Yes, sure, a majority of Americans are willing to put up with the ritual humiliations that now accompany air travel; those same people that don't worry much about driving their luxury trucks at 100 while talking on the phone -- at night -- in the rain. Odds are they haven't had to experience more than being asked to remove a belt or their shoes or having been chastised by someone in a too-tight polyester uniform and rubber gloves about which size Zip-Loc they put their shampoo and toothpaste in or even having 'terrorist tool' nail clippers confiscated. Of course many of us still haven't been through the full-body cameras and the rude, abrupt, "up against the wall" attitudes of TSA tyrants. Many have been and many are now fed up with what's being mocked as Security Theater. Fed up is a euphemism here of course but in this week of peak air travel, some of us will undergo an attitude adjustment and begin to use more direct words.
Some will elect to deprive some unseen gnome of viewing their nakedness, or that of their spouses and children and choose a "manual" search. It may be more 'manual' then they expected. ABC News producer Carolyn Durand claims that
"The woman who checked me reached her hands inside my underwear and felt her way around. It was basically worse than going to the gynecologist."Raw Story reports that women have had to remove prosthetic breasts for
"inspection." One man had a urostomy bag ruptured by TSA's claws and had to board an airplane while soaked with public humiliation and urine. Keep in mind, that no probable cause is involved here since profiling would be insulting. Keep in mind that you probably can't get there by Amtrak and driving to grandma's house may be more dangerous than flying.Of course, to me, the Government's power to stick their fingers in your hooha is far more offensive than its power to prevent the bus company from making some of my friends sit in the back seats and expel them from the Woolworths lunch counter, but then I'm not a Tea Party 'Patriot,' I don't support Rand Paul's discomfort with anything infringing on absolute property rights and I'm not an oil company either. Neither am I like the troll who used Raw Story's comment section to rave about supporting the "Terrorist State of Israel." I'm just sick of arguable ends being used to sanctify extreme and offensive methods. I'm tired of losing my freedom to other people's fear and my country to the neurotic and fearful mob.
Actually Chris Hayes, sitting in for Lawrence O'Donnell's "Last Word" program last night, clarified the video on the "strip search" of the 4-year old.
ReplyDeleteIn actuality, the boy tripped off an alarm when he went through the metal detector, and it was his father who removed his t-shirt to find the cause that tripped the alarm.
Ooops. Forgot to provide the link.
ReplyDeleteIs that really all that much better? It may have been easier on the kid if his father took off the shirt, sure, but I still find it disgusting and degrading to put up with this crap.
ReplyDeleteAt what point do we simply strip and board planes nude? Is that the end-game call that settles this silly crap? I came back from Jamaica with two pre-teens years ago, before the 9/11 attacks prompted so much of what we're seeing today, and they put dogs on our suitcases at the Atlanta airport when our plane landed. We had to identify our luggage, stand next to it while dogs climbed over the suitcases sniffing around. To subject the paying customer to nude-o-scans OR a grope-a-thon for the privilege of sitting in a cramped space, breathing recycled air on a steaming tarmac for hours at a time, being fed stale peanuts and a soft drink while bouncing along with your legs cramping up, doesn't seem like much of a bargain anymore. I may never fly again, and I'm one of the weird ones who savors every minute of flight. We've lost, the terrorists have won, and all that's left is for us to just strip down 24/7 to show we aren't carrying concealed weapons into the Seven Eleven.
ReplyDeleteHave the TSA folks drag someone in 'Muslim garb' (Juan Williams immortal phrase) out of line and subject them to a full cavity search at the gate and I'd venture to say it wouldn't be a problem.
ReplyDeleteBut 'fondle' some blue-eyed Real American and see what happens?
Sorry folks. The idiots who voted GWB and his henchmen into office for eight years and then sat by quietly while those criminals had the run of the place are waking up to the reality of what we have acquiesced to just a bit late in the game.
All in all, I'm happy that I got to experience the golden age of air travel because it's gone for good. Even without the proctological procedures, the A-train has become a more elegant way to get there.
