TSA mess and the police

[Lisa loves Pooh]

That's the point of random.

I think I will have to avoid flying. I just don't find it necessary for safety or whatever to have any of my children touched in any way for the privilege of boarding a plane. Yeah, sure---terrorists have used kids...

But the whole thing has just gotten ridiculous. I can get on a miltary base with much less scrutiny.

There has got to be a better way.

I didn't mind (so much) the machines. But the hands touching me....I'll pass on that. And unless (heaven forbid), my child is under arrest, I am
not going to submit them to a situation where they randomly could be patted down at a young age. If he young boy is as young as guesses in that video, I can only imagine that after (probably) being educated to not let strangers touch him in an unwelcome manner, that I don't blame him for not wanting to cooperate. Terrorizing toddlers in the name of safety (yes, this is hyperbole!) doesn't seem to be right.

I had planned on possibly flying to see my sister and new baby in the spring. I think I will suck it up a drive.

 

[kaytieeldr]

katieedlr - what makes you say the tsa listens?

Admittedly, OLD attempts to contact - e-mail with questions or, in the interest of full disclosure, compliments. Okay, ONE compliment

 

[skater]

Admittedly, OLD attempts to contact - e-mail with questions or, in the interest of full disclosure, compliments. Okay, ONE compliment

Thanks . I'm guessing they were receptive and helpful.

 

[kaytieeldr]

Yes, they were. I don't know that I'd have gotten the same results with a complaint (again, in the interest of full disclosure ))

 

[CPT Tripss]

Could you please take a picture in the customs area (which is what I posted), and then come back and tell me what happened? Preferable right below the signs that say turn off all cameras and cell phones. I've been there when others have decided it didn't mean them.

You are correct on that point - the customs area is not "public" and there are specific warnings given about actions that are not permissible. Only persons with business are permitted to be there, so the general public can't even get there.

As the overall discussion was about photography/taping in the "airport" was not about one small part of the airport, it was relevent to mention that the airport is public. I took your post to be supportive of the notion that people have no business taking photos and videos in the public spaces of an airport.

 

[CPT Tripss]

No, this kind of stuff isn't okay, you're right. I'm aware of one passenger with an ostomy bag who had a major problem with the TSA, and one passenger who had to remove a breast prostheses. These are truly horrible incidents and shouldn't have happened - but are there more? It would seem if there were reports (plural) of each incident, they'd be more public.




I've had several pre-enhanced pat-downs, and never been touched in 'places that shouldn't be touched by strangers' - and they were all done by strangers. If you were touched in such places, those would have been the times to file complaints. The TSA does listen.

TSA listens? Did I miss the humor smilie?

I have filed complaints . . . multiple complaints (a lot more than I should have had to file) they all involved exactly the same issue. I got two responses - not counting the "form" we received your inquiry reply. One response said that I was screened according to SOP . . . The other said I was not screened properly and thanks for letting us know. This was on exactly the same scenario of how I was screened. And many, but not all, of the incidents I complained about did involve contact with my genitals (back of hand). As that touching was according to SOP, it was not an element to my complaint (just a letter to my Congressman each time it happened to let him know how demeaning it was).

I'm sure if you look around you can find additional, similar anecdotes to those that have received recent media attention and are being discussed here. There were previous reports of
-people in wheelchair being required to get out of their chair to go through the WTMD,
-kids having to remove orthopedic braces,
-amputees having to remove arms and legs,
-people who were physically unable to get their arms into certain positions (think something like Sen McCain as a frame of reference) having their arms put into those positions by TSAers causing pain.

These incidents aren't the first. Maybe the first that are getting any real media and policy traction, but not the first.

 

[CPT Tripss]

Try videotaping, using a camera, or even a cell phone in Customs and Immigration. I seem to remember Immigration being more testy about it than Customs, but after sleep deprivation and flying for that many hours, I could have it backwards.


For everyone who is concerned about the privacy issue, I'm more concerned with the day to day electronic monitoring that marketing and IT geniuses are doing. I don't like when I've visited a company's website that I get an email the next day saying 'thanks for visiting... here's something else you might be interested in'. I don't like cookies (chocolate chip are okay, but that isn't the type of cookie that concerns me!). Even the fraud alerts on credit cards are based on patterns of spending ... I don't like that they've figured out that much 'background' on my habits. I think most people would be surprised by the amount of security cameras monitoring us. Other than going "off the grid" we don't have a lot of options.

