What If I Said the TSA Agents Were Just Blowing Off Some Steam and Patdowns Were Like a Fraternity Prank…
By John Cole November 16th, 2010
This is rather amusing:
I wonder what has changed from 2001-2009 that now, all of a sudden, a bunch of wingers are focused like a laser on individual rights. It really is a mystery. I just can’t figure out what is different, and why the folks who screamed “With us or against us” and looked the other way during warrantless wiretapping and indefinite detention and torture are all bothered about a harmless little pat down or having your picture taken. I mean, if you haven’t done anything wrong…
I just can’t quite put my finger on it. I wonder what changed.
Its…...darker…..than it used to be?
November 16th, 2010 at 8:28 pm
Everybody knows it’s COMPLETELY different when that shit happens to white folks.
November 16th, 2010 at 8:30 pm
Same thing that happens with all of the excuse-making here for President
Hopey-ChangeyObama over some of his fuck-ups—-blind ass-partisanship and denial.SATSQ.
November 16th, 2010 at 8:31 pm
I do like the last title: John Tyner, the young man who resisted the TSA’s groin-grope, will now be probed.
November 16th, 2010 at 8:31 pm
@WyldPirate: Except that wasn’t short.
November 16th, 2010 at 8:32 pm
Gosh, I don’t get it either. Based on current WingLore the White House has occupied by liberals since Reagan left office.
November 16th, 2010 at 8:33 pm
I don’t think a lot has changed at all. This TSA flap is something to hit the Obama administration about; they’re still for wire tapping, warrantless searches and all that other stuff when used against others.
November 16th, 2010 at 8:33 pm
@sherifffruitfly:
And the racial card gets dealt early….nice.
Did it ever occur to you that the policy in question could be fucked up now just like the same policies Dems howled about under Bush were invasive, stupid and ineffectual?
November 16th, 2010 at 8:35 pm
I just can’t quite put my finger on it. I wonder what changed.
People can see their penises now.
November 16th, 2010 at 8:35 pm
Precisely; you need to stop as soon as you feel “resistance.”
November 16th, 2010 at 8:35 pm
Frankly, I don’t give a shit. This TSA nonsense needs to stop and if that means I join hands with Rush Limbaugh to do it, so be it.
And maybe Rush will share some good drugs.
November 16th, 2010 at 8:37 pm
Skinny jeans?
Did I win?
November 16th, 2010 at 8:37 pm
@Belafon (formerly anonevent):
Guilty as charged.
November 16th, 2010 at 8:37 pm
Beyond the race issue, I just think passing HCR sent them around the bend, over the edge, and off their rockers.
And having won the recent election with no platform other than destroy The Kenyan usurper, it will be electric boogaloo of crazy round the clock.
Obama could come out for no jumping off cliffs, and the little lemming motherfuckers would knock each other in the head to be the first to jump.
November 16th, 2010 at 8:39 pm
The president is NEAR!
November 16th, 2010 at 8:43 pm
Some wingers would like to have someone “quite put their finger on it.”
November 16th, 2010 at 8:45 pm
@PurpleGirl:
So was FDR, and while the FISA as currently constructed gives way too much authority to the DOJ director AG to initiate a wiretap, imo, it is also not accurate to claim Obama is doing warrantless wiretapping, as eventually, by law, at some point the FISA court reviews said wiretapping.
Bush just completely said fuck it to the law at the time, and did what he wanted. The new FISA law blame is mostly on congress, a dem controlled congress, and not on Obama long as he follows that law. It is set to sunset in a year or two, and we can fight that battle once again.
November 16th, 2010 at 8:46 pm
yada yada yada
November 16th, 2010 at 8:46 pm
Fuck this noise. It was wrong in the past decade, and it’s wrong now. If more people recognize that, it’s a good thing.
November 16th, 2010 at 8:48 pm
@WyldPirate:
Of course it’s fucked up. The question is why people are having a collective cow about airport security NOW, but couldn’t trade our privacy rights fast enough after 9/11.
Seems like the only thing that’s different is that people are getting randomly scanned, not profiled based on appearance, a.k.a. race.
November 16th, 2010 at 8:48 pm
@suzanne:
Because elections have consequences.
November 16th, 2010 at 8:50 pm
@arguingwithsignposts:
And sometimes those consequences are BLACKETY-BLACK-BLACK.
November 16th, 2010 at 8:52 pm
@suzanne:
Exactly. WyldPirate is lost here.
As I was saying in another thread, all of this police/TSA overreach is nothing new to minority / less-powerful groups. It’s been going on in every generation for centuries. Only now the swath of Americans affected is broader and the majority decides to lose its collective shit.
November 16th, 2010 at 8:52 pm
@BR:
Here?
Dude has been talking about nothing but pie since the firebagger explosion after the mid-terms.
ETA: although I don’t necessarily agree that a “majority” has lost its shit over this yet. It seems pretty well contained to the blogosphere at the moment. Maybe I’ll be proven wrong before long.
November 16th, 2010 at 8:54 pm
THEY are THEM. And WE are US.
