Tell me how to not allow it in a fashion that doesn’t involve the canard of “if you don’t like it, don’t fly.” Tell me how someone can do anything other than allow it even if the only reason why they’re getting searched is because they can’t go through the bodyscanner because they use a wheelchair, or because the bodyscanner made note of their insulin pump or breast prosthetic or ostomy appliance and so their disability now makes them a “threat.” Explain the method of “not allowing” to me, please, as if I were a six year old.
How many people does it have to happen to before you’ll allow that the problem is the methodology of the search itself? And no, it didn’t happen to me, because I refuse to fly because my disabilities would land me having to be clumsily touched by a TSA goon no matter what I do.
But there are multiple reports of women having their genitalia handled well beyond the point where “resistance” is met on the ACLU page which is displaying only a small portion of hundreds and hundreds of reports they’re getting from passengers subjected to this new enhanced search scheme. In case that’s confusing, resistance, unless someone is forcing their hands intentionally, happens somewhere well before a woman’s clitoris or inner labia are touched, I know that’s an area of the anatomy that’s been confounding men for centuries but trust me on that one. How many complaints of this sort – many from people who do not have the ability to hire a lawyer to try to sue the federal government – have to be made before they’re believed?
Oh yay! d(o_o)b Latch onto a completely arbitrary standard and declare victory. Good MO, it prevents you from actually forming an argument :rolleyes:
Other than Flight 93, which crashed, I’m aware of only 2 other times: the underwear and shoe bomber, which, if I remember correctly, was foiled because the bombs were duds.
On the other hand, the government was able to foil the plot soon after 9/11 that included blowing up 10 planes from the UK to the US, not to mention that whole airport bombing scheme in Jersey, plus many others
I’m not going to disagree with you that there are problems still to be worked out. However, in the meantime, there will be some outliers that don’t conform to the standard process. I could take all the examples you and others have given me and put it together and it would still only warrant a change in the policy, not a total elimination of it. If a traumatized victim of sexual assault who is elderly, has metal hips, a colostomy bag, sensitivity to radiation, and has breast implants needs to fly, it may create a huge issue. But it doesn’t mean that such a security measure is a huge invasive issue for everyone. All I’ve really asserted is that this doesn’t bother me, doesn’t raise any red flags with me, and doesn’t cross the line with me. It may with you, but don’t call it molestation when it’s nothing of the sort
I don’t know, how many is “a lot”? If they have a case, I hope they pursue it, I really do. It would force the TSA to make the necessary changes to accomodate them. I’m sure some have felt the procedures go too far, and I’m sure there are plenty more who don’t mind it. Let the ones who disagree state their case in court and hope they win. But in the meantime, change is slow, and you will have to adapt to the circumstances and the times where a guy with liquid explosives in his underwear is a threat to bring down a plane.
Oh yay! d(o_o)b Latch onto a completely arbitrary standard and declare victory. Good MO, it prevents you from actually forming an argument :rolleyes:
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I don’t think *arbitrary *means what you think it means. The 3-1-1 rule is, by no means, an arbitrary standard, though it’s enforcement tends to be, IME. However, it’s no more arbitrary – and it would be reasonable to argue that it’s application is significantly less arbitrary – than the application of the backscatter x-ray and enhanced pat-downs. The former applies to ALL travelers. The latter are applied, for lack of any publicized rule set or standard, on a completely randomized basis that does not target any specific profile or threat. If that’s not the very definition of arbitrary, I don’t know what is.
Stranger was right. You also appear to me to be a fine example of how profoundly simple it is for authority to take advantage of the ignorant. You apparently don’t even feel the need to comprehend the rules, and sometimes capricious applications thereof, you are subject to. At the very least, this thread has provided you the opportunity to get more informed, whether you start minding the excessive groping and body scanning or not.
I think when he said arbitrary he meant it in the same way latching onto a misspelling of a word is an arbitrary standard for judging knowledge (“Ha! You misspelled antidisestablishmentarianism! You’re clearly not fit to talk about the subject!”), not necessarily that the 3-1-1 rule is itself arbitrary.
