Liberty, TSA, and the Technological Society
In a hearing of the Senate Commerce Committee on Wednesday, November 17, TSA administrator John Pistole was pressed on changing security procedures in light of the continuing citizen revolt against TSA’s increasingly heavy-handed Kabuki theater.
He said, simply, “No.”
In other words, “let them be groped.”
(Or irradiated in a naked body scanner. Or take Amtrak. Whatever.)
So how exactly did it happen that a single political appointee not even approaching cabinet rank could stymie both the American people and one of the most powerful committees of the soi-disant “world’s greatest deliberative body”?
Oddly enough, that question and many others like it are answered in full by the work of a relatively obscure French sociologist and philosopher. In The Technological Society, Jacques Ellul (1912-1994) discusses at length what he calls “technique,” i.e., the social, political, and economic uses to which science and technological method are put.
“Technique” aims to find “the one best means” of performing whatever the task at hand may be. This is the factory method of Henry Ford applied to politics and society. “If there is one best means of making a car,” the reasoning goes, “there must also be one best means of doing anything (even airport screening).”
This thinking is reflected in the cult of the expert, perhaps best exemplified by Woodrow Wilson’s exaltation of abstract academic theories over common sense and experience. Wilson often bemoaned what he considered the less-than-salutary restrictions placed by popular opinion on the implementation of the ideas of “experts.” Democracy was so inconvenient. Why should the elite have to bother explaining themselves to those hick yokels who are neither intelligent nor enlightened enough to understand the wisdom of their betters?
Ellul sees such “experts” as political “technicians,” and warns about the subversion of the democratic process and democracy itself that accompanies their gradual rise to power.
Politicians are decision makers. They control the levers of power. The trouble, according to Ellul, is that in an increasingly complex environment, they often don’t know how to use them.
This is where the expert, the “technician,” comes in. At the outset, the expert’s role is merely to advise political leaders on how best to accomplish politicians’ stated policy goals. The expert’s role soon progresses to determining the “one best means” of accomplishing those goals. Finally, the expert technician decides on not merely the means of pursuing the “one best means” but also determines the policy goal toward which “the one best means” is directed.
As the power of the technician waxes, that of the politician wanes, until he is little more than a rubber stamp.
I have a question of the author!
What are the nearly 3,000 dead from 9/11? What are the thousands more maimed and killed young boys and girls who have become collateral seeking justice for those killed on 9/11?
I think the premise of your article is misguided!
From ’47 to ’77 I have, with millions of other great citizens, served in hell and fortunate to have returned for the preservation of America and the SAFETY of its citizens.
I don’t know whether to laugh or cry listening to all this superficial complaining over a matter of inconvenience for the safety of themselves and possible many more.
I suggest a few people spend some time watching the documented accounts of WWII, Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan and compare their complaining to that of those who really sacrificed convenience and lives of “to good (pompus) to be bothered with a few inconveniences for the good and safety of many.” And let me add something else. We patriot Americans of war knowingly go to war with “imperfect” equipment and strategic tactics that could and does easily get us killed and yet we sacrifice and fight to the end in spite of those imperfections…..for a common cause with binds us together.
Life isn’t always perfect nor fair even in the best of times and I’ll guarantee you complaining people that, there isn’t a single officer conducting the searches that wouldn’t prefer doing something else besides smelling nasty crotches and listening to misdirected comments all through their shifts.
Its easy being self-centered and being an arm chair critic of everthing when you have no critical responsibility to the masses.
Is there nothing that todays generations will not come together in sacrifice for, for the common good and safety of the many?
BeEnjamin Franklin said “whoever would trade liberty for security deserves neither” and made sure the fourth amendment was in the US Constitutions Bill of Rights. The right of the people to unreasonable search and siezure. You say you served, yet you’d give up your freedoms so you can feel safe? The Christmas bomber was on the no-fly list and turned in by his father to the American authorities, yet he still managed to get on the plane with no luggage, and a one way ticket. He also would have suceeded in blowing up the plane if his bomb didn’t fail. There is also talk about women terrorists hiding the explosives in thier breasts, neither of these types, the enhanced scanner nor the enhanced pat down would detect this. Yet you try to defend it. We need to follow the Israelis methods, and stop harassing everyday Americans who just want to go on with their lives.
I think the comments thus far, on this thread prove my thoughts towards these newer generations.
Funny how the so-called “Greatest Generation” who made and paved the way to America’s greatest of times, did so with many times of great sacrifices of all kinds for the common good of a community or national cause. Of course that was way back when the nation was a unitized society and before this new greater society of individualization.
The individualistic generations of today are the same generations of the 60′s, 70′s and beyond who opened the door and invited the excelleration of socialist movements into our society and government. Want to talk what generations have perpetuated the giving up of more individual rights to government socialism than any other generations in America’s history?
Self serving use of the constitution and founders letters and quotes is contemptuous in attempting to support your positions of selfish individual rights over the rights of a nation to be secure from acts of further war on our soil and upon our citizens.
If all people stand for today, is some selfish and superficial definition of individual rights, the Republic of the United States is lost! Until these generations learn what it is to sacrifice for the BENEFIT of collective individual rights your enemies will run over you at every opportunity….as has been witnessed since the 90′s.
The constitution is not some convoluted narrowly defined intellectual instrument! The constitution is a common sense instrument that joinders the many States and its people under a common set of values and laws. One of those values is, that the federal government, by the people, is granted the primary charge of protecting and defending the soverignty of the many States, and its citizens from all threats and war from an enemy. War calls (demands) for many forms of individual and collective sacrifices! The constitution that is so aften quoted, gives, by the people, broad discreationary powers to the government, more specifically, the President, during times of war for the safety of the people and the nation from an enemy.
Ignorance is not always bliss!
Exactly BobNY.
Seriously, where did this TSA scanning buisness come from? Did any of you get to have anything to say about it through your elected representative. Why in God’s name wouldn’t we look at systems throughout the world and see what works and what doesn’t i.e., try the experts in Israel, who fully understand who is trying to kill them. (Oh I get it we hill billies don’t understand, just like we don’t understand how to implement a sound health care policy, we are just to uninformed and ignorant to grasp how complicated this is, just let our betters in the government show us the way.) [I've actually lived in Canada's single payer healthcare system, have you? Doubt it. You don't even want to know.]
OK, don’t like the Israeli approach..oooooo…that could be profiling and that could be hurtful to someone and we sure don’t want to be hurtful.
Ok then let me give the terrorists a work around to this scanning abomination so you won’t feel so safe anymore having your 3 year old or a nun ‘patted down’. Try this one Achmed: PUT the bomb in checked luggage (please give me a break, there IS a way to do this) and tie the detonator electronically to your phone, i-pad or click pen or what have you. Oh or how about getting into maintenance or re-fueling jobs with Delta or Direct Air, boy bet there would be some good opportunities there, I’ll betcha.
The whole TSA play station 3 approach to SAVING US and making US SECURE is a joke of the worst order and very costly. Another feel good remedy by the progressive elite intelligentsia to a problem that will only be solved when the 90% of Muslims who despise terrorism decide to take action against their terrorist brethern and no sooner. OOpps, now I’ve crossed that darn diversity line and this could make me look like a ‘Profiler’ advocate and it might hurt someone’s self of steam. Crap.
There are things we won’t sacrifice. Our dignity being one of them. I won’t have TSA groping my wife or my future children. I won’t have them take pictures of them that end up getting leaked onto the Internet (FYI, while somewhat NSFW, this shows what TSA scanner shots look like with a little cleanup in Photoshop; imagine your wife in that picture..)
Meanwhile, while they grope 3 year olds and old women, the enemy is doing its dry runs in the cargo bay. As always, we’re fighting the last war. People like you who tell us to “shut up sacrifice” are not making us safer, you’re only letting the government off the hook as it puts on security theater.
I am assuming you are using the word “grope” because that is what the populist media is using and you’re just following along with it.
GROPE – SLANG DEFINITION – [To handle or fondle for sexual pleasure.]
Is the slang definition what you perceive to be the case involving the “pat down” search by the TSA?
