Many people are up in arms about John Tyner's objection to going through an invasive body search or going through the imaging machine at Lindbergh Field. I say, too bad, John. Flying is not a right, it is a privilege. Like driving a car. Because we have a sizable portion of the world itching to do us in, we surrender certain comforts. If you do not like it, simple, don't fly. Or buy an Airdong™.
We were talking about this incident at coffee this morning and one of the guys said that if we had more racial profiling, normal americans would not be subjected to such draconian safeguards. Guess what, there are plenty of white american converts to Islam, our principal protagonists and the cause of 99% of the terrorism on the planet today. I am sure that they are not merely trying to grope your "junk", John.
If you have a mind to stuff your rectum with PETA explosive and join me on my non stop flight to Paducah, I feel comforted that my government is doing it's best to ferret out your little anal surprise.
On the other side of the coin, the TSA now threatening this man with $11,000.00 in fines and a civil suit for failing to undergo the procedure also seems horribly out of proportion and unfair. If someone is unwilling to submit to these tests, he or she should have the right to exit the terminal and catch a greyhound to their intended destination. The punitive tone of the government's reaction does strike me as an assault on civil liberty and clearly out of bounds in this case.
17 comments:
It's not so much racial profiling as behavior profiling. Keeping track of people and using intelligence to increase the layers of security seems to me a much better answer than continually adding more and more little technology checks. (coats, shoes, open laptop, underwear, liquids, etc.). Of course flying is a privilege, but disrupting our way of life and "terrorizing" Americans has become a successful result of all this security. I can just visualize these guys laughing and fist bumping every time we add some crazy new thing into the security process.
I think this is a very good article about airport security: What can we learn from Ben Gurion Airport in Israel to help push aviation security in the U.S. to the next level?
I have gone through Israeli security many times. You get a lengthy interview inquiring about your reason's for visiting. There is also a plainclothes agent posing as a passenger somewhere in the room.
I find the psychological testing of their interrogation much more invasive and psychically grueling than a physical pat down.
i'm with you; little John is a big weenie; they should just slap him on the wrist.
And in the same vein...A Message From Transport Canada - Rick Mercer Report
All the same, TSA employees are a bunch of goofs
Some definitely are. But I wish all of them success at detecting explosive material. We face a very real threat.
I watched a friend who used to hang with us join TSA and become a different person, almost overnight. Kind of scary when you give certain people a badge. Their head squares up a bit and they have a tendency to get robotic.
thanks for writing Grant - assuming you are skateboard Grant, Fallbrook's favorite son.
Being a traveling photographer and dealing with knuckleheaded TSA agents frequently makes me doubt whether they could find much of anything of any consequence.
If I can get to a destination by car with camera gear in 8 hours or less, I choose to not to fly. I know a lot of photographers who do the same.
Add a few rolls of film and a hand check of film into the mix and you're asking for attitude and a lecture on how x-rays don't harm film.
I want to say, " You Sir are neither a professional photographer nor an x-ray technician." But I want to get on the plane, so I keep my mouth shut.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/11/16/conan-tsa-patdown-demonstration_n_784381.html
That was pretty funny, Grant.
Hi Robert!
Like you, I've been to Israel and gone through their system.
It seems to me that when it comes to our country post 911 fear rules. What we have done to ourselves since that tragic day has intruded on most every area of our lives.
I don't have an answer, but I believe the answers that we are living are not what I would choose to do.
Thanks for commenting, Dr. J.. If you mean it is too bad that we live in a state where a committed bunch of religious zealots who have no compunction against taking innocent life want to do us in, then I am right there with you.
If you mean look at Israel, they live in a continual state of fear, surrounded by hostile neighbors, who the hell wants to live like that? - you get no argument from me there either.
However if you think that we can live like ostriches and people can pick the level of inspection that they feel comfortable with before they board airlines, there I think we will separate. How long before the bad guys figure out the holes in our game?
I always felt secure on El Al. The interview is strangely comforting. Never got used to smelly orthodox praying in the back of the plane in the morning, though...
I think the first time I have that "special" patdown I will feel that the terrorists have won.
John and Ken, on KFI AM 640 out of Los Angeles, have been devoting a lot of time to this very subject, on their afternoon show for the last few days; seems that Israeli airport security is less high-tech, but more effective, in this area than our TSA personnel; they just ask you a lot of questions, one after the other, and look into your eyes carefully to gauge your responses; we could learn from them; WildBill is correct.
from Richard H.
A friend of mine stationed at Pendleton sent me this about his TSA experience. He, unlike most of us, was coming back into the country from Afghanistan on a military charter.
——–
As the Chalk Leader for my flight home from Afghanistan, I witnessed the following:
When we were on our way back from Afghanistan, we flew out of Baghram Air Field. We went through customs at BAF, full body scanners (no groping), had all of our bags searched, the whole nine yards.
Our first stop was Shannon, Ireland to refuel. After that, we had to stop at Indianapolis, Indiana to drop off about 100 folks from the Indiana National Guard. That’s where the stupid started.
First, everyone was forced to get off the plane–even though the plane wasn’t refueling again. All 330 people got off that plane, rather than let the 100 people from the ING get off. We were filed from the plane to a holding area. No vending machines, no means of escape. Only a male/female latrine.
It’s probably important to mention that we were ALL carrying weapons. Everyone was carrying an M4 Carbine (rifle) and some, like me, were also carrying an M9 pistol. Oh, and our gunners had M-240B machine guns. Of course, the weapons weren’t loaded. And we had been cleared of all ammo well before we even got to customs at Baghram, then AGAIN at customs.
The TSA personnel at the airport seriously considered making us unload all of the baggage from the SECURE cargo hold to have it reinspected. Keep in mind, this cargo had been unpacked, inspected piece by piece by U.S. Customs officials, resealed and had bomb-sniffing dogs give it a one-hour run through. After two hours of sitting in this holding area, the TSA decided not to reinspect our Cargo–just to inspect us again: Soldiers on the way home from war, who had already been inspected, reinspected and kept in a SECURE holding area for 2 hours. Ok, whatever. So we lined up to go through security AGAIN.
This is probably another good time to remind you all that all of us were carrying actual assault rifles, and some of us were also carrying pistols.
So we’re in line, going through one at a time. One of our Soldiers had his Gerber multi-tool. TSA confiscated it. Kind of ridiculous, but it gets better. A few minutes later, a guy empties his pockets and has a pair of nail clippers. Nail clippers. TSA informs the Soldier that they’re going to confiscate his nail clippers. The conversation went something like this:
TSA Guy: You can’t take those on the plane.
(cont.)
(cont.)
Soldier: What? I’ve had them since we left country.
TSA Guy: You’re not suppose to have them.
Soldier: Why?
TSA Guy: They can be used as a weapon.
Soldier: [touches butt stock of the rifle] But this actually is a weapon. And I’m allowed to take it on.
TSA Guy: Yeah but you can’t use it to take over the plane. You don’t have bullets.
Soldier: And I can take over the plane with nail clippers?
TSA Guy: [awkward silence]
Me: Dude, just give him your damn nail clippers so we can get the f**k out of here. I’ll buy you a new set.
Soldier: [hands nail clippers to TSA guy, makes it through security]
This might be a good time to remind everyone that approximately 233 people re-boarded that plane with assault rifles, pistols, and machine guns–but nothing that could have been used as a weapon.
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