TSA: Little People With Power
(They can't strip-search you at McDonald's.)
The TSA is sold to us as security, but it is anything but.
It's a way to make us docile in the face of having our constitutional rights violated.
It's a way for crony capitalists to lobby expensive machinery into the Federal budget.
It's a jobs program for people who'd otherwise be working in a fast food window or a mall food court. (People of this caliber provide "security" like I could provide defense for an NFL team.)
Because these are people who'd never interact with -- and certainly never have power over -- so many of the people who go through their line, they so often use some minor mistake (if even that) as reason to punish someone with an invasive search.
Most recently this happened to one of two radio hosts known as "The Moms" -- the one with breast cancer, who wears a wig:
On the video you see the woman shove her hand up my crotch and then try to go down my shirt. That's when I said (again) I have a medical port and had a lumpectomy. Many of you have remarked about how calm I was. I have to admit, after the video ends (though I do have it on video), I lifted up my shirt. Rather then have them touch my breasts and port "with pressure" as the TSA agent stated. That's when they said they were calling law enforcement and I asked them to please do so.
It's my opinion -- and experience -- that they live for these moments.
The problem is, few people complain -- or even seem to care.
This is the case with so many of our rights these days -- as due process is yanked from men on campus, as free speech rights are taken from all on campus, as the Orwellian "civil asset forfeiture" happens in states across America.
The problem is, rights get shaved away little by little. It's like slowly boiling a frog. The frog doesn't notice that the water is getting hotter and hotter...until, "Monsieur, how would you like your frog legs served?"
Excellent.
Crid at December 8, 2016 12:01 AM
That's a myth, by the way. The frog will jump out when the water becomes too warm.
Patrick at December 8, 2016 12:57 AM
This whole performance has absolutely nothing to do with transportation security. That was left behind long ago. The only purpose of all this is to enforce compliance with TSA rules and procedures, as though 'completing the approved checklist of approved procedures' somehow maps to 'safe aircraft'.
Why do they keep doing this? Why does a huge Federal agency continue to allow its staff to treat people this way, knowing that it is being filmed, knowing that the video will be in YouTube next day?
The only answer I can formulate is that these kinds of incidents are seen as being the lesser of two evils - that they know that their line staff are of such low quality, and so poorly trained, that allowing them to deviate from rigid procedures to any degree whatever will create total chaos. They will say (probably correctly) that the staff in this incident followed procedures to the letter.
Once Again - go to Israel. Look at their front-line security people. Bright, outgoing, often college-educated, and carefully-trained to look for actual security threats. In a case like this, they would never have behaved in this way. Ask yourself - how likely is it that a passenger who is asking them to call the real police to protect her from them, is truly a threat to aviation security? Terrorists hardly-ever ask you to call the police on them. Even if she is part of a sinister and complex movie-plot threat - she's not the threat! She's the distraction, that they ran in there to absorb resources! The real threat is about 15 minutes behind her in line, he's completely unremarkable and his papers are in perfect order! Don't look at her - go look for him!
But these automatons can't even consider that possibility, it seems - because their agency has forbidden them to deviate from the procedure. In other words, it has forbidden them to think for themselves. And people who have been expressly forbidden to think are just-about the most-ineffective shield against a devious and adaptable threat.
We should consider ourselves fortunate that those who hate us appear to have moved on from attacking airplanes via the passenger vector. They have achieved their goals in that area, now it's random street attacks by various means. Pretty soon, we'll have the TSA roaming the streets of major cities performing their security theatre there. Won't that be fun.
llater,
llamas
llamas at December 8, 2016 3:43 AM
"Pretty soon, we'll have the TSA roaming the streets of major cities performing their security theatre there. "
You're right.
And thanks, Patrick, on the frog thing.
What it does illustrate, however, is a truth about humans. I learned in writing this book I just finished, about psychophysics, originated by Gustave Fechner back in the 1800s. (I ultimately didn't include it in the book.) Anyway, Fechner was interested in perception and relative perception, like how we know something is "heavier" than another thing. This situation relates. The more we become inured to having our civil liberties violated, the less awful it seems to us and the more it just seems like life as usual.