Because some stranger has some degrees do you not allow them to prod with fingers up your butt to SEARCH for disease that may threaten your well being or even your life? Do you not let that stranger “grope” your other private areas to check for disease that may threaten your well being or even your life? Do not these strangers, with your blessing, take numerous forms of photography of your body and “private” parts and transmit them to computers? Do not these same strangers do the same with women and children? Many emergency traumas centers especially at teaching hospitials are equiped with camera’s.
So, all this ventalating over some TSA procedures has nothing to do with any Constitutional individual privacy RIGHTS or criminal law! The only exception would be if you can prove that the individual is patting you down or x-raying you for some unwanted sexual intent or gratification.
To all those ventalating over loss of constitutional rights, divert all that energy and time to combating the socialist take over of the country and government.
“Is there nothing that today’s generations will not come together in sacrifice for, for the common good and safety of the many?”
Liberty and Freedom. Just like my founding fathers. However, I will not sacrifice my person, my personal dignity nor my 4th amendment rights to the god of political correctness. And I most surely will not give more control of my life and my body to my government.
By the way, I will note here that the Greatest Generation interred Japanese Americans in the name of “keeping American safe”.
“”They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.”
Benjamin franklin
With all due respect!
Seems a lot of people have some interpretations of the Fourth Amendment that turns out to be rather abstract especially relative to the common legal meaning of LIBERTY. You can’t definition “Liberty” to be self serving. It is either literal or NOT literal!
From the beginnings of time in America, “Liberty” has never taken the literal definition of: [The condition of being free from restriction or control. The right and power to act, believe, or express oneself in a manner of one's own choosing. The condition of being physically and legally free from...]. A literal empowered meaning of liberty in society would mean ANARCHISM and that certainly was not the intent of the Constitution nor its Fourth Amendment.
To further codify the [non literal] constitutional intent of liberty, take a count of the numbers of municipal codes, county codes, States laws and federal laws of the many legal disicplines, written in addition to the Constitution and its amendments. Now, why would this be the case if the term “Liberty” was to be taken literally? We are NOT a nation of [literal] Constitutional Liberty (anarchism) nor, was that ever the intent of the founders. We are a nation of many laws as intended by our founding fathers. Maybe study the legal modeling of the Fourth Amendment as it applies to warrant and warrantless seaches. For the time being warrantless searches are a criteria ONLY should one exercise their FREE WILL and [option] to fly commercially in the United States. So, you see that your “Liberty” is alive and unfettered unless YOU make the personal choice to the [option] to fly commerical.
Critical thinking in these times would be nice rather than following populist rhetoric and tiraids!
Sorry, TT
You *volunteered* (even if you were drafted initially, you then re-upped repeatedly). Like me, you raised your right hand knowing that you would be subject to lots of unpleasantness, and give up many rights you had enjoyed as a civilian.
You did it so that all those civilians wouldn’t be subject to communist tyranny- in other words, live under the sort of regime the TSA is imposing on us today.
You invoke 9/11- well, two points.
1) the Porn-O-Scanners wouldn’t have prevented it, and
2) 9/11 was perpetrated by Muslims. Not Methodists, Mormons or Mennonites. Muslims. Why should all Americans who travel be treated as the enemy, rather than treating the enemy like the enemy?
There is no distinction because obama wants it this way. It is the rights of Muslims over any other. Killers, murders of the innocent are revered here.
AND quite frankly, i am all for physical and emotional torture if it gets us what we need. I would volunteer for this honor. All the boohooing won’t change things. This is war, not a quilting bee.
listening to all this superficial complaining
Pointing out gov stupidity is a patriotic duty unless you think that groping the pilots to whose safety the passengers by definition are entrusted is somehow a wise thing.
And you really think that inappropriately touching children in the name of government is not worth complaining about?
And you really thing some of these TSA bozos are not on power trips?
Others have spoken to this question with great eloquence here in the comments, but since you’ve asked for a reply I’ll do my best.
The premise of your question is incorrect. Specifically, it commits the fallacy of petitio principii (begging the question, or circular argumentation). That is, your question operates on the demonstrably false assumption that this is keeping us safe. Every actual in-flight terror attack that has been thwarted was thwarted by passengers not Ms. Napolitano’s “system.”
In addition, Napolitano is now considering exempting Muslim women from screening. The fact that this could even be considered gives the lie to the notion that TSA’s focus is on preventing an attack. Can’t hide anything under a burka, right?
Respectfully,
DHF
Re: [your comment] “Every actual in-flight terror attack that has been thwarted was thwarted by passengers not Ms. Napolitano’s “system.”
Respectfully…1)So, you grant that there are known instances of
in-flight attempts of terrorism? 2)Based on public media accounts of the known instances, how many originated domestically inside the U.S. except for, 9/11? 3)Do you give any credit to U.S. Air marshal’s aboard international flights bound to the U.S. as having intervened in instances of strange behaviors of passengers as thwarting possible in-air incidents?
So far, it seems, according to public media information, all known
in-flight terror attempts have origination from international locations that lack the concentrated efforts, however imperfect, that the U.S. is continually evaluating and implementing until such threats are no longer.
Before touting that no such activities have originated from Israel, consider the likelihood that any terrorist would go out of their way to get snagged going into or out of Irael’s massive intel dragnet both in Israel (and many other international locations). They are the worlds premier [intel] experts in what they do and that does not [necessarily] include looking for any aviation related terrorist contraband. Theres some pretty good reasons why OBL’s radical Muslim operations do not go treading around Israel!
Re: [your comment] “Every actual in-flight terror attack that has been thwarted was thwarted by passengers not Ms. Napolitano’s “system.”
Respectfully…1)So, you grant that there are known instances of
in-flight attempts of terrorism? 2)Based on public media accounts of the known instances, how many originated domestically inside the U.S. except for, 9/11? 3)Do you give any credit to U.S. Air marshal’s aboard international flights bound to the U.S. as having intervened in instances of strange behaviors of passengers as thwarting possible in-air incidents?
So far, it seems, according to public media information, all known
in-flight terror attempts have origination from international locations that lack the concentrated efforts, however imperfect, that the U.S. is continually evaluating and implementing until such threats are no longer.
Before touting that no such activities have originated from Israel, consider the likelihood that any terrorist would go out of their way to get snagged going into or out of Irael’s massive intel dragnet both in Israel (and many other international locations). They are the worlds premier [intel] experts in what they do and that does not [necessarily] include looking for any aviation related terrorist contraband. Theres some pretty good reasons why OBL’s radical Muslim operations do not go treading around Israel!
T3: You assume that these methods could successfully apprehend someone before they commit an act of terror. Then you wonder why nobody agrees with the conclusion you derive from it.
I call your assumption in to question: Name ONE incident that such methods have prevented. We take off our shoes AFTER Richard Reed attempted to ignite the explosives in his shoes. We use only small containers of liquids AFTER an attempt to fashion an explosive from components aboard an airliner in flight. Every measure the TSA takes is done only after that method is used to attack. In other words, it does nothing to assure security up front.
Now they’re banning printer cartridges from being shipped. And if someone stuffs explosives in say, a box of chocolates, will they ban that too?
Two things have made the biggest difference following 9/11. First: stronger cockpit doors. Second, flight crew and passengers alike are on guard, and will no longer sit passively in the face of an attack. Everything else is just security theater.
I think your assumption is bogus, and thus your conclusion is void.
Respectfully…1) There are known instances of
in-flight attempts of terrorism…right? 2)Based on public media accounts of the known instances, how many originated domestically inside the U.S. except for, 9/11? 3)Do you give any credit to U.S. Air marshal’s aboard international flights bound to the U.S. as having intervened in instances of strange behaviors of passengers as thwarting possible in-air incidents?
So far, it seems, according to public media information, all known
in-flight terror attempts have origination from international locations that lack the concentrated efforts, however imperfect, that the U.S. is continually evaluating and implementing until such threats are no longer.