Even IF scans are kept, they can't be matched to individual names. When you show your boarding pass to get in the line at security, they don't write it down when you go through - they are just verifying that the name on the ticket and the ID match and that you are that individual.

You are right customs isn't public . . . the discussion was mostly about the areas of an airport that are public. And there is case law about this issue.

 

[CPT Tripss]

I have a great sense of humor, I really do. I just don't get what's a hoot about refusing to follow procedures in place. Perhaps Wolanyk's action will cause the TSA to create a third alternative - scanner / pat-down / strip down - but while they are using alternatives A and B only, passengers should expect to comply with one or the other (or, yes, both if one indicates the other is needed).

Aw come on . . . it was good theater.

He tried to save them time when they wanted to do a "virtual strip search." Then they wanted to do a pat down since he declined the scanner . . . but they wanted him to put his clothes on before they would pat him down . . . they could see the outlines of his "junk" because his unmentionables were tight, but he had to get dressed so they could touch his "junk." Then the cops walk him out, apparently some distance through the public parts of the airport, in only his unmentionables.

You don't see that as a hoot? A good trial attorney will have the jury crying trying not to laugh.

By the way, they do already have option three - a strip down.

 

[PaulaSB12]

So when does it go to far? When a woman is told to remove in public her nipple rings? a man with a false knee or a teenager with a false leg given a pat down because the limb they warned would set off alarms did so? Really the terrorists you claim to be fighting must be laughing you have let them change your way of life so much, you haven't put anything in place of the two towers you have let them win. If you didn't want them to win you should have built something at ground zero as soon as possible. If we did what you have done most of Coventry wouldn't exist today because of ww2 bombing and Manchester, and Liverpool.

 

[bicker]

Bicker, if I had the time to explain to you an entire education I promise you I would.

And if I had the time to explain to you an entire career in industry I promise you I would. So let's stop with this silly meta-discussions and stop trying to assert that your book-learning trumps my work experience.

You are a fascinating individual.

No, I'm really not. I disagree with you. I'm not sure why you find that so interesting.

I don't quite know what your deal is but for whatever reason you seem to confuse exhausting your audience's patience with winning.

You speak for yourself. As one person, you're not an "audience". Regardless, hold a mirror up to yourself. Let me disagree with you, and stop trying to exhaust me into kowtowing to your personal opinion, please.

Right is right and no matter how much you carry on you can't make something that is untrue true.

So again you're claiming that your personal opinion is the only right thinking. You're wrong about that, as you are about the topic. Now please stop with the side-tangent.

The next time you disagree with a post of mine either back it up or I'm just going to skip right over you. I'm not being mean and I don't dislike you

I always back up objections I post as much as what I'm objecting to is backed-up. That's often the point. You post so much that you don't back-up, and so often I point that out. Your lack of foundation for what you post is generally the evidence for my objections. And note that that's okay: You don't have to have evidence, but you do have to let others point out that what you're presenting is indeed just your opinion and that they either disagree or have reason to believe that the facts are different from what you've posted. I've explicitly done so at least three times in this thread, while you haven't done so, with regard to what I've posted, at all.

And skipping over messages that you don't care to reply to is not only your prerogative, but note that I won't take offense whatsoever. You are under no obligation to contradict every objection to what you post. You need only post a reply if you wish to.

 

[ratherbeatdisney]

So when does it go to far? When a woman is told to remove in public her nipple rings? a man with a false knee or a teenager with a false leg given a pat down because the limb they warned would set off alarms did so? Really the terrorists you claim to be fighting must be laughing you have let them change your way of life so much, you haven't put anything in place of the two towers you have let them win. If you didn't want them to win you should have built something at ground zero as soon as possible. If we did what you have done most of Coventry wouldn't exist today because of ww2 bombing and Manchester, and Liverpool.

i never understand comments like "the terrorists must be laughing because they have made you change your way of life so much". I just dont really think Osama bin Laden was sitting around in a cave thinking "what could we do that would make those americans have to change all of their airport security measures. I know, we will run planes into the twin towers, thats how !" i just dont see that. Terrorrists want to blow things up, kill lots of people, and watch lots of people die. I just dont see them thinking much beyond that. I dont think they have a huge grand objective that is still being played out. Kill people. blow stuff up, cut off people's heads, thats what they do. thats it.

