Anti-Terrorism Tactics

I've resisted the urge to comment on the latest stupidities being perpetrated by the Transportation Security Administration . . . but their conduct has become so egregious, and their arrogance so vast and overwhelming, that I can't keep silent any longer. It's long gone time that these bureaucratic Evil Overlords were given their come-uppance.

Their latest search tactics - full-body scans using X-rays and microwave radar at potentially dangerous cumulative radiation levels, coupled with invasive searches of the genital area for those who refuse such screening - are a farce. They would not have stopped a single one of the 9/11/2001 hijackers, and they would not have detected the so-called 'shoe bomber'. They can and will do nothing whatsoever to improve our security in flight. They're nothing more than a public relations exercise, designed to both give the impression that the TSA is doing something worthwhile, and to intimidate travelers into 'respecting the authority' of these pathetic, ignorant, self-serving goons.

I speak as one trained by the Department of Justice in one area of law enforcement, including pat-downs and search techniques (yes, including the genital area). It's the same body-search training received by TSA operatives and all Federal law enforcement personnel. I know whereof I speak . . . and I can assure you, the sort of threat that faces our airliners will not be detected by such searches. They are meaningless, pointless and useless. What's even worse is that they violate the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution, part of the Bill of Rights, which reads:

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



The TSA is trying to maintain that the Fourth Amendment doesn't apply, because travelers automatically waive their rights under this Amendment when they buy an air ticket. That's nonsense, of course. The purchase of a ticket may imply consent to a reasonable search . . . but having a total stranger inspect my genitals is anything but reasonable! There are limits to reasonableness, and I think any 'reasonable' person will agree that the TSA has just overstepped those boundaries.

The head of the TSA is trying to put the best possible face upon his agency's latest moves.

"There is an ever-evolving nature of the terrorist threat," Pistole told a Senate committee holding a hearing on the safety of cargo.

Pistole said the government is not always ahead of the terroists and that his agency seeks "the proper mix" between passengers' rights and protecting airplanes.

"We want to be sensitive to people's sensitivity to privacy and their being while ensuring that everybody is secure on every flight," he said.

Pistole told fliers that he is concerned about their safety and privacy and asked them to "work together" with his agency.

The only people who undergo the more-intense patdowns are those who refuse to go through full-body scanners or those who somehow trip other dectors.

"It's a very small percentage of all passengers," Pistole said, adding that "our patdown approach is very similar to what is being used in Europe."


Unfortunately, Mr. Pistole is lying in his teeth - and anyone who's traveled extensively knows he's lying. His agency's patdown approach is not, repeat, not 'very similar to what is being used in Europe'. I've been patted down there, and I'm here to tell you, European security personnel are far more professional and polite, and far more discreet, in their probing, patting and poking! In particular, they don't treat your private parts as if they were public portals!

Furthermore, I've grown accustomed to having TSA personnel lie to me every single time I use a US airport. I travel with a cane, the result of partial disability. I've had different procedures applied to that cane in almost every airport. Some let me walk through the metal detector with it; some don't. Some X-ray it along with my carry-on baggage; some don't. Some swab it to check for explosives; some don't. Yet, at every airport, if I query something that's required, their common answer is that "this is TSA policy, and it's the same at every airport". I know damn well it's not the same - I routinely use other airports, and I know they're lying to me! There are at least minor, and sometimes major, differences in TSA's practices between any two airports in my experience. Any experienced traveler knows that. TSA staff must surely know that I know that . . . yet they continue to lie. Why? What possible grounds can they have to continue to say what they and I both know to be false? My opinion of their (and their agency's) overall honesty, probity and trustworthiness sinks lower every time they lie - I submit, with good reason. After all, would you trust an inveterate liar?

What's even worse is that the TSA's measures are so appallingly ineffective. I personally know travelers who have (inadvertently and without any criminal intention) carried through security knives, ammunition, teargas canisters, and in one case a holstered handgun complete with two magazines of ammunition. None were detected by X-ray scans of carry-on baggage or searches. All were only discovered by their owners only after they had boarded the plane, or arrived at their destination. Such things happen often enough - on a daily basis, I'm convinced - that I have no faith whatsoever in the TSA's 'security theater' to stop a determined, armed individual from getting his weapons through their checks and onto an aircraft.

In short, the TSA is an expensive, unconstitutional and infuriating joke. It's time the American people realize that the joke is on us . . . and take steps to end it.

If we want real airline security, I submit there's no better example than Israel. El Al is probably the most desirable terrorist target in the aviation world - yet, for several decades, they've flown peacefully to and fro, with minimal problems from terrorism. There's a good reason for that...

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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”?...

Politicians are decision makers. They control the levers of power. The trouble... 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.

This is precisely what has happened at TSA, as the agency implements policies that Congress has not authorized but is also powerless to revoke.

The monstrous Leviathan into which TSA has quickly, albeit all too predictably, morphed is a textbook illustration of Ellul’s thesis. Several elected representatives of the people politely suggested that a political technician, a bureaucrat, might possibly want to think about maybe giving, you know, just a bit of thought to not forcing American citizens to choose between being irradiated or groped, and he simply said:

“No.”

That’s a quote. He didn’t mince words, he didn’t equivocate, he didn’t evade the question. He simply said, “No.”

And the politicians did nothing, because they had no power to do anything. The technician had the power, and they all knew it.

In this same way, little by little and in virtually every nook and cranny of our daily lives, the role and extent of the bureaucrat — the political technician — extends to the point of near universality, and the seemingly endless, self-replicating rules that constrain and bind us become like white noise, unheard for its ubiquity.

Soon enough the Lilliputian technicians have turned their master into their subject, having tied down and captured their Gulliver — the people — via the countless cords of our mind-numbing, soul-deadening bureaucratic codes. In the end, it’s easier to surrender than to fight, just as it is always easier to be a subject than a citizen.

So it all comes down a simple question: will we be citizens whose elected and appointed servants must obey us, or subjects of a self-aggrandizing behemoth that claims sovereignty over our very bodies?

To their great and lasting credit, the American people understand on a deep, even instinctive level that the TSA groping flap is about far more than either security or inconvenience. It is about fundamental liberty, about personal sovereignty, and about preserving our Constitutional rights as Americans. It is a battle that the American people must, and will, win.

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Glocktogo said:

Obviously I can't comment publicly on my positions internal to TSA, but I'm on the good guy side. I always figure I have a better chance of effecting change from within. With that said, this is probably the hardest time I've had being a TSA Inspector.

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jrusling said:

I do feel for you. However, I do feel that the extent that TSA is going to is a violation of unreasonable search. There is no search that is 100% with the possible exception of a full strip and cavity search. I personally don't expect the Government to protect me from everything. In fact I know that they cannot. I think it is more likely that terrorist are more likely to blow up or shoot up a shopping mall than they are a plane.

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