Political Correctness Goes To The Airport
Jeffrey T. Kuhner lays it out at the Wash Times:
The central problem with modern airport security is that it falsely assumes that every person - each of the 7 billion people who inhabit the planet-is an equal terrorist threat. The 80-year-old Irish Catholic nun, the 3-year-old toddler, the 61-year-old bladder cancer survivor whose urine bag was punctured by TSA apparatchiks - all of them, according to Mr. Obama, are potential suicide bombers. They're not. To pretend they are is to engage in leftist multicultural fantasy. It embodies the triumph of ideology over reality - the deranged belief that anyone at any time is a lurking jihadist.Islamic terrorism is not an open-ended, universal characteristic. Rather, it is a specific, narrowly defined phenomenon. It is fueled by Muslim extremists bent on waging a holy war against the West. Its perpetrators tend to be young adults from the Middle East, North Africa, the Arab world and the Muslim ghettos of Europe. Most jihadists fit this profile. What is needed is not more groping, crotch-grabbing or nude screening, but better intelligence-gathering, random checking and targeted profiling.
Washington insists on perpetrating the illusion that a Christian grandmother in Iowa poses the same possible national security threat as a 19-year-old Yemenite exchange student majoring in Islamic studies. Hence, America is squandering precious resources and manpower, as well as abrogating basic civil liberties and humiliating its population, in order to appease the sensitivities of the Muslim lobby.
Moreover, the new TSA procedures mark another major step in Mr. Obama's drive to impose state socialism. If anyone else did what TSA agents do regularly, they rightly would be charged with sexual assault. Mr. Obama has done the unthinkable: He has extended the federal government's reach into our most private, intimate body parts. Big Brother not only watches us in the nude, he can routinely molest us at will.
The administration is not restricting its unprecedented power grab to airports. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano recently said that trains, boats and subways also may implement the same screening procedures. If the White House has its way, Americans will be getting felt up on the Metro and Amtrak every day - morning, afternoon and night.
Ultimately, these measures are not only degrading and wrongheaded. They are profoundly illiberal, reflecting a deep-seated contempt for individual rights and civil dignity. They also reveal a radical leftist outlook that views Americans not as self-governing citizens, but as subjects of a nanny state.
Oh - I have an idea!! Let's just round up all them Muslims and force them to live in 1 area where we can keep an eye on all of them. We won't let them leave so flying and transportation wouldn't be a problem. We would have to find a new name for the "area"...I think "ghetto" or "internment camp" is a little harsh.
sad at November 30, 2010 4:49 AM
I completely agree, sad! Or, we could slacken airport security tremendously. Then when a terrorist takes down another plane and kills more innocent people, we can sit back and say...well, at least our basic civil liberties are intact.
If the security were downgraded, people would bitch...what about my safety? People aren't happy unless they have something to bitch about.
Renee at November 30, 2010 4:58 AM
> Then when a terrorist takes down another
> plane and kills more innocent people, we
> can sit back and say...well, at least
> our basic civil liberties are intact.
That's about the weakest piece of sarcasm I've ever seen on the internet.
Listen, there comes a point (and pretty quickly, at that) where you don't have the right to be perfectly safe, and to diminish the fulfillment of other's people rights in order to feel that you ARE safe. You're presuming that the TSA has made people safe.... There's no reason to think so.
I mean, really, that's one shabby-ass blog comment. Shit Fuck.
Pissed me off before dawn. "Tuesday", we call this.
Grrrrr.
Crid [CridComment at gmail] at November 30, 2010 5:30 AM
Renee and sad are exactly what's wrong. They falsely claim that profiling those most likely to take down a plane (or bomb a tree lighting) is the same as rounding up all muslims. It's not. The fact is we DO know who is likely to try to kill lots of others with bombs. THEY are who we should be questing at airports, to see if there's a NEED for further searching.
If I were a terrorist, I'd take down a cruise ship. You going to strip-search everyone entering those too? How about the superbowl? Where does wanting to "feel" safe (even though you're doing nothing to make yourself safe) end?
momof4 at November 30, 2010 6:02 AM
Life is risk. If we were truly serious about ending Islamist expansionism, we'd have flattened Iran, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Yemen, etc. on 9/12/01.
