"Multiple Layers Of"...Repurposed Mall Food Court Workers
The TSA again shows what they're made of.
A Tweet:
@tedfrank
As you sit on hours of lines in TSA security theater this weekend, chew on this. (Tagging @amyalkon)
He retweeted this:
@foxandfriends
A convicted criminal made it through airport security with a woman's stolen boarding pass
From the AP:
SALT LAKE CITY -- A sex offender with a stolen boarding pass got through airport security in Salt Lake City and checked in at a gate for a flight to California before he was caught earlier this month, authorities have disclosed....He had grabbed a boarding pass that a woman accidently left at a check-in kiosk and used it to get through a Transportation Security Administration checkpoint, said Craig Vargo, chief of airport police.
"He tried to make it seem like it was a mistake, that the boarding pass printed incorrectly, or that he grabbed the wrong boarding pass," Vargo told the Deseret News, a Salt Lake City newspaper that first reported the story.
The only reason he was caught? Not due to the pretend security force in pretend cop uniforms using their "power" to grope and intimidate passengers.
Salata was detained after the woman who had left the pass at the kiosk checked in using a replacement ticket that had been uploaded to her phone, Vargo said.
Our civil liberties are taken from us in a useless security puppet show which pretends every single American is a security risk instead of having trained intelligence officers do probable cause-based policing that looks at actual risks.
Your cupcake in a jar is not a danger. Even your gun is not a danger. It's people who are a danger: people who believe what Islam tells them -- that they get an express pass to salvation by mass-murdering for Allah -- and are willing to act on it.
The vast sums we spend to humiliate some grandma with a diaper -- while getting Americans used to having their civil liberties violated (and training them to be docile in the face of that) -- would be far better spent investigating the few people in America likely to do harm to the rest of us.
My recent trip back and forth across the pond reinforced my impressions from the same trip last year, namely:
Virtually-all the US Federal 'security' workers at the border, regardless of the direction of travel, are little more than useless drones, endlessly repeating the same confusing and conflicting instructions, lulled into a semi-comatose state of ennui, broken only by outbreaks of mass group hysteria brought on by entirely-innocuous and harmless breaches of their fantasy latticework of rules. These hysterical outbreaks have now been normalized as 'risks' and security breaches, to the point where finding illicit toothpaste or contraband juice has now become the primary focus of their activity.
I watched them find some forbidden item in the bag of a traveler, and immediately go into their Night of the Living Dead dance routine, exchanging meaningless bits of official-sounding blather and generally making a huge fuss about the deadly Crest they'd found. And once they'd done their dutiful dance, complete with that touch of malice and contempt for the citizen that is the special hallmark of US security operations - they zipped up the traveler's bag and sent him on his way. You dummies - the contraband is not the toothpaste - the contraband is still in the bag! He gave you the Crest to get all excited over, precisely because he knew that once you found it, you'd stop looking! And don't look at him - look at the next 10 people waiting in line - he's created this fuss to make you focus on HIM! Don't fall for it!
But they fall for it, every time. No wonder that tests show that 95% of Really Bad Stuff will get past the TSA, every time - it's because they've become so accustomed to looking for toothpaste and mouthwash that real guns and bombs totally confound them.
Don't even get me started on US Customs and immigration officials, who seem to have gone to special classes to teach them how to hector foreigners with incomprehensible and conflicting instructions. I simply don't understand why they feel the need to come across like Marine drill sergeants. And the high-and-tight haircuts, shaved heads, bloused boots, 14 spare magazines and two pair of handcuffs - really, guys? Many riots in the arrival hall, are there? They are all so busy playing at Ruritanian admirals that any meaningful terrorist would waltz right past them, and they do irreparable harm to the image of the US abroad as well.
I personally heard one US officer tell a confused foreign passenger to 'shut the f**k up and get back in line . . . . '. It so happened that the person was obviously, flamboyantly gay. Well, Welcome to America.
In Europe, by contrast, I was (again) effectively mind-frisked, multiple times, both coming and going, by airline employees as well as by government officials. There was no yelling, no fat, sweaty armed officers herding people around, no cattle-car scenes. It was security, and it was obnoxious, but it was also obvious that they were actually trying to find bad people - however ineffectively - and not merely going through the motions. The UK Border Force officer who let me into the country was onto me like a cheap suit - born in one country, citizen of another country, but speaks like he was brought up in a third country - but he actually straightened it out in his mind with a series of smart, intelligent questions, politely asked. I've learned not to speak to US immigration officers at all unless absolutely necessary - just hand them the passport. Presenting them with any sort of confusion or anomaly is just asking for trouble - even though they should be looking hard at an unconventional background like mine.
I wonder whether the European model will survive the onslaught of 'refugees' presently flooding their shores. By news reporting, I fear not. It's a pity - just when you might need a more-effective model for catching bad people.
llater,
llamas
llamas at November 27, 2015 7:27 AM
Wow, llamas. Very interesting comment. I know what you mean about the questions in other countries at the border. I dealt with this years ago in the Netherlands. A guy asked me WHAT DAY!! I send my column. They're looking for you to be off-guard.
The techniques for supposedly spotting liars don't really work; but what does show up is the effort from lying (from holding two conflicting ideas in your head, from trying to suppress one of the), and incongruities in your speech and behavior because of it.
Highly trained and highly intelligent people questioning you might pick up on that. The caliber of people they hire in the TSA, etc.? They ain't picking up much.
Amy Alkon at November 27, 2015 7:46 AM
When DH and I went to Canada last year we were subjected to very detailed questioning at customs by their agent. They wanted to know what we were there for, how long, exactly where we were staying, who we were with, etc. My husband, of course, becomes a stammering idiot at someone asking him to account for his activities and can't seem to answer correctly, then messes things up each time they asked him again, and then got pulled aside to be questioned by other customs agents. I'm shaking my head like what the heck just happened. There for 6 days, part business trip and part vacation as a sales incentive trip from a sewing machine company, staying at specific place the whole trip and part of a group of other dealers for the same company also on incentive trip. Not engaging in sales activities over a certain dollar value or anything requiring additional paperwork. Yes, that is my husband and he's there for the exact same thing, I am in no way coerced to say such things. Three minutes and done. I had to wait an extra 15 minutes while my husband figured out how not to be confused and the customs agents stopped thinking he was suspicious for not knowing what he was talking about.
When we returned to the US they were preoccupied asking whether we'd returned with any uncured meats or unpasteurized cheese products. We were handed a customs form to fill out and then told all we needd to do was write our names on it and ignore the rest.
BunnyGirl at November 27, 2015 11:41 AM
Leave a comment