The new outrage is the TSA. The conservative media is blowing this thing up. I hope it's due to genuine conviction and not merely to try to further discredit the current administration. To my surprise, the liberal media is also up in arms. Just my luck that the media can finally produce bipartisan coverage of a topic and I completely disagree with them. I started to write this blog a few nights ago, but deleted it after seeing the reaction of the media. I felt I should step back and reassess my viewpoint. I did so and came to the conclusion I was correct. So here it is in black and white... well maybe more of a black and sepia?
First off, please keep in mind that after years in the military I may be a little jaded. We tend to be a little less timid about certain things, basically because we are subjected to a lot more scrutiny and “personal invasion” than our civilian counterparts. Random car checks, locker and room inspections, and mandatory annual physical exams can slightly reduce ones modesty. Imagine the next time you leave work you get stopped and they want to go through your whole car... no reason, no warrant, just because. That's our norm.
With that said I simply can't understand all the objection to the full body scans. It is NOT a picture of you. It is a computer's interpretation of an electronic scan of you. Yes, the images produced are a little risque, but there is also not a lot of clarity when it comes to soft tissue. Faces are unrecognizable. There is no hair or clothing in the scan so it's not as if someone who saw the scan could then identify you. To that end, no one can see the scan but the operator and he is in a different area, so he or she can't see you “in the flesh” so to speak. The scanners are not supposed to record or store images (although it has been revealed they can). Bottom line, yes the scans are fairly revealing but they are also fairly anonymous.However, some facilities do not have the scanners, and some folks reject the scanners, which leaves Option B... cue ominous music... the pat down. Much like a prostate exam, mammogram, pap smear or hernia check, pat-downs can be a little, oh I'll say it, invasive. Also like those procedures, the pat down is designed to protect you with the added bonus of protecting everyone else that will be sharing your aircraft. Again, like those procedures the pat downs are performed by professionals. By definition this is true, they are paid and trained to do it. Unlike the above procedures you should not have anything inserted into you or squeezed during a pat down. Clearly agents who are abusive or unprofessional need to be dealt with... quickly and severely. No doubt.
Yes, there have been some reports of agents conducting themselves inappropriately. The same types of reports are received about doctors, cab drivers, professional athletes, priests, teachers, day care providers, and Presidents. The difference? You don't have to be alone with these folks. If a TSA agent does something inappropriate then it needs to be addressed by the victim on the spot... not days or weeks later. Tell a policeman, another traveler, another TSA agent, or the sweet little black lady that seems to drive the huge “aerotaxi” golf cart in every airport in America. Someone will help you. YouTube is NOT the proper forum to express your outrage, especially when the only person who got out of line during your exposé was you John Tyner. How about you prove to me you didn't have a razor blade under your “junk” when you walked out of the airport... in my opinion you're now person of interest (and not in a good way).
I will say this, if the pilot wants to crash the plane, the pilot will crash the plane. You can probably let them pass “unmolested”... sorry, I couldn't help myself. You better make sure he or she is really a pilot though if you decide to go down that road. But to say that toddlers and nuns and other such people should be left unchecked is ignorant.
First, children are the perfect recruits. They are trusting and easily deceived. They are also easily scared into doing one's bidding. If you don't believe me ask a Vietnam veteran. Better yet, don't. That's something they don't need to relive; in their minds OR on a plane. Do you really think that someone who wants to kill Americans is going to have some sort of moral dilemma with kidnapping a toddler and putting a couple pounds of C4 in her diaper? Gives a whole new meaning to "baby boom."
What if we skip nuns, priests, military or any of the other many examples I've heard from the media of people who it's “just plain silly” to search... I'm no rocket scientist, but I'm sure that if we start skipping nuns then not only will the terrorists start dressing like nuns, so will everyone else that wants to skip the search. You know I'm right.
I even heard that we should allow frequent flyers to pass unhindered... seriously? Am I being punked? That is moronic. Essentially anyone we decide is “safe” can and will be exploited to the benefit of those who wish us harm.
Some of my fellow Americans are suggesting that this Thanksgiving weekend everyone should refuse the body scan and demand a pat down. Let me tell you how that's going to work out... at first you'll have some takers. Then the bottleneck will begin and folks will see that line growing and think to themselves, hmm if I want to make this flight I better just do the scan; and they will. That might also be a good time for terrorists to exploit the chaos this is going to create. Yeah, you'll have a couple hard-core folks that will intentionally miss their flight to make a point. Good for them. I hope that the airlines are notified why they missed their flights and don't refund the tickets, or at least put them at the bottom of the list to get new flights.
Yes, we are checking Americans. Deal with it. I wonder if Timothy McVeigh, Ted Kaczynski, Anwar al-Awlaki or Nidal Malik Hasan would think it foolish to check Americans. An aircraft is about the largest weapon one can “acquire” and use, and it can be aimed, which means no above ground target is safe. Yes, a train can be hijacked, but it is way easier to stop and impossible to steer. Buses? Yeah, you'll do some damage.. but I think 9/11 is a pretty glaring example of 1) what exactly a single aircraft can do in the wrong hands, and 2) what happens if we let our guard down. Don't forget, the four flights on September 11, 2001, all originated within our borders.
