Airport Security? More Like TSA GONE WILD

[justdrew]

comply with me...

[Bruce Dazzling]

Didn't take long for these assholes to drop the other shoe, did it?

Next step for body scanners could be trains, boats, metro
By Jordy Yager - 11/23/10 02:09 PM ET

http://thehill.com/homenews/administrat ... the-metro-

The next step in tightened security could be on U.S. public transportation, trains and boats.

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano says terrorists will continue to look for U.S. vulnerabilities, making tighter security standards necessary.

“[Terrorists] are going to continue to probe the system and try to find a way through,” Napolitano said in an interview that aired Monday night on "Charlie Rose."

“I think the tighter we get on aviation, we have to also be thinking now about going on to mass transit or to trains or maritime. So, what do we need to be doing to strengthen our protections there?”

Napolitano’s comments, made a day before one of the nation’s busiest travel days, come in the wake of a public outcry over newly implemented airport screening measures that have been criticized for being too invasive.

The secretary has defended the new screening methods, which include advanced imaging systems and pat-downs, as necessary to stopping terrorists. During the interview with Rose, Napolitano said her agency is now looking into ways to make other popular means of travel safer for passengers and commuters.

Napolitano isn’t the only one who’s suggested that advanced scanning machines could be used in places beyond airports.

Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.), chairman of the Senate Homeland Security Committee, introduced legislation this past September that would authorize testing of body scanners at some federal buildings.

Napolitano’s comments were in response to the question: “What will they [terrorists] be thinking in the future?” She gave no details about how soon the public could see changes in security or about what additional safety measures the DHS was entertaining.

The recently implemented airport screening methods have made John Pistole, who heads the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), the focus of growing public ire.

On Monday, Pistole said he understood peoples’ privacy concerns and that the TSA would consider modifying its screening policies to make them “as minimally invasive as possible,” but he indicated the advanced-imaging body scans and pat-down methods would remain in place in the short term, including during the high-volume Thanksgiving period of travel.

Lawmakers from both parties have received hundreds of complaints about the new methods — some have likened the pat-downs to groping — and have called on Pistole to address the privacy concerns of their constituents, who were not informed about changes ahead of time.

Many lawmakers say the public should have been informed before the pat-downs and body-imaging techniques were put into practice. As a result, any move to implement new security screening measures for rail or water passengers is likely to be met with tough levels of scrutiny from lawmakers.

Pistole, who spent 26 years with the FBI, told reporters Monday that he rejected the advice of media aides who advised him to publicize the revised security measures before they took effect. Terrorist groups have been known to study the TSA’s screening methods in an attempt to circumvent them, he said.

Napolitano said she hoped the U.S. could get to a place in the future where Americans would not have to be as guarded against terrorist attacks as they are and that she was actively promoting research into the psychology of how a terrorist becomes radicalized.

“The long-term [question] is, how do we get out of this having to have an ever-increasing security apparatus because of terrorists and a terrorist attack?” she said. “I think having a better understanding of what causes someone to become a terrorist will be helpful."

DHS and intelligence officials are not as far along in understanding that process as they would like, Napolitano said, adding that until that goal is reached, steps need to be put in place to ensure the public’s safety.

“We don’t know much,” she said. “If you were to try and devise a template about what connects this terrorist to this terrorist and how they were raised and what schools they went to and their socioeconomic status, or this or that, it’s all over the map.

“I think there’s some important work that’s being done on that but … the Secretary of Homeland Security cannot wait for that.”

[Bruce Dazzling]

A suite of real-time, non-invasive sensors measure behavioral and physiological indication of malintent, or the intent or desire to cause harm.

[AlicetheKurious]

Bruce Dazzling: those are nothing new -- in Palestine, the Israelis call them "mobile checkpoints".

The checkpoints came to dominate Palestinian life in the West Bank (and, before the disengagement, in Gaza too) long before the outbreak of the second intifada in late 2000, and even before the first Palestinian suicide bombings. They were Israel’s response to the Oslo accords, which created a Palestinian Authority to govern limited areas of the occupied territories. Israel began restricting Palestinians allowed to work in Israel to those issued with exit permits; a system enforced through a growing network of military roadblocks. Soon the checkpoints were also restricting movement inside the occupied territories, ostensibly to protect the Jewish settlements built in occupied territory.

By late last year, according to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, 528 checkpoints and roadblocks were recorded in the West Bank, choking its roads every few miles. Israel’s daily Haaretz newspaper puts the figure even higher: in January there were 75 permanently manned checkpoints, some 150 mobile checkpoints, and more than 400 places where roads have been blocked by obstacles. All these restrictions on movement for a place that is, according to the CIA’s World Factbook, no larger than the small US state of Colorado.

