gerbilpox: mamoru: I am no fan of the TSA at all in any way whatsoever, but I have a hard time believing the truth of this story...

From TFA: The TSO loomed over my daughter, with an angry grimace on her face, and ordered her to stop crying. When my scared child could not do so, two TSOs called for backup saying "The suspect is not cooperating." The suspect, of course, being a frightened child. They treated my daughter no better than if she had been a terrorist.

Seriously? I mean, a lot of it reads like bad fiction. I may be wrong and it may be completely true (and I wouldn't be too shocked), but I'd really like to see an independent source for this, because it does seem a bit far-fetched. I mean, it looks like the situation caused kind of a scene at the screening checkpoint, so surely there are other witnesses to at least some of it.

If it's true, then more sh*t on the TSA, but I'd like to see some kind of independent confirmation. :-/

This. There have been a number of widely-reported cases of TSA agents acting badly that were disproved by surveillance videos. Are there cases of real b.s.? Yes. But I'll withhold my outrage about a specific one until there's more than the alleged victim's account.

I concur. So far this is just the Consumerist blindly buying some woman's Facebook story. No other media outlets are reporting it.

Let's make sure this is real before we get our panties in a wad.

CthulhuCalling: Perhaps I should announce the Cthulhu Presidential Platform. If elected as your Elder God, I will:
1) relocate the capital to R'lyeh
2) abolish the TSA
3) cripple the DEA
4) close Guantamo Bay. Give the DoJ 30 days to piss or get off the pot as far as prosecuting any detainees.
5) immediately pull all troops out of Afghanistan
6) savage the defense budget and reallocate funds toward rebuilding infrastructure and education
7) prosecute Eric Holder
8) push to have PATRIOT repealed

And a bunch of other stuff...

Yeah but what's your stance on Han shooting first?

Back in my day, some would call that felony assault.

There is zero, let me repeat that, ZERO (0), significant statistical evidence that the TSA has accomplished anything of worth through their operations. They fail surprise tests close to 80% of the time, and now do their damnedest to try to bury those results. Strange how you don't hear about them anymore? I can guarantee you that it isn't because they are doing such a stellar job. The tests have been "modified" and buried.

The few and far between things they have caught have been generally iffy on the terrorist front, and generally would have been caught by the same security setups we had prior to 9/11.

The TSA and the DHS as implemented by the Bush administration, and unfortunately continued by the Obama administration are a joke and huge wastes of taxpayer money.

Need_MindBleach: Is there any reason the woman couldn't pick up her daughter and march right out of that airport away from those creeps?

Link

"The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) is warning that any would-be commercial airline passenger who enters an airport checkpoint and then refuses to undergo the method of inspection designated by TSA will not be allowed to fly and also will not be permitted to simply leave the airport.

That person will have to remain on the premises to be questioned by the TSA and possibly by local law enforcement. Anyone refusing faces fines up to $11,000 and possible arrest."

iaazathot: There is zero, let me repeat that, ZERO (0), significant statistical evidence that the TSA has accomplished anything of worth through their operations. They fail surprise tests close to 80% of the time, and now do their damnedest to try to bury those results. Strange how you don't hear about them anymore? I can guarantee you that it isn't because they are doing such a stellar job. The tests have been "modified" and buried.

The few and far between things they have caught have been generally iffy on the terrorist front, and generally would have been caught by the same security setups we had prior to 9/11.

The TSA and the DHS as implemented by the Bush administration, and unfortunately continued by the Obama administration are a joke and huge wastes of taxpayer money.

Bush took away my pocket knife and made me take off my shoes. Obama did the rest.

cmb53208: Duke_leto_Atredes: , each airport needs a local divison of the nearest city or county police force to handle security (except in the windy city the tsa is better then the pd there)

Of America's 50 largest airports, several already do have their own police departments, and the rest have a police detail assigned to it from the local police/sheriff. Dane County Regional in Madison, WI (barely on the list for 100 busiest passenger service airports) even has a detail of sheriff's deputies. And if the TSA pulls out of MSN, I guarantee the presence of the Dane County SO (who will no doubt spend most of their time making sure the hotel shuttle drivers stay with their vans) will ensure that no puddle jumper leaving Madison will fall victim to terrorists.

Law enforcement officials cannot search you without a warrant or probable cause. That's why the TSA is not technically a law enforcement agency.

Sum Dum Gai: djh0101010: Eh, fark that. Work the odds. Target the obvious, and apologize when 99.99% of them are innocent. "Hey, sorry that brownish youngish males are usually the problem, move along now", and let's stop feeling up 4 and 80 year olds. IF the terrorists start using that demographic, THEN let's react to that, but until then, let's go with the last 50 years of history or so.

The problem is that system is trivially easy to exploit.

If your system would catch 95% of the members of a particular organization, they'll simply conduct attacks solely using the 5% that your screening isn't catching - and it's simple as hell for them to find out which ones those are; all they have to do is each fly (with nothing suspicious or dangerous) on a semi-regular basis and count the number of times each person is screened.