But we aren't. Not really. We'd rather think we can just move about our lives unaffected while an outrageous mental disease eats through the middle east and north Africa.
brian at November 30, 2010 7:00 AM
This does raise an interesting question. Is the TSA specifically in response and looking for Al Qaeda, looking for Islamic Terrorists, or looking for Terrorists? I don't know. I suspect they claim they are looking for Terrorists, period. If so, someone may want to call them on that, what is the real risk threat of various terrorist/domestic terrorist/non-Al Qaeda groups compared to Al Qaeda?
On the other hand, while it is admittedly even the rarest case, we do have crazies like Jihad Jane:
"So, we have the first American born, American woman, American looking, American this and that, terrorist that al qaeda recruited for an terrorist attack-not in the US-- but in Sweden. She is Colleen LaRose. a white, slightly buiilt, divorced (no kids) woman from Ennis,Texas. She is 46 yrs. Jihad Jane then moved to Philadelphia and later posted her own plea via YouTube video 'to do something to help the Muslim people". As a result of that video, a jihadist contacted her in January 2009 and recruited a month later because of her pure American look that would let her blend in with many people. In this case, blond hair and blue eyes, that Nordic look. Her boyfriend stated that she seemed totally normal until after her father died in August, 2009, when she packed up and left."
I'm not sure what the latest is with her.
jerry at November 30, 2010 7:28 AM
If TSA were serious about stopping bombs they'd have handlers walking bomb and drug dogs up and down the line and through the airport. No machine(not even the superfancy ones they were using but stopped because they were too expensive) can detect chemical traces as well as a dog can. What they are doing now with the enhanced scans is comepletely and utterly worthless for stopping a halfway smart terrorist.
Elle at November 30, 2010 7:39 AM
What does a terrorist look like? Would profiling of young Arab and North African men have caught shoe-bomber Richard Reid (son of a Jamaican immigrant to the UK) or Taliban sympathizer John Walker Lindh (born in Fairfax, CA) or Jose Padilla (born in Brooklyn)?
The new TSA procedures are overreaching and need to be stopped, but that is a separate issue from the fantasy that singling out one segment of the population for screening is a viable anti-terrorist strategy.
Wondering at November 30, 2010 8:14 AM
where you don't have the right to be perfectly safe
Heh. It's been said that people who insist upon perfect safety don't have the...cajones...to live in the real world.
I find it sad that they're perfectly willing to sell their rights down the river for so little actual security.
I R A Darth Aggie at November 30, 2010 8:28 AM
On the other hand, while it is admittedly even the rarest case, we do have crazies like Jihad Jane:
Which is why you don't necessarily do racial profiling. One looks for those that stand out. Who's nervous, who's jumpy, who's twitchy? who bought a one-way ticket with cash? who looks like the posterboy for al Queda?
A few simple questions will seperate the guy who hates to fly and is nervous because of that, and a suicide bomber. They're not exactly the sharpest tools in the shed, and their training is admittedly...brief...
I R A Darth Aggie at November 30, 2010 8:34 AM
Arguing about who to profile or search is moot. Our government has made it abundantly clear that our wishes on this, or any other subject for that matter, are irrelevant. The last election sent a message to Washington and it fell on deaf ears. We are no longer "We the People" we are now clearly "We the Sheeple".
This country no longer remotely resembles what we have fought for in defense of the greatest document ever written. You know that pesky little piece of paper called the Constitution.
It makes me sick to my stomach that even one person could defend the actions of a policy so totalitarian that Hitler himself would applaud.
Thomas Jefferson said it best, if you sacrifice security for freedom you have neither.
ED at November 30, 2010 8:41 AM
ED,
I think that is:
If you sacrifice freedom for security, you deserve neither.
But your point is the same, either way. The people loading bags on the plane - not screened. The people delivering the food - not screened.
There are so many, much easier ways to deliver enough explosives to take the plane down, that aren't even looked at, it makes me wonder that we haven't had an incident.