Dumbass. Get with the God damn program.
Otherwise, Delta is ready when you are.
November 16th, 2010 at 8:54 pm
@WyldPirate:
I really hate libertarians. It is easy not to see race when you are white. Most libertarians are white, have you noticed?
November 16th, 2010 at 8:54 pm
Of course it’s that the wrong people are getting hassled. They truly believe they are above all others, and instead of being pissed that the half-assed, half-baked crap is going on at all, they’re ticked that THEY are subjected to it too. Morons!
November 16th, 2010 at 8:55 pm
@suzanne:
1. Because the new machines that take naked pictures of you are in the process of being rolled out now.
2. The TSA implemented its new groping/molestation pat down policy starting November 1.
People sucked it up and just grumbled through security before, with the ridiculous no-liquids and shoes-off policies. But having naked photos taken of your 17 year old daughter and not being able to do anything about it, or watching someone’s four year old be fondled and groped while she screams has just seemed to push people over the edge.
I get the hypocrisy. Why did no one care about wiretapping, etc. But at least they’re caring now about this. Civil disobedience has to start someone and people really have had enough of the crappy airline security theater.
There are also discussions of how to hurt the airlines financially so they’ll consider lobbying Congress on this issue. People are discussing buying fully refundable tickets, going through security using opt-out, then refusing to fly and asking for a full refund. Followed up with a letter to the airline explaining why you’re not flying.
November 16th, 2010 at 8:57 pm
@BR: Exactly. Being white and flying business class doesn’t get you out of a truly random search. Cue the shitfit.
November 16th, 2010 at 8:59 pm
Its not race, it is because there is a Democrat in the White House. The same reason they hated Clinton…not because of any facts or policy disagreements, its because he is a Democrat. Its that stupid. Its that simple.
Now, can we finally not give a crap what these idiots who have no credibilty say? Thats all you have to say to these fools (not that they will ever shut up) is “You have no credibility”. They want you to argue with them but it is an utterly worthless task. Just remind them that they have no credibilty and why and walk away.
November 16th, 2010 at 9:01 pm
OT: You can use Google to specifically search BJ (Or any other site).
The syntax for the search is:
keywords site:balloon-juice.com
For example:
Dennis SGMM site:balloon-juice.com
The return from that one reminded me of why I haven’t finished my book.
Now you can find that long lost comment. If you want to search any other site, just put it to the right side of the colon.
November 16th, 2010 at 9:02 pm
The thought that some TSA agent in the back room was ogling the nude pr0n pix of their wives and 17 year old daughters does come to mind.
November 16th, 2010 at 9:02 pm
@arguingwithsignposts: The majority still doesn’t care. mistermix linked to Nate this morning, 81% aren’t bothered scanners.
http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.n.....-backlash/
My guess is most of those people haven’t flown yet.
I have no idea what our local troll is going on about, but I can guess it’s “blah blah obot blah blah”, failing to notice how many posts (and comments agreeing with them) there have been here talking about how bad the TSA sucks.
November 16th, 2010 at 9:02 pm
@Violet: I’d buy that, if certain people weren’t already forced to get the enhanced pat-down or go through the body scanners. (Lucky me—I’ve gotten both!) Certain groups of people have already had to endure this shit for years, and no one seemed to give a fuck.
November 16th, 2010 at 9:02 pm
I really don’t see with this TSA thing comes in as some kind of authoritarian foray into peoples personal rights. It may be stupid and poorly thought out or administered. But the government nor the airlines has any motive to just fuck with people because they can. They are doing it in the belief it puts the scale closer to the best security, not to show us who’s boss, . That is a noble motive , even if by a stupid and offensive method.
November 16th, 2010 at 9:02 pm
@BR: WyldPirate is a dedicated Obama-hater. It’s almost like he accidentally wandered in from one of the PUMA sites.
November 16th, 2010 at 9:03 pm
@Mark K:
If only it were that simple. Unfortunately, they somehow find their way onto the op-ed pages of major newspapers, and the shoutfests on cable tv, and on NP-fucking-R (if Grover Norquist is quoted one more fucking time I will never give to that enterprise again, so help me).
November 16th, 2010 at 9:03 pm
he, being arguingwithsignposts, said “the president is NEAR”
November 16th, 2010 at 9:03 pm
It’s actually happened to someone like them.
Prior to this well publicized incident, it was Other People. Now it’s some white guy who’s even a winger, I gather!
The. Horror.
November 16th, 2010 at 9:04 pm
I think it is connected to DADT —somewhere, somehow, some hetero dude is terrified about other men thinking about his junk.
November 16th, 2010 at 9:06 pm
@suzanne:
The porno scanners are new and so are the genital groping pat downs.
November 16th, 2010 at 9:06 pm
Numbers of Americans killed per year … by cars 40,000; by influenza 20,000; on commercial airplanes 120; by lightning 90.
(From January 1982 to Sept. 2001, there were 2,452 fatalities aboard commercial airplanes (including 9/11). Source: NTSB).
Really, you’d be better off groping yourself before going out into the rain.