As a result, moving goods and people from one place to the next in the West Bank has become a nightmare of logistics and costly delays. At the checkpoints, food spoils, patients die, and children are prevented from reaching their schools. The World Bank blames the checkpoints and roadblocks for strangling the Palestinian economy. Link

[Bruce Dazzling]

Bruce Dazzling: those are nothing new -- in Palestine, the Israelis call them "mobile checkpoints".

The checkpoints came to dominate Palestinian life in the West Bank (and, before the disengagement, in Gaza too) long before the outbreak of the second intifada in late 2000, and even before the first Palestinian suicide bombings. They were Israel’s response to the Oslo accords, which created a Palestinian Authority to govern limited areas of the occupied territories. Israel began restricting Palestinians allowed to work in Israel to those issued with exit permits; a system enforced through a growing network of military roadblocks. Soon the checkpoints were also restricting movement inside the occupied territories, ostensibly to protect the Jewish settlements built in occupied territory.

By late last year, according to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, 528 checkpoints and roadblocks were recorded in the West Bank, choking its roads every few miles. Israel’s daily Haaretz newspaper puts the figure even higher: in January there were 75 permanently manned checkpoints, some 150 mobile checkpoints, and more than 400 places where roads have been blocked by obstacles. All these restrictions on movement for a place that is, according to the CIA’s World Factbook, no larger than the small US state of Colorado.

As a result, moving goods and people from one place to the next in the West Bank has become a nightmare of logistics and costly delays. At the checkpoints, food spoils, patients die, and children are prevented from reaching their schools. The World Bank blames the checkpoints and roadblocks for strangling the Palestinian economy. Link

Yes, Alice. I didn't mean to insinuate that Americans are the only ones who are having their freedoms stripped from them (which is obviously not the case), but those mobile "terrorist" screening centers are relevant in this thread because it's specifically about Amerika's descent into a fascist security state.

I can't even imagine what it must be like living as a Palestinian under Israel's iron fist, but I'm beginning to get the idea that sooner than later, I won't need to imagine it.

[crikkett]

Happy Opt-out Day. Have you hugged your domestic extremist today?

http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/30286

The Obama administration is watching us

Department of Homeland Security is not only prepared to enforce the enhanced security procedures at airports, but is involved in gathering intelligence about those who don’t
DHS & TSA: Making a list, checking it twice

By Doug Hagmann Tuesday, November 23, 2010

Following the publication of my article titled “Gate Rape of America,” I was contacted by a source within the DHS who is troubled by the terminology and content of an internal memo reportedly issued yesterday at the hand of DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano. Indeed, both the terminology and content contained in the document are troubling. The dissemination of the document itself is restricted by virtue of its classification, which prohibits any manner of public release. While the document cannot be posted or published, the more salient points are revealed here.

The memo, which actually takes the form of an administrative directive, appears to be the product of undated but recent high level meetings between Napolitano, John Pistole, head of the Transportation Security Administration (TSA),and one or more of Obama’s national security advisors. This document officially addresses those who are opposed to, or engaged in the disruption of the implementation of the enhanced airport screening procedures as “domestic extremists.”

The introductory paragraph of the multi-page document states that it is issued “in response to the growing public backlash against enhanced TSA security screening procedures and the agents conducting the screening process.” Implicit within the same section is that the recently enhanced security screening procedures implemented at U.S. airports, and the measures to be taken in response to the negative public backlash as detailed [in this directive], have the full support of the President. In other words, Obama not only endorses the enhanced security screening, but the measures outlined in this directive to be taken in response to public objections.

The terminology contained within the reported memo is indeed troubling. It labels any person who “interferes” with TSA airport security screening procedure protocol and operations by actively objecting to the established screening process, “including but not limited to the anticipated national opt-out day” as a “domestic extremist.” The label is then broadened to include “any person, group or alternative media source” that actively objects to, causes others to object to, supports and/or elicits support for anyone who engages in such travel disruptions at U.S. airports in response to the enhanced security procedures.

For individuals who engaged in such activity at screening points, it instructs TSA operations to obtain the identities of those individuals and other applicable information and submit the same electronically to the Homeland Environment Threat Analysis Division, the Extremism and Radicalization branch of the Office of Intelligence & Analysis (IA) division of the Department of Homeland Security.

