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Valiant Dancer
Forum Goalie
USA
4826 Posts |
 Posted - 07/05/2012 : 11:46:14 [Permalink]
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OK, here's the issue.
The TSA is no longer protecting against the most likely means of terrorist attack, they are going for all possible ones. Even the ones that aren't credible and using tactics and equipment that will not discover the types of threats they were originally for.
The TSA needs to reign back their people. The pat downs/sexual assaults are not providing any extra security.
But, lets go over some stories that have been in the news and how the TSA responded to them plus a rundown of what they have actually protected us from.
A 7 year old child rushed forward to greet her grandmother while holding a teddy bear. She was detained and patted down because "the bear might contain a gun" and the agent said "I've seen where guns were hidden in teddy bears before".
Yes he did. The film was The Last Boy Scout and starred Bruce Willis. When the TSA was roundly criticized over the statement, all of a sudden parts of a gun were found in a teddy bear but, get this, the passenger was NOT detained and allowed to board his flight. They claim it was due to a domestic situation where the guys ex was trying to get him in trouble. Of course, people, including myself, questioned wheather this was a plant.
Now for a list of people that the TSA has "protected" us from.
1) A FOX news reporter and his terrorist bag (which was heavily wounded during the bags obvious resistance)
2) 2 Indian ambassadors
3) A middle aged masectomy patient
4) An elderly colostomy patient
5) An elderly, wheelchair-bound, Jewish, former secretary of state (One Henry Kissinger)
6) an 18 month old child
7) a 7 year old girl lugging an assault teddy
8) Two US Senators
9) A cupcake with rum frosting
Now for a list of people TSA has not protected us from
1) two drug smugglers who PAID OFF the TSA.
2) checked luggage (because they were too busy at the Porn-o-scan machine ogling the female form)
Protect me from the probable threats with a minimally invasive process. Actually observe people and talk to nervous types. Random is useless. Go for articuable suspicion before the pat downs.
The 4th Amendment is there as a protection against the police acting in this manner. As the story in the paper recently concerning a police department arresting EVERYONE (over 40 people) at a stop light including placing all of them in cuffs to get one bank robber. The TSA is leading the way towards degradation of Constitutional protections. That story is here.
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Cthulhu/Asmodeus when you're tired of voting for the lesser of two evils
Brother Cutlass of Reasoned Discussion |
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Cuneiformist
The Imperfectionist
USA
4955 Posts |
Posted - 07/05/2012 : 13:15:21 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by sailingsoul
Who's to say that a 4 yr old could not be a terrorist? Fact! Nobody can prove that it can't be so, after all. All it takes is just 1, 4 yr old and thousands of people could die, die forever, don't you know! They're, the TSA, were just doing their job and you did arrive safely, didn't you? What more proof is needed. Governments are only trying to keep us and travelers safe and all everyone can do is bitch about it.
Americans and people in general are obviously a bunch of idiots who will surrender everything requested based on NO EVIDENCE of current threat deemed to be necessary. They will put up with untold amount of bullshit if properly terrorized (conditioned) first. For anyone who doesn't buy the terror training, they can just fuck off and if they insist they will happily be detained, miss their flight and even arrested if they choose, their choice. Every traveler gets a choice, the TSA is there to serve. It's all good.
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Sarcasm's fine, I guess. But sometimes it gets in the way if making a real argument.
I travel 5-6 times a year for business and another few times for personal travel, etc. I certainly don't like the rather draconian TSA rules (I think the stupid 3 oz liquid thing is a joke, and can't imagine that me having my belt on is going to ruin security, etc., etc.). But I disagree with this dystopian view put forward by some that the TSA is just part of some nefarious plot to help elites take over the world by making us put our toothpaste in a plastic bag. |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26020 Posts |
Posted - 07/05/2012 : 13:55:48 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Cuneiformist
Originally posted by Dave W.