November 16th, 2010 at 9:06 pm
Smacking down oblivious, assumptive forms of white-supremacy or the myth of white exceptionalism is “playing the race card”? You’re too thick.
November 16th, 2010 at 9:07 pm
Another terrible abuse of TSA power!
November 16th, 2010 at 9:07 pm
@Cheryl from Maryland:
Personally, I would love to walk around in the summer naked as a jaybird. Clothes are just a nuisance that makes you uncomfortable, but I dislike jail more than wearing clothes when it’s hot, so must suffer like ever body else.
November 16th, 2010 at 9:09 pm
On a practical note, I think calling your airlines and quickly and politely telling them you will no longer fly unless there are no alternatives is the most effective action. The Government couldn’t care less what you think, but corporations probably do.
I am a shareholder of one airline, and I also emailed investor relations to say it looks like a good time to sell my ownership.
November 16th, 2010 at 9:09 pm
@suzanne:
But the body scanners haven’t been in use for years. They’ve only been rolled out this year and really just in the last several months in most airports. So no matter who you were, two or three years ago you weren’t getting an nude photo taken of you.
I’m white, female, a frequent traveler, and have been pulled out of line for random patting down as well. Those pat downs were not as invasive as the one I had in the UK last year, which sounds very much like the new ones that were rolled out here starting November 1.
I am in no way trying to minimize the profiling experience that people with darker skin or those of possible Muslim or Arabic background have experienced (and continue to experience). I know that it sucks and they’ve been treated unfairly. But I do think there have been some specific things that have changed recently that have someone pushed people to a tipping point.
I’m seeing posts and comments about this issue on lefty blogs, wingnut blogs, more sober publications like The Economist and from crazy people like Limbaugh. Maybe the fact that white people are now being affected is part of it. But I think the other changes are also part of the issue.
November 16th, 2010 at 9:09 pm
@celticdragonchick: I got an enhanced pat-down in 2001 and again last year. And a body scan in June of this year.
November 16th, 2010 at 9:09 pm
It was always ok as long as it was happening to brown people.
November 16th, 2010 at 9:10 pm
@jeff:
I used to believe that, but the way they’ve handled the “baggage fees” over the past few years leave me to assume that not to be the case with the cattle companies that call themselves airlines these days.
November 16th, 2010 at 9:11 pm
@Cheryl from Maryland:
How about this little tidbit posted from a link in an earlier thread:
Last week, one of my flying partners (Captain with Skywest) was going through security at DEN with his 18 year daughter. As his daughter approached the detector, the TSO working the NoS said on his headset, “heads up, got a cutie for you.” He then confronted the TSA clerk with what he said and that neither of us are going through the NoS. The TSA clerk said you must have misunderstood me.
He said pat-down was pretty evasive, and his daughter felt uncomfortable.
He is taking it up with Skywest, with this behavior. Normally, crews there go through a different screening area, but since he was with his daughter, he got to see the TSA clerks at their finest in Denver.
Its stoiries like this, is why I will not go through the NoS (radiation/health issues) and even refuse the the pat-down thus (if it happens while on duty) canceling the flight due to a hostile work environment.
*************************************
I don’t think you have to assume homophobia in the traveling public when you have overt prurient sexual exploitation being demonstrated by TSA employees.
Read some of the other comments in that link from female fliers who felt they were singled out for their boobs to be scanned.
November 16th, 2010 at 9:12 pm
And for all the scaredy cats, check out last week’s Ask the Pilot:
That all happened from 1985-1989.
November 16th, 2010 at 9:12 pm
Yeah the wingers are on this, but I find it depressing that there is so little outrage from liberal bloggers. If the left doesn’t react the wingers will succeed in turning this into another cudgel to bludgeon Obama.
November 16th, 2010 at 9:13 pm
I don’t know, I think this is one of those issues that isn’t really political. Sure, if these came out in 2004 there might be some R winger support based on “Shut up, that’s why”. But we are now almost ten years on from 2001 and things have cooled a bit and people are kind of like “Why this? Why now? It’s bad enough already.”.
This is an easy “We all hate the gubmint” one which crosses all spectrums.
And I think this one of those issues where “both sides do it” (i.e. bitch about the other side) is probably true. D’s see it as a continuation of the overreach from the R’s and the R’s don’t need a reason “because shut up, that’s why.”.
Plus we are a fat, flabby nation and we refuse to be shown as that truth because we believe we are all sunlight and precious and have bodies like gods. These machines show us for what we have become and people don’t want to see it – R’s or D’s.
Oh, and my two cents – I hate these machines and will be opting for the grope. My wife asked me after our wedding this summer what the hell I was going to do with the family kilt I had made for myself and got married in, now I know when it will come in handy!
November 16th, 2010 at 9:13 pm
@suzanne:
Same here. Actually, I get them whenever I forget to shave before flying. Because then I look like one of “them” I guess. And since the TSA is that sophisticated, I get pulled aside. I’ve learned to deal with the fact that it’s blatant profiling.