 

[bicker]

I'm thinking the TSA just doesn't want any more bad press.

Yup, and that's a predictable scenario that critics are trying to foster by their exploitation of the sensationalistic media.

It seems to me that the terrorists have achieved a lot - they've eroded our privacy rights, cost us money, and received lots of attention.

Oh! And they've killed thousands of people... don't forget that, please. Never forget that, please.

My personal opinion is that I would rather take on a certain amount of risk (I don't think its that high) than give up away my rights as an American citizen to suffer unreasonable searches.

And that's balanced by the people who disagree with you about that. So that's essentially a stalemate. Luckily, there are myriad other factors that contribute to the decision.

Another situation where Gandhi would have been proud

Gandhi often wore a loin cloth, having nothing to hide. His objections were to unjust encroachments, reflections of prejudice against certain people on the basis of race or caste, not to fair measures put in place through the offices of a government democratically elected by all the people they governed. Please do not defile Gandhi's message in this way.

The first line of the "news story" was TSA gone wild. A more accurate lead in would be "civil disobedience gone wild". What did the TSA agents and the police do wrong? The story has clear bias to back up your opinion. That's why it was posted originally. What about all the hundreds of thousands of passengers that go through this daily with no problems. No stories about them. Because it's not an attention grabbing story. The media concentrates on the negative because it sells. And the lemmings just follow because it is easier to be led than to formulate their own opinions.

Yes, that's precisely the issue I've been raising. What we're seeing here is not a glorious example of a free society, but rather the cynical exploitation of how easily so many weak-minded Americans can be whipped into mob mentality, through application of salaciousness and sensationalism in the media.

You are scaring people for no reason but to get others to agree with your point (as Bicker has so eloquently posted previously).

Do you refuse to shut off your iphone on the plane because it interferes with your "civil rights". In a civilized society, we have restrictions/laws for the common good. Sometimes our lawmakers change the rules because it is the right thing to do, not because it is popular thing to do. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 would not exist if that was the case. The first sentence in the constitution says that the government should be involved in safety of its citizens. "..insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity". Our world has changed and we need to change with it.

You've got some prodigious eloquence of your own, there.

 

[bicker]

Sometimes egos become more relevant than the preservation of rights. I would love to agree with you that the people in charge always act in our best interests but there are times when the very institutions that are supposed to protect us turn on us because the people in power can't handle the assault to their vanity.

That cuts both ways. The critics have even less sound basis for credibility, being nothing more than an angry mob whipped into a frenzy by carefully crafted emotional triggers like "naked scanner" and "groping".

History is riddled with cases when a countries own population is assaulted in the name of some greater good. It's dangerous territory and a potential for harm within any system of governance was considered deeply by the drafters of the Constitution because they, themselves, were victims of this very behavior. THIS fact is why we have The Bill of Rights. Government is good when there are limitations. There always have to be limitations because government, although it is a separate entity, is actually made up of human beings no less flawed than anyone else.

We have elections - free and fair elections - every couple of years, so your reference is non-sequitur. The issue is that so many people have a lack of soundness in their advocacy: They want magic. They essentially want glorious service, for insanely low prices. They elect people who build a government that aims the nation toward one side of this issue, and then they whine like babies when the reality of what they've supported, a government that essentially puts order and economy on the same level as personal liberties, affronts their sensibilities.

The question that raises is which is the rightful representation of their collective will? The decision they make in the voting booth, in a scenario where they could possibly have engaged in a careful, reasoned consideration of the myriad factors? or the decision they make in the heat of the moment, after seeing a photo deliberately manipulated to shock, or after reading a sensationalized missive in the media, employing extreme chest-beating motifs. Which government do you trust more? The one people put in place by marking a ballot, or the one people put in place with pitchforks and torches?

 

[bicker]

The owner or operator of the facility said no. Works for me. I tell you not to take pictures (or smoke, or, heck, breathe out of your left nostril) in my facility. You could question me, but ultimately you either comply or you leave, or don't enter in the first place.

This is critical, and you've really highlighted the gross Entitlement Mentality inherent in the insistence on being able to take photographs of the security screening area.

