Opposition to the TSA’s heavy-handed (and also grabby-handed) screen procedures did not deter the agency from continuing its policies on one of the busiest traveling days of the year, despite admissions from officials that there is no actual threat to anybody.
Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, whose department oversees the TSA, insisted that the screening procedure would not change, and said the only real problem was that “most Americans are not used to a real law enforcement pat-down like that.” The inevitable response that most Americans are not criminals to be subjected to routine friskings seems to be lost on her, as with most officials.
Protesters were reported at a number of the major airports across the United States, but while these protesters clearly succeeded in getting their message out, they did not snarl holiday travel as some officials had feared, prompting many media outlets to spin it as a victory for the TSA.
Still, despite a number of travelers across the nation reporting that the TSA wasn’t even using the objectionable “full body scanners” at their airports and hence there was no opportunity to object to their use, they were used in some places, including Los Angeles’ LAX, where TSA officials reportedly conducted large numbers of “enhanced patdowns” on travelers who objected to the full body scans.
TSA Chief John Pistole, whose response to the protests was a combination of dismissiveness and overt threats, spent the day at Ronald Reagan National Airport, a visit that was supposed to improve the morale of increasingly reviled TSA employees whose jobs have increasingly become groping the public’s sexual organs while scowling unpleasantly. Recent reports have suggested a number of the TSA agents are less than comfortable with the new policies.
What a load of bollocks!
As it goes it's a victory for Mr. Piss-Stole and his criminal organization. Why?. Ask the sleeping Americans who accepted to be the sheeps which are lead to the slaughter house. This patdown doesn't exist in the most brutal countries, neither it's practices in the prisons of the GREAT USA. When they do shakedown in the US prisons they don't touch your body. You only stripdown your prison uniform then you show your body around by raising your arms, open your mouth with your tongue out, left your testicles and then bend down and and spread your butt and cough. Nobody will touch your genitals because it considers very humulating and very dangerous.
The utterly pathetic thing about the scanners and the searches is that if the noxious regime is ever abolished it will most likely be the result of a bureaucrat revolt. The idea of the American people standing up for their rights has become a sick joke.
TSA seems to be rationalizing it this way: we need a human shield and ordinary travelers will provide it. We know they're innocent and we assume they won't attract bombers waiting with them in the lines (at least we hope not). The shield will keep the bombers out. A little humiliation and brutality is not much to ask of a patriot. Could travelers establish their credentias some other way? Of course. They already have the credentials. We need to recruit them, you see, into a serf-like system, a secondary security army, that works as a shield. If we could use animals for this purpose we would. Sorry, that's the way it has to be.
Does Pistole have to go through the scanner or enhanced pat down if he flies? Or does he get a private plane?
Have you noticed that the TSA has announced that people who refuse the porno-scanners and the grope will be arrested and treated as "terror suspects" until they can convince law enforcement that they're not!!!
Do you all realize that this means that the "Patriot"Act kicks in and you will have no legal rights- no access to an attorney, possible indefinite detention,no trial or even a criminal charge no contact with family, and maybe a trip to Bagram if they feel like it.
The sky IS falling.
“…most Americans are not used to a real law enforcement pat-down like that.” Well, the problem, Janet, is that first off, the TSA are not sworn law enforcement officers and second, only those already under arrest are actually searched in these methods. I know, Janet. My wife is a sergeant patrol officer with real law enforcement. They took an oath to uphold the law, unlike TSA security.