For “any person, group or domestic alternative media source” that actively objects to, causes others to object to, supports and/or elicits support for anyone who engages in such travel “disruptions” at U.S. airports (as defined above) in response to the enhanced security procedures, the [applicable DHS administrative branch] is instructed to identify and collect information about the persons or entities, and submit such information in the manner outlined [within this directive].

It would appear that the Department of Homeland Security is not only prepared to enforce the enhanced security procedures at airports, but is involved in gathering intelligence about those who don’t. They’re making a list and most certainly will be checking it twice. Meanwhile, legitimate threats to our air travel security (and they DO exist) seem to be taking a back seat to the larger threat of the multitude of non-criminal American citizens who object to having their Constitutional rights violated.

As I have written before, it has nothing to do with security and everything to do with control.

[JackRiddler]

.

Candid Camera or Stanley Milgram?

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142 ... TopOpinion

NOVEMBER 23, 2010

Smile, You're on Candid Scanner
The public no longer blindly submits to authority—and that's progress.

By PETER FUNT

I've never worked for the TSA. But once I spent a day putting airline passengers through what they believed was a full-body scanner, and I learned a few things about the American psyche. I also got sued, but we'll get to that later.

It was 2001, just a few months before 9/11. We were doing a sequence at the airport in Bullhead City, Ariz., for "Candid Camera" that was designed to parody the passenger screening process.

Pre-9/11 airport "security," you may recall, was far different than it is today. Indeed, the very lapses that prompted me to do such a satire were undoubtedly clear to Osama bin Laden as well.

With the help and encouragement of airport officials, I posed as a security guard. As passengers entered the boarding area, I examined them and their carry-on bags. I claimed that the metal detector wasn't working properly, and instructed passengers to lie down on the conveyor belt so they could ride through the X-ray machine along with their bags.

Regardless of your position regarding airport security, it was a hilarious sight. The "X-ray machine" was a flimsy prop made from a large wooden box with holes cut in each end, placed over a rented conveyor belt. We attached a few blinking lights to the box, along with our version of the classic airport sign: "Everything Said Will be Taken Seriously."

There were no actual X-rays involved. In fact, the airport's real X-ray screening device was in another room several hundred feet away.

We put 15 passengers through the wooden box that day—too few to be scientific, but instructive nonetheless. All but one passenger, a middle-aged man, willingly laid on the conveyor belt, belly down, and was transported through the box without protest.

Of course, we were aiming for comedy, so I peppered my instructions with cracks like, "Looks like you ate a pretty big breakfast. What is that, a glazed doughnut?" And, "I don't see any weapons, but you might want to have your gallbladder checked."

In reviewing the footage the other day, I realized that these jokes are the very ones showing up in editorial cartoons and on the Internet since full-body scanners were recently introduced at many U.S. airports.

What seems clear to me is that pre-9/11 passengers were generally tolerant of inconvenience and obeyed authority far more than they do today. Part of the impact of 9/11 is that Americans are more concerned than ever about safety. Yet they are increasingly suspicious of the ways government goes about providing it.

One of the recurrent themes on "Candid Camera" has involved examining many people's mindless obedience in the face of unreasonable demands by "authority." It's important that we trust and obey police and other agents working to protect us. It's certainly not reasonable to obey, without question, a uniformed guard who says the state of Delaware is "closed for the day," or a cop who tells pedestrians they've entered a "walk backwards zone." Yet I've got a library of footage showing that the public willingly accepts such instruction, time and again.

About that lawsuit: One man bruised his leg getting off the conveyor and took us to court. The case, which he won, then settled after we appealed, turned out to be less about the mishap than about his claim that his privacy had been violated.

That was then—and in recent days an increasingly frustrated public is being asked to submit to possibly risky scans and highly intrusive pat-downs, which many travelers believe violate their privacy.

I'm tempted to say that nine years later life is imitating art in many ways, but I don't have the audacity to call what I did for a living art. I do believe, however, it's helpful in understanding where we've been and where we seem to be heading.

I'm glad to see that many travelers are no longer simply submitting blindly to airport scanners, and are questioning invasive pat-downs. That's actually something worth smiling about.

Mr. Funt is a writer and the long-time host of "Candid Camera" (http://www.CandidCamera.com).

Didn't find this video but found something just as indicative:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bBlOX3PaVKs

[Simulist]

The Obama administration is watching us

[...]

The terminology contained within the reported memo is indeed troubling. It labels any person who “interferes” with TSA airport security screening procedure protocol and operations by actively objecting to the established screening process, “including but not limited to the anticipated national opt-out day” as a “domestic extremist.” The label is then broadened to include “any person, group or alternative media source” that actively objects to, causes others to object to, supports and/or elicits support for anyone who engages in such travel disruptions at U.S. airports in response to the enhanced security procedures.