Oh and the media I mentioned earlier? I heard something a few minutes ago that irritated me so much that this blog saw life instead of dying in my head like most of my rants. Sean Hannity was going on about the scanners being invasive and the pat-downs being worse. In the next breath he stated that most Americans have cameras with them and he wanted listeners to video record themselves or their fellow travelers being pat-down and send it to him at Fox News. So let me get this straight, Sean, it's a demoralizing, unconstitutional, evil procedure... and you want us to record it happening to strangers and send it to you so you can exploit them further and make a buck off of it? Shame on you. I still like you, but you just lost a whole lot of capital with me.
With all that I've said here, and I apologize for the length, I would like to point out one thing. Why is the Obama administration willing to go to these lengths to protect air travel, but not our borders? I'm just sayin'. Maybe if it was a little harder for a terrorist to literally walk right into this country we could ease up at the airports...
The long and short of it is this... flying is not a right. It's a privilege. If you want to do it, cooperate. If you can't do that then find another way to get there. Ponder this. What's going to happen if a terrorist gets a bomb or a non-metallic weapon on your aircraft and manages to use it? Well, if you're super lucky and they recover your body, you'll be bare-assed naked on the autopsy table. But hey, at least you won't be embarrassed. Right?
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Michael, very well said. Yes, long but a lot has to be said about this issue. I strongly agree with you. EVERYONE has to go through one or the other, no if's ands or but's, EVERYONE. Even the employee's that fly the plane. This also encludes goverment officials, EVERYONE MEANS EVERYONE. NO CHECK, NO FLY!!
ReplyDeleteThanks, you guys have a great "Thanksgiving"
Mike Bretsch
It really was thought out; I don't know tons about the whole issue but I have seen things here and there about it...and I have to agree with you. It's a ness. evil. I mean, after all the crap that's happened the past couple years and people up top are trying to make everything safer. Do I like the idea? No. Is it something I'm willing to put up with so that nothing catastrophic happens? Yes.
ReplyDeleteIf people don't like it so much then they need to come up with a viable alternative that's just as effective or stop whining about.
From Mike Crane on Facebook:
ReplyDelete Interesting post. Here are a couple of my first thoughts since you asked for them. You seem to be taking the attitude that the government can take away my rights because I've got nothing to hide. Well, that leads to tyranny. I realize you’ve had to accept that situation in the military, but the rest of us are civilians and we didn’t agree to that social contract. I still like the 4th Amendment, despite the Patriot Act’s shredding of it. Next, most experts, and I agree with them, argue that this is a complete waste of time and resources. Someone has termed it security theater, to give the impression of safety, when it isn’t making us safer with these practices. Overall, this seems to be a huge overreaction to what is statistically a highly improbable scenario. The odds of dying from a plane-based terrorist attack are minute, to say the least, and yet we are spending billions and billions to prevent a very unlikely occurrence. Once you know the odds, a rational person should be able go about their life fairly unconcerned about the possibility of being in a plane-based terrorist action. You seem to be advocating the 1% doctrine where if there is that small a percentage chance of something occurring, we must go to ever measure possible to prevent it. Is that a useful use of our limited resources? In fact, we’ve created a more dangerous situation by packing people into these snaking lines to enter the security scanning area where a suicide bomber could kill and maim hundreds before they get to the scanners just by walking into the airports. I recently went through the body scanner at O’Hare. Truth be told, it wasn’t a big deal. But, you want to touch my rectum and scrotum, you better get a warrant. Oh great, now I’ll be on the “feel up” list the next time I fly for posting this. Big Brother is watching, or more likely data mining us right now.
I never said the government can take away your rights, nor did I mean to imply I felt that way. In fact, the biggest thing that upsets me about the current travel regulations is that, once again, the government has put restrictions on us, but has no intention of complying with them themselves. If Joe the Plumber has to get felt up, then those who dictate policy should be subjected to the same treatment. As far as the shredding of the 4th Amendment via the Patriot Act and Big Brother go, well you can thank Vice President Biden for both of those... after all he did sponsor two bills in 1995 with the following verbiage in them...
ReplyDelete“It is the sense of Congress that providers of electronic communications services and manufacturers of electronic communications service equipment shall ensure that communications systems permit the government to obtain the plain text contents of voice, data, and other communications when appropriately authorized by law.”
Yep, Big Brother is listening. Despite both bills failing, they were both used in authoring the Patriot Act.
In my humble opinion, the government exists to defend the nation, provide and maintain infrastructure, and protect us from one another. I would much rather see billions of dollars spent to protect the public from potential attack (one people agree WILL happen sooner or later) and protecting the borders rather than on a health care system. Why? Because Congress has the Constitutional authority to protect us from an attack, they don't have the authority to force us to buy insurance and that's costing a trillion dollars. And when I say protect the nation I mean from all enemies... foreign and domestic.