Before touting that no such activities have originated from Israel, consider the likelihood that any terrorist would go out of their way to get snagged going into or out of Irael’s massive intel dragnet both in Israel (and many other international locations). They are the worlds premier [intel] experts in what they do and that does not [necessarily] include looking for any aviation related terrorist contraband. Theres some pretty good reasons why OBL’s radical Muslim operations do not go treading around Israel!
The “whoever would trade liberty for security deserves neither” sums it up.
The foolishness of this can be illustrated thusly — a jihadist wannabe passes through security with a “colon bomb” (the backscatter scanners will NOT detect this). Once on the plane, the man goes to the lavatory, reaches in, and pulls out the fuse. He then makes his way back to his seat, drops trou, reaches back around and lights the fuse. Of course, the bomb will not go off (since the passengers will stomp his butt to put out the fuse) but even this did not occur the bomb would be “faulty”.
See, the whole point is to disrupt air travel and our civilization — not to successfully take down one plane. The shoe bomber, the crotch bomber — they have caused people to have to take off their shoes and get scanned, patted down, not take more than 3 oz. of liquids, etc. on board. Huge lines, billions of dollars of years spent, massive inconvenience.
Now imagine what will happen after the “colon bomber” hits the news. Imagine what you will go through in TSA security then? Oh but that will all be just fine — because we will be SECURE! /sarcasm off
TT, I just cannot agree with you on this.
A little ‘inconvience’? Taking off your shoes and waiting in line is a little inconvience. Being irradiated and/or touched in my most personal and private places, and treated like a common criminal – this is a terrible and personal intrusion.
And you seem to accept, on face value, that this major personal intrusion will make the flying public measurably safer. I do not.
I think your generation did a great job. Thank you. But perhaps your generation is a little to willing to take what government says at face value. My generation is a little more jaded on that issue – from hard experience.
Lily…I can appreciate where you say your logic is coming from. There is a lot of rughtfully placed distrust by the people of their government.
However, that said, [I] believe that most of that mistrust is misplaced and heres why. First, and foremost, NOBODY in the government is proposing the current, rather extreme measures, to supress terrotist activity inside the U.S., is to be legislated as permanent measures. Secondly, these measures are consistant with upheld precedence begining in, I believe 1778 and many other times by many other government administrations, leading up to the present times as it concerns [domestic] powers of the President during times of war.
There has been debate over all this time and the topic of [domestic] powers during war but, on only two occasions has the Supreme Court overruled. I have written elsewhere on these matters and the prevailing legal criteria so, I won’t do it again at this time.
The greater issue I believe the people should be concerned over as it pertains to Americas historic and constitutional rights of liberty is, the excellerated advances of the socialists into our three branches of government. This is where the [real] threat of the loss of our constitutional liberty lies today. Their latest strategic evolution of [deception] come to us from not only the name chages from socialist to liberal and progressives but, also their new platforms called DEMOCRATIC SOCIALISM and CAPITALIST SOCIALISM.
On the other side is the relatively new evolution and march of the anarchists to Libertairians in name who, like the socialists who invaded the Democrat Party….the Anarchist Libertairians are invading the GOP.
The average [traditional] Americans are in political media overload and cannot grasp what is really happening and by whom, inside both our traditional two party’s…..and the extreme danger it is posing. The military wars (getting all the attention) and the airport screening events are an effective diversion from the most dangerous war going on right now inside our once [traditional] politiccal party’s!
The latter is where I keep all my attention and gravest concern honed in. I’m remaining hopeful most of the traditional Americans will wake up from all the intentional diversions and figure it all out before its to late!
For a comparative article:
http://americancommondefencereview.wordpress.com/2010/11/18/did-glenn-beck-paraphrase-or-plagiarize-frederick-douglass-without-attribution-nov-17-2003/
Last I checked, Douglass’ copyrights have expired.
Plagiarism is not a copyright violation – it’s passing someone else’s work off as your own. So it’s more like fraud.
.
Of course, it’s possible you could also be violating the original authors copyright, at the same time …
@Fred Farkle
You’re right about plagiarism, in principle. Copyright is a secondary matter. Using someone else’s work without attribution is still a form of intellectual dishonesty. It’s not legally actionable generally, but it can get one fired–and rightly so.
I checked the link, though, and what I saw would not pass for plagiarism. (Perhaps I missed something, of course, but I don’t think so.) There is no question of direct quotation, since the quotations are substantially different. Extensive paraphrase can constitute plagiarism, of course, but I don’t see that, either. People read other people and make use of their ideas without being guilty of anything other than remembering what they read. There was nothing in the original passage that has not passed into the conventional wisdom on the right. It is rare for anyone to be accused of plagiarizing via extensive paraphrase for anything more than 50-60 years old, precisely because such so-called “commonplaces” (widely used rhetorical positions) have entered into the common parlance. It is quite common for people to reference ideas whose origins they do not know, but that is not–indeed cannot be–plagiarism.
Having dealt with plagiarism for years as a college professor, if I were on a faculty committee considering “Professor Beck” for a plagiarism violation, I would vote to acquit based on what I saw at the link provided. Just my two cents. Cheers.
When I was much younger I believed the American people would not tolerate tyrany but my assumptions were wrong.We are like the frog put in a pot of ever increasing hot water.Despotism is here right now.
There are a bit too many Sheep…all in the name of PC. Oh, and by the way, don’t let your kid ride his bike to school with an American Flag…that’s not PC either.
Thank God I haven’t been travelling to the USA lately, and in all likelihood I will never again step on that once-upon-a-time “blessed ground”. During my last trip there, 10 years ago, I came afoul of airport government personnel, who were so ignorant, rude and crude
as to be umbelievable. I thought to myself: “why don’t they pay their employees a little better, so as to attract better and more intelligent people?” However, by what you tell us, it is not so much the employees who are stupid, but their very bosses and the whole chain of command, going all the way to DC. It seems to me that this is a hopeless situation. Good luck to you, and enjoy your “love pats”.
Think about it……this is not about security. How many times lately have you heard or said, “I’m going to take the train instead of fly.” ??
This will make Amtrak profitable for the first time ever, so the Resident looks good. Then, we’ll have all those high speed rail projects jammed down our throats. They, the rats in congress, have been dreaming of this for years. Harry and Nancy can get lots more union guys working and not have to pay so much for votes.
It all adds up. All you have to do is take the train to Grandma’s house and help them out.
You haven’t explained why they can’t just fire him or tell him to stop.
Well, at least one of them did essentially tell him to stop, and he said “no.”
As anyone with children knows, being told “no” by an ostensible subordinate is a kind of “limit experience.” It tests the limits. You’ve been told “no” by someone over whom you have authority. What do you do now?
What can the Senators do?
They could defund–or even vote to abolish–TSA, but they won’t.
Even if they did, Obama would veto the bill.
And even if Congress voted to override the veto, the Obama regime would just take funding from another budget line. It’s illegal, yes, but then so is ignoring two orders from a federal judge, as is buying car companies using money authorized by Congress for other purposes.
People think they have all kinds of power until they are told “no” and can’t do anything about it. My ears and mind are open, but I see it exactly the way Ellul would; the political technicians have seized control of the levers of power and getting them to surrender them requires a resolve that our elected officials simply don’t have. Even if they had the required resolve, it would be a fight, and one that they could lose. They’re not going to risk it–so, unless the People simply scream loudly and long enough to make keeping TSA politically prohibitive–TSA will continue to be TSA. I am optimistic that the People’s outrage can carry the day, and push this back, but government is like a weed, and the price of liberty is indeed eternal vigilance. Trusting to our elected representatives to keep the technocrats in check is a false faith. Not saying that’s your position, of course, but just trying to clarify my position in order to answer your objection more fully. Cheers.
While they may not be able to abolish the TSA, airport participation is voluntary. Perhaps the airlines, senators, and congressmen can exert enough pressure, if adequately motivated, on the airport authorities to leave the TSA at the curb and go with private companies. While they would have to follow TSA guidelines it would put a crack in the monopoly like stranglehold on the law abiding travelers of the land. By the way, if you think the TSA wont move the same process to other forms of transportation then you have never heard of “mission creep”.
I agree with this quite strongly. It is a pity that TSA regs would still control, but private screeners would be a step in the right direction. (Talk about “back to the future,” though!) Thuggish private screeners could be fired more easily–not perfect, but then the perfect is indeed the enemy of the good.
I’m still for abolishing the TSA entirely and allowing airports and airlines to take over full responsibility for screening, using their own screening guidelines, but I’ll take what I can get.
Like you, I have no doubt at all that, if not checked strongly NOW, the TSA will continue to expand into other modes of transportation.
Thanks for the comment. Cheers.
I agree, but even more can and should be said. What is perhaps most disturbing is that it already has been said by so many for so many years. Heidegger was surely among the earliest and most prominent speaker on the issue, but for many he is inextricably bound to the very evil he purports to diagnose and accordingly is passed over in silence. Giorgio Agamben and his concept of the ‘bare life’ and the modern state is especially relevant, as he has himself related it to our post-9/11 security measures. I am sure for him the TSA is hardly, but sadly, not a surprise.
To the statists, all the people and all the land belong to the state.
The question in terms of the 4th Amendment is why are those who are radomly selected for the scanner (without a reasonable, articulable suspicion of criminal activity, which is the legal standard for minimal 4th Amendment intrusion read: detainment) not given the option of going through the metal detector? That is the most debilitating problem for the current practice from a constituional standpoint.
It is clear to me that these instusive pat downs are designed to intimidate folks ro agree to the scan. The instrusive patdowns at issue are generally used where an officer reasonably fears for his safety during a criminal investigation or where an arrestee is being processed into jail (the latter after having satisfied a standard of probable cause for arrest which is a higher standard that the one above which justifies the government in detaining a citizen). These TSA patdowns have little or nothing to do with safety when random thousands go through metal dectectors and are not subject to pat downs unless an alarm rings.
Americans intuitively know that the government may not randomly detain them. To mask this intrusion as in furthrence of our protection is worse than a sham. It is the manner in which people have been subjugated from the beginning of time and exactly what our founders sought to protect us from by insisting on the terms of our 4th Amendment.
The irony is not lost on me that the same government which is totally ignoring 4th Amendment jurisprudence in conducting these intrusive pat downs radomly, without probable cause, is suing AZ for passing a law instructing officers to inquire into immigration status after they have lawfully detained someone according to the legal standards above. For the federal government to sue a state preemptively arguing that its law enforcement cannot be trusted to follow the law at the same time as the federal government ignores that same law is mind boggeling and frightening to me, as well it should be to any American.
“TSA has quickly, albeit all too predictably, morphed is a textbook illustration of Ellul’s thesis.”
An alternative thesis is that TSA’s testimony to the Senate is just part of the charade. We are constantly told our political class is the best and the brightest. Now we are to believe they roll over to some flunkie expert from TSA? Something else is afoot here.
The image of hapless American travelers corralled in front of scanners and gropers, ex-cons working efficiently under unspecified government mandate probing with impunity the private space of the last of the free and the brave… that all must make the likes of Venzuela’s Chavez green with envy. Yes, even they can be broken to the government yoke.
I’m not sure where you draw the line of responsibility between technicians/experts and their political masters. Just as we saw with Climategate, they work in concert for the same goal, and they are both to be resisted.
@TLM–Thanks for making this point. I don’t see it that way (at least not yet), but you may be right.
If so, and the Kabuki theater extends all the way from your local TSA checkpoint to the halls of Congress, then we are in ever deeper trouble than I have suggested. If the pressure keeps up, our congressmen may yet decide to bend with the populist breeze and do the right thing. That and continued citizen protest are what I see as the most likely pathways to righting this wrong. Cheers.
@TLM–Sorry, missed your final point in my first reply.
The essential division is the the technicians are appointed, not elected. That’s the dividing line for me as for Ellul. You refer to the politicians as the “masters” but that’s too strong a distinction. They have legal authority but very little power. As the Executive has arrogated to itself extra-Constitutional powers, the Legislative branch–and by extension THEIR ostensible masters, We the People–has been undermined to the point of quasi-irrelevance. As, e.g., EPA explores ways to implement “Cap and Trade” via Executive fiat, the relative impotence of the nominally sovereign People and their elected representatives is all too clear, I fear. There are countless other examples of the same phenomenon, but the most recent, and clearest, manifestation was John Pistole last Wednesday before the Senate Commerce committee. Thanks for commenting.
Your distinction between appointed experts and elected officials is appreciated. Unfortunately, experts/technicians are no longer impartial (Climategate is the epitome of this development). They have an agenda and they are not necessarily flunkies, despite what I said about Mr. Pistole. They do work for flunkies, however, our elected officials. That may be why TSA seems to view the Senate with contempt.
Perhaps the technicians, already unaccountable to the public, realize that the flunkies who appoint them are irrelevant as well. Perhaps, we’ll see the Mamluk-ization of democracy. President Obama may want to think about that before he hands the management of government over to more and more technicians and Czaristas. Or hired guns like Pistole.
Strange isn’t it that this latest quest to control the most intimate aspects of our lives only happened after the recent election. Certainly it has been in the works for quite a while.
The probable explanation is that they calculated that delaying it would save a dozen libwit seats.
But you have to wonder whether it also just might be the latest punishment from the boy king for the country’s bad behavior in the election. He does, after all, demand loyalty from his subjects.
One thing I haven’t seen mentioned is that should the TSA exempt Muslims from such searches, they will have established an official State religion by naming a single religion is superior in rights to all others.
Regards
Kabuki theater? Subjects or citizens?
“I have a great deal of mail, particularly on the TSA “get a radiation dose or get groped or don’t fly: choose one” policy. I don’t disagree with most of it, but I have always said that TSA is Kabuki Theater, Security Theater — I may not be the inventor of those phrases but I might be; I have been using them for a long time, and I don’t know where I got them, they seemed obvious. ”
“I have long been of the opinion that TSA is not very effective and its major purpose is to convince the American Citizen that he/she is no longer a citizen, but a subject to be ordered about by “Federal Officers.”"
Read Pournelle much? http://www.jerrypournelle.com/view/2010/Q4/view649.html
The main purpose of the TSA is to be a jobs program for dimwit voters.
Any job that requires judgement is inappropriate for the US government. The reason is that every government job is defined by written law and is therefore rules-based. Judgement cannot come into play, because judgement cannot be pre-codified into legal language.
Therefore, TSA jobs cannot involve judgement, so we have 35,000+ robots following scripted procedures…the very definition of a liberals. “procedure says to rub crotch. I’m rubbing the crotch or I’ll be fired, even if the person is a 3-year old girl.”
The only way to enhance air security in this country is to let the airlines or airports manage it. That way, judgement can be involved. The process will cost 1/10th as much and the results will be 10 times better.
I don’t believe I’ve ever read Pournelle, but I’ve been using the term “Kabuki theater” for years–not that I claim any originality there. If memory serves, I encountered the term over at National Review years and years ago–probably even before NRO and probably in something penned by the late, great WFB. One reads good writers and learns from them. “Kabuki theater” has been around forever (both the art form and its metaphorical applications).
To his credit, Pournelle apparently doesn’t claim originality either, at least not in the quote you provided.
The “subjects vs. citizens” meme has also quickly become a commonplace in the TSA debate–nothing original there, either, I’m afraid. It’s rather obvious, but still a distinction worth making. My friends who come from members of the British Commonwealth get angry at me sometimes when I tweak them about not being “citizens” of Canada, Australia, etc., but rather subjects of her Brittanic Majesty.
Tying these two together, I would only say that if the standard is to be that one must always write something that has never been written before, there would be very little written. “Nihil novum sub sole” and all that. Cheers.
There is little doubt that the Obama has rapidly changed our society into a Soviet style police state. The sad fact is that so many US subjects former citizens are falling in line for the leader. The US is now completely under the control of the Obama Marxists ideology; his wife is now deciding what school children should have in their cafeterias. Yet the great dumbing down of America by the public school unions has succeeded to the point that no one even notices the difference between a free society and a controlled society anymore. Resist before it is too late which will be soon.