What sad and renee both don't seem to understand, is that they are allowing the government to tell them when and where they can travel by air. And the government wants to expand that to other modes of PRIVATE passenger carriers. You can't ever be 100% safe from everything. But I'm not willing to let the government control when and where I travel, unless they say I can.
FUCK THAT. I'm not a child that mommy government needs to make safe. My responsibility, and I don't cede that responsibility to people who are exempt from the crap they want to push on everyone else. In this case, I just won't fly anywhere. I live in the middle of the country, so at most, it's a day and a half drive to get anywhere. Let the airlines do without my money.
I second crid's Grrrrr.
Steve at November 30, 2010 11:39 AM
What I hate most about that earlier comment was the simplistic "everybody poops" aspect of it... The assumption that next time a terrorist event happens, everyone in America is going to ask why the flesh of the all the passengers hadn't been surgically explored for weapons... As if there were no point in giving anyone even the chance to be courageous.
Crid [cridcomment at gmail] at November 30, 2010 1:51 PM
targeted profiling
What is the common link b/w Jihad Jane Colleen LaRose, shoe-bomber Richard Reid (son of a Jamaican immigrant to the UK) or Taliban sympathizer John Walker Lindh (born in Fairfax, CA) or Jose Padilla (born in Brooklyn) or Times square wannabe Faisal Shazad or Christmas ruiners Mohamed Mohamed and the Nigerian?
biff at November 30, 2010 2:39 PM
Amy Alkon
http://www.advicegoddess.com/archives/2010/11/30/political_corre_1.html#comment-1791366">comment from sad"sad," why do you post here under a different name all of a sudden?
Amy Alkon at November 30, 2010 4:33 PM
"The central problem with modern airport security is that it falsely assumes that every person - each of the 7 billion people who inhabit the planet-is an equal terrorist threat."
It isn't just that they assume it's true -- they decree that it is true. ChicagoBoyz had an interesting post today about closed-system thinking. One of the tenants of a closed system is that the tenants of the closed system explain all possible phenomena. Any information that contradicts the tenants is, by definition, false. (And the believers in the closed system usually extend this to state that such information is not only false, but evil. They'll state this even when the closed system's tenants do not otherwise allow for the existence of evil.)
Cousin Dave at November 30, 2010 6:42 PM
The thing that everyone is missing is that 9/11 will never happen again.
Both the shoe bomber and the panty bomber were taken down by fellow passengers. In fact several other non-threat passengers have been handled by other passengers.
Flight 93 proves that the model changed 45 minutes after the attacks on the WTC. It was sit down and wait for negotiations. The model then became we are going to take these m'f'ers out.
They should be encouraging passengers to carry weapons. Military flying in uniform should be able to carry their K-Bars and survival knives openly.
Lock the cabin door. But the total theater of this is ridiculous. I had a coworker trainer tell me a story today. She had a standard laptop bag -- TSA x-rays it and sees a pair of scissors in it -- something like these -- so they take absolutely everything out of the bag and then x-ray it again. They are still seeing it. She's now been on the line for 30 minutes but still can make the flight. She's like just rip out the flipping lining and let me go. TSA is saying "We don't want to damage your bag." She's at the point she just wants to go home. The TSA agent consults the manager and is well "That is small enough we can let it go through."
It turns out that whoever made the bag had sewn the scissor into the lining. She had her husband retrieve it when she got home. She's a 40+ year old, heavyset, white women. She sure fits the terrorist profile.
Jim P. at November 30, 2010 8:05 PM
You all misunderstood my comment. If someone can tell me what a terrorist looks like, than commence with the profiling. Anyone? If not, you're all stating that its okay to take away CERTAIN people's civil liberties, just not everyone's. If they look muslim, its completely acceptable to do whatever you want to them, but if its a white American male, he's obviously harmless. Anyone remember what the original WTC bomber looked like? My point is, the government will never make everyone happy, and profiling those who LOOK dangerous is not the answer. If anyone has a logical suggestion, perhaps you could contact your local legislature instead of crying about it online?
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