The TSA circus: ridiculous, wasteful, degrading and dangerous

I recently had to drive to my local airport to pick up my son who was returning from a trip to Argentina and this provided me with the interesting "opportunity" to try out for myself the "enhanced pat-down" TSA experience. I want to share this experience with you.

Luckily, on that day my wife had come with me, so I could leave with her the two "prohibited items" I always carry with me (my RSK-mk1 knife and a kubotan-keyholder). I knew I was "clean" and I was therefore quite delighted when I was routed to the line hurded to towards the "porno-scanners". Once I got to the machine, I declared, politely, that I declined to be scanned and that I would opt for the "enhanced pat-down". The TSA agent politely replied "sure" turned around and yelled "male assistance please!". Then, the circus began.

I was told to stand at one specific stop and not to move. During about 4-5 minutes, nobody was paying attention to me and I began wondering how I could be forgotten standing there smack in the middle of the TSA searching area. Eventually, a huge dude, (6'4-6'5 for about no less than 300-320 lbs) showed up, looking extremely annoyed.

Have you ever met the kind of irritating character who deliberately whispers in order to make you tense? They mumble under their breath just to make you strain with the effort of hearing what they are saying. I told him "excuse me, I cannot hear you". He then looked even more pissed, like he had been personally offended by both my presence and my request that he speak up.

Uncle Sam has clearly made some effort at giving his TSA thugs a superficial veneer of civilization. My own TSA agent, let's call him Bubba, was saying so many "sir this, sir that, please sir" and, his favorite, "do you understand this sir?" that it was sometimes hard to understand him. The numerous "sirs" did not prevent the guy from looking really offended, disgusted and extremely annoyed. Judging by the pace of his speech, he was also rather dumb (I know, that criteria is subjective, but that was my feeling anyway). Sure enough, he promptly proceeded to show me how stupid he really was.

Bubba first told me to show him where my carry-on luggage was. I pointed him to the conveyor belt taking luggage out from the TSA X-ray machines. He looked at me in dumb stupor and said "which ones, sir?" I made two steps towards my luggage when he emphatically said "do not get close, sir, show me from here, sir!". Clearly he was afraid that I might pull out some dangerous weapon which the TSA X-ray machine might have missed.

He carefully took my carry-on and placed it in a separate spot. Then, he proceeded with the "enhanced" pat-down.

What surprised me first, was that the entire procedure is done right there, on the spot, in the middle of all the passengers trying to get through security. When I asked whether the pat-down would be made here, Bubba gave me a stern look and said "we can go to a private place, if you want". Will you be surprised if I tell you I declined?

The first obvious "enhancement" (as compared to a normal pat-down) is the never stopping voice of the TSA agent droning on about what he will do next: "now I will touch your knee, sir, do you understand?", "now I will touch your scalp, sir, do you understand?". etc. I found the "sirs" ok, but the numerous "do you understand?", which were delivered with a almost threatening voice, somehow made me feel guilty, or stupid, or both.  I wondered what would happen to me if I did not "understand"...

I guess being told to stand with both of my hands wide apart, like for a crucifixion, did not add to my feeling of comfort.

Being in Florida, I was wearing shorts and when Bubba decided to check them out, I was left standing, arms still wide apart, with the back of my shorts hanging down at about midpoint over my buttocks ("ghetto style"). Apparently Buddy did not notice, or care, that his thorough examination of my shorts had left them hanging down and dangerously close from falling off altogether. I carefully asked Bubba if I could pull them back on. He very reluctantly agreed.

Bubba then proceeded to slowly and carefully check my shirt. The weird thing is that he was patting me down my ribs and back through the shirt and that clearly was not easy for him. I ask him whether he wanted me to remove my short. He gave it some thought, and then replied "would that make you comfortable, sir?". I decided to drop the topic.

Finally, we arrived a the inevitable key moment of this new "enhanced" pat-down: Bubba would pat my genitals!

Well, it was a rather disappointing thing. First, the TSA does not refer to genitals by name. They are call "sensitive areas". Fair enough. My buttock, by the way, are also considered "sensitive" (?). I have to admit that Bubba barely touched my "sensitive" parts, and that the touching was peppered with even bigger amounts of "sirs" and, of course, "do you understands". Let me state this for the record here - the "sensitive areas" pat-down was really no big deal. Useless, for sure, symbolic, perhaps, but it was not some cavity-search or some pornographic massage. It was short (1-2 seconds max) and down with the back of Bubba's gloved hands. No big deal, really.