Why can’t Congress do anything about the TSA? Aren’t the TSA procedures a violation of the Constitutional rights against unreasonable search and seizure?
Good question, PAthena, and indeed the very heart of the piece. Unless, as a previous poster suggested, even the lawmakers’ objections are a part of an elaborate charade, the answer is simply that they don’t have the power. In the article, I state the matter in terms of Ellul’s notion of the political technician. To put it somewhat more prosaically, in the terms of our Constitution, the Executive Branch has usurped the authority of the Legislative, and thereby deprived both the people and their representatives of the practical political power necessary to stop policies with which they disagree. When anyone can say “no” to you without consequence, you have no effective control over the person.
Mr. Fernald — I’m glad you finally made this distinction, altogether lacking in your original article. The Executive is the main brach installing these omnipotent apparatchiks, therefore the tyranny we are seeing is directly stemming from the President.
It’s odious to see the likes of Vice President Biden and his unelected wife saying that this is simply something we all have to put up with. Can you imagine one of these imperious congressmen, or even more laughable, a member of the administration, subjecting themselves EVER to this kind of intrusion?
Whether through the TSA with these latest Constitutional erosions , or the EPA with the end-run to achieve Cap and Trade by other means, or through the DoJ doing end-runs around legislation by simply refusing to enforce immigration law and border security, or dismissing charges against the Black Terrorist Panthers — it’s all a manifestion of a diseased presidency which has become especially imperial under Obama.
I’m sure that there were many points “altogether lacking” in the article. That’s why there is a comments sections. It is also why I make it a point to respond as best I can to comments. Happy to have “finally” cleared it up to your satisfaction. Best Regards, DHF.
Dear John Pistole and Janet Napolitano,
As leaders, in a Federal position, you have issued an unlawful order to your troops. As a veteran, this makes you fully responsible and them responsible for following it. Those are the rules we have to follow in war zones defending the freedoms you are stripping from our families we have left in your care while we fight this war based on lies.
You have issued an unlawful order, against the US Constitution. You both took the same oath I took to defend the Constitution and have abadoned it and that is an act of treason. Those troops under you following your orders will share your shame when you are prosecuted.
TSA employees do not share the shame of your faulted leaders. You are a federal employee and “Following orders” will not be an excuse. When a soldier follows an unlawful order he is just as responsible as the commander issuing it, and disobeying that unlawful order is your duty
Molesting, groping, improper touching of innocent people is not legal and we cannot do it in War Zones to innocent people, so why are you touching my wife and kids I left in your care? Thank you TSA for demoralizing the troops overseas and violating our families we left in your care.
Let’s face it, if you agree to get groped, you’re a dope. Subjects don’t get that choice. Citizens can choose to be grope-a-dopes, or glow in the dark frequent flyers. I’m still amazed that Israel’s airline seems to get the job done without practicing “universal precautions,” and yet get accused of being apartheid fascists by the likes of Jimmy Carter the peanut farmer. At least the planes run on time to Israel. You just can’t find efficient fascists in America anymore, maybe it was the feminine mystique and eating too much peanut butter when the baby boomers were kids? I suspect most baby boomers don’t mind the airport groping, because it reminds them of hippie crash pad free fire zones over run with STDs.
This is why I will not be traveling by air anytime soon; and I’m more concerned for my wife and son undergoing security molestation than myself.
http://robomonkey.wordpress.com/2010/11/18/presenting-sing-along-with-airport-security/
True. When you are threatened under penalty of fine and prosecution to submit to unreasonable searches and sexual assault by the government while going about your travel in a lawful manner then you are a subject.
Government officials whether elected or appointed who have the responsibility to protect the US population and either will not or cannot do it within the limits of the US Constitution are unfit for office and should be replaced.
Quite right. I couldn’t agree more. We saw a bit of that replacement earlier this month, but much, much more is needed.
The argument in re the obvious Fourth Amendment violations that have routinely taken place during airport screening is based on contract law. We agree to waive our Constitutional rights as a condition of flying. I’ve never been sold on that, but let’s say that’s true–but only for the sake of argument. Even if that is true, it does not follow that the TSA screeners have the right to violate state and federal laws against sexual battery, subjecting us to dangerous radiation, and taking easily reconstructible digitized nude pictures of us.
There is also the question of the extent to which one CAN waive one’s constitutional rights as a condition of air travel. For example, could the government required us to waive our 14th Amendment rights as a condition of travel? How about the 19th (for the ladies)? This is getting a bit far afield, admittedly, but we need to ask the question and push back against this idea that we can FORCED to give up our Constitutional rights as a condition of entering into a PRIVATE contract with the airlines. The government introduces itself as an uninvited and frankly unwelcome third party. What right does it have to force anyone involved in a private transaction to give up ANY rights? Maybe there’s an answer, but if so I haven’t yet heard it.
Thanks for the comment. Cheers.
Sir!
You state, “…it does not follow that the TSA screeners have the right to violate state and federal laws against [sexual battery] ….”
Where, may I ask, did you receive such legal training or advice to substantiate your comment? I beleive you are ignoring the most critical [element] of the statutory law (common to every State) that must be proven to claim or charge sexual battery.
Sexual battery is an unwanted form of contact with an intimate part of the body that is made [for purposes of sexual arousal, sexual gratification or sexual abuse]. “Sexual Abuse” is, in most States legislated to include a long list of criminal and civil tort elements directed towards a [child] as defined by the particular State.
My appology for seeming, I supose, rather confrontational but I tire easily from the misrepresentation of facts….especially, constitutional and legislated, codified law.
You’re right. I do not have a J.D. Accordingly, I defer to your obvious, though unsourced, authority. TSA clearly DOES have the right to reach down our pants. Duly noted. Consider me righteously chastised, and yourself justified with at least equal righteousness.
If you’ll be kind enough to educate me on the exact sources for the TSA’s authority to grab my sons’ testicles and squeeze my wife’s breasts, I’ll be even more deeply in your debt. I fear, however, that you may be too busy drafting pending legislation for the current lame duck session of Congress, so please take your time. Best Regards, DHF
Mr. Fernald
I would expect a person of your literary stature as an online journalist to be more “formally” prepared as an adversary for some point of fact or oponion.
The constitutional precedence of Presidential domestic wartime powers began with Adams followed by Lincoln, Jefferson, Jackson, Wilson (The domestic and international Espionage Act), and FDR (endorsed by Congress and later upheld in two landmark Supreme Court decisions).
I have neither the time nor the will to serve up lengthy dissertations on each matter of each of the Presidents and their prevailing wartime powers actions.
[National Survival At Risk] There is an old legal maxim that in time of war the laws are silent: Inter arma silent leges. But the crucial issue is the extent to which the nation is threatened.
That may be a good place for you to start your Constitutional and legal research to become more informed and argue in your adversarial opinions. The Constitution gives great weight and lattitude to the Congress and President in matters of wartime powers as your research of the Constitution and Supreme Court decisions will attest to.
In the event we don’t cross path’s for a few days….HAPPY THANKSGIVING!
SHOCKING AIRPORT VIDEO
This frightening video is absolutely shocking. How can peaceful, patriotic, America-loving, law-abiding citizens protect themselves from the government? Unless this is stopped now, even worse terror will be perpetrated against us by our own government. Who will protect us from the government?
The TSA is out of control
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RhkQoiaf7Uc&feature=player_embedded
The terrorists have won. The inept, frightening government response to Islamic terrorism is to terrorize innocents.
come on people – we lost this war years ago. Stand in line, remove your shoes and valuables – hand these over – get frisked
“No talking” No jokes otherwise we will arrest you…….
come along – onto the trucks – quickly………
U.S. government sick, depraved, perverted message to Americans and visiting tourists:
We own your bodies; and as the owners of your bodies, we have the right to expose your naked bodies; give you massive amounts of radiation, give you cancers and destroy your health. If you refuse our humiliating, degrading, health destroying body scanners, we will sexually assault you.