For individuals who engaged in such activity at screening points, it instructs TSA operations to obtain the identities of those individuals and other applicable information and submit the same electronically to the Homeland Environment Threat Analysis Division, the Extremism and Radicalization branch of the Office of Intelligence & Analysis (IA) division of the Department of Homeland Security.

For “any person, group or domestic alternative media source” that actively objects to, causes others to object to, supports and/or elicits support for anyone who engages in such travel “disruptions” at U.S. airports (as defined above) in response to the enhanced security procedures, the [applicable DHS administrative branch] is instructed to identify and collect information about the persons or entities, and submit such information in the manner outlined [within this directive].

It would appear that the Department of Homeland Security is not only prepared to enforce the enhanced security procedures at airports, but is involved in gathering intelligence about those who don’t. They’re making a list and most certainly will be checking it twice. Meanwhile, legitimate threats to our air travel security (and they DO exist) seem to be taking a back seat to the larger threat of the multitude of non-criminal American citizens who object to having their Constitutional rights violated.

I don't know about that.

But at this point, nothing that the Bush Obama Administration might do would really surprise me: it's become undeniable that the same people who were running the United States during the Bush-Cheney-Rumsfeld days are still running the United States today, even with the name of the administration of the executive branch having changed.

So — if this is true about DHS being "instructed to identify and collect information" about "any person, group or domestic alternative media source” that objects to these invasive procedures — I really won't be surprised.

That said, I want to see some proof. We know next-to-nothing about the person who allegedly leaked this information to the writer, and all we have to go on is the writer's claim that this even happened at all. So yes, I'd like to see some proof. First because proof is simply a good thing to have on matters like this and second because I'm suspicious about the wording of portions of the supposedly "leaked" memo contained in this piece. Here's why.

Nearly half the country objects to these ill-conceived practices — and a significant percentage of that half is already encouraging others to object to them, too! — so if DHS is really proposing to obtain the identities of "any person" who "actively objects to" or "causes others to object to" this obvious nuttiness, then they've got their work cut out for them. Especially if they're already planning on doing a "threat analysis" on whomever "objects" at an airport security check point. Good luck, boys! You'll be busy. Enjoy — and Happy Thanksgiving.

Four possibilities come to mind immediately, but I'm sure there are several others:

(1) Portions of this alleged memo are real while some portions are bogus, the intent being to smear the credibility of those who not only "object" but who also repeat the bogus portions, the effect of which will be further silencing of dissenting (and somewhat uncritical) voices,

(2) The contents of this memo were leaked to the writer as part of a general pattern of intimidating the traveling public into the kind of mindless obedience that Americans have already become famous for the world over,

(3) Some kind of combination of the first two is just the kind of expected (and over-hyped) chatter that surrounds the continuing and ever-greater incursions into our civil liberties by the corporate-state, or

(4) The Obama Administration's "Department of Homeland Security" is really just that stupid.

[MacCruiskeen]

part of a general pattern of intimidating the traveling public into the kind of mindless obedience that Americans have already become famous for the world over

Mindless obedience may not be all they want (although they certainly do want it). Years ago, Michael Ruppert was predicting deliberate demand-destruction, particularly in the field of air-travel, as a likely political response to Peak Oil. Maybe they're actually, gradually, making air travel (all motorised travel?) so deeply unpleasant that most people will "freely" abandon it.

Which makes me wonder what'll happen to the airlines and related industries in the short-to-medium term. I wonder which "major institutional investors" are shorting airline stocks right now, or waiting for a suitable moment to do it.

[Bruce Dazzling]

The money paragraph:

And therein lies the most odious premise in this smear piece: anyone who doesn't quietly, meekly and immediately submit to Government orders and invasions -- or anyone who stands up to government power and challenges it -- is inherently suspect. Just as the establishment-worshiping, political-power-defending Ruth Marcus taught us today in The Washington Post, objecting to what the Government is doing here is just immature and ungrateful; mature, psychologically healthy people shut up and submit. That's how you prove that you're a normal, responsible, upstanding good citizen: by not making waves, doing what you're told, declaring yourself a loyal Republican or Democrat and then cheering for your team, and -- most of all -- accepting in the name of Fear that you must suffer indignities, humiliations and always-increasing loss of liberties at the hands of unchallengeable functionaries of the state. I don't really care what political label John Tyner applies to himself: we need far more of his civil resistance in our citizenry and far less of the mindless obedient drone behavior which these Nation writers seem to venerate.

