RedStateEclectic

TSA Does Not Protect You—Guest Post

By Doug Newman

In a little less than a week, I will be flying on an airplane for the first time this year. When I get to the airport, I will be faced with three abhorrent choices:

1. Have myself photographed in my birthday suit by one of those very possibly cancer-causing nudie-nukers.
2. Have my crotch groped by some tax-mainlining pervert in an act that anywhere else would constitute sexual assault. This is also full of health risks.
3. Not flying.

And if you are going to say, “Then just don’t fly”, then you just don’t get it.

As Vin Suprynowicz put it last Sunday, “It’s all a vicious game of ‘let’s pretend.’”

TSA does not keep you safe. It never has. It never will.

I have said before – Suprynowicz says something similar – that if a terrorist really wanted to kill a lot of people and disrupt aviation, he would not go to all the trouble of smuggling a bomb through security in order to blow up a plane. Rather, he would set off a bomb in a terminal.

Terrorists could even orchestrate a coordinated attack at multiple locations. Imagine bombs going off at eight on a Monday morning at, say, ATL, ORD and DFW. Imagine thousands dead and America’s three main aviation hubs crippled indefinitely.

TSA waits until well after you enter a terminal before commencing with gate rape. Not only have they never caught a terrorist in almost a decade, but they leave most parts of airports … ahem … “unprotected.”

(Just before I put this to bed, a congressthing announced that there had been 25,000 breaches of TSA since its inception in 2001.)

Besides, who says a terrorist attack has to involve planes and airports?

I mean, like, terrorists could attack train stations, bus stations, schools, shopping malls, stadiums and grocery stores. Are you willing to be sexually assaulted every time you enter such venues? Are you willing to have career perverts grope and ogle your six-year-old kids as they walk into school? How far down this road are you willing to go?

Elsewhere, looking at a nude photograph of a minor would be considered child pornography and would land you in the cooler. Not so with TSA.

And if TSA is oh so necessary to keep us “secure” from terrorists at airports, why don’t they also station their blueshirts at train stations and bus stations? Why don’t they interrupt traffic on highways? I mean, like, you never know when or where a terrorist could hypothetically, theoretically strike next. You can’t be too careful.

Oh, wait. They already have. They were even supposed to show up at a high school prom in Santa Fe recently.

One of the grievances spelled out in the Declaration of Independence – and the basis for the Third Amendment – was “Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us.” I am sure that King George III never dreamed of authorizing the redcoats to grope the crotches of the colonists, much less justified such institutionalized depravity in the name of a higher good. (And if he had, the “shot heard round the world” would have been fired much sooner than April 19, 1775.)

Allan Macurdy is perhaps the most amazing person I have ever known. Diagnosed with Muscular Dystrophy at age 7, he let nothing stand in his way. In spite of absolutely daunting physical challenges, he would become a professor of law at Boston University.

My friend, classmate and hero, Allan Macurdy. 1960-2008

I don’t know about Allan’s politics, nor will I ever care. However, I want to steal a phrase from him: “higher parade of horribles.” He used this phrase when discussing how much physical adversity a person would accept before they simply lost the will to live.

Likewise, there is a “higher parade of horribles” that applies to the whole TSA controversy. As horrible as terrorism is, there would be something immeasurably more horrible: life under a totalitarian government.

And this is exactly what millions of Americans seem willing to accept in the name of “security”. How else would you describe a government that will presume its citizens guilty and molest and assault them as a condition of movement?

And if you will quietly accept TSA’s ritual sexual – and scatalogical – humiliation, what will you not accept? Where will you draw the line?

I would rather live in a free society with the very remote chance of being a victim of terrorism than in a place such as Cuba or North Korea, with a ubiquitous “national security” apparatus and no liberty whatsoever.

And if this higher horrible of a truly totalitarian state ever does come to pass on these shores, it will not be the fault of Dubya or Obomber or Al-Qaeda or Al-whatever. It will be because of millions of Americans allowed their government to do absolutely anything to keep them “secure.”

Oh how I wish I had said this first: Our liberty was not stolen from us. It died from lack of exercise.
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If you would like to post this elsewhere – who knows why? – please email me and include a link to this URL. Thanks!

The Government Would Lie to Us? No. Way.

Exposed documents reveal Napolitano, TSA lied about safety of cancer-causing naked body scanners

Here’s some of the best, but click above for the whole article:

Amid the string of emails discussing the matter, an undisclosed sender explains that NIST was "a little concerned" over Napolitano's public reassurances that TSA's naked body scanners are safe. After all, NIST does not test products, and it never tested the naked body scanners in the first place. Napolitano apparently took the individual machine dose measurements that NIST had gathered and twisted them to say what she wanted them to say, which was that the machines are safe.
You can view a partially-censored copy of that email exchange here:
http://epic.org/privacy/backscatter...