Originally posted by Kil
Not that I like the TSA but how would we know if they stopped a would-be terrorist? Given the extra security, it could be that a terrorist might not think an attack on a plane would be successful. It might act as a deterrent. |
It might deter a lone nutcase, but then 11 guys taking four, three-ounce containers onto a plane can make over a gallon of liquid explosives in a lavatory. Fuses, igniters and other bomb parts have gone through TSA checkpoints unchallenged, and still other weapon parts can be built out of things which can be purchased at an airport between the checkpoints and the airplanes. |
But isn't this-- in part-- the point? It now takes much more coordination to cause problems, and more coordination leads to errors in planning. A lone person doesn't need to email people and make phone calls and congregate. But a group of 11 do have to do that, and that dramatically increases the likelihood that law enforcement is going to catch on long before they pull up to LAX or IAD. |
A lone nutcase wouldn't have been able to board a plane with an entire gallon of liquid explosives before 9/11. The guards would have been saying, "what's all this for?" and that would have been the start of some rather uncomfortable examination of the person and his belongings. So the three-ounce rule is utterly worthless in that regard.
Similarly, a lone nutcase brandishing a corkscrew is going to get stomped into the carpet by his fellow passengers. Meanwhile, a psychotic black-belt could walk onto a plane without challenge and do some serious damage to the passengers and/or crew before getting shot by the air marshal. Those kinds of rules make no sense.
Some of the new rules do make sense. There's no good reason (from a security viewpoint) to allow random non-ticketed people to go to the gates. It's a good thing that the cockpit doors are now locked and bolted from the inside. Screen every piece of luggage. These things will work. It's the rules that are the most burdensome to non-terrorist passengers which are the most useless for catching terrorists.
You need to go back to the 1970s to see what air travel was like before the metal detectors and X-ray machines. It seemed like the news started treating hijackings like "dog bites man" stories. Every month another one, ho-hum. But if you look at this list of hijackings, you'll notice that the only hijacking originating on US soil between 1979 and 2001 was of a FedEx plane, by a disgruntled FedEx employee.
We figured out how to keep people safe on airplanes in the late 1970s. Notice that the 9/11 Commission's discussion of the failures that led to the disaster doesn't mention box cutters, knives or other small weapons at all. It basically says that good police work, inter-agency communications and threat assessments could have prevented the attacks.
The TSA boasts about how many knives, guns, throwing stars and even bazooka shells they intercept every week, but the people carrying them have not been terrorists or hijackers, or even looking to harm other passengers. They've been people who have said, "oh, I forgot that was in there," or "how else am I going to get it home?" When the TSA can proclaim that they caught someone with a bomb in his shoe or underwear before he gets on the plane, then they'll have something to be proud of. |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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Cuneiformist
The Imperfectionist
USA
4955 Posts |
Posted - 07/05/2012 : 14:54:08 [Permalink]
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| OK, I agree with this, Dave. And indeed, this is a problem with just about anything: if there had been proper enforcement of the rules beforehand (on a space shuttle, or an offshore oil platform, or a bridge, etc., etc.) most problems wouldn't have happened. There were certainly enough red flags for the 9/11 people that if proper precaution had been taken, it likely would have been foiled. And if it had, I probably could have been able to bring a pint of Bourbon on board my next flight and not face the prospect of paying $6 for something that should cost about $1.99. Alas. |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26020 Posts |
Posted - 07/05/2012 : 17:09:40 [Permalink]
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The actual problem is that the measures which could have prevented 9/11 and which will prevent other attacks are behind-the-scenes investigative and enforcement policies which generally won't be seen by anyone but law-enforcement and intelligence agents. But after 9/11, people were screaming "why aren't you doing anything?!" to their Congresscritters, and so they and Bush the Younger decided to do something that could be seen. Something that was generally stupid and ineffective and burdensome, but people quit complaining.
Of course, even if you patiently explained what was being done (without disclosing anything sensitive or ruining any investigations), some people wouldn't be satisfied. I met a couple guys once who worked maintenance on a big satellite dish. About a mile down the road from the dish was a house whose owner said that the dish was ruining his cable TV reception. The maintenance guys knew that just wasn't possible, since the dish wasn't a transmitter and wasn't tuned anywhere close to cable TV frequencies and it was cable and thus shielded anyway, and they tried several times to explain those facts to the homeowner. No effect, he kept complaining. So the next time they went to do maintenance on the dish, they stopped at the house and installed a filter for the guy, and never heard from him again.