Finally, Bubba rubbed my hands with some scotch tape, mumbling something undetermined under his breath about "hands". I guess he was looking for traces of explosives. Then he came back with a totally disgusted look and said "you may go", and turned away.

The fact that the "porno" part was anti-climactic (wink) really does not mean that this entire procedure is benign or acceptable. In fact, is a gross violation of a person's dignity, but not because of any inappropriate fondling. The real effect of that kind of search is a multi-level assault on your mind:

a) you are treated like a potential criminal, as if you had given clear indications of hostile intent.

b) you are treated like a slave or a robot, being told exactly how to move, where to stand, what to do.

c) you are treated like a moron who cannot understand even the most basic instructions.

d) you are asked to passively accept even the most obviously idiotic order or procedure (like not touching your own carry-on luggage even though it just passed through the X-ray machine)

That is what all this TSA non-sense is really all about: compliance, submission, surrender. It's a mind-f**k.

This is also why the folks the TSA hires a huge numbers of dumb and poorly paid TSA agents - because anybody with just an ounce of critical thinking will immediately see how stupid this entire circus is. One such cretin even told me in Washington, DC that she has seen "many children terrorists" (in her nightmares, no doubt). The paranoia of these folks is clearly at near-hysterical levels.

One less than amusing thing is that the TSA also presents the perfect target. Rest assured that sooner or later some wannabe terrorist dimwit a la Richard Reid will realize that he can kill much more people at a TSA checkpoint than Anders Breivik recently killed in Norway, and with much less preparation, skills or effort.  After all, anybody can bring a backpack and a duffel-bag full of explosives along with a strap-on explosive belt and get right in the middle of a long lines travelers and TSA agents before blowing himself/herself up.  Just visualize of what, say, 50kg of C4 would do inside a major airport's crowded TSA checkpoint!

Not only would such an attack kill *a lot* of people, but it would create even further panic.  Have you ever seen footage of Israeli soldiers pointing their assault-rifles as some Palestinian whom they order to disrobe at a distance because they fear that he/she might be wearing an explosive belt?  Well, that is the logical and inevitable next step of a situation in which checkpoints are being blown-up.

So no only is this entire TSA circus ridiculous, wasteful and deeply degrading, it is also extremely dangerous as it provides the *perfect* target.  The scary thing is that nobody seems to care any more.

The Saker

"Foot in the door" by American Goy

by American Goy for his "World"

Skurwienie in polish, ssucziwijenie(as close a phonetic spelling as I can manage in russian) - loose translation "to make someone else your bitch bitch; verb".

Driving to work the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, I overheard on NPR this story: there is a protest planned today against the TSA advanced scanning whatever you want to call it.

The gist of the piece on my radio was this:
NPR: many people are worried about these protests and worry about them slowing down the holiday (thanksgiving, american family holiday) travel. Here's a random person who sees absolutely nothing wrong with the TSA scans.

A (clueless, picked out of a crowd) woman came on and said that she just wants to get home, that this is for our safety, yada yada.

At this moment i turned off the radio, while screaming at it (yes, I do have high blood pressure).

Bought and paid for advert story - on NPR, no less, imagine that (what is the world coming to, oy).

The bad protesters, who slow down the (good, obedient) people's travel plans.

Protests of TSA airport pat-downs, body scanners don't delay Thanksgiving travel, Washington Post, November 25, 2010

The tone of the article's title is congratulatory, euphoric even:

Hooray, the inhuman system grinds on!

Total failure of (isolated, bad, yucky) protesters versus the (abused, exasperated, humble, just doing my job) TSA workers (officers?), to the positive (relief, cheering, clapping) reaction of the normal travellers who just want to get to see their families - stripping naked for weird strangers in uniform or being sexually groped is just part of the "new reality".

Protesters showed up in ones and twos, but not in the predicted battalions.
They held up signs, passed out leaflets damning the government and delayed virtually nobody.

Hooray!

A win for the (groping, death of privacy, Orwellian) democracy!

From New York to Los Angeles - in Atlanta, Kansas City, Phoenix, San Diego, St. Louis, Seattle and at all three major airports in the Washington region - hundreds of thousands of people launched their holiday travels without falling afoul of airport security or the clamorous minority(...)

Clamorous minority indeed.

Don't mind the brown shirts on the streets, just go along, don't stick out, just fade into the crowd, maybe the people in uniform will not bother me but that young man over there - he looks suspicious to me anyway, maybe I should tell the authorities to grope him.