Worse, NIST had actually warned DHS and TSA that the machines were not necessarily safe, and that airport screening agents should avoid standing next to them because of the harmful radiation they emit. It is unclear whether or not this warning was ever taken seriously by TSA officials.

Napolitano also falsely claimed that research conducted by the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory confirms the safety of naked body scanners, even though the research actually suggests the opposite. Dr. Michael Love from the school publicly stated that the machines are going to give people skin cancer, and the specific findings of the report indicate that "radiation zones" around the machines emit enough radiation to exceed the "General Public Dose Limit."

Skies Just Ain’t Friendly Anymore

Ray Stevens’ new song.  Haven’t found the video yet.

TSA: I Just Don’t Think Most People Get It

[NOTE: This is a guest post by Doug Newman that I ran into a few days ago.  He has given me permission to publish it in full here.  He raises some very good points, I think.  LE]

“Find out just what people will submit to, and you have found out the exact amount of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them;
and these will continue until they are resisted with either words or blows, or with both.
The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress.”
– Frederick Douglass

On the afternoon of September 11, 2001, when we were all scurrying about like so many headless chickens, an old friend in Arizona sent an absolutely prophetic email. The subject line read: “They want you to panic…”

The body of the email started: “… so don’t.”

I quote the email in part:

“I know this is going to sound horrifically insensitive, but the fact that what amounted to — militarily speaking — a strategic pinprick can bring a nation’s people to a state of disarray we’re seeing unfold (even as I type this initial response) gravely concerns me. As terrible as this may sound, ultimately, it is the financial blow — both real and perceived — that will concern you and yours. I have even greater concerns…

“Yes, pray for the dead, the dying, the injured and their loved ones, but NEVER lose sight of the fact that many more people gave their lives over the past 226 years to make sure you live and breathe in Freedom — relative Freedom though it may be these days. Do NOT go off the deep end and cry for ‘more security’ at the cost of your basic Liberty. Believe me — there are powerful men who will willingly accommodate you at ANY cost.”

This is not about what happened on 9/11 (1), but rather about the inability of what may well be a majority of Americans to grasp what Uncle Sam is doing as a response to these horrible crimes. Also, it is about the willingness of what may well be a majority of Americans, to surrender their most fundamental God-given liberties in the name of some sense of “security.”

To begin with, 9/11 was not an attack on our freedom. It could not have been. The 19 hijackers are DEAD! And you cannot take over a country, impose Shari’a law, force everyone to speak Arabic and force women to wear burqas, when you are – I will say this one more time – DEAD!

The proper, moral, and constitutional response to 9/11 would have been a letter of Marque and Reprisal. This is a sort of warrant to go after the specific perpetrators of things like piracy and terrorism. There were no doubt people still alive who had a hand in planning and financing the attacks who needed to be brought to justice and punished severely.

There was no reason to launch a war on anyone who could hypothetically, theoretically engage in a vaguely defined tactic. And there was no reason to curtail civil liberties domestically.

Even so, the American people have gladly accepted endless war abroad as well as numerous previously unthinkable predations on their liberty here at home.

First came the Patriot Act in October 2001. This 300-page bill, which legislators were given 15 minutes to read, authorized warrantless searches, spying and wiretaps as a means of fighting terrorism. Fourth Amendment concerns were recklessly disregarded. Both the sellers and the buyers of the Patriot Act sang the same song: “If you have nothing to hide you have nothing to fear.”

After all, it was to go after those people over there. You know, those scary looking guys with funny names, diapers on their heads and bad attitudes. Those guys, not us.

I just don’t think most people got it.

Then airport security was nationalized with the implementation of the TSA. For a time there, you could not carry nail clippers on board a plane. And the fondling of naughty bits is nothing new.

And I just don’t think most people got it.

Then some dweeb couldn’t even blow up his own shoe on a flight from Paris to Miami. So then we had to take off our shoes before going through airport security.

And I just don’t think most people got it.

Then a few goobers in Britain supposedly tried to put explosives in water and shampoo bottles and blow up planes over the Atlantic. (They were all acquitted by the way.) Then we couldn’t carry water bottles through security. Nor could anyone take any liquid container over three ounces through security.

And I just don’t think most people got it.

Then some nudnik couldn’t even blow up his whitey-tighties on a plane bound for Detroit. Enter the porno scanners and full-body pat downs replete with fondling of the naughty bits.

