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American and Latin American Politics, Society, and Culture

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Obama: TSA patdowns frustrating but necessary

Obama: TSA pat-downs frustrating but necessary
President says enhanced airport security measures necessary to guard against new terrorist techniques

“I understand people’s frustrations, and what I’ve said to the TSA is that you have to constantly refine and measure whether what we’re doing is the only way to assure the American people’s safety. And you also have to think through are there other ways of doing it that are less intrusive,” Obama said.

“But at this point, TSA in consultation with counterterrorism experts have indicated to me that the procedures that they have been putting in place are the only ones right now that they consider to be effective against the kind of threat that we saw in the Christmas Day bombing.”

What “counterterrorism experts” are those? The PC police? Because the procedures that are actually effective involve profiling, which neither GWB nor Obama want to consider.

Obama assumes the position of helplessness so he wants you to assume the submissive position,

“One of the most frustrating aspects of this fight against terrorism is that it has created a whole security apparatus around us that causes huge inconvenience for all of us,” Obama said.

And he can’t do anything about it?
There you have it. “Frustrating but necessary”:

“Frustrating but necessary“:

You may have heard about Janet Napolitano’s blue shirts forcing a cancer-surviving flight attendant to remove her prosthetic breast, or the woman whose pants the TSA’s hand went down:

“I was shaking and crying when I left that room” Moroney says.  “Under any other circumstance, if a person touched me like that without my permission, it would be considered criminal sexual assault.”

You may have also heard about the woman who was singled out because she was wearing a skirt:

“The female officer ran her hand up the inside of my leg to my groin and she did it so hard and so rough she lifted me off my heels,” she says. “I think I yelped. I was in pain for about an hour afterwards. It just felt excessive and unnecessary.”

You may have also heard about the cancer survivor who, due to an “enhanced” TSA pat-down breaking the seal on his urastomy bag, was left humiliated, in tears, and covered in his own urine.

“Frustrating but necessary”:

“Frustrating but necessary”:

Once again…

  • Number of TSA Agents: 67,000
  • TSA’s FY 2010 budget: $7.8 billion
  • Number of terrorists caught by TSA: ZERO.
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The TSA singalong

The Great TSA “My Ding-a-Ling” Sing-Along!

Come on, everybody! Sing along with The Transportation Security Administration while you’re waiting in security lines this holiday season!

And look how much money you can save by submitting!
$11,000 fine, arrest possible for some who refuse airport scans and pat downs. Money quote,

“Once a person submits to the screening process, they can not just decide to leave that process,” says Sari Koshetz, regional TSA spokesperson, based in Miami.

Via Instapundit,

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Krauthammer tells the truth about the TSA junk searches UPDATED with VIDEO

Don’t touch my junk

everyone knows that the entire apparatus of the security line is a national homage to political correctness. Nowhere do more people meekly acquiesce to more useless inconvenience and needless indignity for less purpose. Wizened seniors strain to untie their shoes; beltless salesmen struggle comically to hold up their pants; 3-year-olds scream while being searched insanely for explosives – when everyone, everyone, knows that none of these people is a threat to anyone.

The ultimate idiocy is the full-body screening of the pilot. The pilot doesn’t need a bomb or box cutter to bring down a plane. All he has to do is drive it into the water, like the EgyptAir pilot who crashed his plane off Nantucket while intoning “I rely on God,” killing all on board.

But we must not bring that up. We pretend that we go through this nonsense as a small price paid to ensure the safety of air travel. Rubbish. This has nothing to do with safety – 95 percent of these inspections, searches, shoe removals and pat-downs are ridiculously unnecessary. The only reason we continue to do this is that people are too cowed to even question the absurd taboo against profiling – when the profile of the airline attacker is narrow, concrete, uniquely definable and universally known. So instead of seeking out terrorists, we seek out tubes of gel in stroller pouches.

Scott Johnson writes about the revolt against the TSA,

The revolt against the TSA is a sign of the times. Popular frustration with the TSA dates back to its establishment during the Bush administration. It is another big government bureaucracy that performs ineptly and with gross inconvenience. It provides far more security theater than security.
…
In its absurd intrusiveness and glaring incompetence, the TSA has become a perfect metaphor for the Obama administration. Thus the revolt.

Yes, it’s all security theater, not real security measures. I disagree with Scott in one thing: it’s not a metaphor, it’s yet one more symptom of the incompetence of big government.

UPDATE,
Mr Bingley will never forgive Napolitano while Mary Katherine has the YouTube,

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I should have worn a burka!

The other day I was saying I should have worn a burka to get through airport security without a hitch.

Well, look at this,
Muslim Group Advises Women Wearing Hijabs to Allow TSA ‘Enhanced Pat Downs’ Only on Head and Neck Area

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) has issued a travel warning to Muslim airline passengers on U.S. aircraft in response to the Transportation Safety Administration’s  “enhanced pat down” policy that went into effect in late October.

CAIR said Muslims who object to full-body scans for religious reasons should know their rights if they are required to undergo a pat-down, including asking for the procedure to be done in a private place. In addition, CAIR offered a “special recommendation” for Muslim women who wear a hijab, telling them they should tell the TSA officer that they may be searched only around the head and neck.

In the “special recommendations for Muslim women who wear hijab,” it states: “Before you are patted down, you should remind the TSA officer that they are only supposed to pat down the area in question, in this scenario, your head and neck. They SHOULD NOT subject you to a full-body or partial-body pat-down.”

It also states: “Instead of the pat-down, you can always request to pat down your own scarf, including head and neck area, and have the officers perform a chemical swipe of your hands.”

CAIR says so.

And so it will be.

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Coming up at an airport near you: Strip-and-grope

nakedhallowell-thumb

I posted about the Advanced Imaging Technology (AIT) scanners last year,

Now, in addition to not being able to leave your seat for 1 hour prior to takeoff or landing, not having access to any of your personal property for that period of time, getting a full pat-down and luggage search (new rules), plus having to remove your shoes, surrender any containers with more than 3.5 ounces of fluid – including breast milk for your baby – and enduring miles-long lines at the airport (old rules), the airport staff gets a nice look at your privates.

Now comes the next step, if you refuse the AIT scan: the cavity search. Scott Ott writes about it and urges, Don’t Let Strip-and-Grope Become the New Normal

Without regard for threat potential, airline passengers of all ages can now be forced to make the choice between baring their nakedness before a federal agent, or getting a full-body fingertip groping by another federal agent. The Advanced Imaging Technology (AIT) scanners — AKA strip-search machines — now stand watch in more than 65 airports nationwide, with their numbers set to grow by more than 40 percent at year’s end, thanks to your federal stimulus dollars.

The procedure is so humiliating and so invasive that even flight crews are rebelling. The 11,000-member American Pilots Association just received a letter from its leader decrying the humiliation, radiation danger and ineffectiveness at deterring terrorism, of this strip-and-grope regimen.

In order to board a plane last Sunday I had to remove my bracelet, empty my handbag and show my camera, take out the laptop out of the envelope and the tote bag, and remove my shoes. I then had to place the bracelet, handbag and camera on one tray, the shoes in another, and the tote and laptop in yet another tray. Then, before I went through the gate itself, I was told to remove my cardigan – heaven knows what one could possibly hide under a lightweight cardigan from WhiteHouse/Black Market. I should have worn a burka instead. It’s a wonder I was not asked if I had any lose dental work.

It gets worse, if you opt out,

What does all of this accomplish, as far as airline security goes?

Nothing.

Not a thing.

Instead, adopting security measures that Israel uses, plus training and issuing firearms to pilots and airline crews would actually be effective.

Here’s the Fourth Amendment:

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

Notice how the Constitution does not say, “except when you travel.”

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