Don't touch my junk: TSA workers face a tough job, Associated Press, November 23 2010

They've been called molesters, threatened with violence and ordered not to touch "my junk." One woman headbutted a TSA officer who was searching her laptop. Other screeners report being punched, kicked and shoved during pat-downs.

My god, the poor dears.

All they try to do is to condition the American public for further skurwienies (plural of singular skurwienie) - the next, already lined up - humiliations soon to come.

Security officers know the new searches are more invasive but want Thanksgiving travelers to keep in mind they are just doing their jobs to keep people safe.

We are doing it for you.

"We just want the public to understand that we're not perverts," said screener Ricky D. McCoy, who heads a local TSA union for Illinois and Wisconsin.

The handsome, nice men in their black uniforms and fancy runes on their collars were the nicest, good educated, well behaved men with a tough job to do. And sadly, they were also misunderstood by the public...

To be sure, most passengers are docile when going through an airport's security checkpoint, though McCoy said the atmosphere has changed in the past two weeks.

Most Americans are cowardly, honorless, just trying-to-go-about-my-business types, although in the past two weeks strains are showing and it becomes clear that you can only push - admittedly pathetic - people of this nation only so far.

Last week, for instance, McCoy explained the search to a passenger. "The guy looked me straight in the face and said, 'I don't know what I might do to you if you touch me,'" said McCoy.

McCoy stared the man down and told the passenger that touching an officer would be the worst mistake he's ever made because authorities would be called. The search went smoothly.

The authority figure stared the man down, making him feel big and powerful (a feature, a perk, also of the men in black uniforms some 70 odd years ago in a far away land called the 3rd Reich, and also a common occurrence during the 1917 through 1989 when dealing with the 'officers of state security', called variously Cheka, NKVD, MGB, KGB in an exotic, magical place called the Soviet Union).

Then he threatened the man with all the power of the state (in our modern Yoo Ess of Ey, this means a tasering and/or a beatdown by "the servants of the public", the police).

The intimidated man was then humiliated by having his balls and penis fondled, as well as having his ass rubbed.

"About 10 minutes later his wife came back and apologized for what he said," McCoy said.

The wife, terrified that the agent would inform a police officer or his co-workers or boss about the man, and at the least lead to her husband's arrest and legal fees of hundreds of thousands of dollars (at the worst a tasering, beat down and resisting arrest, with a rather large chance of resulting in life changing injuries - broken ribs, bones, face etc), quickly assuaged herself in front of the important man in uniform - a man who could, at his whim, make her husband lose his liberty, his health and cost her thousands of dollars.

The man was not vindictive - the nice young man in uniform was a pleasant fella, and was satisfied first with humiliating her husband and then with her pleading with him for her husband's life.

The new pat-downs began about a month ago, and early on, an officer was assaulted. Since the story made headlines, McCoy said officers at least six times have been punched, pushed or shoved after they explained what would be happening.

I for one am A-OK with strange men touching my penis, fondling my balls and patting my butt.

"We have major problems because basically TSA never educated the public on what was going on," McCoy said. "Our agency pretty much just threw the new search techniques out there."

That was by design.

Informing the public a few weeks before the launch of the groping by uniformed men of your private body parts (pardon - advanced screening technique) would launch a national discussion, would make the media cover it, would make the total strangeness of it all imprint itself on the American psyche.

Launching it with nary a warning placed on the public allowed the rulers to present the public with a fait accompli - also to put an Orwellian twist on the idiot sheep masses.

Of course, you don't have to be molested - you can opt for complete strangers to see you completely naked under a powerful x-ray machine. It's your choice, citizen!

... Or perhaps not, as the "security officers" may and can choose to pat you down "advancedly" anyway - for your own protection, of course.



Opt Out of a Body Scan? Then Brace Yourself, The New York Times, November 1, 2010.

Mr. Delahorne said: “They had one of the T.S.A. staff announcing loudly: ‘Take everything out of your pockets. If you have a wallet, take it out. A handkerchief, out.’ I asked the guy, ‘Can you explain the reason for the new process?’ He said there was nothing new. ‘We have always done this.’

In case you missed it, launching this on the public with no warning was by design.

Oceania was always at war with EastAsia.

The purpose of this whole exercise is skurwienie - ssucziwinije - to make you into a bitch.

To get you ready for the further humiliation to come.

This should be self explanatory to you, because if you are reading this blog I believe you are at least somewhat intelligent, but i will explain just in case.


