LAX TSA Sign: "Thank You For Participating In Security." "Participating."
That was the wording at the bottom of a sign at LAX TSA -- one telling you to take off your shoes, etc.
I thought of some changes to the sign this morning -- at just after 5 a.m., the time I had to arrive to go through the pointless TSA to get on a 7:15 a.m. flight. (Their recent 95% miss rate suggests that they couldn't catch a terrorist if he or she crawled up their ass and yodeled.)
This sort of thing:
"Thank you for participating in (hah hah) 'security'"
It also occurred to me that "participating" was one of those Orwellian words. I "participate" in a fun event.
What I'm doing here is being coerced into cooperating with a pointless, civil liberties-violating process that Americans accept as meaningful for our security when it was been shown countless times to be anything but.
Here's Jonathan Corbett easily defeating the scanners.
Here's the latest attack in Turkey -- likely ISIS, they say. And here is the Brussels attack -- which nobody needed to go through security to do, as many of us have talked about in previous years. (We are sitting ducks at the TSA civil liberties-violating stations.)
I'm not optimistic about the interest of many people in this country in protecting and preserving our civil liberties.
On the bright side, I didn't see Thedala Magee. (Thank you, thank you, Marc Randazza.)
My piece from a few years back on how the TSA molests our civil liberties is here.
You should think of yourself as a "TSA involved person." Then, the frisks, probes, and scans to pixs closely resembling trailers for porn flicks, all will seem comparatively appropriate to those of Justice Involved Persons.
Wfjag at June 29, 2016 3:11 PM
Hah -- I did tell some chick to tell Thedala Magee I said hi. One of those times I love having red hair. If she still works there and the woman knows her, she'll know who said so.
Amy Alkon at June 29, 2016 10:09 PM
You've discovered a new form of Microaggressionism - Saying "Hi." Since PCism does not allow for such nuanced distinctions as sarcasm, vs. flirtation, vs. genuine candor, and so on, every time you say "Hi," it is a Microaggression to someone, some where, over some rainbow. And, in the furtherance of absolute equality, anyone saying "Hi" is microaggressing and it must be banished. Even worse is "Good Morning," since "Good" is a derivative of "God" and so the greeting is a disguised blessing. By ensuring that no one, ever, has a Good Morning, or is secretly blessed with one, you will prevent countless Microaggressions.
Wfjag at June 30, 2016 1:52 AM
A liberal friend of mine put a meme on his Facebook page entitled leadership. It featured a story blurb about JFK greeting a White House janitor and asking him what he was working on. And the janitor replying that he was helping JFK put a man on the moon. This was superimposed over a picture of Barack Obama shaking hands with a janitor in what I can only assume is the White House.
So, by going through a TSA screening, can we be said to be doing our part to help keep the airways safe? Can we get a presidential medal for that? If we travel a lot, can we say we're doing more than our fair share to keep the airways safe?
Hillary's latest campaign commercial shows her hugging children and claims she helped get CHIP passed in 1998, which was before she ever held any elective office.
So, if she can take credit for helping to get CHIP passed before she could even vote on it, we can take credit for fighting terrorism by getting a TSA screening.
And we don't have to dodge bullets at a Sarajevo airport.
Conan the Grammarian at June 30, 2016 11:55 AM
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