This has NOTHING to do with security. It’s all about power and control and destroying our health, basic human rights and our freedom. Ruling elites know the body scanners are useless:
“Full-body scanners are waste of money, Israeli expert says
A leading Israeli airport security expert says the Canadian government has wasted millions of dollars to install “useless” imaging machines at airports across the country.
“I don’t know why everybody is running to buy these expensive and useless machines. I can overcome the body scanners with enough explosives to bring down a Boeing 747,” Rafi Sela told parliamentarians probing the state of aviation safety in Canada.”
http://www.vancouversun.com/travel/Full+body+scanners+waste+money+Israeli+expert+says/2941610/story.html
Council on American-Islamic Relations: “Islam isn’t in America to be equal to any other faiths, but to become dominant. The Koran, the Muslim book of scripture, should be the highest authority in America, and Islam the only accepted religion on Earth.” – Omar Ahmad (CAIR co-founder).
Addressing a youth session at the 1999 Islamic Association for Palestine’s annual convention in Chicago, CAIR (Council on American-Islamic Relations) founder Omar Ahmad praised suicide bombers who “kill themselves for Islam,”
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=52184
Health-destroying, cancer-causing, degrading naked body scanners or dirty sexual assault needed for airport security? A LIE FROM the PIT of HELL.
Global Jihad advances greatly, not because of cruel Islamo Fascists, but because of weak, fiercely pro-Islam, Western enabler leaders. U.S. Airport Security is Deliberately and Shockingly DESTROYED for U.S. top favorite, ISLAM:
http://www.worldnetdaily.com
Controversial Muslim group
gets VIP airport security tour
Feds show CAIR latest screening steps,
sensitive counterterrorism procedures
August 18, 2006
The Department of Homeland Security
took a Muslim group with known past ties to terror organizations on a VIP tour of security operations at the nation’s busiest airport at the same time British authorities were working to break up a plot to blow up U.S. airlines.
On June 21, a senior DHS official from Washington personally guided Muslim officials from the Council on American-Islamic Relations on a behind-the-scenes tour of Customs screening operations at O’Hare International Airport in response to CAIR complaints that Muslim travelers were being unfairly delayed as they entered the U.S. from abroad.
CAIR is a spin-off of the Islamic Association for Palestine, identified by two former FBI counterterrorism chiefs as a “front group” for the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas.
Several CAIR leaders have been convicted on terror-related charges.
During the airport tour, CAIR was taken on a walk through the point-of-entry, Customs stations, secondary screening and interview rooms. In addition, U.S. Customs and Border Patrol agents were asked to describe for CAIR representatives various features of the high-risk passenger lookout system.
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=51573
’“One day, millions of men will leave the Southern Hemisphere to go to the Northern Hemisphere. And they will not go there as friends. Because they will go there to conquer it. And they will conquer it with their sons. The wombs of our women will give us victory.”
—Former Algerian President Houari Boumedienne’s prophetic warning to Europe in a speech at the U.N. In 1974.
In Sweden, many Muslim youth wear a t-shirt proclaiming: “2030-then we take over”
Submitting to a strip search, digital or not, or to intimate groping as a condition of travel is beneath the dignity of a free man, and it needs to STOP.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E3Rpf5eCdms&feature=player_embedded
as usual common sense is the first thing to go out the window
the main issue people are having is that treating everyone as a potential terrorist is nannified insanity at its absolute worst
if we were actually interested in security we would do it privately with the israeli help; not leave it up to unionized gubment workers and their one size fits all hamfisted efficiency
tsa’s resources need to be spent monitoring the no-fly lists; analyzing the “suspicious” itineraries and securing cargo
all the nimrods that suggest that profiling will only lead those that wish to do us harm to adapt and change their tactics—- and this is worse than us not making it more difficult for them?
This whole mess has its roots in the real “Progressive” movement (not the current imitation of it) which began in the early 20th century. The 1900s-era Progressives believed that it was possible to perfect society through the enaction of appropriate legislation. The first step was to re-interpret the interstate commerce clause of the Constitution (example: the Harrison Narcotics Act, and SCOTUS’s approval of it), and, after this, the Feds could pretty much regulate anything they wanted…
…which is why we’re now eating certified organic produce and standing in line waiting for the Serial Fondlers’ Club at airports.
“Necessity is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves.” – William Pitt
You know, if there was ever something that begged for a naked protest (or even a bathing suit protest), the TSA pervert policy is it. Imagine… Lines of people of all shapes and sizes, in the skimpiest bathing suits they can legally wear. All of them opt out of the naked scanners.
The TSA perv policy immediately looks exactly like it is – there’s obviously nothing hidden, and any feelups are clearly exactly that. What’s more the disrobing is on your terms, not theirs – and a tip-off to the media that there will be lots of nearly naked people at such and such an airport at such and such a time is almost a guarantee of coverage.
Make them look like the perverted, authoritarian fools they are.
(In the interests of full disclosure, I should admit that the sight of me in a skimpy bathing suit is likely to send people running screaming for the nearest exit.)
I’ll be the judge of that.
Send pics to tsapervert@googlemail.com
If I have no choice but to fly, I’ll be doing something like that. Either that or seeing if my old Rocky Horror costume still fits.
“And the politicians did nothing, because they had no power to do anything. The technician had the power, and they all knew it.”
They do have the power to do something. And all of us (who choose them to represent us) know it.
And that’s what this is all about, at base.
I respectfully disagree. If they had the power to do something, they would. In one sense, you are correct. Congress COULD defund TSA, but when faced with a regime that ignores the orders of Federal Judges (in the Gulf moratorium case), buys private companies with money authorized by the Legislative Branch for other purposes, and generally flouts the rule of law, so what? They’d just fund TSA from some other budget line.
So what power does the Congress, and by extension their bosses (we the People), really have? I don’t see it. I’m not being negative or defeatist by any means, but other than screaming as loudly as we can, what practical power do any of us or our elected representatives have to stop TSA?
Mr. Fernald,
A wise man once said;
“There are four boxes to use in defense of Liberty. Soap, Ballot, Jury and Ammo. To be used in that order.”
We are and have been using the soap box. It is having no effect. In November we used the Ballot box. It has had no effect, and according to your article it will have no effect. Apparently the Jury box is being denied to us as I have yet to see any law enforcement step up to arrest these law breaking bureaucrats.
I ask you then, what is left for us to use against those who would be our masters?
@Wearyman. It is true that taking a strict view of things, as Ellul did (and would today, were he still alive), things do not look good. Although he was himself something of a pessimist on this score, one of the ways in which Ellul saw the effects of technique in politics and society being turned back was via a mass consciousness raising. This is now happening, so there is hope. We must simply be as determined, persistent, and inflexible on insisting on our liberties as those on the other side are in denying them.
I do not support any extra-Constitutional means of getting the statists to leave us be, but I do understand the sentiment. We’re going to win this by keeping the pressure on our congressmen and by voting out the RINO’s and “progressives” in 2012, 2014, 2016, ad infinitum. This is a battle that only one side has been fighting, and they still haven’t won. The American people are awake, and as long as we can keep our brethren from falling asleep in front of “Dancing With The Stars” there is ample reason for hope.
With the November election, I believe that we’ve stopped the liberal advance and are now able to mount a political holding action. It will take at least another one or two elections before the statist elements in the GOP are extirpated and there is once again a political party that stands for liberty. Then we’ll be able to turn it back. Maybe sooner. I’m not advocating waiting, of course, just predicting how long I think it will take. If we can do it tomorrow, so much the better. I’m all for pushing as hard as we can, all the time, to turn back Obamacare and all the rest of it.
Short term, it still doesn’t look so sound, but there is at least a faint glimmerof light on the horizon. Mid and long term, liberty will prevail. It always does.
We are Americans.
“Never let a crisis go to waste.”
I would credit the quote, but I’ve heard it so many times, I can’t figure out who said it first. All too often it has been said by Marxists, subversives, radical revolutionaries and the like.
http://www.punditandpundette.com/2010/11/more-tsa-horror-stories.html
There is more going on here than keeping America safe. US citizens are being transformed from people to sheeple.
