TSA: Protecting Us From 95-Year-Old Leukemia Patients Since 2002
I've been on the receiving end of two TSA Freedom Fondles and both were awful. In the first case, I was traveling alone with my two children (walking with the 3-year-old while I carried the 1-year-old on my back) and was in no way prepared for the TSA agent to touch me. I immediately called my husband and said "In some cultures, I'd be married to my TSA agent now." The second was coming back from Israel where I'd gone through the full 3-hours of security investigation -- questions, unpacking of each item in my suitcase, and thorough scan. And still I felt less violated then when I arrived in Philadelphia and had someone reach under my skirt touch my genitalia.
I may not know much, but I know that government agents should not be touching my genitalia. And yet the practice continues. What concerns me is that the stories keep mounting and nobody is doing anything. President Obama jokes about it while 95-year-old Leukemia patients are told to remove their diapers to pass through screening. That's what the grandmother's daughter reports but the TSA, for its part, says it complied with all appropriate procedures but won't otherwise discuss the case. Comforting.
Two columnists discuss this latest problem today. In the Los Angeles Times, Jonah Goldberg calls for change of mindset in how we approach terror threats:
And that's what brought to mind "Dune's" Butlerian Jihad. The holy war against machines was also a war against a mind-set. "The target of the jihad was a machine-attitude as much as the machines," a character explains. "Humans had set those machines to usurp our sense of beauty, our necessary selfdom out of which we make living judgments." In the aftermath, a new commandment was promulgated: "Thou shalt not make a machine in the likeness of a human mind."
It seems the first commandment of the TSA is that every mind must be trained in the likeness of a machine. "Garbage in, garbage out," is how computer programmers explain the way bad outputs are determined by bad inputs. Likewise, if TSA workers are programmed not to use common sense or discretion — surprise! — TSA workers won't use common sense or discretion.
At the Washington Examiner, Gene Healy suggests that there's a problem with our security/civil liberties trade-off:
A free people ought to be brave enough not to quake before the imaginary threat of a Depends bomber. No society can be made perfectly safe, and, in the pursuit of safety, certain policies ought to be considered beyond the pale.
We can debate whether waterboarding falls into that category, but ritual humiliation of innocent citizens surely qualifies. TSA's abuses are making our choice ever clearer: Assume some risk ... or assume the position.
One other point I'll add is that so much of this security complex is driven by corporations. The tools we use in airports are the ones that had the best salesmen and lobbyists funneling money to our members of Congress. And if you think this security-industrial-complex has anything at all to do with actual safety, you're probably smart enough to be a Congressman.
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Feb '11
Re: TSA: Protecting Us From 95-Year-Old Leukemia Patients Since 2002
What are the most effective steps can we take to stop TSA’s dishonorable behavior?
Dec '10
Re: TSA: Protecting Us From 95-Year-Old Leukemia Patients Since 2002
Where are the plaintiffs' lawyers when you need them? I am not suggesting that folks sue the TSA. That battle has been lost because flying is a voluntary act. That's right, by choosing to fly you agree to be groped. But what I want to know is why folks are not suing employers who require business travel. No one agrees to be groped as part of their job. It is plain as day that an employer will be guilty of sexual harassment (for allowing a hostile work environment) if the employer sends you off to a job site knowing that you will be groped or photographed nude to enter the job site. How can it be any different if your employer requires you fly for work? It seems that requiring employees to undergo TSA screening is per se creating a hostile environment as understood in sexual harassment law. Perhaps those lawyers who sued Wal-Mart for sex discrimination (and lost last week) should file suit against employers who require their employees to undergo TSA screening.
Sep '10
Re: TSA: Protecting Us From 95-Year-Old Leukemia Patients Since 2002
That would make an effective Presidential campaign ad for EJHill don't you think?
"In November 2012 should you re-elect Barack Obama? That Depends."
Re: TSA: Protecting Us From 95-Year-Old Leukemia Patients Since 2002
I just wanted to share the following two tweets from the great Terry Teachout:
Too flabby indeed. Such a shame. What needs to happen? I haven't felt that I had a voice in my government since I was too young to know any better.