ReplyDelete"The idiots who voted GWB and his henchmen into office"
You mean the real terrorists? One of the first things they said in 2001 is that we're going to have to give up some of our freedom and that was one of the few promises they lived up to.
Being an older person, a good number of my friends have metal hips and knees, pacemakers, catheters, ostomy bags, prostheses of all kinds -- things that they really don't want handled, displayed to the public, manhandled or ripped open by untrained, stressed and often rude people it's hard not to think of as thugs even when they aren't. I'm sure they appreciate being shunted aside and stripped of dignity and self respect in yet another way, as our society is increasingly wont to do. All for our protection, of course.
I understand someone is already marketing special scanner-proof fig leaves to put in your drawers. You have to give traditional American entrepreneurship some marks here and maybe it's of some comfort to someone who really would rather not have the question of whether he has a flashlight in his pocket or is just happy to be there, answered so coldly.
And I can't help but wonder if the recent discovery of a fake bomb sent as air mail wasn't a deliberate attempt to justify this new increment of civil humiliation.
Anyway, my protest is simply not to fly any more unless it's a desperate necessity and perhaps enough people feel the same way that we should all buy some Greyhound stock.
Capt. Fogg,
ReplyDeleteWell, Greyhound stock it is. Excellent post -- I've been working on a full post about this subject and have finished it, but will post it in a day or two. I agree with what you say, in short -- the whole situation is ridiculous, almost like a Beckett or Artaud play, without the redeeming brand of nihilism. "Security Theater of Cruelty," or something like that.
Is this a great country or what?
ReplyDeleteAnother American success story and certainly the Chertoff family has much to be thankful for this holiday.
http://www.allgov.com/Where_is_the_Money_Going/ViewNews/Body_Scanners_Create_Profits_for_Chertoff_and_Others_101123
"Expanding the use of full-body scanners at airports will improve the nation’s security, says the Obama administration.
It also will benefit the manufacturers of the equipment, including those lobbying on their behalf, like former Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff.
Chertoff’s consulting firm, the Chertoff Group, represents OSI Systems, one of two companies licensed to sell full-body scanners to the Transportation Security Administration (TSA). OSI, maker of the Rapiscan machine, garnered attention recently because its CEO, Deepak Chopra (no relation to the spiritual author and speaker), was invited to travel with President Barack Obama on his trip to India. The arrangement demonstrated the closeness of the company with the White House, and the trip was a potential money-maker for OSI, now that India plans to install scanners at its airports in the wake of the 2008 Mumbai attacks.
Chertoff has not been shy about exploiting terrorism incidents to his client’s advantage, appearing on television as an expert after the attempted bombing of the Northwest Airlines flight on Christmas Day 2009 to advise the nation that it should invest in full-body scanners for airports."
Amen. Now that's showing some good old ingenuity US of A style.
I just posted about this very thing; questioning whether the current security "theater" promotes true security in view of the costs/inconvenience to passengers. There are smarter and more effective procedures but "smarter" and "more effective" is a relic of our lost prior greatness as a world innovator.
ReplyDelete"but "smarter" and "more effective" is a relic of our lost prior greatness as a world innovator."
ReplyDeleteI like that. And of course the bad guys are innovators too.
Actually the current security apparatus couldn't be much 'smarter' or 'more effective.
ReplyDeleteGiven that the primary goal is to maintain an agitated fearful population willing to vote for any number of further refinements on the security state it works well.
And it keeps most planes from being blown out of the sky as well.
But security isn't what we're really seeking. That it more or less works demonstrates two facts.
1.) The 'threat' is vastly exaggerated.
2.) Throw enough money at anything and you're bound to get some sort of result.
I am ready to quit flying. And no one seems to consider the impact such invasive procedures have on people who have been previously sexually assaulted!! I don't hear much discussion on that, but I think it's an important consideration on top of everything else.
ReplyDeleteFlying used to be fun and exciting. Now it's a trigger for a PTSD flashback...