The TSA Does Protect People -- Just Not The People You Think
From a Philip Weber post, TSA News Blog anti-TSA journo colleague Bill Fisher explains:
The purpose of TSA is solely to protect elected officials from being held directly accountable for a future 9/11 as they were in 2001. This is why TSA has been protected for over a decade by two administrations and countless lawmakers of both parties despite horrendous failure rates, repeated criminal activity among screeners, and hundreds of thousands of passenger abuse complaints.
Yes, this is about protecting ELECTED OFFICIALS, not We The People. And we are paying through the nose with our tax dollars, hours and hours of the individual traveler's time -- and, most dangerously, with the erosion of our civil liberties.
You're on to something with the motivation behind the creation of the TSA.
However, the erosion of civil liberties argument is pure bullshit. We've been searched in airports for as long as you've been alive. You've walked through metal detectors and your carry ons have been x-rayed. The idea that this erosion of civil liberties started with the TSA is laughable.
Patrick at February 1, 2014 6:05 AM
Amy Alkon
http://www.advicegoddess.com/archives/2014/02/01/the_tsa_does_pr.html#comment-4231938">comment from PatrickThe fact that something has gone on for a while is not reason for it or reason for it to continue.
We have the government demanding to see our papers and violating our bodies sans probable cause. If the airlines want to require me to go through a metal detector to go on a plane, I will accept that. Airline "security" was handed over to the federal government after 9/11.
But nice try!
Amy Alkon at February 1, 2014 6:27 AM
Amy Alkon
http://www.advicegoddess.com/archives/2014/02/01/the_tsa_does_pr.html#comment-4231940">comment from Amy Alkonhttp://www.flightglobal.com/features/9-11/airport-security/
Amy Alkon at February 1, 2014 6:28 AM
Dear Patrick,
Do you have a list of things you won't give up, a line they can't cross? It doesn't sound like it. But if you can, make us a list. Maybe we could understand you better. It could be anything - economic trade-offs, privacy, convenience, community norms, etc.
Canvasback at February 1, 2014 10:08 AM
Patrick, you have employed the fallacy, "appeal to prior practice".
You have also apparently employed the "straw man" fallacy, in claiming that the issue is that the TSA started the intrusion on civil liberties.
In the past - and, I suspect, you will not yield to this point - you have offered the "appeal to authority" fallacy by posting court decisions in attempts to represent the issue as settled.
Note that this does not depend upon my presence to be the case.
Your eagerness to submit to authority shines from your every post.
I find this amazing. No sane person could possibly agree with every action the US Federal government takes. The same institution deciding to invade other countries, to remain there, to seize your private property to hand it to a corporate speculator apparently can do no wrong when it assigns an anonymous worker to presume you are guilty - your family members are guilty for wanting to fly on an airplane. I don't know if you have family. I wonder if you have a soul, that you could consider handing a daughter or niece to a stranger to be molested - and make no mistake: away from the airport, this behavior is called "sexual assault on a minor".
Yeah, that's a worst case, but it's still reflective of a desire that someone, anyone else act as your nanny.
By the way: I do not presume you are guilty for wanting to fly on a plane. I do not wish to confiscate your property to hand it to land speculators. I want government to leave your liberties in place.
And amazingly, this appears to conflict with what you want for yourself and your neighbors.
Something is definitely wrong with you. You've made loud noises about the "rights" of children, only to throw them all away in the face of fake badges on a provably corrupt agency performing a shell game.
Good grief.
Radwaste at February 1, 2014 10:29 AM
Patrick writes:
"However, the erosion of civil liberties argument is pure bullshit. We've been searched in airports for as long as you've been alive. You've walked through metal detectors and your carry ons have been x-rayed. The idea that this erosion of civil liberties started with the TSA is laughable."
How is walking through a metal detector comparable to getting your genitals groped??
Lisa Simeone at February 1, 2014 10:30 AM
However, the erosion of civil liberties argument is pure bullshit. We've been searched in airports for as long as you've been alive. You've walked through metal detectors and your carry ons have been x-rayed. The idea that this erosion of civil liberties started with the TSA is laughable.
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You used to walk thru metal detectors and have you bags x-rayed manned by AIRLINE HIRED CONTRACTORS
Your prior searches had jack shit to do with the government and everything to do with the PRIVATE BUSINESS.
If I offer you a ride in my car and say no guns, thats on me and you can choose to decline.
If I offer you a ride in my car and a cop shows us to strip search you simply because you accepted my offer of a ride that is where your rights are being violated by the government.
The TSA is the federal government preforming warrantless searches FOR NO OTHER REASON than you chose to do business with a private company.
lujlp at February 1, 2014 12:26 PM
Patrick,
I'm going to post my regular rant. I am specifically going to ask you to tell me what is wrong with it? Show me the holes. Show me the logic failures. Tell me where I spelled thing wor or used bad grammar. Until then fuck off and die because you can't observe and admit reality.
=================================================
The TSA was not needed one hour and one minute after Tower II was hit!
The paradigm, the norm, the expected, what everyone was taught to do was to sit down, shut up and wait for the plane to land and the negotiations happen. That was the model from Entebbe onward.
The passengers on board did not really know what was about to happen on September 11, 2001 at 8:46:30 when Flight 11 struck Tower I.
Even the passengers on Flight 175 probably didn't realize what was about to happen when they struck Tower II at 9:03:02.
The Pentagon crash of Flight 77 at 9:37:46 may have been still a matter of ignorance.
At 10:03:11 on September 11, 2001, United Airlines Flight 93 crashed after the brave souls counter-attacked and caused the hijackers to crash the plane.
The time difference is 60 minutes and 9 seconds from Tower II being struck to the crash of Flight 93. The shoe bomber and panty bomber were taken down by fellow passengers as well. Recently, JetBlue's Flight 191 pilot was taken down by the passengers once he was out of the cockpit. Additionally how many times have you heard of passengers' concerns and diverted flights?
The TSA is and has always been a joke, no make that a total stupidity, that has wasted our country's fortune going down a rabbit hole.
If you don't believe me look at the 9/11 timeline.
There will never be another 9/11 style attack unless the attackers can arrange planes full of geriatrics, and even then it would be doubtful.
Oh, and someone brought bombs being an issue. If bombs were effective and simple then the Lockerbie bombing would have been repeated multiple times between 21 December 1988 and 11 September 2001. That's 4647 days or 13 years. Where was the TSA in that time? There was one successful bombing that was done in Colombia and two unsuccessful attempts in that time. Doing some further research there have been less than 100 confirmed bomb attacks on airlines since commercial flying has started. I'll be generous and call the planned and actually attempted but were aborted bombings at 5000 in all of aviation history, just never caught by authorities. There are over 80,000 flights per day in the U.S. alone. Do I need to do math for you?
Jim P. at February 1, 2014 1:20 PM
Patrick,
It's been 12 hours. Not another word from you? Why?
Jim P. at February 1, 2014 10:29 PM
Well, imagine the distress one might feel if one has it pointed out to them that no, it is not the duty of some anonymous entity from the past to curb current practice.
For instance, you might maintain the following: President Obama did not start {vile practice here}, therefore he is not responsible for its continuing. Likewise, any civil liberties stripped from the public by the TSA are completely justified by the practices of the past.
See how easy it is to blame others, to avoid responsibility?
Now, some minor pissant like you or me comes along and asks,"Who has the job now?"
What a difficult question, huh? I mean, what gall, to challenge the ultimate authority in office today!
Radwaste at February 3, 2014 9:10 PM
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