Here's the whole piece:

Anatomy of a journalistic smear job
Glenn Greenwald
Wednesday, Nov 24, 2010 07:25 ET

http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn ... index.html

One long-standing -- and justifiable -- progressive grievance is that whenever ordinary Americans allow their personal plight to enter the public sphere in a way that advances a liberal political goal, they are gratuitously probed and personally smeared by the Right. The most illustrative example is the Frost family, who allowed their 12-year-old son Graeme to deliver a moving radio address explaining the benefits he received from the CHIP program when he was in a serious car accident, only to be promptly stalked and smeared by Michelle Malkin, among others. Today, The Nation -- a magazine which generally offers very good journalism -- subjects John Tyner to similar treatment, with such a shoddy, fact-free, and reckless hit piece (by Mark Ames and Yasha Levine) that I'm genuinely surprised its editors published it. Beyond the inherent benefit of correcting the record, this particular article is suffused with all sorts of toxic though common premises that make it worth examining in detail.

The article is headlined "TSAstroturf: The Washington Lobbyists and Koch-Funded Libertarians Behind the TSA Scandal," and is devoted to the claim that those objecting to the new TSA procedures -- such as Tyner -- are not what they claim to be. Rather, they are Koch-controlled plants deliberately provoking and manufacturing a scandal -- because, after all, what real American in their right mind would do anything other than meekly submit with gratitude and appreciation to these procedures? Let's just look at the paragraphs written to "justify" this accusation. Here's the article's first paragraph:

Does anyone else sense something strange is going on with the apparently spontaneous revolt against the TSA? This past week, the media turned an “ordinary guy,” 31-year-old Californian John Tyner who blogs under the pseudonym “Johnny Edge,” into a national hero after he posted a cell phone video of himself defending his liberty against the evil government oppressors in charge of airport security.

So the article begins with a claim about what the authors "sense" to be true -- "something strange" going on -- followed by innuendo, achieved through the slothful use of scare quotes, that Tyner is something other than an "ordinary guy." One will search the article in total futility for a shred of evidence that supports this accusatory, smearing opening paragraph. It continues:

While this issue is certainly important -- and offensive -- to Americans, we are nonetheless skeptical about how and why this story turned into a national movement. In fact, this whole campaign feels a bit like déjà-vu: As the first reporters to expose the Tea Party as an Astroturf PR campaign funded by FreedomWorks and Koch-related front groups back in February, 2009, we see many of the same elements driving the current “rebellion” against the TSA: Koch-related libertarians, Washington lobbyists and PR operatives posing as “ordinary citizens,” and suspicious fake-grassroots outrage relentlessly promoted in the same old right-wing echo chamber.

They follow up their evidence-free innuendo in the opening paragraph with even stronger accusatory claims in the second: Tyner, they strongly imply without directly accusing him, is a "Koch-related libertarian" (whatever that means) and a "Washington lobbyist and PR operative posing as [an] 'ordinary citizen'," and his outrage over what was done to him is "fake." The implicit accusations and innuendo are piling up while the evidence remains non-existent. It continues (emphasis in original)

So far, all we know about “ordinary guy” John Tyner III, the freedom fighter who took on the TSA agents, is that, according to a friendly hometown profile in the San Diego Union-Tribune, "he leans strongly libertarian and doesn’t believe in voting. TSA security policy, he asserts ‘isn't Republican and it isn’t Democratic'." [emphasis added]

Tyner attended private Christian schools in Southern California and lives in Oceanside, a Republican stronghold next to Camp Pendleton, the largest Marine Corps base on the West Coast.

These two paragraphs -- the heart of the case against Tyner -- are insidious. By their own admission, this is "all [they] know" about Tyner: he has failed to swear his loyalty to one of the two major political parties, a grievous sin worthy of deep suspicion. He refuses -- correctly -- to view TSA extremism as the by-product of either party. Worse, he doesn't believe in voting -- a fringe and radical position in which he's joined by merely half of the entire American citizenry (65% in midterm years), 130 million voting-age Americans who -- surveying the choices -- also apparently see no reason to bother voting. What kind of strange person would fail to find great inspiration from one of America's two Great Political Parties or refuse to see the world exclusively through a Democrat v. GOP prism? More suspiciously still, he went to "private Christian schools" as a child and resides in a community that has a lot of Republicans in it; why, his neighborhood is even near a Marine base! This is clearly no "ordinary guy."

As for his standing accused by The Nation of suspicion on the grounds of his avowed libertarianism, consider what he wrote several weeks before the TSA incident. In a post responding to this question -- "When’s the last time you were seriously inconvenienced or injured by something that big government did?" -- Tyner wrote:

Gay rights [infringements], TSA body scanners, highway checkpoints, the PATRIOT Act, warrantless wiretaps, extra-judicial assassinations, indefinite detentions, inflation, etc. Don't tell me that (some of) these don't affect me. When one person's rights are trampled, everybody's are, and that's just at the federal level.

What a right-wing monster! If only Democratic Party leaders -- who support most of the serious rights infringements he condemns -- were this monstrous. Or consider what he wrote about the statements of Juan Williams and Bill O'Reilly which conflated Muslims with Terrorists:

These two statements properly deserve all of the outrage, in my opinion. Millions of Muslims do not accept violence and enable jihad. The U.S. government, itself, says that there are probably less than 100 Al-Qaeda members fighting in Afghanistan. It admits that many are probably hiding in Pakistan, but even being generous would probably place the total number under 1,000. Muslims make up almost a quarter of the world's population. If they all really supported violence and jihad, even if merely millions of them supported it, they would have destroyed the U.S., whose military only numbers about 1.4 million, quite decisively a long time ago. In fact, most (the percentage of "radical" Muslims is almost infinitesimal, but still prevents one from saying "all") Muslims are peaceful, preach peace, and abhor the violence perpetrated in their religion's name.

With a Koch-related mind like that, the next thing you know, Tyner will be calling for endless war in the Muslim world, escalated civilian-slaughtering drone strikes, a covert war in Yemen, war crimes trials for child soldiers, and due-process-free life imprisonment and presidential assassinations. Then maybe he'll decide he can become a Good Democrat and will be able to remove the cloud of suspicion that, in the eyes of these Nation writers, hangs over him.

So far, there is zero evidence -- or even a pretense of evidence -- to justify The Nation's accusations. Other than including a quote from Tyner in which he categorically states that "he doesn't belong to any libertarian organizations and did not have any contact with anyone mentioned in this article" before the incident -- claims which The Nation does not and cannot dispute -- here are the only other two paragraphs that even mention Tyner:

At least one local TSA administrator wondered if Tyner hadn’t come to the airport prepared to create a scandal. Tyner switched on his recording device before even entering the checkpoint -- and recorded himself as he refused to go through the body scanner. Most importantly, Tyner recorded himself saying "If you touch my junk, I'm gonna have you arrested!" -- which quickly morphed on blogs into the more media-savvy tagline, "Don’t touch my junk!"

According to the Union-Tribune, when asked if the TSA was set up by Tyner, the local administrator coyly replied, "I don’t know that it was an actual set up -- but we are concerned that this passenger did have his recording (on) prior to entering the checkpoint so there is some concern that it was an intentional behavior on his part."

So The Nation quotes an anonymous TSA official who "wonders" -- without a shred of evidence -- if Tyner provoked the incident. That's both ludicrous and totally irrelevant. He posted the entire audio online, which demonstrates that he was unfailingly polite throughout; it was TSA officials acting imperiously, threateningly, and thuggishly -- not Tyner. And how could Tyner have possibly provoked TSA agents to include him in what it insists is its random selection process for passengers who receive the new screening procedures? Moreover, even if he did prepare his videocamera before entering the checkpoint area and provoke his selection, so what? He has the absolute right to do so, and given his obvious concern with government rights infringements, that's a completely sensible and civic-minded step to take.

What's really going on here is clear. These are Tyner's actual crimes in the eyes of these Nation writers, at least judging by the accusations they make: (1) he's not a good, loyal Democrat; (2) he did something that politically harmed Barack Obama; and, most and worst of all (3) he failed to submit meekly and quietly to Government orders like any Good, Patriotic "ordinary American" would and should do. That is what has created their "sense" that he's something other than an "ordinary guy" -- a "fake."

The article highlights three other individuals who object to the TSA procedures (out of the dozens -- at least -- who have complained) who also have (cue the ominous overtones) libertarian ties. That's not surprising. In order to do what Tyner did -- firmly assert one's rights against government agents and then vocally and publicly complain about rights infringements -- one has to take one's liberty seriously. After all, to do something like that is to risk being threatened by the Federal Government and smeared by journalists loyal to those in power. It's hardly surprising that many of the people willing to take that kind of a risky stand have incorporated the concept of individual liberty into their political identity. The Nation may want to ask someone what the "L" in the "ACLU" stands for.

