistline.
Predictably, I was stopped one night by a patrol car. Any
idiot could see that I was just walking around and around
and around the quarter-mile track– against which there is
no law– yet I was stopped when I went back to my truck and
sat to cool off. (Must be up to *something* in there….)
I was asked for my driver’s license (even though I was
parked), then told I could go on my way. I even asked if it
was o.k. that I was walking the track at night, and was
assured that that was fine. So why the heck was I stopped
and given a license check? (He even radioed it in, by the way.)
Tonight, another typical episode. I drive a Ford Ranger.
As I mentioned in one of my blog comments, I buy a newspaper
every day and throw them in a recycling bin before their
numbers become obscene. So as I am coming home– again, it
is dark, always a sign of mischief apparently– I pull into
a parking lot at which is a newspaper recycling bin. And
that is ALL that is at the end of the large parking lot.
There is NOTHING that one could be doing other than throwing
out newspapers. And I am CLEARLY VISIBLE from the street or
from anywhere else. So there I am, tossing out a handful of
newspapers at a time. I go around to the passenger’s side,
open the door, and begin throwing out even more newspapers
from behind that seat.
As I get back into my truck to drive away, I notice that a
damned POLICE CAR has pulled up and has been sitting there
watching me the whole time. CHRIST ! What the hell am I
supposed to be doing at a newspaper recycling bin? And
remember that it is OBVIOUS that I am throwing out
newspapers, this isn’t like behind a liquor store. It’s
totally off by itself, next to the roadway, in full view.
So what I want to know is… if we’re not supposed to be
out walking for our health and recycling our used
newspapers, just what the heck IS IT that the government
expects “good citizens” to be doing? I’d really like to know.
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As an afterthought, I can’t help contrast this with my time in college many many years ago, when cops on the night shift would actually come inside to check to see if I was doing o.k. We’d sit and chat. Or when I would call the local police to report an accident I had witnessed (happened more than once), and the arriving cop would actually *thank* me for calling.
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Final Comment:
From the Ron Paul piece–
“Passengers, of course, have caught on quickly. They have learned to stay quiet and not ask any questions.”
This, of course, is part of the problem. Liberty isn’t given by the government; it can only be demanded by its citizenry.
Mike, even a single airline disaster caused by terrorism would have a huge impact on our economy. Better safe than sorry.
I thought air travel was annoying pre-9/11. It is more annoying now, but anything to pressure businesses to invest in technologies to reduce to the need for travel is great and the air travel red tape is technological bonanza.
How often do businesses really need people to go “on-site”? Half of management meetings are an example of bureaucracy churning for the sake of churning. The REAL business gets done via phone, email, IM, fax, whatever you call those the sophisticated coordination software category.
I’m not so certain that we have an inherent right to privacy in public places. I live in a community with politics well to the Left of most of the planet. A context resulting from lots of educated and cosmopolitan folks ending up in one place! We have the CCTV surveillance discussion, every now and then – mostly resulting from a tourist being run over by one of our licensed incompetents – or someone seriously hurt by a gang twerp in a mall. Most of my neighbors equate watchfulness with repression.
I disagree.
Dumpsters, as an example, have become our nation’s most convenient mechanism for disposal of everything from bodies [adult all the way down to infant] to any other evidence of amateur crime. Once you get to the landfill, there’s not a lot of reason to expect recovery.
I was rousted in similar circumstances to K.B., as far back as 45 years ago. Maybe it was more common in the past? Certainly racial and economic profiling was. But, finding a couple of cops on duty at night who actually are out checking on stuff instead of hanging out at a doughnut shop is a positive sign, as far as I’m concerned. I’ve also been deliberately harassed by thugs, ranging from cops to the CIA – and responded appropriately.
I think we can differentiate between keeping an eye on things — and acts that get Big Brother’s rocks off. The standards must be debated and periodically re-examined. But, as I always say in the discussions in my first paragraph, if it’s a public place, then, I have no problem with the cops [or cameras] keeping an eye on things. If it’s private, then, Big Brother can go screw himself!
By the way, John – another topic that’s grist for the mill of a proper forum.