November 16th, 2010 at 9:14 pm
@jeff:
If you can afford it, buy a fully refundable ticket. Do not fly. Wait until ten minutes before your flight and request a full refund of your ticket. Write a letter to the airline explaining that you requested a refund of your ticket because you will not subject yourself to having naked photos taken of yourself or being sexually assaulted just to fly.
Lather, rinse, repeat. Hit ‘em where it hurts.
November 16th, 2010 at 9:14 pm
It’s because 1) When liberals hear TSA, we think “airport secuity”, while conservatives hear “unions”, 2) this is an opportunity for them to advocate racial profiling as a less intrusive alternative, and 3) when crying “9/11” stopped winning elections for them, they decided to cry “big government” instead. Also, this goes without saying, but none of them actually give a shit about privacy unless it’s their own.
P.S. I know this because I am a masochist and can provide citations.
November 16th, 2010 at 9:14 pm
Many of the hyperventillating dildos were cheering on stop and frisk policies for urban Blacks for years now.
But it’s just so different when it is someone white nun from Peoria.
November 16th, 2010 at 9:17 pm
@pattonbt:
You wear it at your local Highland Games.
The Grandfather Mountain Games are fantastic if you can get to western North Carolina.
November 16th, 2010 at 9:17 pm
@General Stuck: I agree with your first point in regards to the TSA & airlines not having a reason to just screw with folks due to being on a freaky mad power trip but disagree with where you went. All the reports I have read on the full body scanners have indicated that they do not, repeat do not, do much of anything to make flying safer. What they do do is 1) create another quite expensive but mostly useless product for corporations cashing in on fear of “the terrorism” to sell and increase their bottom line; and, 2) allow the TSA and airlines to say to the ‘murican public, “look we are spending all of this money on these state of the art machines to make your flying experience safer.”
If the TSA and airlines were really serious about increasing airline safety, they would do the difficulty work of training up every employee at airlines and airports to do the necessary psychological/behavioral profiling that occurs at Isreali airports.
November 16th, 2010 at 9:18 pm
Responding to comments above on difference between airport screening and wiretapping, and relationship to winger GOPer rage,
The screening incidents happen to demonstrably nice white people, and lots of pitiable stories about people ‘just like you’ getting harassed for no reason.
The demonstration nice white ‘just like you’ victims cannot be trotted out as readily for wiretapping.
So, this airport screening flap makea convenient political issue for Teabaggers, GOP and wingers, now that a Democrat is in office.
So, it gets attention.
I agree wtih mistermix’s post earlier today. There is no much stupid from so many sides on this, it is hard to say anything constructive.
November 16th, 2010 at 9:18 pm
@BR: I’ve gotten them whenever I dare to wear a tank top. Yay for boobs.
November 16th, 2010 at 9:18 pm
@jl:
The ultimate test, I guess is whether it affects hard working Americans, white Americans that Tweety can relate to. If it does, then it matters to America. If not, it doesn’t matter to America.
November 16th, 2010 at 9:20 pm
@celticdragonchick:
Your link looks broken.
November 16th, 2010 at 9:21 pm
@celticdragonchick: Unfortunately, there are no local highland games in Perth, Australia. At least none that I know of!
November 16th, 2010 at 9:21 pm
@celticdragonchick:
Srsly. Why did the TSA d00ds think that the line, “Don’t worry, TSA personnel are looking at these images in a private room,” was going to make anyone feel better?
How is that supposed to be better?
November 16th, 2010 at 9:22 pm
@MikeJ:
As usual, he’s really bothered when people complain about racism.
Oddly, strangely, obsessively bothered.
November 16th, 2010 at 9:23 pm
@suzanne: Are you saying that goes for “manboobs” as well? Just want to clarify.
November 16th, 2010 at 9:25 pm
@freelancer:
Sorry about that.
http://www.balloon-juice.com/2...../#comments
Go to comment 11 and follow the link there.
November 16th, 2010 at 9:26 pm
@marcopolo:
I had heard that maybe these things could catch and undie bomb, and have also heard they likely wouldn’t. So I don’t know if it is useful or not. But having worked for the government, I do know that decisions are made often by stupid people, and too often connected with this or that agencies funding games played with congress.
Israel has one airport, I think, and that level of training for a country like ours would seem not practical, or even possible. So the only true way to know if explosives are attached to ones junk is to look at that junk, seems to me. Unless they can come up with chemical sniffers that can reliably sniff those materials. But they would be very expensive as well.
November 16th, 2010 at 9:26 pm
I might go down to Sea-Tac during the Thanksgiving travel season with a bowl of popcorn and watch the fun, when the upscale white yuppies from Issaquah or Bellvue deal with 17 year old Ashley being groped by a TSA agent named Jamaal or Markos, or the smiles and smirks by the women TSA agents(who look like typecasting from, Lockdown) as she walks through the scanner. The over/under for redfaced blonde-blue eyed middle aged fathers hitting the high end of their blood pressure boiling is +20.
November 16th, 2010 at 9:27 pm
@joe from Lowell:
You don’t have to listen to the chortling noises as they find their magical “starbursts”, at least.