And therein lies the most odious premise in this smear piece: anyone who doesn't quietly, meekly and immediately submit to Government orders and invasions -- or anyone who stands up to government power and challenges it -- is inherently suspect. Just as the establishment-worshiping, political-power-defending Ruth Marcus taught us today in The Washington Post, objecting to what the Government is doing here is just immature and ungrateful; mature, psychologically healthy people shut up and submit. That's how you prove that you're a normal, responsible, upstanding good citizen: by not making waves, doing what you're told, declaring yourself a loyal Republican or Democrat and then cheering for your team, and -- most of all -- accepting in the name of Fear that you must suffer indignities, humiliations and always-increasing loss of liberties at the hands of unchallengeable functionaries of the state. I don't really care what political label John Tyner applies to himself: we need far more of his civil resistance in our citizenry and far less of the mindless obedient drone behavior which these Nation writers seem to venerate.

I spoke with Tyner several days ago and he was very worried that his public stance would jeopardize exactly the ordinariness which The Nation claims is fake: his job, his family, his reputation, and the cost from government recriminations. This highly irresponsible, evidence-free Nation attack demonstrates how valid those concerns were. It may be that several vocal opponents of the new TSA process are Koch-funded -- that wouldn't surprise me -- but that has absolutely nothing to do with Tyner, and The Nation, for which I have high regard, owes him an apology and retraction for the innuendo it smeared on him without a shred of evidence. It's difficult enough for ordinary citizens to take a principled stand like this against the Government; knowing that they're going to be subjected to this sort of baseless hit job makes it less likely that other citizens will be willing to do so.

[Simulist]

The money paragraph:

And therein lies the most odious premise in this smear piece: anyone who doesn't quietly, meekly and immediately submit to Government orders and invasions -- or anyone who stands up to government power and challenges it -- is inherently suspect. Just as the establishment-worshiping, political-power-defending Ruth Marcus taught us today in The Washington Post, objecting to what the Government is doing here is just immature and ungrateful; mature, psychologically healthy people shut up and submit. That's how you prove that you're a normal, responsible, upstanding good citizen: by not making waves, doing what you're told, declaring yourself a loyal Republican or Democrat and then cheering for your team, and -- most of all -- accepting in the name of Fear that you must suffer indignities, humiliations and always-increasing loss of liberties at the hands of unchallengeable functionaries of the state. I don't really care what political label John Tyner applies to himself: we need far more of his civil resistance in our citizenry and far less of the mindless obedient drone behavior which these Nation writers seem to venerate.

I have little remaining respect for publications like The Nation or for partisans of either major variety.

The American Empire today is composed of both loyal Republicans and loyal Democrats — and it's precisely their continued loyalty to these two contemptible parties that makes them such slavish, obsequient, and easily manipulable tools of the aforementioned Empire, which depends on bipartisanship to oppress effectively.

[Project Willow]

TSA might be making an end run around protesters...

According to tweeting travelers, many backscatter and millimeter-wave AIT scanning machines at airports are not in use at all, making opting out impossible. We've asked DHS/TSA for comment, but you can help us confirm.

...

The presumption by some is that the TSA has deactivated the AIT machines in an effort to both increase throughput of travelers through the scanning process and to diffuse protest by the grassroots National Out-Out Day movement.

But as the AP photo shows, it's not always possible for a single passenger to determine if an airport is using the machines at every terminal or not.

http://gizmodo.com/5698536/fliers-claim-tsa-have-deactivated-body-scanners


I really do not want to live in a country where a majority of people believe these invasions are OK. I think that would frighten me more than the oppressive aims of those in power.

[JackRiddler]

part of a general pattern of intimidating the traveling public into the kind of mindless obedience that Americans have already become famous for the world over

Mindless obedience may not be all they want (although they certainly do want it). Years ago, Michael Ruppert was predicting deliberate demand-destruction, particularly in the field of air-travel, as a likely political response to Peak Oil. Maybe they're actually, gradually, making air travel (all motorised travel?) so deeply unpleasant that most people will "freely" abandon it.

Which makes me wonder what'll happen to the airlines and related industries in the short-to-medium term. I wonder which "major institutional investors" are shorting airline stocks right now, or waiting for a suitable moment to do it.

Interesting. Had the radio on in kitchen just now, they had the Total TSA Going Well No One's Opting Out All Passengers Are United 93 story on, in which they did note however that driving for trips over 50 miles appears to be up by 9 percent this year (and who the hell knows how that bit is subject to instant measurement, but anyway). Oh, and they also marred their message a tad by noting that in addition, most travelers today are being put through the usual metal detectors, and not the body scanners.