Mike, even a single airline disaster caused by terrorism would have a huge impact on our economy. Better safe than sorry.
But our response is purely reactive. ðŸ™
We only check for nail files and box cutters becaused those were used.
We only check for shoes because those were used.
We only frisk women because women were used (???).
People who “accidentally” bring prohibited items on-board are let off lightly. The guy who intentionally brings items on-board – to prove the system is flawed – has the book thrown at him. The current system is full of holes, but we are supposed to believe in the illusion of increased safety.
We are damned lucky the guy with the shoe bomb was an idiot. If he had been successful – and probably killed everyone on board – we would not have known it was his shoe. Who knows how drastic the frightened responce to that would have been.
I agree with Lewis Black’s assertion that we are willing to be searched – if that is what it takes to keep us safe.
The current system of doing “random” checks is flawed, because it simply highlights the fact that anybody not being searched could be carrying materials the detectors can’t detect – else why the need for searches at all? ðŸ™
To Anonymous:
Whether travel is necessary or not is no reason to support what is going on.
I recently went on a trip to China and I took an internal flight. My guide thought we were dumb not to have locks on our suitcases. Over there, it is recommended by every airline to lock your bags. But here, if you lock your bag, you have something to hide. What is the point of all the x-ray machines to scan the bags, if random inspectors are going to open the bags.
By that reasoning, we shouldn’t have any locks on our doors or cars, because a cop might have a suspicion and want to check us out.
My last point is this, not one piece of luggage was involved in 9/11. It was people who got on the plane and took the planes over. There are no cases of planes being taken down by luggage.
The people who planned and carried-out the 9/11 attacks spent a long time making plans and preparations.
They were/are smart, dedicated people.
Any future ability to use hi-jackings was taken from them before the fourth plane could even arrive at it’s target. They know everyone now equates hijacking with certain death – and passengers will not be kept docile by terrorist’s threats or assurances.
Because of that, whatever they do next will probably not be a repeat – which is why I am so concerned by our seeming obsession with preventing an exact repeat of previous tragedies.
I’d have to go with Ed’s assessment. In public places, you have to accept that someone might be watching you at any time. Be it officers in person or cameras. Yes, security people in general tend to go overboard and yes that happens especially so after something like 9/11. But the consequence of perceived levity with respect to security, at this point, is high enough to warrant some of the overzealousness of law enforcement. That doesn’t mean we, the citizenry, shouldn’t be vigilant towards abuse, but it does mean that for a short period, we’ll have to accept some sacrifices.
That doesn’t mean we, the citizenry, shouldn’t be vigilant towards abuse, but it does mean that for a short period, we’ll have to accept some sacrifices.
Three years, and counting… With no end in sight. ðŸ™
We have established security measures to prevent known or (semi-)plausible exploits – so those measures will not be relaxed. How could they be?
We have been repeatedly told that this is a different kind of war – which will last for years – so any security measures implemented now, or in the future, will be with us for a significant amount of time.
If we only had to tolerate this stuff for a short time, it would be easier to make allowances for some of the things going on. But travelers are going to be run through these “gauntlets” for the foreseeable future – so their fairness, consistency, and effectiveness are of vital importance to us.
As it stands now, security requirements at checkpoints vary from airport to airport – let alone different checkpoints within the same airport. As long as the arbitrary – even if well-intentioned – actions of individual screeners, or their supervisors & administrators, are allowed to stand – unassailable – behind the shield of “the better good”, the potential of abuse is great.
This whole swearch thing is BS. A terorist is not going to attempt to blow up an airliner, the searches are a waste of time and $$$. Every time I fly I am “chosen” for a search. I am a native American, retired fire fighter , never been arrested but still I am “chosen”.
If a terrorist wants to kill people and make a name for himself, the best way wsith the lowest risk of being caught would be to buy a used schoolbus $2000.00 in the internet, fill it with amonium nitrate and fuel oil, drive it through the front door of a big school and BOOM. 3000 kids killed.
So lets regulate school bus sales, and while we are at it truck and SUV sales, HELL lets turn the USA into a police state like ol GW wants.