November 16th, 2010 at 9:28 pm
Flying has become increasingly less fun since I first started doing it. More and more often there are random searches and forced touching; you can’t take anything you might actually need with you (and if you do, you have to pay for it in gold); you get no food or water & you’re not allowed to bring any with you; you get held hostage on the tarmac for days; you; if they do let you take anything with you, you have to accept you’re never going to see it again; and even when there’s no foreseeable problem (like a snowstorm), they still find a way to screw you with excuses like “can’t find the plane.”
November 16th, 2010 at 9:29 pm
@General Stuck:
How about some bomb sniffing dogs?
Better accuracy than any device in every test devised.
November 16th, 2010 at 9:30 pm
@marcopolo:
Hey, whatever does it for ya, I guess.
November 16th, 2010 at 9:30 pm
There’s an interesting letter from some UCSF scientists about the safety of these scanners. That link is from NPR, but I heard about it from Harry Shearer.
November 16th, 2010 at 9:31 pm
Also, this is happening to everyone, while in their minds, warrantless wiretaping was only happening to other people, who obviously did something wrong – like have a strange name, being a member of another religion or other unREALamerican stuff.
If the new naked picture machine/government-issued grope would only be used on “THOSE” people, I can guarantuee you there’d be much much less backlash.
November 16th, 2010 at 9:32 pm
@Mr Stagger Lee: Say when. I’ll bring a flask.
November 16th, 2010 at 9:34 pm
@pattonbt:
Perth Highland Games
http://www.australiaadventures.com/perth.htm
November 16th, 2010 at 9:34 pm
@General Stuck:
Somebody PLEASE get this to the White House. I think Stuck has found the correct strategy going forward.
November 16th, 2010 at 9:36 pm
I said earlier today that President Obama might want to get ahead of this one and it seems that this is going no where good. A thoughtful pause may not be a good thing.
November 16th, 2010 at 9:37 pm
@Jim:
Why shouldn’t he take the flack for it?
November 16th, 2010 at 9:37 pm
I’m considering traveling from the SF Bay to Portland during Christmas week, and this is the final nail in the flying coffin for me. Its either rental car or the Coast Starlight for me. And hey, the Coast Starlight has free wifi now and there’s the Pacific Parlour Car.
Really, as a transsexual woman, I don’t want to go through the body scanner, especially with a certain discrepancy with my body and my genitalia.
Peak oil can’t kill off the airline industry fast enough. At least here in CA, electing Brown means that HSR still has a chance.
November 16th, 2010 at 9:39 pm
@pattonbt:
Great link here to The House of Tartan in Perth.
These look to be the local folks to ask about all things Scottish in your area, including the Armadale Highland Games.
November 16th, 2010 at 9:40 pm
@Amanda in the South Bay:
Being a transsexual woman as well, I have been really, really against this latest aspect of Security Theatre.
November 16th, 2010 at 9:42 pm
@suzanne: Well, I was thinking of the folks operating the machines, actually. Can’t say they do too much for me.
November 16th, 2010 at 9:45 pm
It would be interesting to give the airlines some leeway in what security measures they enforce and then see what they do and what passengers choose.
November 16th, 2010 at 9:51 pm
@General Stuck: I think you mean Israel has two international airports. They have lots of airports for domestic/military flying.
As for what level of accuracy/discernment the machines allow for, everything I have read (upwards of thirty articles) has said they do not make out light plastics, powder, liquids, or items placed in body cavities. In these articles, the folks making the arguments for the efficacy of the machines have always had a financial interest in their success as opposed to the broader array of critics who are coming from the security industry, science/technology companies, and academia.
Of course, the best thing about following the Israeli model would be the additional employees that the TSA would need to hire to cover all of the airports here. Just think of it as another job creation program; whereas using the body scanners is supposed to reduce the number of staff needed.
November 16th, 2010 at 9:52 pm
I think certain right wing blogs / publications would be either silent or approving of the security measures if the president was Republican, but, overall, the current resistance to the TSA would be at its growing fever pitch now no matter what party was in charge. I’ve seen many sites, which are normally left of center / fond of Obama, jump on this bandwagon.
This has been in a growing boil with the general public basically since TSA banned liquids, and there were plenty of voices against the security theatre even before that development. This isn’t a new trend at all.
I’m glad to see there’s at least one area where there can be bipartisanship support for ending government overreach. Even if the motives of some on the right are less than pure, they can still be used to help accomplish the greater good.
November 16th, 2010 at 9:53 pm
Pre-9/11: torture
Post-9/11: “enhanced interrogation methods”
Pre-9/11: sexual molestation
Post-9/11: “enhanced pat down”
Pre-9/11: democracy
Post-9/11: 24/7 security theater
Pre-9/11: Orwellian & Kafkaesque
Post-9/11: the “new normal”
A populace has to be slowly trained to accept their lot in a police state, like frogs on slow boil.