.

[Simulist]

I really do not want to live in a country where a majority of people believe these invasions are OK. I think that would frighten me more than the oppressive aims of those in power.

Me too. It is eerie, surreal, even infuriating to listen to otherwise "normal" people actually defend these assaults on their own privacy and these violations against their own bodies, even the bodies of their own children.

It's a little like watching members of a delusional cult defend their cult — even when directly faced with the most obvious and outrageous abuses of that cult.

[Nordic]

I was shocked to find this over at truthdig:

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/a_c ... _20101123/

A Childish Tantrum Over TSA Rules

By Ruth Marcus

My family, as it happens, is taking the bus to Grandma’s this Thanksgiving. But our choice of transportation has nothing to do with anxiety about leering security screeners or fear of pat-downs.

The uproar over the new procedures is overblown and immature. The marginal invasion of privacy is small relative to the potential benefit of averting a terrorist attack. Meanwhile, some of the loudest howls of outrage emanate from those who would be quickest to blame the Obama administration for not doing enough to protect us if a bomber did slip through.

Granted, the images from the souped-up screeners are uncomfortably graphic. But where is the harm if some guy in another room, who doesn’t have a clue who I am and doesn’t see my face (it’s obscured on the machine), gets a look at my flabby, middle-aged self? The images are automatically deleted once the screening is competed. It’s the old philosophical riddle: If your butt sags in the forest. ...

By contrast, the pat-down is actually intrusive, no question about it. But you most likely won’t have to endure it unless you balk at the enhanced imaging. If you do, the pat-down will be conducted by a screener of the same gender. If you want, it can be done in a private area.

“Don’t touch my junk” may be the cri de coeur—cri de crotch?—of the post-9/11 world, but it’s an awfully childish one. We let people touch our junk all the time in medical settings. Yes, the technician who performs my mammogram has more professional training than your average TSA agent, but she is also a lot more up close and personal than a quick once-over with a gloved hand. I undergo the mammogram for my personal benefit; I don’t know if there is a suspicious mass, whereas I know there are no explosives sewn into my underwear. I undergo the pat-down, if I must, for the greater public benefit. It is an unfortunate part of the modern social contract.

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Of course, aspects of the screening culture are comically idiotic. When my 13-year-old daughter and I went through a checkpoint a few weeks ago, she was told to take off her hoodie; I waltzed through with my cardigan on. Absurd, certainly, but hardly a big deal. It may be silly to make Grandma take off her shoes, but it is hardly a huge imposition.
And there will, no doubt, be instances where screeners go too far and will have to be reined in. The breast cancer survivor who was made to show her prosthesis; the bladder cancer survivor whose bag full of urine burst—these are unacceptable. Effective screening does not require a complete suspension of common sense.

My defense of the new procedures assumes that there is some rational basis for the screening madness: that the techniques work and that there is not a less intrusive alternative.

On the first, whether this is real security or security theater is to some extent unknowable; the plot deterred cannot be measured. We do know that, without the enhanced imaging, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab got on a plane with enough explosives to blow it up.

The new screening might not catch every would-be bomber—is the next, resourceful step hiding explosives in body cavities?—but that does not mean it is not useful in the interim. And, no, the decision to conduct pat-downs does not presage interior cavity searches. The slope is not so slippery.

Let’s also leave aside any questions of constitutionality or fundamental fairness about terrorist profiling and simply consider whether it could be done effectively. The Israeli approach is an alluring mirage that would not withstand transplantation. Israel has two airports and 50 flights a day. It conducts intrusive background checks and questions passengers extensively. The process can take hours.

Profiling based on assumptions—that innocent-looking grannies or blond, blue-eyed teens pose no threat—seems guaranteed to produce disaster when terrorists exploit these preconceptions. At which point, the fingers will be pointed at government officials who were not intrusive enough.

The stepped-up screening has generated a fascinating fusion of left-right outrage. Bloggers at the liberal Firedoglake inveigh against “gate rape” and “porno scanners.” Rush Limbaugh denounces “Obama-led government agents ... acting like perverts” and advises, “Keep your hands off my tea bag, Mr. President.”

The polls suggest that the American people, a large segment anyway, have a more sensible attitude. For that, at least, we can give thanks.

Ruth Marcus’ e-mail address is marcusr(at symbol)washpost.com.

The Washington Post. FIGURES.

"Childish Tantrums" my ASS. Yes, my ass, where I've hidden a 20 megaton nuclear bomb.