Fark needs a tyranny tag.

"Do we live in America?" subby asked

Yes but it is not the America you apparently thought it was. This should get greenlit, but probably won't. Everyone who thought they were living in a free America should read it.

AntiNerd: "Do we live in America?" subby asked

Yes but it is not the America you apparently thought it was. This should get greenlit, but probably won't. Everyone who thought they were living in a free America should read it.

Subby here. I'm not sure what you mean by that. I've never bought into the "land of the free" bullshiat, and I thought the headline made it obvious that I don't buy into it. This country has been a police/surveillance state just below the surface as far back as I remember, and 9/11 suddenly made it politically expedient to bring it right out in the open since half our populace is a bunch of pants-shiatting cowards that will happily give up every last remaining shred of freedom they actually do have in the name of being protected.

In spite of what the blue shirted clerks tell you, NEVER separate yourself from your wallet lest this happen. Insist that you remain within sight of your bags at all times, even if it's inconvenient for them.

Cyclometh: Do we always say everything in the form of a question?

Do you think it would be better if we didn't?

I really miss the Fat Ladies In Spandex days of security screening.

Cyclometh: MooseUpNorth: Cyclometh: Do we always say everything in the form of a question?

Do you think it would be better if we didn't?

Does it seem like this is working to you?

Foul! No rhetoricals.

15 - love

I can envision terrorists using disabled people, the elderly or kids to unknowingly carry bombs on board but I've got an overactive imagination and still don't think such practices justify the existence of the TSA.

Security Theater only works if everyone gets groped.

Believes this is all bullshiat

I hate to say this, but good. Harassing potential AARP members is the only chance that strong enough political pressure will build that may actually force politicians to start thinking seriously about disbanding the TSA. Notions of the the Constitution and rights to privacy and decency when travelling abroad aren't doing squat.

0bama has taken the Patriot Act too far.

This is not the Change that the country was hoping for.

tenpoundsofcheese: 0bama has taken the Patriot Act too far.

This is not the Change that the country was hoping for.

I hate freaking TSA stories like this.

I feel all 34 different flavors of stabby.

At what point is enough declared enough?

While I am all for calling the TSA crooks, incompetents, thieves, morons, ineffective and heavy handed I ...

Wait. What was my point...?

Oh yeah. My point is that if I were a petty crook I would have had a zillion opportunities in the last few trips to snag wallets and cell phones and laptops that came through the X-ray belt before or after my belongings and whose owners were distracted. I watch my shiat like a hawk. A lot of people don't. It could just as easily be a passenger who snagged the kleenex with the cash, especially if all the inefficient retards with toy badges were paying attention to the two seniors setting off the alarms.

Cyclometh: Do we always say everything in the form of a question?

Southerners do?

tenpoundsofcheese: 0bama has taken the Patriot Act too far.

This is not the Change that the country was hoping for.

Haha oh man, you are such an entertaining retard.

Americans, more than anything else, are afraid of hearing this...



We adjust our policies accordingly.

Obama in no way supports civil liberties and the right to privacy*. Unfortunately, his opponents are even worse. We're screwed.

*See: his vote on telcom immunity for wiretapping without a warrant.

Note my post above was a response to this:

AntiNerd: "Do we live in America?" subby asked

Yes but it is not the America you apparently thought it was. This should get greenlit, but probably won't. Everyone who thought they were living in a free America should read it.

FirstNationalBastard: Poor Subby...

America died on 9/12/2001. Didn't you get the memo? They called it the Patriot Act.

/3,000 people are worth more than the freedoms and rights of hundreds of millions. We want the illusion of safety at the cost of liberty!

And no part of the Patriot Act will ever be rescinded, regardless who is in the White House or who is in Congress. It gives too much power to the corporate hierarchy.

Nobody, he says, is giving him a straight answer. "The police said they went and reviewed the videotapes but they were too blurry," Petti says. Petti's son Bill, who is helping his father, doubts that. "You can bet if my father were a terrorist, those videos would not be too blurry."

Seriously. What good are the cameras if they can't even register enough detail to tell if someone took money out of a bin? The bins are big, so it's not like they would be difficult to find on a video. If the cameras are so blurry, then why not replace them with HD cameras? I figure if I can get a decent travel camera with HD, they should be able to have them in surveillance format.

Which, I guess, begs the bigger question: Why the hell aren't all surveillance cameras in HD by now? Wouldn't that, I don't know, be helpful for catching terrorists?

Gyrfalcon: tenpoundsofcheese: 0bama has taken the Patriot Act too far.