November 16th, 2010 at 9:54 pm
@marcopolo:
Oh yeah? Well if you have a boxcutter in your skivvies they’ll be after you like stink on shit, buddy. OTOH, if you have any of the things that can actually be used to create a fire or an explosion, not so much.
Fucking idiots.
November 16th, 2010 at 9:57 pm
@arguingwithsignposts:
The youtube vid of the “terrified three-year-old whose teddy bear set off the scanner” got played on one of the national infotainment-tonite shows yesterday. (Show comes on after the local news and my hands were busy.) It was very OMG SCAREY GUBMINT AGENTS WHO ARE NOT EVEN WHITE GROPE UR LITTUL CHIIIILDRUN! ! ! so I’m thinking they are ginning up their target audience to go full metal teatard starting next week as the happy famblys are shuttled off to Grandma’s house. This pre-agitation should produce a few epic meltdowns which will, of course, be played ten million times in promos for said national infotainment empire. November’s a sweeps month, right?
November 16th, 2010 at 9:58 pm
Here’s what changed. Obama got elected and appointed Janet Napolitano (possible lesbian) as head of DHS. Drudge (who may or may not have a complicated relationship to sexual orientation issues) has been gunning for her ever since.
Then, John “I am completely wedded to the idea that government can do nothing right” Tyner just happened—coincidentally!—to be in the right place at the right time with his video equipment.
Tyner also seems to watch quite a bit of Fox News. Maybe that’s where he got the idea that the economy would have been better off with no TARP and no stimulus. And the stuff about the government keeping lists of gun owners so that they can begin confiscating guns.
November 16th, 2010 at 10:00 pm
@Evolved Deep Southerner:
”
I am he as you are he as you are me and we are all together.”
November 16th, 2010 at 10:01 pm
@suzanne:
My sensationally beautiful niece has been pulled out of line and given the full body pat down ever since 9/11. She gave up flying about 2 years ago, just couldn’t take the degradation.
November 16th, 2010 at 10:02 pm
@fasteddie9318:
No, what he “found” was an EXACT description of the excuse-making chickenshit that goes on here with about 80% of you morons.
Most of you are blind-assed partisan fuckwits that will EXCUSE ANYTHING that Obama does. This is the exact same thing that the Bush defenders did. But most of the worst of you trot out the “race card” at the drop of a hat when it has little to do with the idiocy from the right.
Obama has a pathetic record so far on privacy issues. I know that he didn’t start this lunacy with the TSA, but he could certainly have it ratcheted down a bit most likely. The question is, will he? My guess is no.
I thought the Bush policies on eavesdropping were over the top and outrageous. I yelled and screamed about it and wrote my fucked up Rethug Rep and Senators saying so. The Bush bots defended him, being the partisans they are.
Now, the same sort of idiotic policies are being implemented and in some respects they are even more insulting and invasive, because people know when someone is feeling up their nutsack or tits versus merely listening into their phone calls or monitoring their email.
But what is the first thing out of the first two poster’s mouths on this thread? That the Rethugtards and libertarians are raising hell about “civil liberties” because Obama is black. There is perhaps a tiny smidgen of truth to this, but they they would be raising hell anyway because they’re fucking partisan hacks, just like the worst of the Obama defenders here that excuse any and everything he does that is fucked up.
Some of you people would do the same thing that many of you probably said about the Bush defenders—that they would excuse him for biting the heads off of baby kittens in the Oval Office on live TV. Now the shoe is on the other foot and some of you fucknuggets would do the same thing for Obama—excuse abhorrent behavior—and then turn around and attack anyone who dared question it for being a racist.
November 16th, 2010 at 10:02 pm
@Anne Laurie:
very good point, as usual, AL. Wag the dog?
November 16th, 2010 at 10:04 pm
@Dennis SGMM: The most common and traditional approach to deterring home-made bombs is the rarity of people who know enough about making them to get them to work and not blow themselves up in the process.
November 16th, 2010 at 10:04 pm
@marcopolo:
If it doesn’t even work, then the TSA are just idiots of interest
November 16th, 2010 at 10:09 pm
See, in June of 2008 if you were to complain about the creepy intrusiveness and governmental big brother snooping of the newly implemented full body scanners you would have been aiding and comforting the enemy.
Now it is apparent that these creepy and intrusive tactics are trampling on freedom loving Americans’ rights.
It’s as easy as black and white.
It’s simple.
November 16th, 2010 at 10:10 pm
@WyldPirate: There have been about eleventeen threads here since this latest TSA flap started, all full of people who are conspicuously NOT defending the administration. So what was your point again?
November 16th, 2010 at 10:20 pm
@Svensker: Yeah, I have to say that having some stranger’s hands in between my tits really pisses me off. Especially because both times when it happened, I was wearing something clingy that nothing could hide under.
Whatever. Fuck flying.
November 16th, 2010 at 10:22 pm
@BR: Exactly – there are plenty of groups that were always subject to illegal search and harassment by the police. Teenage boys (of all races) face a huge amount of it – I got followed around (presumed shoplifter) and patted down all the time (looking for eggs?) Don’t forget locker searches and complete forfeiture of all rights while you’re in school.