The foot in the door technique
Pretty decent Wikipedia article on this tried and tested psychological technique,

In an early study, a team of psychologists telephoned housewives in California and asked if the women would answer a few questions about the household products they used. Three days later, the psychologists called again. This time, they asked if they could send five or six men into the house to go through cupboards and storage places as part of a 2-hr enumeration of household products. The investigators found these women were more than twice as likely to agree to the 2-hr request than a group of housewives asked only the larger request.

This is painfully obvious, but let me explain using painfully obvious language so that there is no misunderstanding between us here.

Americans are being trained, like dogs, to conform to their masters' wishes.

First small things are asked - wiggle the tail, roll over, let me fondle your balls and play with your penis.

But once that is done, bigger requests and actions will be expected.

And, like the TSA homosexual gropings (nothing against gay men per se, sorry if I offended you) those new requests, humiliations, skurwienie - will not be advertised beforehand.

They will be sprung upon you, the cowardly, pathetic American public, with no warning whatsoever.

But hark! The making-you-into-a-bitch (obedient, ever ready to serve, unsurprised by any of the master's wishes) is working quite well.

First, there are no protests - and the full force of the state (taser, beatings, jail, fines) will be used to back up the inhuman requests.

Second, if someone is protesting, that someone should not be surprised if the resistance and disdain to their actions come not from the men and women in uniform, but from their fellow citizens standing in line behind them :

Quit causing trouble, asshole!
Just do what they say, we are late already!
What the hell is your problem man, just let him grope you and move on!
Someone arrest that man!

And the skurwienie - ssucziwinije - proceeds apiece...

Suka.
Kurwa.
Bitch.

You know?

An american citizen (written with a small "a" and small "c" on purpose).

Homework for you - research what other countries subject their citizens to either be wholly x-rayed and/or sexually groped all over your body.

The answer might surprise you!

More example of sexual assaults by TSA thugs

WAFB and WBTV report:

Are children exempt for pat-downs at airport security? Not according to one man who says a TSA employee groped 6 year-old son at Charlotte Douglas International Airport.

The alleged incident is part of the growing backlash over the full body scans and pat downs at airports nationwide.

WBTV found the anonymous submission on a blog, "We Won't Fly." The man says the incident happened earlier this month and he describes how his little boy was traumatized saying the TSA agent groped his groin and that the little boy left the checkpoint in tears.

The commenter says his son was aggressively patted down by a TSA employee.

"He was pleading for me to help him and I was admonished for trying to comfort him," the comment on the blog states. "His genitals area was groped. He walked down to the plane in tears."

Read more: "6-year-old aggressively patted down in Charlotte"

WBTV contacted Charlotte's TSA and spokesperson said they knew nothing about the incident.

The TSA issued the following statement to WBTV on Wednesday night:

"Officers are trained to work with parents to insure a respectful screening process for the entire family while providing the best possible security for all travelers."

But that statement didn't answer our main question, which was are TSA workers allowed to pat down children even to the point of touching their private parts.

We asked the TSA on Thursday night if they would be more specific. They sent us back the exact same sentence, but then added this second sentence.

"After a thorough risk assessment and after hearing concerns from parents, we made the decision that a modified pat down would be used for children 12 years old and under who require extra screening."

We emailed back to ask what exactly "modified" meant but Jon Allen with the TSA replied, "I can't discuss specifics of a security procedure such as a pat down."

So while it appears young children won't be subjected to as aggressive a pat down as adults, but it's still unclear how far the TSA is allowed to go in patting down children.

Pat-down Backlash: Flight attendant asked to remove prosthetic breast during pat-down

The thought of young children being subjected to the pat downs doesn't sit well with travelers like Jennifer Pin.

"I would go with the body scans for them," said Pin whose twin daughters are 6 years old. "They keep away from strangers, so someone strange coming up to them and you know doing something that might be inappropriate, they don't know what that is."

But the anonymous commenter say the scanners weren't an option during his trip through Charlotte-Douglas.

"We were not given the choice of a full body scanner, but would have preferred it over this humiliating experience," the comment continues. "The scanners are still intrusive, but at least my 6-year-old son would have been unaware of the intrusion."

Dart Strickland just criss-crossed the country with his wife and three daughters. They didn't have to deal with the scanners or a pat down this time around, but he admits the concern is there.

"We've taught them all growing up you know hey this is what can't happen, people don't touch you this way," said Strickland. "And then to have to go back and explain that to them, I could definitely see where the concern in that would be."