This is not the Change that the country was hoping for.

This Just In: Obama has taken his magic time machine back to 2001 and enacted the Patriot Act all by himself!

This just in, 0bama renewed the patriot act in 2010.

Or did you not know that?

tenpoundsofcheese: 0bama has taken the Patriot Act too far.

This is not the Change that the country was hoping for.

But if you haven't done anything wrong, you have nothing to fear right?

Gyrfalcon: tenpoundsofcheese: 0bama has taken the Patriot Act too far.

This is not the Change that the country was hoping for.

This Just In: Obama has taken his magic time machine back to 2001 and enacted the Patriot Act all by himself!

Well, it's three years in, and President Obama is well aware of what's going on, and since even Kip Hawley former head of the TSA is saying current security practices are ridiculous, President Obama could pretty easily lead the way to winding down or stopping cold the most egregious practices.

As Glenn Greenwald and others constantly document, civil liberties have gotten a thorough trampling from President Obama -- he's not just continuing Bush practices but making them worse and introducing new ones.

So in this case, tenpoundsofcheese is not far off the mark.

So who are the terrorists here? Brown people trying to sneak bombs onto airplanes or uniformed people who order you around and threaten to make your life miserable if you dare question them?

TSA = Terrorist Society of America

Gyrfalcon: You and he make it sound like the President can just ring TSA and say "Knock that shiat off!" and it will happen.

Well, I definitely think that in three years the President could definitely have them knock that shiat off.
And actually I suspect he could do it overnight. They work for him and Janet Napolitano.

And I'm not a good political analyst, but it would be amusing to see Republicans oppose him and demand we keep these invasive searches in place or else ... socialism and Osama Bin Laden.

If a President, or *any* leader, wants to be a leader, then they have to lead, even with potentially unpopular decisions. Following the consensus and always taking the easy political way out is being a follower, not a leader, and yeah, actually not the hoped for change that Barack Obama promised or any of his supporters wanted.

The President should not be involved in our race to the bottom, he should be the person stopping it.

tenpoundsofcheese: Gyrfalcon: tenpoundsofcheese: 0bama has taken the Patriot Act too far.

This is not the Change that the country was hoping for.

This Just In: Obama has taken his magic time machine back to 2001 and enacted the Patriot Act all by himself!

This just in, 0bama renewed the patriot act in 2010.

Or did you not know that?

He renewed it all by himself? And had he not signed it how loudly would the cry's be of "he is soft on terrorism" (not that this is an excuse, he should have grown a set and vetoed it)

She went away for the holidays
Said she's going to L.A.
But she never got there
She never got there
She never got there, they say

The TSA took my baby away
They took her away
Away from me
The TSA took my baby away
They took her away
Away from me

FirstNationalBastard: Tax Boy: Cyclometh: MooseUpNorth: Cyclometh: Do we always say everything in the form of a question?

Do you think it would be better if we didn't?

Does it seem like this is working to you?

Foul! No rhetoricals.

15 - love

15-love... doesn't that get you 20?

Can anybody explain to me the scoring rules for Tennis?

Gyrfalcon: tenpoundsofcheese: 0bama has taken the Patriot Act too far.

This is not the Change that the country was hoping for.

This Just In: Obama has taken his magic time machine back to 2001 and enacted the Patriot Act all by himself!

Yeah, Bush was the asshole who signed it.

Why is Obama enthusiastically supporting it? Why does he actively seek to expand the surveillance state? He had his chance to vote against the retroactive-immunity-for-treason bill in 2008 and voted for it instead. Oh, so he could take power and reverse the abuses? WRONG. His DoJ actually said, to the Supreme Court, that it believes it should have the right to put GPS trackers on anyone it fancies for any reason or no reason, indefinitely. Those who publically refuse to cheerlead for the Demopublicans or Republicrats continue to be harassed when they travel. Obama had nothing to say when Occupy was being beaten down, maced and put in a coma for questioning Wall St - and if you think the DHS got involved under the pretense of "the T word" without his knowing, let alone stayed involved, don't kid yourself.

You know how we all say that Bush drove America towards an economic cliff and Obama is trying to steer away and hit the brakes? Bush also drove us towards a surveillance state hell. And rather than stopping, Obama is strapping rocket boosters on to recreate the famous Flying Camaro. And that is one hundred percent his fault. And it will end as happily as the fictional Camaro.

AntiNerd: "Do we live in America?" subby asked

Yes but it is not the America you apparently thought it was. This should get greenlit, but probably won't. Everyone who thought they were living in a free America should read it.

QFTMFT