Also, in Canada (where I grew up), there is no probable cause requirement.
The only period of time where I was mercifully somewhat free of the police state was the brief period of time after I moved to the US and stopped visiting Canada (10/2000) until 9/11.
November 16th, 2010 at 10:24 pm
@celticdragonchick: My google-fu is weak. I may have to drag my wife to this and do my best Mike Myers “So I Married and Axe Murderer” wedding dance imitation at this thing.
She will be thrilled!
November 16th, 2010 at 10:30 pm
@WyldPirate:
No, it actually has nothing to do with the President. It has everything to do with the flying public. Up until about, well, NOW, Arab and “Arab-looking” people, mostly men, mostly between 20 and 40, mostly flying coach, were the ones being scanned disproportionately. Now, with the body scanners, it appears to be more random who’s getting singled out. Which means more whites, rich people, women, etc, are getting picked out. Again, I am not supporting any of this bullshit, and I was openly critical back in ‘01 when this all started taking off (and I got my first TSA boob-grab). I just think that, for much of the American public, it was tolerable for “certain people” to endure this harassment in the name of “our collective security”. But now that race, sex, class, etc. doesn’t seem to be a protective factor, the flip-out factor has increased.
November 16th, 2010 at 10:30 pm
All of this boob talkin’s got my engine idling. I think I’m gonna see if TSA’s hiring.
November 16th, 2010 at 10:42 pm
@Corner Stone:
If you need a reference CS, I will tell the TSA yer the most qualified Boob I ever saw.
November 16th, 2010 at 10:47 pm
Repigs have an unspoken agreeement with Repigs in power that the thuggish security state they cheer for will not be unleashed on “their kind” of people.
Most of them would be happy living as whites in apartheid South Africa; and I think it’s not so much about race as about privileges. They’d probably be happier than they are here, knowing they have special privileges over much of the population and taking vicarious thrills in watching cops brutalize people who will never be them to keep the rabble away from their smug, special selves.
November 16th, 2010 at 11:04 pm
Wait, someone oppressed a white man? TO ARMS
As a young, bearded, slightly olive-tinged (25% Italian) person, I’ve been getting pulled out of airport security lines reliably for almost ten years now and making a stink about it, and it’s nice to see other people finally getting bothered. Security agents have become increasingly hostile over the years and I’ve flown less and less. As George Carlin said, “I’m tired of having some guy with a double-digit IQ and a triple-digit income rooting around inside my bags and never finding anything.” Now, of course, you can replace “bags” with “pants.”
November 16th, 2010 at 11:05 pm
November 16th, 2010 at 11:13 pm
@pattonbt:
Heh! Have fun!
Once again, if you get to North Carolina, come to the Grandfather Mtn Games. :)
http://www.gmhg.org/
November 16th, 2010 at 11:22 pm
@General Stuck: How many of them have actually been through one of them?
November 17th, 2010 at 12:25 am
@Lee:
Fixed that for ya.
November 17th, 2010 at 12:29 am
@Comrade Kevin:
I have no idea, which was why I posted the poll without comment. I thought it a positive that most in the poll do not approve of racial profiling. A better question might be, how many of those people don’t know that the scanners don’t work most likely for finding what they are looking for.
I do think most people who fly are willing to suffer a higher degree of indignation from whatever method, if it meant flying would be safer. But it is just stoopid doing something that doesn’t work to create an illusion of safety, in addition to causing pain to those who feel violated by this contraption.
November 17th, 2010 at 12:39 am
@Trueblood: True story: Only time my pasty, fat, middle-aged lady-self has been pulled aside for the extra security check was in 2005, at Seat-Tac. Which would have been entirely unremarkable, except that as I (and two other white ladies well past the age when even the most generous bartender would ask for ID) was patted down… the archetypal Greasy Expensively-Suited-Up Dual-Rolex Semetic Guy swept past us peasants, through the “express business traveller” velvet-roped entry, followed by no fewer than five (presumably) women in expensive, candy-colored burkas, the crown-to-floor models where only the tips of their fingers were exposed to public view. There was much eye-rolling, not least by the TSA screeners…
November 17th, 2010 at 12:41 am
@Trueblood:
Heh. Funniest and saddest part of that comment is Carlin would have run with that joke just as you told it, new version and all.
November 17th, 2010 at 12:49 am
Even a stopped clock is right twice a day, and if the wingnuts are screaming about the TSA now, well, they’re right for once. It’s not just them; the airline pilots’ union is pissed off too.
Yes, I know all about the underwear bomber. The next guy will hide his bomb in his anal cavity and then what? The backscatter machines are useless against that, so if the TSA always reacts by trying to defeat the most recent attack, it’s probes for all of us.
November 17th, 2010 at 12:54 am
Anne Laurie: Glad to see there was some equal-opportunity screening going on. Now you’ve got me salivating for the first time some American in a burqa has to disrobe and the TSA agent says something asinine like, “Well, we couldn’t tell if there was a bomb under her mask.” I’ve been bumped to business class a couple times, a random perk of having the same name as my constantly-flying father, and no matter how dirt-bag I look, I get a pleasant reception from the ticket counter all the way to the plane. But they probably figure I’m an Internet millionaire or some rich guy’s kid, either of which disqualifies me as a potential threat.