Some of the testimonies from above link sound downright Orwellian.
Condition the average American to an obedient, ask no questions submissive and you have FUNDAMENTALLY TRANSFORMED AMERICA.
How do you like that “Hope and Change”?
If this were really all about security instead of not letting a crisis go to waste there would at least be a decent attempt to make the problem go away rather than to prolong and worsen it; to satisfy a variation on throwing virgins into the volcano ‘to save the masses’ impose control — unfortunately it is not a joke.
I read these things and wonder when the cauldron will boil over — the next ‘victim’ riot may well be what takes these sociopaths out of the driver’s seat along with the common criminals.
Congress fails to use its authority to strike down what is unconstitutional because much of what it wants is in the same catagory — but the real authority, the people, can turn out all those who only serve themselves in public office, top to bottom.
They better hope that they are not put against the wall by their own rules.
I am an American, I will not submit.
The TSA is conditioning us to accept any humiliation in the security. Its typical behavior of a totalitarian society. They can come into your life and do whatever they want. Check your pants, electricity meter, odometer, its all the same. Ulitmate control and dictatorship. By the way, restricting movement is another way of control and a favorite of communitst societies.
Exactly. The most dreaded word in the Russian language back in the Stalinist era was “propusk!” (permit!) To many that word marked the end of a life outside the gulag. We have all tasted enough loss of freedom. It is time to start pushing back. I repeat: don’t fly and those b@stards will be out of a job in no time. It is worth it.
All citizens of the United States should immediately seek a Constitutional Lawyer and sue the TSA as Well as the Obama Administration and possibly a joint and several lawsuit to put a stop and have a federal court immediately put a stop to this practice.
What they are doing is clearly wrong and unconstitutional, not to mention unjust because they are applying it to all passengers.
If people wearing Burkas are exempt then all should be exempt. What kind of reasoning is this. It only make me think that they will allow those that have already proven that they will try by any means necessary to kill Americans that they can do what they want without any reins on travel.
I say use profiling with competent screener’s that are hired by the airports that have the most to lose from less travel due to this new BS the TSA is employing!
The Obligatory TSA Body Search Blog Post
http://www.practicalstate.com/?p=3473
Cheers
You guys have made me see the error of my ways. The clear solution is when anyone objects to being patted down is to just LET THEM GET ON THE PLANE!
Problem solved, right?
@Dwight–What about anal or vaginally inserted bombs?
Such bombs have already been successfully detonated, though fortunately not (yet) in an airplane.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/world/middle-east/2833157/Bomb-in-anal-cavity-raises-new-airline-concern
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/09/28/eveningnews/main5347847.shtml
So, since the anal bomb is a reality, and infinitely more dangerous than those dastardly prohibited bottles of Evian and Perrier, or even the dreaded nail clipper, when you next fly and are ordered to undergo a colonoscopy as a condition of flight, will you comply?
If so, then you’re welcome to it.
If not, why not? After all, it’s all about safety, nicht wahr?
OK, help me out here; what is the proposed solution? Most Americans, despite their grumbling know that there has to be security and that, of course it will be an imperfect system.
Some people got notes from their parents so that they did not have to undress in locker rooms. I say, bring a note from your mom the next time you want to get on a plane. Other people will worry about germs. The bottom line is to be able to blame the guvment or anything/everything. Got it.
So, in re the “will you submit to a colonoscopy as a condition of flying” is that a “yes” or a “no”? Did you miss the question? If so, I’ve just repeated it.
Your silence on the matter is actually eloquent, in its own way.
Although you haven’t yet answered my question, I’ll answer yours. Do what the Israelis do. Profile travelers based on their travel patterns, nationality, and behavior. Question each passenger briefly, while looking them in the eye. Get fewer better qualified, better trained personnel. Don’t hire people off of pizza boxes (as TSA did).
Their system works, because they understand that bombs don’t climb inside random people’s underwear. People put them there. Find the people, stop the attack. Scan granny and the three year old in leg braces, and the terrorist slips by while TSA does its Kabuki dance and harasses people who pose no threat to anyone.
The thread’s pretty much played out and I probably won’t be back, so don’t feel obliged o respond.
Think about the anal cavity search, though. Seriously. Will you watch while your wife’s anus and vagina are searched by a GS-8 TSA agent? Will you watch while your children have a finger shoved up their rectums in the interest of “security”?
Sorry to be so graphic, but that’s the nature of what the TSA is doing. There is simply no way to be genteel about it without being disingenuous.
How far is too far? At what point would you say “enough,” if any?
Think about it. Really, think about it.
Respectfully,
DHF
Hey, I have already had three or four colonoscopies, but given the “preparation” necessary for one, I hardly see how it can apply here. Where do you guys get this stuff? People have already pointed out the problems inherent in profiling the number of travelers who pass through US air space, as opposed to Israel’s. The options really are limited, but once you guys get into this the sky is falling/fondling mode, you build on each other’s wierdness. Libs do something similar when you get into their pet peeves, or general peevishness. Spoiled (in your own distinctive ways) brats, so many of you.
Has anyone ever seen/read a TSA horror story with an accompanied photo of anyone who wasn’t white? Where are the stories and pictures of outraged Muslims refusing to have a naked photo taken or be sexually molested before boarding a plane? For that matter…any other race other than white? I was troubled by this and actively Googled for African Americans, Hispanic Americans and Muslims and I couldn’t find one. Not one. As far as I could see, all subjects are whites. I will happily stand corrected if I’m wrong about this.
By any chance…could the TSA violations be a misdirection of the American people’s attention while something else goes on quietly? I’m not saying it is…but Pistole’s “No.” and I can’t even find where Muslims are being asked to undergo screening…it’s just beyond weird. Just sayin’. On one hand, I’d have to say that the Obama Admin is smart enough to pull that off–exhibit A-the clumsiness of all this.
Again we’re sidetracked,
Obama refuses to change this, the TSA is now threatening fines for non-compliance and Muslims DO get a pass, in spite of all the rhetoric.
I agree with Mjdzfun…something is afoot with this administration…THIS is yet another manufactured crisis covering some other policy agenda and distracting the American people from even more mind-boggling thuggery. Obama’s cruising around the world spending taxpayers money, making ridiculous commitments and I now am convinced that he is…clueless…WHY? Well, that has become painfully obvious to me; he is simply being used by the far left (now even more revved-up) to slam-dunk their agenda. In the space of about 10 days! We’ve had:
Bernanke’s QE2
TSA ruckus
Russian nuke treaty
Missile shields and NATO crap
U.N. shananigans
WAR across the border
SB 510 (no mention in the MSM, potential massive gov intrusion)
Increasingly divisive rhetoric from the left and Obama himself.
Another anti-freedom, pro gun-control Obama appointee in security.
More real threats from Islamists
Strong militant and devisive tactics from the left encouraging total dominance of the executive branch in forcing through an anti-American agenda.
This is a final push from the left – and so far, it has the appearance of stunning success.
Need I go on? And here we are worrying about the TSA. Seems like our Congress is hamstrung…Check out the “arms deal” with the Saudis that was done without their approval…Obama is merell an operative that knows nothing about governing, nor does he care; being prefectly happy to be guided by a core group of hardcore radicals in the WH. One clue, is the TOTUS and the Blackberry.
We wanted a king, now we got one.
As a mother of abuse survivors, I am outraged at the outright sexual abuse taking place at airports nationwide. The imaging is sexual abuse. The pat-downs are sexual abuse. As a textbook definition of abuse, passengers are forced to be offended against their will by a person in a position of authority.
Please read the 6-point argument on the website, http://www.icstars.com/TSA.html and share the link with as many as will listen.
Over 40 million americans are survivors of abuse – who are terrorized and traumatized by this abuse. And each naked photograph of a child under 18 is a violation of Federal Criminal Code. The legal liabilities are VAST.
So how exactly did it happen that a single political appointee not even approaching cabinet rank could stymie both the American people and one of the most powerful committees of the soi-disant “world’s greatest deliberative body”?
