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Nobody touched his junk
By adamg on Sat, 11/27/2010 - 9:46am
Ted McEnroe reports on a trip through a TSA checkpoint with a baby:
Like millions of my fellow travelers, I went on my merry way after taking off my shoes, unbagging my laptop, deftly folding my child’s stroller and proceeding past the very polite person who waved me through the metal detector. There was no hue and cry. No one patted down the baby's diaper. In fact, I thanked people - the nice TSA guy who applauded my dextrous collapsing of the stroller. The guy waving me through the metal detector - he got a thank you, too. And the guy checking my license and boarding pass. We actually exchanged a few pleasantries as we waited for the line to move down and I could pass by.
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Comments
re: is that nice for Ted Mcenroe
"I hope that we come up with either some better procedures or we come to grips with the reality that there are no procedures that are guaranteed to work 100% of the time to stop determined people intent on doing harm to the United States or its citizens. But in the meantime, try not to hyperventilate when all we need, really, is to take a deep breath and figure this out."
In other words, Ted, shut up and submit. We get it. You worship the state.
Note: he didn't get searched
So much easier to dismiss the stupidity and degradation when it doesn't happen to you - this time. Now go through with a child whose name inexplicably appears on the watch list and see how thrilled you are to accept Absurd Security Theater.
(thanks again to Ed Markey's office for finally taking care of that after a year of following official procedure going nowhere).
Jeez, Swirly
It's your own darn fault for naming him Khalid Muhammad McSwirly.
Well played
:o)
How dare you ...
That's Khalid JIHAD Muhammad McSwirly!
His brother Imam Islam MalcolmX McSwirly escapes additional attention, somehow.
TSA insecurity
Wish I could echo your story. Sadly, 2 trips thru the TSA since September (1 at logan) and both times the TSA tried to bully my pregnant wife into the new scanner. Even the magical words 'opt out" ad "I'd rather be patted down" had no effect on them.
Only until she was surrounded by a ring of TSA agents was she able to convince them her fetus should not be dosed w/ radiation from a machine built by the lowest bidder and she was finally allowed to opt out for the pat down. Said the British guy behind me: "If that was my wife I'd have punched them."
Our issue is not w/ the pat down but that the pat down is being used by the TSA to intimidate people into theses X Ray machines.
http://tinyurl.com/2dw2cgo
It sickens me.
Even before this latest TSA absurdity I would get anxious days before a flight because of the procedures already in place- now I'm a ball of anxious anger when I travel- have to stiffle myself. After air travel these days- I get to my hotel and I just want to crash for hours. In the last ten years I have had a lighter of sentimental value taken from me- had to throw out an bottle of after shave cause it was "too big"- and had a pocket knife seized and taken from me that I forgot I had in a bag.
And now this- already felt like a convict shuffling along with no shoes- holding up my pants- hat off like some serf before his master. It just really really depresses me to even go into airports these days. Feel like a weakling and coward.
I feel the same way when I
I feel the same way when I fly. I honestly attribute a lot of the TSA's b.s. to my increased anxiety about flying.
I think he's missing the point
The point that he should take away from that experience is that, in spite of no one taking a nude photo of him or grabbing his genitals, he was successfully screened for air travel.
You see, it's INCREDIBLY
You see, it's INCREDIBLY IMPORTANT that we stop terrorists by giving them enhanced screening. Except during thanksgiving weekend when reports say most airports shut down the rapescan machines so that people would have nothing to protest about. These machines are so important to our security that they were turned off during the busiest travel day.
Ask yourself this: The TSA insists that the enhanced patdowns are NECESSARY because of last years underwear bomb attempt. If that were true, why did it take them 11 months to begin to do them? Why werent the enhanced patdowns implemented a day or two after?
It's all a money game. Someone is making a lot of money selling these very expensive, untested machines.
Remember the "puffers"? They were similar machines that shot bursts of air at you to check for bomb residue. After spening over $30 million, the TSA canceled that program. Why? THEY HADN'T BEEN TESTED and they failed in the field.
Do you trust that the machines shooting radioactive waves have been properly tested?
Let's put a name to the makers . . .
. . . of the full body scanners- L3 Communications is one of them and according to this story they sprinkled money around Congress to be the supplier and push for their installation.
I'd quit this company. Not kidding. I would rather do honest labor as a Target stock boy than work for a company "selling" such a product.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2010-11-22...
Don't forget Skeletor
Chertoff has been busy flogging his service as Fearmonger in Chief as a consultant to Rapiscan.