'Let's antagonize the public to ensure their cooperation against the bad guys.'

[seafan]

But that's from the deep thinkers at the Department of Homeland Security.


Ralph Nader is exactly right here, in TSA is Delivering Naked Insecurity


November 20, 2010

.....

The (Department of Homeland Security) says full-body imaging is aimed at prevention. If so, why do passengers on the 15,000 U.S. registered business aircraft escape screening? Why, nine years after 9/11, is the department still way behind in the screening of air freight on passenger and cargo planes, where far more dangerous packages can bring down a plane?

For more than 40 years, public interest groups have been advocating for airline safety. After the numerous hijackings to Cuba in the late 1960s, we and air security experts pressed the Federal Aviation Administration to require airlines to strengthen cockpit doors and latches - to no avail. It took the 9/11 attacks before the FAA required the airlines to retrofit. Stonewalling, long a bureaucratic obsession in these areas, must end. A good start would be addressing these uncertainties:


* Radiation: Homeland Security should respond when physics professor Peter Rez of Arizona State University calculates the radiation dose to be 10 times higher than the department is asserting. Or when David J. Brenner of Columbia University's Center for Radiological Research says that using these scanners - with up to 1 billion whole-body X-ray scans per year in the U.S. - "may profoundly change the potential public health consequences to the population."

* Malfunctions. John Sedat, one of four scientists at the University of California-San Francisco who is questioning the department's technical assertions, said these machines could stall, giving passengers "severe burns if not worse." He points out that "software fails often."


And then there are the emerging first-person experiences of travelers. The rough pat-downs experienced by New York Times business travel columnist Joe Sharkey and Atlantic author-writer Jeffrey Goldberg are generating more such passenger complaints. So much for the friendly skies.

.....

And, now we interrupt for this breaking news:


No Security Pat-Downs for John Boehner

Representative John A. Boehner, soon to be the Speaker of the House, has pledged to fly commercial airlines back to his home district in Ohio. But that does not mean that he will be subjected to the hassles of ordinary passengers, including the controversial security pat-downs.

As he left Washington on Friday, Mr. Boehner headed across the Potomac River to Reagan National Airport, which was bustling with afternoon travelers. But there was no waiting in line for Mr. Boehner, who was escorted around the metal detectors and body scanners, and taken directly to the gate.

Mr. Boehner, who was wearing a casual yellow sweater and tan slacks, carried his own bags and smiled pleasantly at passengers who were leaving the security checkpoint inside the airport terminal. It was unclear whether any passengers waiting in the security line, including Representative Allen Boyd, a Florida Democrat who lost his re-election bid, saw Mr. Boehner.

.....

'Sexual assault and porno-scans are for you little people. Wait, maybe I can shed a tear for you. ....Nah.'




Back to Nader's analysis:

.....

Changing this policy, or even backtracking, doesn't mean we'd suddenly be flying on a wing and a prayer. In fact, better use of available intelligence alone would have stopped last year's Christmas underwear bomber from flying to the USA. Indiscriminate and inefficient dragnet-type security checks of whole populations, if anything, make us less safe by focusing on the wrong things.

.....

One area in which I agree with Secretary Napolitano: Cooperation of the public is key to averting attacks. So it seems counterintuitive to antagonize the very people you're counting on to help you get the bad guys. Meantime, Homeland Security is turning TSA agents, who are at some radiation risk themselves, into government gropers without either suspicion or probable cause. People want security, but they do not like irrational, ineffective, invasive and hazardous over-reach.

DHS continually refuses to hold thorough public hearings or to answer reasoned technical, economic and other policy challenges to its practices. Congress must assert its authority to end what one TSA risk analyst has called its "culture of stupidity."

A fitting observation.

[kenny blankenship]

1. why do passengers on the 15,000 U.S. registered business aircraft escape screening?

Piss tests and lie detectors are for the hourly wage slaves on the floor, not for the owners of society. Why would TSA rape-scans and gropings and cavity searches be any different?

[dixiegrrrrl]

3. They escape screening because TSA is about "conditioning" and fear,

not about foreign terrorists.
What TSA is doing is highly publicized escalation of erasing people's sense of rights and sense of privacy.
You will note that they punce IMMEDIATELY on those who resist.
You will note that "special" people do have to be submitted to the violations of rights.

If you look at what is happening from a propaganda point of view, it instantly makes sense.

[FredStembottom]

2. Realizing that this is the wrong way to go, security-wise.....

...takes 5 or 10 seconds of logical thinking to understand.

That will never happen.