Of course, the "filter" was nothing more than an empty plastic box with two coax connectors and a short piece of cable running between them, with no filtering circuitry at all. It did nothing but make the homeowner quit whining. |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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sailingsoul
SFN Addict
2830 Posts |
Posted - 07/06/2012 : 00:12:01 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Dave W.
So the next time they went to do maintenance on the dish, they stopped at the house and installed a filter for the guy, and never heard from him again.
Of course, the "filter" was nothing more than an empty plastic box with two coax connectors and a short piece of cable running between them, with no filtering circuitry at all. It did nothing but make the homeowner quit whining.
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The placebo affect, it's magic and a very effective pr tool.
It could have also have been a Band pass filter for cable frequencies that corrected a noise issue not related to them, just saying. Either way it did the job.
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There are only two types of religious people, the deceivers and the deceived. SS |
| Edited by - sailingsoul on 07/10/2012 03:53:43 |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26020 Posts |
Posted - 07/06/2012 : 14:19:03 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by sailingsoul
It could have also have been a Band pass filter for cable frequencies that corrected a noise issue not related to them, just saying. |
No, the maintenance guys built the "filter." They knew it was a do-nothing box. |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26020 Posts |
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H. Humbert
SFN Die Hard
USA
4574 Posts |
Posted - 07/07/2012 : 00:30:26 [Permalink]
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It's weird how many of the commenters have taken "test at the gate" to mean "take a drink of." I'm pretty sure testing unknown substances doesn't usually start with ingesting the material.
As to why the TSA would need to test people's drinks, I think it's probably a case of having a bunch of shiny new toys and nothing to use them on. If they have the equipment on premises to test liquids, they're going want to use it more than "almost never." You see this same phenomenon with S.W.A.T teams who are furbished with cutting edge hardware--they end up created excuses to deploy it. In their minds, this justifies the expense to the tax payers of purchasing the equipment in the first place.
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"A man is his own easiest dupe, for what he wishes to be true he generally believes to be true." --Demosthenes
"The first principle is that you must not fool yourself - and you are the easiest person to fool." --Richard P. Feynman
"Face facts with dignity." --found inside a fortune cookie |
| Edited by - H. Humbert on 07/07/2012 00:32:53 |
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moakley
SFN Regular
USA
1888 Posts |
Posted - 07/10/2012 : 04:25:31 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Dave W.
And now, the TSA wants a sip of your drink.
Oddly, some of the commenters are blaming the TSA on liberals and/or Democrats. Someone remind me: who was running the country when the TSA was formed? Who signed the legislation?
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It is getting depressing. The number of willfully conservative FB friends who share blatant lies is getting to me. With the latest being Barack Obama is the only president who has failed to visit a D-Day monument on D-Day. For each time one of the conservative shares this nonsense I comment "This is Bullshit" with the snopes link. It takes 2 minutes to look this stuff up. JFC, so much for an informed electorate. |
Life is good
Philosophy is questions that may never be answered. Religion is answers that may never be questioned. -Anonymous |
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sailingsoul
SFN Addict
2830 Posts |
Posted - 07/10/2012 : 06:36:48 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by moakley
It is getting depressing. The number of willfully conservative FB friends who share blatant lies is getting to me. With the latest being Barack Obama is the only president who has failed to visit a D-Day monument on D-Day. For each time one of the conservative shares this nonsense I comment "This is Bullshit" with the snopes link. It takes 2 minutes to look this stuff up. JFC, so much for an informed electorate.
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That's the problem. There are uninformed voters who don't care to or are to lazy to question the facts. Don't get depressed, it happens. Your doing the right thing by providing the link you do. Patients and persistence are both helpful. Unfortunately some people want to be lied to, it bring them comfort some how. Go figure!
Enjoy making them look like the gullible fools they are. |
There are only two types of religious people, the deceivers and the deceived. SS |
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Why do Libertarians hate the TSA so much