And you seem to be a typical overreacting worrywort, assuming every encroachment is equal parts egregious, every small incursion warrants outrage, and the anecdotes of a few rabble rousers to be the standard upon which we all must be judged. The few capricious applications of the security measures have been magnified into some kind of shadowly government molestation brigade instead of the mistakes of an overworked, highly visible, low-paid, frontline grunts forced to adhere to a policy they had no part in implementing or affecting. And now you people stand there in disbelieving judgement, shocked, SHOCKED, that someone else doesn’t share your horror at the increase in security! And how dare I not agree with you even though I’ve tried not to push my view on others, and have many times suggested that the TSA agents’ actions merit lawsuits or punishment. No, you won’t stop until you get your pound of flesh, will you?
I’ll repeat, I personally have no issues with the TSA doing this. Some small increase in safety is assured when you have an additional line of screening, scanning, and pat downs. Such actions would have prevented the boxcutters from getting on to the flights on 9/11. It may not prevent future attacks, but unless you have a time machine, you cannot know exactly how future attacks will come. So you fight the last war knowing that at least that avenue is cut off and they can’t try the same tactic again. In the meantime, you try to deal with it the best you can. Let those women file lawsuits, I’m completely for that because if they have a case, it will prompt changes. Let the disabled, the elderly, and the sick file their own lawsuits as the new procedures have unintended consequences on them, hopefully that will prompt more changes. But don’t fucking tell me that a bit of security groping is molestation and don’t fucking tell me that I should feel the same way about it as you do. To me, it’s not a big deal. It’s no more than what I go through at the doctor’s.
I don’t want some slope headed nitwit fondling my crotch or shooting nude photographs of me so some ignorant yuppie white bread coward can feel safe about traveling 600 miles per hour in a giant tin can thirty thousand feet in the sky. Morons. Flying in itself is a huge risk so stop being such pussies. Bin laden wanted to frighten Americans and he succeeded he thought we were cowards, he was right. This crap proves it and has proved it since September 12th, 2001. I hope you feel good about playing into the enemy’s hands you idiots.
But since it wont change i just don't fly. if it starts with buses and trains too, screw it ill walk or drive. If i feel the need to visit Europe, ill take a boat. and if it gets so bad i cant travel at all with the fascist safety police on my ass, ill go live in the woods until the corporate oligarchy here paves all the forests. After that its time for a new age baby. Load your shotguns and break out the tire armor and the dune buggies baby! Yee haw!
Again, you utterly miss the point. The fact is that you aren’t aware of a standard security protocol that has been in place for over five years that every passenger is subject to, nor observant enough to see multiple signs in every security line which describe in big, bold detail the “3-1-1 Rule”. You certainly aren’t aware of the value and quality of other security measures that have been taken post 11 Sept 2001, like securing the flight deck door, and appear completely incapable of understanding the distinction between voluntarily and freely waiving one’s rights to be secure in one’s person per the Fourth Amendment and doing so as a result of coercion. You’ve continually minimized the very significant concerns people have about being handled in a most intimate fashion by an untrained security agent under an unpublished protocol in a manner that would not be acceptable per the standards of any municipal or state law enforcement agency, and have also repeatedly and frankly quite creepily suggested how much you would enjoy such an examination.
From everything I’ve seen from you so far, you don’t know enough or have sufficient critical thinking skills to even render a useful opinion on the topic. The thrust of your argument is that you would enjoy such an examination and consider it beneficial in soothing your worries even if it doesn’t deter a single act of terrorism.
One more time, with feeling: the basic security flaw that allowed the hijackers in the 11 September 2001 attacks–the lack of a secure flight deck–has been addressed and remediated. Boxcutters or machetes, future would-be hijackers are not going to have ready access to the flight deck. In addition, the Armed Security Officer program allows qualified pilots to be trained in the use of a firearm to prevent such incursions.