Amy Alkon at December 8, 2016 5:49 AM
Many humans crave order, crave system, crave a repeatability that they mistake for reliability and safety. Many humans will do the most outrageous and illogical things in the cause of serving what they see as being a dominant system.
See, for example, the experiments of Stanley Milgram and his definitions of the 'agentic' personality.
Many places exploit this human trait. The military demands adherence to rigid and repetitive systems to a completely-fetishistic level because that kind of training and discipline will make soldiers do things that no reasonable person would do - run towards the sound of gunfire because some chinless 22-year-old tells you to. That's a fine thing in training for war, but an absolutely-lousy approach to training to inquire, seek out, examine and discover adaptable and malicious threats.
llater,
llamas
llamas at December 8, 2016 6:27 AM
I hate the TSA with the heat of a thousand suns for the way they consistently treated my Mom - one of the sweetest people ever - the last ten years of her life.
She was legally blind, had titanium knees and a breast prosthesis. Every time she flew, she was treated like someone who was trying to smuggle contraband into a prison. Had her person violated and was physically abused.
The last time she visited me in ATL (knowing she'd be dead in a few months), I was allowed to wheelchair her to the gate. At the checkpoint, she was forced to lose visual contact with her carry-on, a big no-no, and loudly proclaimed they were forcing her to engage in criminal behavior.
She was then taken into a private screening room so they could examine her prosthesis. Knowing she was unlikely to ever fly again, she raised holy hell and demanded the FBI, as well a my presence to examine their credentials (since she couldn't).
She proceeded to unload politely to the very nice FBI agents re the TSA tools in language which not only greatly amused the feds but also made them actually blush. (Mom was a sweetheart but also had a wonderful command of the English language, including quite a vocabulary of invective.)
The FBI folks gave the TSA jerks a thorough dressing down, apologized profusely to Mom and made sure we got to her gate in plenty of time, for which we were appreciative.
I look forward to the day when a crowd of aggrieved travelers jams TSA thugs through the baggage scanner after turning it up to 11.
Fatwa Arbuckle at December 8, 2016 8:22 AM
A recent TSA encounter: I was pulled out of line and my bag swabbed over a wrapped bar of soap. The results seemed to be inconclusive to the lady, so a gentleman was brought over to do a secondary inspection. Our conversation:
HER: Why are you flying with soap?
ME: Because I bought it on this trip.
HER: Why?
ME: Because it smells good and I can't get it back home.
HIM (VERY suspiciously): Why are you in [major American city popular with tourists]?
ME: Because I like to travel?
The soap ultimately was deemed a non-threat to the security of all involved.
Kevin at December 8, 2016 12:39 PM
They're incompetent fucks, all of them, and they're doing nothing for the security of the people who pay for them.
Anyone who tells you anything else is a bullshit artist.
There are no exceptions. None.
Crid at December 8, 2016 3:13 PM
Yeah, the TSA is security theater, at best.
I did a trip to DC last month. On the way out of SAN, I was sweating a decent amount after dragging luggage a way vs waiting in huge curb-side line (and I'm a big dude). Apparently sweat completely invalidates the stupid scanners. I "lit up like a christmas tree" and has to be patted down. Which was the most pathetic "pat-down" I've ever seen. Dude barely checked my shoulders and that was it. Not that I wanted to be groped but considering the spots on the scanner image, that wasn't at all a real check.
Then on my return, as I passed through security in IAD, even though I wasn't sweaty, my crotch lit up. Woo. Another not-really-pat-down check. I was thankful they barely touched me.. I really didn't want to be groped.
As I then went to retrieve my carry-ons, I noticed one was set aside. Not my backpack with my laptop, iPad, Apple TV, myriad cables and stuff.. no, my duffel bag. Then it dons on me that I had my raspberry pi3 in there (we won free ones at the conference I was there for). But nope, they weren't interested in that. I had nothing else in there but a sweater and a bunch of souvenirs... oh, I'm sure it's the metal earth model kits I bought. Nope... No, the 2 very generic snap together airplane models I bought at the Smithsonian gift shops not only made them pause, they had to go back through the x-ray machine a 2nd time. Models that I bought and hadn't even opened yet.
Really keeping the skies safe there!
Miguelitosd at December 9, 2016 9:36 AM
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