Jul '10
Re: TSA: Protecting Us From 95-Year-Old Leukemia Patients Since 2002
Ah, of course!
Upset about intrusive, useless, assaults from government agents?
Sue your employer.
Oct '10
Re: TSA: Protecting Us From 95-Year-Old Leukemia Patients Since 2002
What brings me close to despair for the causes of individual freedom and human dignity is not so much the ovine behaviour of the masses, shuffling beltless and shoeless in queues toward the X-ray booths and rubber gloved gropers, but rather the commentators, many good conservatives and otherwise champions of liberty, who counsel us that we must accept “reasonable” measures in the interest of our own security, and most of all that we shouldn't take our frustrations out on the “civil servants” of the TSA, who are only doing their jobs.
Precisely…. As I argued some time ago, that makes them collaborators, and neither history nor their victims have been kind to their ilk once they eventually lose their illegitimate power.
May '10
Re: TSA: Protecting Us From 95-Year-Old Leukemia Patients Since 2002
By the rude bridge that arched the flood
Their flag to April's breeze unfurled
Here once the embattled farmers stood
And fired the shot heard round the world.
Alas, we are not those people any more; we are tortured and obedient ghosts. All the fight is out of us, and we submit to being violated.
Re: TSA: Protecting Us From 95-Year-Old Leukemia Patients Since 2002
Wait. She's a 95 year-old leukemia patient? Weren't the Death Panels supposed to avoid this kind of thing?
Feb '11
Re: TSA: Protecting Us From 95-Year-Old Leukemia Patients Since 2002
Harry Huntington:
Perhaps those lawyers who sued Wal-Mart for sex discrimination (and lost last week) should file suit against employers who require their employees to undergo TSA screening. · Jun 28 at 7:38am
On second thought, maybe the plaintiffs should try a different set of lawyers.
Edited on Jun 28, 2011 at 10:46amJul '10
Re: TSA: Protecting Us From 95-Year-Old Leukemia Patients Since 2002
And, um, which compassionate conservative allowed himself to be rolled into creating the TSA?
The same TSA, by the way, which, despite firm promises, is now voting for union representation.
Jun '10
Re: TSA: Protecting Us From 95-Year-Old Leukemia Patients Since 2002
Rob Long asked in one of his posts "Why aren't young people in their 20's and early 30's more furious? Why aren't they marching in the streets for Paul Ryan's budget?"
I ask why us older folk aren't marching in the streets for our government to uphold the constitution? When we won't stand up for the very principles we preach, why should the young think there is anything wrong with the status quo? Yet it seems on every question of "security" some so-called constitutional conservative comes crawling out of the woodwork explaining why it is important that we give up our rights for the safety of everyone.
No politician of any party is going to voluntarily give up an iota of power. It is going to be up to citizens to reclaim our constitutional rights. We are going to have to make these things such an overwhelming issue with our representatives that they have to reign in the government or end up standing in the unemployment line with so many other citizens.
As for the young folks? Maybe they are waiting for us to lead by example.
Jul '10
Re: TSA: Protecting Us From 95-Year-Old Leukemia Patients Since 2002
Robert E. Lee: Rob Long asked in one of his posts "Why aren't young people in their 20's and early 30's more furious? Why aren't they marching in the streets for Paul Ryan's budget?"
I ask why us older folk aren't marching in the streets for our government to uphold the constitution?
I believe that's what the Tea Party was all about.
May '11
Re: TSA: Protecting Us From 95-Year-Old Leukemia Patients Since 2002
WSJ noted after Katrina that big bureaucracies never solve any problem. Neither FEMA. nor the Corps of Engineers, nor, in this case, T&A. Nor ATF. As my dad used to say, "Useless as teats on a bull."
Edited on Jun 28, 2011 at 1:19pmFeb '11
Re: TSA: Protecting Us From 95-Year-Old Leukemia Patients Since 2002
Here's Mark Steyn's take on this --
http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/270533/tsa-obergropinfuhrer-day-mark-steyn