So do what needs done, and work and vote to overturn the Patriot Act, since this is the basis that allows everything people are upset about. Don't take it out on the TSA agent trying to do his or her job. Don't call all those people doing their jobs perverts and other names, that is just hurtful and mean. Aim for what will do some good--the disease rather than the symptom.

 

[bicker]

I can get on a miltary base with much less scrutiny.

But you cannot get access to a jet-fueled bomb on that military base, with less scrutiny. Indeed, gaining access to a military base, the context of your analogy, is like gaining access to the parking garage at the airport. It is not analogous to gaining access to an aircraft.

There has got to be a better way.

Why? That assumption is comforting to hold in one's heart, but it isn't necessarily true. There are surely ways where one factor or another is better served, but there is no reason to believe that all the relevant factors would be better served through some other means.

 

[bicker]

i never understand comments like "the terrorists must be laughing because they have made you change your way of life so much". I just dont really think Osama bin Laden was sitting around in a cave thinking "what could we do that would make those americans have to change all of their airport security measures. I know, we will run planes into the twin towers, thats how !" i just dont see that. Terrorrists want to blow things up, kill lots of people, and watch lots of people die. I just dont see them thinking much beyond that. I dont think they have a huge grand objective that is still being played out. Kill people. blow stuff up, cut off people's heads, thats what they do. thats it.

And to be fair to them, their intention is religious in nature, to attack that which offends their religious beliefs.

If anything, these security measures, especially since they're applied to women wearing burqa just like everyone else, offend those specific terrorists' religious beliefs more than not having these security measures.

 

[OceanAnnie]

Al Qaeda Promises U.S. Death By A 'Thousand Cuts'
Terror Group Boasts That Printer Bomb Cost Only $4200, Meant To Bleed U.S. Economy

Printer bombs planted on two cargo flights last month cost only a few thousand dollars and were intended to affect the American economy, according to a newly published Al Qaeda-affiliated magazine.

The attempt was called "Operation Hemorrhage," boasted the magazine, and the entire plot cost al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, or AQAP, only $4,200.

Yesterday, a special edition of Inspire magazine -- an English-language propaganda publication produced by AQAP -- gave a detailed description of how the attempted attack was conceived and produced.

"Two Nokia mobiles, $150 each, two HP printers, $300 each, plus shipping, transportation and other miscellaneous expenses add up to a total bill of $4,200," one article said. "That is all that Operation Hemorrhage cost us. In terms of time, it took us three months to plan and execute the operation from beginning to end."

The magazine also revealed the attack was not meant to kill more than the plane's pilot and co-pilot, and was meant to force the U.S. government to spend billions of dollars on preventive security screening measures.

The strategy, the magazine said, was "of attacking the enemy with smaller, but more frequent operations is what some may refer to as the strategy of a thousand cuts. The aim is to bleed the enemy to death."


AQAP also took credit for the September crash of a UPS cargo flight in Dubai. However, U.S. and U.A.E. officials have concluded that the crash was not an act of terrorism.

http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/al-qaeda-promises-us-death-thousand-cuts/story?id=12204726

 

[DisneyBamaFan]

TSA listens? Did I miss the humor smilie?...

Two examples of the TSA "listening" in the past week:

* TSA changes pat-down process for children under 12 after complaints.
* TSA director calls several people who have gone public with specific complaints because of medical conditions. He then talks to them about ways the TSA might have handled their situation better and apologizes.

Yeah, I would say that they are listening.

 

[DisneyBamaFan]

...AQAP also took credit for the September crash of a UPS cargo flight in Dubai. However, U.S. and U.A.E. officials have concluded that the crash was not an act of terrorism...

These people are liars and murderers. How stupid would we be to listen to this and reduce security, opening the door to them for bigger attackes again?

 

[DMRick]

If I remember right (don't feel like going back and looking), it was about if TSA could prohibit photo's at the pat downs, and I thought someone said the airport is public, they could take any pictures they wanted in a public place. I thought I was making the point that they could make that a place, like customs in the airport, where camera's were not allowed to be out. I was saying that the airport is not always public (and as mentioned, some parts aren't). Are you saying they could not do that?

You are right customs isn't public . . . the discussion was mostly about the areas of an airport that are public. And there is case law about this issue.