From his testimony last week, TSA administrator John Pistole appears to be a mental midget.
As for the Department of Homeland (In)Security, anyone who has headed it up since its post-911 inception (from Tom Ridge to Michael Chertoff to Big Sis) has demonstrated (like Pistole) mental midget & pissant power proclivities.
I guess no one else wants these jobs except…”Lilliputian Technicians” (a lot of LT’s hold “unaccountable to anyone” Czar positions in the Obama administration)
Woodrow Wilson…Democracy was so inconvenient. Why should the elite have to bother explaining themselves to those hick yokels who are neither intelligent nor enlightened enough to understand the wisdom of their betters?”
That’s just what modern day élitists like Bill Maher are saying about the Obama administration…”Stop diddling with the little people and just get on with the imposition of martial law, Barack !”
Today, our American politicians are writing legislation in all kinds of areas they couldn’t possibly fully understand, from pharmaceuticals to global warming. And just like the “expert” witnesses hired by trial attorneys, frequently the ex-spurts from whom legislators seek information and counsel have agendas & biases themselves.
p.s. Jacques Ellul was my professor for a semester course in “Marxist Thought” University of Bordeaux, Junior year abroad.
“Today, our American politicians are writing legislation in all kinds of areas they couldn’t possibly fully understand…”
I couldn’t agree with you more. The Dems of the 111th Congress have been particularly egregious on that score. Hence, their party line that we rubes couldn’t possibly understand the “big picture”, the one supposedly enshrined in their revolutionary legislation (eg, Obamacare). Right, we’re the dumb ones, though many of them now admit they don’t understand what they have wrought — either.
In retrospect, the only “dumb” thing we as a country did was elect these idiots to Congress in 2008. We’re in the process of rectifying that mistake. There’s a lot of ‘em – in both parties – so we have a ways to go. And the incoming crowd of new congresscritters in the 112th better fully understand the legislation they vote for, or they’re gone too.
Wow! You studied with Ellul?! How incredible that must have been. I was at the Sorbonne during 88-89, and if I had know about Ellul I would have made it a point to travel to his university, just to have the pleasure of meeting him. I was introduced to his thought as a graduate assistant at Emory some time later, in the year of his death in fact. What an intellect! If you don’t mind, would you please email me at professordhf@hotmail.com? I have some questions about Ellul that someone who studied with him would be able to answer.
I agree with you about the heads of DHS and TSA. You don’t have to be smart to be a functionary, or an Ellulian political technician. The totalitarian impulse of the left is also an odd, but undeniable, phenomenon. This also entirely consistent with Ellul’s view of political technique. If there is “one best means” of organizing a society, then anyone who stands in the way of that is in fact an enemy not merely of the state but also of the people. This explains, at least in part, both the totalitarian impulse of liberalism, as well as the self-righteousness of people like Maher, Krugman, and their ilk in demanding that we submit to them in their quest to implement it.
Great hearing from an actual student of Ellul. Cheers.
Wow! You studied with Ellul?! How incredible that must have been. I was at the Sorbonne during 88-89, and if I had know about Ellul I would have made it a point to travel to his university, just to have the pleasure of meeting him. I was introduced to his thought as a graduate assistant at Emory some time later, in the year of his death in fact. What an intellect! If you don’t mind, would you please email me at professordhf@hotmail.com? I have some questions about Ellul that someone who studied with him would be able to answer.
I agree with you about the heads of DHS and TSA. You don’t have to be smart to be a functionary, or an Ellulian political technician. The totalitarian impulse of the left is also an odd, but undeniable, phenomenon. This also entirely consistent with Ellul’s view of political technique. If there is “one best means” of organizing a society, then anyone who stands in the way of that is in fact an enemy not merely of the state but also of the people. This explains, at least in part, both the totalitarian impulse of liberalism, as well as the self-righteousness of people like Maher, Krugman, and their ilk in demanding that we submit to them in their quest to implement it.
Great hearing from an actual student of Ellul. Cheers.
T.T. Thomas
I’m a retired Gulf War vet myself. I work in the medical field. I also know how often x-ray machines malfunction; and the hideous consequences of such malfunctions. Airport x-ray scanning machines are far more likely to malfunction than a medical x-ray, are operated and maintained by far less competent people, and will effect a thousand times more people than a medical x-ray. I’m not talking about the so-called normal exposure from these causing a cumulative damage over a person’s life. I’m talking about a stupidly set calibration that causes a 10 to 1000 times higher than safe dose of radiation for 2500 or more people walking through one of these things each day. A dose that doesn’t get identified until after a week goes by and people start dying. This would make 9/11 look like a picnic. And this is a statistical certainty. It will happen.
I voluntarily put up with over 2 decades of pissing in a bottle with someone watching my junk the whole time. I didn’t like it, it didn’t do anything for my sense of trust, it didn’t pass the risk to benefit criteria, it wasted a lot of tax payer’s money. I did it so I had a home to come back to that people didn’t have to put up the constraints and violations of my freedoms and rights. Instead, we’ve gone down the slope toward the very totalitarianism we were warned about when I was growing up.
The TSA body search is just a futile and wasteful. More, nobody consents to it; they are coerced into it as a condition of boarding their aircraft. TSA has never caught an actual or potential terrorist by their actions. Sure, they’ve found and confiscated a lot of stuff THEY told people they couldn’t take on a plane; stuff that wasn’t going to be used to hurt anyone, or hijack the plane.
Life isn’t fair because people like you allow others to make it that way. You roll over like a well-conditioned dog when you master beckons you to do so; instead of fighting like an independent wolf.
I’ve got a Masters in Management, and an undergraduate minor in psychology and I’LL GUARRANTEE there are TSA “officers” who are practically having an orgasm from their power over the masses as they feel people up each day.
I suggest that you pick up and read (or re-read) copies of Animal Farm, 1984, Atlas Shrugged, as well as the history of Krystalnacht in 1938.
Sacrifices to fight the enemy are acts of patriotism. Sacrifices to please the government is just another form of slavery.
Dr_Zinj…..Okay, so you served 20 years as a matter of convenient inconvenience. Such has been a motivation of a large percentage of those “serving” the nation since Vietnam….hoping for peacetime until they could retire and get all those gov’t bennies. ["I voluntarily put up with over 2 decades of pissing in a bottle with someone watching my junk the whole time. I didn’t like it, it didn’t do anything for my sense of trust, it didn’t pass the risk to benefit criteria, it wasted a lot of tax payer’s money. I did it so I had a home to come back to that people didn’t have to put up the constraints and violations of my freedoms and rights."] I agree with you that such an inconvenience and loss of your constitutional rights should not be allowed in the service of the military just because some bureaucrats thinks illegal drug use should have no place or that it could create some detrimental benefit to the military.
I’m sorry you were a military [slave] in the name of service and patriotism for 20 years….re; you comment: ["Sacrifices to fight the enemy are acts of patriotism. Sacrifices to please the government is just another form of slavery."]
Okay, you did a great job defining the [absolute] technical and health threat associated with the use of Airport screening x-ray machines. Not until you mentioned this fact did I recall the millions of America’s peoples health damaged and even killed by the decades of cheap xray machines used in virtually every shoe store in America during past generations.
I’m sure if you’d let the government know of your absolute knowledge of x-ray machines and its threat to human health and the radiation deaths that will occur, they would consider terminating the use of such x-ray machines….since there is such shortage of experts in the fields of
x-ray….they would be eternally greatful for your expertise. I’m betting that before its over, there will be more American’s dying from airport screening radiation than are murdered or killed in auto accidents each year.
Thanks for putting it in scientific perspective for us!
I honestly don’t understand what the big deal about being screened or “patted” is. The problem with our country is that everyone over dramatizes situations. We are a country where it is hard to do anything anymore because you might be offending someone or being biased. Keep the procedure standard for everyone without regards to race, age or gender and be done with it. Getting screened in the airport is for the safety of people. If something isn’t done like this and another attack happens I can guarantee that people will be complaining that the government didn’t do enough. The grass isn’t always greener on the other side. Suck it up and get over it.