And yes, I will “fucking tell [you] that security groping is molestation” if it is not done in a professional manner under hygienic conditions for a valid reason. There are a lot of flyers who are sensitive to this type of needless inspection due to a history of sexual assault or molestation, and telling them that they can just choose not to fly is adding insult to injury. It is one thing to conduct the security theater of luggage searches and metal detectors to show that the government is “doing something”; it is entirely another to require passengers to disrobe and to be subject to a literally probing examination without rational basis.
All of this, of course, diverts attention from the fact that TSA and other agencies are not actually looking for terrorists, and therefore are not doing what needs to be done to anticipate future attacks using novel methods. This doesn’t increase practical security one iota. What it does is let the real terrorists chuckle at how much we tumble over ourselves and mew like kittens at even the hint of a threat. Which is precisely what they want. Keeping the TSA in business agitating travelers is better than knocking down a dozen buildings. It is a sign that we are just what they say we are; weak, misguided, and dependent upon the government to protect us from the slightest hint of a threat.
Would you care to, at some point, address the actual arbitrary application of the backscatter scanners and enhanced pat-downs? Specifically, please explain how random and non-targeted application of those screening measures identifies and eliminates terrorist activities in practice. Also, please address the necessity of screening pilots and flight attendants in the same manner as passengers, while excluding others airport employees with access to planes (i.e., caterers, cleaners, and baggage handlers) from enhanced screening?
I’m not sure how you concluded that I was worried about these actions. Rather, like so many others, I see no credible reason for such intrusive measures to be applied in such a haphazard manner other than to reassure an ignorant and/or submissive public that all that money spent on gadgets is going to keep them safe. Sorry, I don’t buy it. Nor do I care to. When I fly, I do so knowing that there are risks. However, I’m not willing to give up my dignity and/or my rights in exchange for a false sense of security. As an American, I don’t feel I should have to. I’m not a criminal and I shouldn’t be treated as one simply because I want to spend a week in Miami.
No no, my good friend. More specifically, they decided that the size of each container that you carry your explosives in is what determines what can take a plane down, and not the actual amount of explosives, as long as it fits into Ziploc bag. Total volume of 3 oz, 3.4 oz, 3.5 oz, 20 oz, whatever. Just pack them correctly.
Not to get too far off topic, but I have circumvented their stupid rules many times. When I occasionally take my sorry ass on a real vacation that involves beaches or swimming pools, I need to wash my hair, so I can’t bypass the whole shampoo thing. I don’t trust their hotel shampoo, and need my special Colored Lady Hair Shit. Do you think enough shampoo and conditioner for my thick, nappy hair fits into 3 – I’m sorry – 3.4 ounces? No. So you know what I do? I put the same damn thing into separate bottles. If I put that same, exact amount of shampoo into one 9 oz bottle, however, they’ll throw it away. If I have a 5 oz bottle that is very clearly less than half full, so we’re talking less than 2.5 total liquid here, they will still throw it away. The size of the container is the end all, be all. So what do you think I would do if I were a terrorist? “Oh noes, I was going to blow the plane up, but they’ll only allow 3.4 oz of Nitro. That’s too bad, because I can’t be bothered to portion it into separate containers!” Yeah, that’s what would happen.
In short, I’m not adding anything to the discussion, and am just bitching again. Carry on.
When a rule doesn’t really affect you, you tend to not notice it. I know about other rules, such as for a while, it seemed mandatory that everyone remove their shoes. No longer. I know that they still tell you not to use electronic devices during takeoff because I have a Nintendo DS. But I don’t recall seeing signs about the 3-1-1 rule, I’m sure if I had bottles of lotion or baby formula on me then my attention would have been drawn to it but I don’t, all I carry is a bottle of water and they’ve been fine with it. You can assume any stupid thing you want about me not knowing about that rule, but in the end it’s just a baseless assumption designed to draw attention away from your irrational reasoning
The door thing was addressed by me in post #207 but you stupidly pretended I didn’t say that and reply in #212 “but but…its different! This time the doors are SECURED!”