The problem with any nonrandom screening system is that it's very easy to get a good estimate of the odds that a particular individual will be screened, so it's very easy to figure how to maximize the odds of success by doing the attack with someone least likely to be screened.

The problem is I could already do that NOW. The screening system is looking for "people acting like terrorists," so all I have to do is...not act like a terrorist, whatever that means. Alternatively, they are looking for "items people could use to hijack a plane" so guess what? All I need to do is think ahead of the curve and use something they're not looking for.

And anyway, both systems and your objection to them are wrong anyway. Good profiling systems, like the one the Israelis use, use neither nonrandom screening nor systems that look for terrorists or items. A good profile looks first for: What is it that the terrorist is trying to do? Once that is determined, the profile then seeks to determine: What will enable someone to carry out that goal? And what type of person will be able to complete that goal successfully?

Americans have this idea that terrorists want to kill a lot of people. This is wrong. Terrorists can bring cities or nations to their knees and never harm a single person. Near the end of the IRA's campaign against Britain, they were destroying literally acres of British real estate, but thanks to an effective PR program, nobody died (except once, a photographer had to get a good shot for his paper, and, well...)

9/11 didn't happen because of the weapons the hijackers got onto the plane; it happened because of the strategy then in effect in US airlines if they got hijacked: Cooperate with the hijackers, obey their commands, don't fight back, get the plane on the ground and let the negotiators take over. This strategy has been changed, and cooperation is no longer the rule. However, that will only last unless or until someone finds a way to force the pilots to open the cockpit door again.

As it stands, anyone who wants to blow up a plane in flight probably would not do so, for the simple reason that it would not serve any purpose that any known terrorist organization currently has. If they just want to provoke America, there are plenty of overseas targets they can use more easily; and if they want to kill lots of Americans, ditto. The purpose of 9/11 was NOT to kill lots of Americans, it was to show the Muslim population that America could be attacked by the Islamic state bin Laden hoped he would become the leader of. (Little did he know) And it was to entice America to attack Islam on their own territory, since al-Qaeda did not have the resources to fight America in America. That part of the plan worked nicely. They don't need to attack us here any more, because we're already over there.

As far as some lone psychopath wanting to blow up a plane, like the Unabomber, I suppose it's not impossible; but regular baggage screening will keep them off. Your assumption that terrorists are random psychos who just want to kill people but are organized enough to keep track of nonrandom screening patterns is what is keeping us taking off our shoes all over the nation.

Smackledorfer: Sigh.

The "war on terror" has involved incarceration and torture without trial and two wars, with who knows how much more to come.

Pat downs are nothing by comparison.


and, since we've all seen the video tapes of crazy psychos teaching kids to be crazy psychos, if the goal of the detectors and pat downs is protection (which in theory it is) then that means you can't give kids a free pass to smuggle.

I am not condoning any of the nonsense we've done in response to 911, but it really says something about our culture that I get called all manner of names over the course of a decade for being against invasions, nation building, torture, and indefinitely JUVENILE DETENTION, but when some white american girl gets brushed with the back of a TSA guy's hand, then its ZOMG SHUT DOWN EVERYTHING.

Human beings disgust me, and I do not want to live on this planet anymore.

Smackledorfer: redmid17:
[forum.gon.com image 300x170]

I honestly have never understood this particular meme. Never bothered me, but now that its pointed my way, I've gotta ask: whats with that pic?
:D

It's a line from Tombstone when the Earps move out of town.

/watch tombstone

untaken_name: redmid17: Smackledorfer: redmid17:
[forum.gon.com image 300x170]

I honestly have never understood this particular meme. Never bothered me, but now that its pointed my way, I've gotta ask: whats with that pic?
:D

It's a line from Tombstone when the Earps move out of town.

/watch tombstone

No it isn't. It's from Deadwood. But you should still watch Tombstone.

I must have missed the episode of Deadwood that had Kurt Russell, Bill Paxton, Val Kilmer, Sam Elliot, and Powers Boothe.

Link

Zizzowop: redmid17: untaken_name: redmid17: Smackledorfer: redmid17:
[forum.gon.com image 300x170]

I honestly have never understood this particular meme. Never bothered me, but now that its pointed my way, I've gotta ask: whats with that pic?
:D

It's a line from Tombstone when the Earps move out of town.

/watch tombstone

No it isn't. It's from Deadwood. But you should still watch Tombstone.

I must have missed the episode of Deadwood that had Kurt Russell, Bill Paxton, Val Kilmer, Sam Elliot, and Powers Boothe.

Link

Smells like someone died.

Ritchie Valens has been dead for 43 years. It tends to happen

redmid17: That person will have to remain on the premises to be questioned by the TSA and possibly by local law enforcement. Anyone refusing faces fines up to $11,000 and possible arrest."

Which, IMHO, is complete and utter bullshiat.