(Continued next post)
Remember that last year on Christmas day, just 250 or so miles from you, a young man boarded an aircraft with the intent of blowing it out of the sky... if he had succeeded a half hour into flight it could have easily happened over your home. The bomb was in his crotch. Some in the media have accused the government of “chasing the problem,” saying we didn't check shoes until Richard Reid and didn't check underwear until Umar Abdulmutallab. That may be true, but is it more foolish to chase the problem? or to ignore it? In my opinion Reid and Abdulmutallab prove that aircraft are still soft targets in the eyes of our enemies. Of course, as you stated, someone could walk into the scanning area and blow themselves up. That same person could walk into a police station, a New York street at rush hour, an office building, a concert or a sporting event. What would do more damage? Attacking the TSA line? or exploding an aircraft over a highly populated area? or perhaps plowing that aircraft into a stadium on game day? We can “what if” all day, but that does nothing to preclude an attack... this regulation does.
ReplyDeleteYou're correct, the odds of an aircraft being attacked are low, but they were substantially lower prior to 9/11. The fact of the matter is that I don't think this is the best way to handle air travel, but until something better is available this is what we have. I, too, like the 4th Amendment, I proudly don my uniform to protect it, but as I said flying isn't a right... and it's not compulsory either (unlike the health care law). This hearkens back to my issue with the sense of entitlement in this country. We hold the government accountable to protect us, but we expect them to do it on our terms. Comply with the rules, find another way to get there, or don't go. You're still free... free to choose.
As far as getting a warrant to touch you're “private” spots, do you make the same demand of your physician? Do you think the guy checking you wants to touch you there? Trust me, your rectum and scrotum are more than likely not that impressive... though I can't be sure.
Way to use fear to justify giving up rights. The Christmas bomber was close to me and could have blown up the plane over my house. Nice. I'm far more likely to be killed by a drunk driver, or crossing a sidewalk in Chicago. You cannot scare me into accepting this inefficient, wasteful use of our public resources. I'd rather see that money spent on health care, roads and bridges, public transportation, or teacher's salaries. Driving is a privilege too, but police still need probable cause in most circumstances to pull me over and search me and my vehicle. Yet, at the airport we've handed them the right to molest us without probable cause. You could make the case that drunk driving check points, which have withstood court challenges are a better analogy, but I'm not too informed about the court's reasoning in those cases, and don't care enough to look it up. Do we have police check points up 24/7 everywhere? No, we don't live in a police state. I'm consenting to a physician "checking" me and can refuse his access, can I refuse the TSA and get on the plane? No. Fine, let's all drop trousers and bend over at the airport. Is it that much better that you still have your pants on? It would be faster if we simply dropped our pants. Isn't that the next step? If you are willing to submit to a groping, why not that? How else are they going to know I'm packing a cucumber in my pants?
ReplyDeleteYes, another attack will occur so shouldn't we devote our resources and time to practices, intelligence, and techniques that will be more useful than gripping every senior citizen's urine bag? I don't want anyone to die in a terrorist attack, but it will happen at some point regardless of our best efforts. There will be human deaths. As a percentage of total deaths in the U.S., their number will be infinitely small. We live in a dangerous world and to imagine that we can limit those dangers to 0.00000% is fantasy. How much are we reducing the risk of an attack by plane by searching every single person's crotch at the cost of many billions of dollars each year? Are we pushing it from .1% to .075%? Is that worth the cost and wasted time for "security theater" at the airports? http://reason.com/archives/2006/08/11/dont-be-terrorized
I say no. If I happen to die in a terrorist attack involving a plane, it was simply my time to go. It will suck, but what is a good way to die? Drowning in Lake Michigan? Getting hit by a CTA bus? Someone running a red light? Should the government test me before letting me swim? Should they require drivers pass a breathalyzer to start a car? Should they build single-lane bumpers on the interstate so we cannot run into each other? Leaving the house is a risk every day, and flying is still very, very, very safe without poking my rectum. By spending billions and billions and wasting the time of millions and millions of people every day, we can add one more very to my previous sentence. Is that worth it? Not to me. I don't live in fear of terrorism. Yet, a lot of people and corporations have a massive (billions and billions) vested interest in keeping us afraid. Again, it is "security theater."
M Crane
Let us not forget that terrorism is more about causing fear than anything else. If they can make you second guess your daily routine for FEAR of something happening then they have accomplished the goal: Controlling your behavior on their terms. Yes, the lengths they are willing to go to are horrifying but they don't have the means or the will to make it a stand up fight. Seriously, who wants to stand in front of an Abrams tank and argue?
ReplyDeleteNow as far as the scans at the airport go, let the public make their choice and move on. How long do these scans take? Do I have to take off my shoes or anything else? It would seem to me that the rational person would want the quick and easy route to the boarding gate... Get the media to stop sensationalizing the whole issue and let the system find it's balance point. Stand in line to be "groped" or "molested" OR skip the whole scene and go through the scan... Did we have all of this drama when the metal detectors went live?