I bet you live in a video game, where even the simplest, rattiest, wooden door is an obstacle to warriors wielding earth-shattering weapons capable of summoning monsters and shooting fireballs that can incinerate entire towns. Read this carefully, you possible doorsalesman trying to push your product: I. do. not. believe. a. “secured”. door. is. enough. Period.
Therefore, my argument still stands: I don’t believe simply securing doors after 9/11 was enough. You need more invasive pat downs and scanners. You need to have better training for TSA agents. And you need to drive your ass to your destination if you don’t like it because the majority of Americans are fine with it, hopefully because they know that people like you are fearmongering your own petty issues, that of some 1984 scenario with an overreaching government.
And yeah, I know of the 4th Amendment. Keep citing it like a dullard.
It was established in Katz vs. US (1967) that society provides the standard for reasonableness, and guess what, society doesn’t agree with you. We’ve allowed the TSA to paw at us already for decades, a little more pawing isn’t the same as cavity searches no matter how much you want to stand there like a little kid and cry about it. Its a reasonable increase in security. Don’t like it? Sue them, see if you win
No I haven’t. I said go ahead and sue them if you think they are doing it wrong. I encouraged the women mentioned by tumbleddown to sue, hoping that a win would force the TSA to reevaluate their procedures. Maybe if you’re not a blind retard you would have caught that. Here, let me quote what I said in #222 and emphasis when I agreed with suing the TSA:
“If they have a case, I hope they pursue it, I really do. It would force the TSA to make the necessary changes to accomodate them. I’m sure some have felt the procedures go too far, and I’m sure there are plenty more who don’t mind it. Let the ones who disagree state their case in court and **hope they win.” **
I swear, you must have a pile of shit plugged into your ears and glass for eyes because I’ve already addressed your concern. But keep standing there like a little boy and cry that I won’t agree with you in the way that you want. This will be the last time I reply to you about the doors. I’ve made myself clear I don’t think it goes far enough, and simply having the doors isn’t enough. Oh, and when all pilots are armed, then you may use your idiotic argument about armed pilots
From everything I’ve seen from you so far, you don’t know enough or have sufficient critical thinking skills to even render a useful opinion on the topic. The thrust of your argument is that you would enjoy such an examination and consider it beneficial in soothing your worries even if it doesn’t deter a single act of terrorism.
I asked you once, if you think that after 9/11, the only increase in security we should have implemented was better doors. You still haven’t answered that, maybe because you know it makes you seem insane if that was the only thing you’d change after such a security hole was exploited.
Already addressed. You can choose not to fly and you can sue for more training.
Right, they’re looking for the golden ticket. All of these searches are simply so the head of the TSA can have a tour of Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory :rolleyes:
Given the fact that most believe hand searching everybody would be too much of a burden, cost too much, and take too long, the TSA does it randomly. By doing so, they are employing a common statistical method wherein a smaller sample is used to extrapolate proportionate data about a larger population.
Think about it. Nielsen cable boxes aren’t given to every family in America, but randomly to a few thousand. However, if the sample is statistically sound, a small sample of a few thousand can pretty accurately determine the viewing habits of the country at large. Similarly, when pollsters use non-biased data to determine how an election turns out, the trustworthy ones who do it correctly can generally get very close to the actual result. Such statistical analysis is used everyday for a wide variety of things, and not just human behavior. If you want to find out if a lake is contaminated, you don’t test the whole lake, you get a small bit of water from it and test that. Want to know the next month’s temperatures? No need to have a time machine, just look back at all of December’s temps for a few years and get the average.