And I just don’t think most people got it.

If you will tolerate having yourself and your family photographed in all their glory with very possibly cancer-causing X-rays and/or having yourself and your family groped from head to toe – naughty bits included – in the name of “national security” what won’t you tolerate?

(The silence from most Christians on this issue is particularly appalling. What should I expect, though? So many of them have no problem with evil “if it produces a good result.” Never mind that this runs contrary to Romans 3:5-8.)

In any other context this would constitute child pornography, child molestation and sexual assault. (2) Someone somewhere has coined the term “gate rape”. Lew Rockwell has said that the United States just may be the very first country in the world whose government has claimed the right to feel up its subjects.

And if your response to this is “then just don’t fly”, YOU DON’T GET IT!

To begin with, if a terrorist really wanted to kill a lot of people and disrupt aviation, he wouldn’t need to go to the trouble of smuggling a bomb on board a plane. All he would have to do is walk into a terminal – e.g. O’Hare or Atlanta – on a Monday morning and let it rip right there.

Second, TSA has already announced plans to station its crotch-fondling flunkies in railroad and subway stations. They have just started doing random bag checks on the DC Metro subway system. They have already set up checkpoints at bus stations. And in late September, just west of Atlanta on I-20, TSA set up a roadblock to inspect trucks in the name of “counter-terrorism.” Remember: it is called the TRANSPORTATION Security Administration.

Third, the possibility exists that scary looking guys with funny names, diapers on their heads and bad attitudes could attack shopping malls, office buildings, stadiums, etc. Are you willing to submit to nudie cams and crotch-fondling there too?

And how about schools? I mean, you never know where a terrorist could strike next. Will you tolerate nudie cams and crotch-fondling there too? Again, what will you NOT accept?(2)

Will you put up with national security roadblocks too? Will you be okay when a routine trip to the grocery store turns into an all-day event replete with TSA blueshirts rummaging through every item in your car and performing cavity checks on you and your kids? If you have nothing to hide you have nothing to worry about, right?

And if you so much as roll your eyes at the blueshirts about how ridiculous it all is, will you be okay with being hauled off and detained indefinitely without formal charges or the ability to obtain legal counsel? You did say, didn’t you, that you were willing to give up your freedom in the name of security?

How “secure” will you “feel” in a society where you cannot travel freely? How “secure” will you “feel” in a society where you are constantly presumed guilty until proven innocent?

People ridicule me for fussing about “my rights” in this age of terrorism.  I just don’t think most people get it. It is exactly during times of crisis – real or imagined – that governments look to take away rights. Moreover, this is also when people panic and give away their rights.

And if you will give up some of your rights to have more security, why not give up all your rights in order to have total security?

Thomas Jefferson once remarked that, “I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than to those attending too small a degree of it.” The likelihood that you or I will ever be the victim of terrorism is microscopic and in no way worth the price of the securitopia for which so many millions of Americans pine. (3)

Be careful what you ask for. North Korea has the world’s most comprehensive national security apparatus.

And, to be sure, they have no terrorism problem.

They also have no immigration problem.

What will it take before most people get it?

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(1) No 9/11 truth posts please. I respect the truth movement and I have numerous doubts about the official story, but that is not what this is about.

(2) Great article: “The TSA: America’s Real Child Pornography/Molestation Machine”.   I have linked to this twice for a reason: TSA has YOUR CHILDREN in its crosshairs.

(3) I am also not at all fearful of “global jihad” as it has been several centuries since a Muslim country conquered a non-Muslim country. Moreover, terrorism is not a philosophy of government, but rather a tactic. Terrorists do not even control the government of Yemen. Hence, I am not afraid of them taking over America. And, as Pat Buchanan points out, other countries have solved their terrorism problems.

National Security vs. Protecting Liberty

The interesting paradoxes we see today…

Papers, Please!

It appears that there is significant confusion about what people can an can’t do, and much is left in the hands the officers involved.

Speedo vs. Blue Jeans

Apparently the TSA believes that if you have your jeans on, the pat down isn’t as invasive?  Who exactly are they protecting?  The discomfort of the TSA agents doing the pat-down who are uncomfortable feeling up a guy in Speedo, or the passengers? 

We the Sheeple

Here’s a fascinating, touching, and thought provoking story about one woman’s encounter with the TSA.  The comments to the article are fascinating.

The Audacity of Grope

Thanks to the Campaign for Liberty

Out of Control

They’re not only senseless, but they appear to be vindictive, as well.  Watch this whole thing (there are subtitles throughout that explain what’s happening).