Yutsano: It really is sad that we can only imagine what hilarious/poignant things George Carlin would have to say about our country’s current bouts with insanity. Too bad Lewis Black et al. don’t fill the void, although his jokes/rant about somehow always getting randomly selected every time he goes through airport security is pretty funny.
Joe Buck: I hate your announcing, but I can’t disagree with you here- cavity searches for everyone!
November 17th, 2010 at 1:42 am
I’m not sure if this makes a difference, but the TSA head has only been in office since July. He was the third nominee since Obama took office and the first to be confirmed. Does anyone remember why the first two didn’t make it? Was it something significant or just Republicans dragging their feet at confirmation hearings?
November 17th, 2010 at 4:08 am
@Trueblood:
Nice.
How dare the lowly TSA employee, he of the two digit IQ and triple digit income, follow whatever directive he was given? Because, really, he’s dying to look at your underwear. He lives for that.
I had the misfortune of being sent to a wealthy suburban post office to run the “safety program” after the anthrax attacks. The customers, with their three digit IQ’s and four digit incomes, shit all over my employees every time they were asked the “four questions” on their parcels. Because they’re not terrorists! Why, they’re college graduates! The funniest part was, NONE of the geniuses who were sneering at us had read the directions, which were posted every three feet, and carefully written at a 6th grade level. I had to read them to them. Every. Single. Time. They’d then tell me what was in the parcel, “this is a BIRTHDAY GIFT, not anthrax!” and that’s how STUPID I am. Never mind that I 1. didn’t ask that, the “four questions” are exclusionary, and 2. I don’t care. Which held up the line and made the next genius madder. Because I’m so stupid.
I begged to go back to the station with the two digit IQ and the three digit income.
November 17th, 2010 at 7:18 am
@kay:
Maybe he should get another job that dosn’t involve treating us like criminals and groping our genitals if he doesn’t like being treated with contempt in return.
Just a thought.
November 17th, 2010 at 8:05 am
@Joe Buck:
I heard an interesting point regarding groping around people’s underwear; many people, due to age or prostate problems or whatever, have to wear adult diapers. Also, too, what about women who are wearing extra-heavy panty liners? I can imagine how humiliating would it be to have that announced loudly the next time you go through the full-body scan machine.
November 17th, 2010 at 8:35 am
@celticdragonchick:
I was out in the country yesterday. This is all over local wingnut “Christian” radio. Those nasty urban fellows are groping our women! And the head of homeland security might be GAY. She’s “not married”, or she would “understand”.
November 17th, 2010 at 8:38 am
@celticdragonchick:
It’s silly to make this sexual. They’re on their feet ten hours a day dealing with people in airports, and, despite what you may believe about how wonderful you are, people are tough to deal with. I went through security to get into a political event last month, and every single person had a cell phone, and every single person complained about having to turn it on, for security. 35,000 people. Each had to be told. To imagine those agents were thrilled to exert “power” is delusional.
The idea that they’re getting some thrill out of “groping” you is ridiculous and insulting and based on nothing but your imagination. They’re following a directive.
November 17th, 2010 at 9:40 am
@WyldPirate:
i just love how you try to steer every thread about anything at all into a discussion about how much obama sucks.
it’s like homer simpson calling into a radio sports show to talk about how much he hates ned flanders. it’s hilarious.
November 17th, 2010 at 10:02 am
@kay:
I’m sure the attractive women who have selected for “special screening” time and time again share your glib assuredness.
read comment 69. Follow the link. Read the story from the airline pilot with an 18 year old daughter in tow who over heard a TSA agent at the scanner say on the radio “I’ve got a cutie coming your way”.
Silly to make this sexual? Bullshit.
Read some of the other stories in that thread from women who felt exploited or men who saw female coworkers exploited.
November 17th, 2010 at 10:21 am
@celticdragonchick:
That’s a brave and noble battle you’re fighting, celticdragonchick, against the 9 dollar an hour TSA worker, imputing evil motive to thousands of workers, many of whom are women. That fact, of course, escaped your notice.
Why don’t you go after the director of Homeland Security? For someone who is constantly nattering on and on about how weak everyone else is, aren’t you punching a little below your weight class?
I think she has a graduate degree, and an IQ in “triple digits”, so you can deign to treat her like a human being.
November 17th, 2010 at 11:51 am
I really don’t care that because a black man is president they now actually care about rights. At least they now care!
I also know, that they only care about their rights, and their hope is to fix it so only “those people” get “probed.”
November 17th, 2010 at 12:58 pm
Frankly, I don’t give a shit. This TSA nonsense needs to stop and if that means I join hands with Rush Limbaugh to do it, so be it.
Rush is probably just pissed off because the TSA gropers didn’t offer him the option of a “happy ending”...
November 17th, 2010 at 2:57 pm