I’m sorry if I’m being pedantic, but it’s truly a surprise that some people don’t understand this. The arbitrary and non-targeted security measures are designed for 2 things: One, to be comprehensive enough so that terrorists will be caught in it’s random net. After all, target a specific characteristic, such as race or country of origin, and terrorists can easily evade it by having people who don’t fit those characteristics. And two, to be random enough so that terrorists can never be sure they won’t be caught, which will hopefully be a deterrence and/or catch people testing the system. That’s why it needs to be arbitrary and random, and that’s why you can’t simply let old ladies or little kids go by. There are child soldiers in places around the world where such evils are taught to those of very young age. Omit them from the scans and that’s where terrorist will pour their resources
If there are holes in the security for such people, then they should be addressed. I never said I would stop at only pat downs for people, it’s simply my assertion from the beginning of this topic that I don’t find them personally offensive and overboard. There are of course plenty more holes that need to be plugged, and I hope the administration tackles them. Yes, some of what you mentioned does seem like a big hole, but that’s why I’m arguing for the enhanced security, not against them
That’s why we need government, cause people can’t agree. You want to call me ignorant, fine. I say look at what happened and what could happen, and maybe up the security a little more. To you it’s a big thing about dignity and rights, to me it’s a few seconds of awkwardness to make sure I don’t have a blade pulled on me in a metal box 30000 feet in the air. And it’s not a false sense of security when such measure would have prevented 9/11
Then you have no idea how preventive deterrence works.
Maybe you don’t need a license or have your car registered because, hey, you’re an American and would never break the law! Maybe other people shouldn’t have their doors locked because you would never steal. Maybe it’s ok to tell you our bank account numbers and SSN because you’re trustworthy.
You see the flaw in that argument?
The reasonableness of these security measures are not determined by you. They are determined by a population that includes you, and me, and people like you, and people like me. More of us exist than you. More of us determined that these measures are not a violation of your rights no matter how much you want to complain about it, and more of us determined that this doesn’t warrant treating people like a criminal. You just have to get over yourself. (and please, no stupid flawed, knee-jerk reaction like “so you believe the majority determines everything?” that’s an argument that wouldn’t last 5 seconds, ok?)
There are large signs in every single airport security line that proclaim the “3-1-1 Rule”, and TSA agents shouting instructions (“All of your liquids and gels must fit inside a 1 quart Zip-Loc baggy!”) in every single commercial airport in the nation. You are certainly not carrying bottle of water through security, as they have a container for disposing of such and are vigorous in their enforcement of it, as every regular air traveler has seen. From your statements it is clear that you haven’t even gone through airport security in the past five years, and are completely uninformed regarding TSA security measures or procedures.
Good lord dude. Some TSA goon reaching in your drawers and ringing your chimes is a small incursion? Diddling some unwilling woman’s snapper is a small incursion? Go read the events reported to the ACLU on their web site, like the report by a women who felt the “search” of her very private parts for the remainder of the day.
Then we’ll discuss “small incursion.”
I’m sure someone can explain this better than I can, but preventing illegal and dangerous materials from being brought onto a plane is not akin to determining how people watching Dancing With the Stars. Why? Because if your prediction of TV show viewers is not exactly accurate down to the last viewer (and it’s not necessarily expected or reported to be), it doesn’t change the conclusion. However, you miss one underwear bomb and you’ve failed to secure the plane. This is not statistical analysis. This is supposed to be practical security. As such, this randomized and, yes, arbitrary, because there is a lack of threat assessment with each application, protocol is on an illusionary security measure that only protects us from the people who are, in fact, subjected to it, NOT all potential terrorists.
I appreciate your attempt at pendantry, but it would help if you actually understood what you’re trying to explain. As to your first point, attempting to catch terrorists randomly ensures that some will necessarily get through. As to your second point, I agree with you that the random screening is an attempt to dissuade would-be terrorists from attempting to exploit the obvious security holes, but I disagree that it’s as effective a deterrent as you seem to think it is, for the same reason I don’t think the death penalty is effectively a deterrent: criminals don’t generally expect to get caught. Further, using your statistics example, we can determine that if only, say, 30% of travelers are being scanned/patted down, a terrorist has a 70% chance of getting through security. Further, if you have a network of say 100 terrorists, you can statistically assume that while some of them will be foiled by security, there’s a very good chance that a significant number of them will make it on the place and, eliminating defective equipment and overzealous passengers, a handful of them might succeed at taking over the plane. Or at the very least causing enough mayhem that makes people like you accept even more draconian procedures from a purely reactive system of security and consequently eroding more of our rights and privileges as Americans.
This is why people keep telling you that your attitude plays right into the hands of those who would very much like to see the destruction and demise of our nation and culture.
Again, at the risk of repetitiveness, only if those terrorists were the lucky ones that got chosen for enhanced scrutiny AND if what they had brought on the plane were contraband. As has been pointed several times, what really would have prevented the WTC and Pentagon events is secured cockpits. That is a measure that is neither intrusive on the dignity and rights against unreasonable search and that nobody in this discussion has indicated a problem with.
I completely understand how preventative deterrence works and doesn’t work. Evidently, you do not. First of all, licensing and registration is not about deterrence, it’s about collecting fees and regulating drivers and vehicles. It does not prevent (nor deter) anyone from driving illegally. It also does not assume that those subject to it are potential criminals. Traveling via privately run airlines is not a privilege in the same way driving is at all. You do not require a license to ride in an airplane.
Locking doors, however, is a preventative security measure, although it doesn’t necessarily deter motivated criminal from defeating the security. Obviously, this doesn’t mean you shouldn’t take the appropriate precautions. But then, nobody is complaining about the locked cockpit doors, except for you. You have already pointed out that you don’t trust them. That’s fine. Just so you understand that this one piece of the security puzzle is a lot more effective as a deterrent than the arbitrary screening you seem to enjoy so much.
I just don’t know where you are going with the bank account numbers. I broadcast my bank account number on a need to know business. If you have no business knowing it, why would I bother to tell you? Same goes for my name or my blood type. Preventative security really doesn’t enter into it. That’s what PINs and security questions are for, right?
It’s not about me. It’s about privacy and dignity of law-abiding American travelers. It’s about the health of our democracy and constitutional freedoms. It’s about our economy and government waste. It’s about whether we want to accept living in a culture of fear.
The fact that you can’t see any of that doesn’t surprise me in the least, frankly.
Disregarding the opinions of someone who is unfamiliar with the rules for carrying liquids in carry-on luggage in a discussion about airport security is no more “arbitrary” than disregarding the opinions of someone who believes that the earth is six thousand years old in a discussion about geology.
Your examples are irrelevant, as none of them involve terrorists attempting to personally carry destructive devices onto a plane, only to be thwarted by the TSA’s Security Kabuki Theater performances at the check-in gate. The score for those threats remains Citizen Vigilance 3, Government Do-Somethingism 0.
Unless you have the ability to communicate over thousands of miles, you cannot know exactly how some other country does things more effectively without resort to fondling and pornscanning… oh, wait…
Well, then, let him find the red-light district and pay whatever the going rate is. Damn welfare-bum parasites, wanting everything handed to them on a silver platter paid for by tax dollars…
Since it now does effect you (in that it determines whether or not sensible people pay any attention to your opinions on a topic where it is part of Basic Background 101), I presume that you notice it now.
Again, what you “believe” doesn’t impress anybody, unless you can back up your beliefs with facts. For instance, if you have a YouTube video of somebody crashing through a door of the type now used in cockpits, preferably under realistic conditions (i.e. in a narrow corridor surrounded on both sides by people trying to trip, strike, and otherwise obstruct you), by all means post a link. (Points off if the process involves turning green while growing big enough to shred the shirt while leaving the pants intact. Not everybody can do that.)
Be careful not to pull something with that whiplash between setting the bar so high a moment ago and setting it so low now.
You’ve already been informed on this very thread that the TSA actions you defend are applied less than universally. You thus don’t get to criticize any other security protocol on that ground while continuing to defend the TSA gate procedures.
What did I just get done saying about double standards?
