Dave Lindorff: I Was a Victim of the Government’s Absurd and Over-Hyped War on Terror

[marmar]

I Was a Victim of the Government’s Absurd and Over-Hyped War on Terror
Fri, 07/18/2008 - 15:13 — dlindorff



I was injured thanks to the government’s ridiculous airport security program last week on a US Air flight from Chicago to Philadelphia. I also saw how pointless the whole thing is, if the supposed goal is really to prevent airline hijackings.

First, my injury. Because of a silly fear that I might blow up a plane with explosives tucked into my running shoes, I, along with everyone else in the security checkpoint line at O’Hare, including two-month-old babies wearing little booties, had to doff my footwear. Clad in just socks, I tried to maneuver my way around a metal counter that held those plastic trays carrying my laptop, my shoes, my belt and change and keys, and my carry-on bag, and in the process my unprotected big toe hit a sharp piece of metal protruding from the table.

The metal sliced right under my toenail, making a painful and bloody cut into the soft tissue under the nail. Cursing and bleeding, I made my way through the metal detector, and collected my goods.

Now, inside my bag, unbeknownst to the Transportation Security Administration inspectors, was a bottle of mouthwash. It was larger than the approved 2-oz size, and it was not in an approved sealed plastic bag. But TSA inspectors looking into their video screens at the X-Ray machine didn’t see it, because I made sure that it was vertical as it passed through. All they saw was a little circle of plastic. Likewise, on an earlier flight, I had made my way aboard with a Swiss Army knife. By standing it in my carry-on bag so that it would be vertical for the X-Ray, I was able to slip it through and onto the plane.

Now clearly I’m not a terrorist (though for a time, thanks to my anti-Bush, anti-war journalism, and an expose about the TSA’s “no-fly” list abuses, I was on the watch list, and would get a circled “S” written on my boarding passes that ensured that I would be pulled aside to have my carry-on luggage hand searched). But if I were a terrorist, I sure wouldn’t try to commandeer a plane with a jackknife. I’d want something bigger. But that would be simple. One could easily carry on a 10-inch blade the same way. If one were nervous about doing that, it could be a ceramic or better, a Plexiglas blade—plenty dangerous, but invisible to X-rays and metal detectors. ......(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.thiscantbehappening.net/?q=node/176

[gratuitous]

1. Not to mention, Mr. Lindorff . . .

I'm sorry for his big toe, and he makes a pretty good point. But one thing that will no longer be possible in a post-9/11 world is the scenario of an airplane highjacking. Back in the good old days, a highjacking was a mass kidnapping, and the person or persons doing the highjacking were interested in a payoff. Sure, it was inconvenient, but the victims could be pretty sure that they would get out of it safely, any absence or tardiness would be excused ("I was on TWA two-niner-niner, you know, the plane that was highjacked?") and what a story to tell!

Now, every highjacking is viewed through the lens of what happened on September 11, 2001. Every highjacking will be viewed by the captives as ending in a fiery crash, possibly taking out hundreds or thousands of innocent others. Some guy or some group of guys jump up on a plane and start waving weapons and ordering people around, and every passenger on the flight is going to assume this is headed for the worst possible conclusion. And people who perceive that their lives are already forfeit unless they take the most desperate, drastic action will . . . take the most desperate, drastic action without regard to the prospect of getting hit or shot or whatever.

So yes, it is an exercise in pointlessness. Unless of course the point is something other than the official point of preventing highjackings. Now, what might that be . . . ? :think:

[mmonk]

3. You got it. The unofficial reason is conditioning to less freedom,

acceptance of authority without protections from it, intimidation of critics just as it has been throughout modern history.

[aikoaiko]

2. poor guy, stubbed his toe.

:eyes: :sarcasm: