The piling up of anger at the TSA continues and more people with access to media are being hit. The Atlantic columnist Jeffrey Goldberg describes a crotch issue involving his elderly mother-in-law and Henry Kissinger got the ‘full Monty’ pat down, even though he was in a wheelchair.
Meanwhile we had an 18-month old infant being ordered off a plane, a nursing mother was forced to use her breast pump because for some reason the empty bottles were seen as a threat, and a young woman had her insulin pump broken because the officials would not take into account a doctor’s note that recommended that she not go through the scanner.
While regularly chronicling all the TSA abuses, I should in fairness say that I personally have been treated politely and well by TSA agents whenever I flew. Last month I had to go through the full body scanner and the image showed something on both ankles and near my hip pocket. The TSA agent merely patted my ankles and gave the slightest tap on my pocket.
I think the TSA people who act badly are the minority. But the problem is that when you give large numbers of people unchecked power over people, there will undoubtedly be abuses by a fraction who enjoy exercising it in arbitrary ways. The people who do such things are the same people who are usually jerks in other areas of life, bullying and intimidating those over whom they have petty power.
What they now have is official cover for their actions.
The other problem being, of course, that all of this elevated screening doesn’t do shit.
There is enough material in the TSA security theatre for a whole season of Monty Python skits.
“I think the TSA people who act badly are the minority. But the problem is that when you give large numbers of people unchecked power over people, there will undoubtedly be abuses by a fraction who enjoy exercising it in arbitrary ways.”
Yep. Same goes for the police forces when they are rarely interrupted by accountability as well. By the same token, it isn’t the abuse that bothers me nearly as much as the fact that the abuser isn’t taken to task for what they’ve done very often. The organizations just find excuses for why it was okay.
At least the police are doing something useful. To James Sweet’s point, TSA isn’t actually accomplishing anything outside of reducing the utility of using airplanes as a travel alternative.
TSA isn’t actually accomplishing anything outside of reducing the utility of using airplanes as a travel alternative.
Depending on what people are doing instead, that might be a good thing. Trains produce fewer greenhouse gasses than do planes and skype produces even fewer. OTOH, if people are driving instead…not so good.
On the other hand the TSA is planning on expanding to cover train and bus stations too. There has even been discussion of putting in checkpoints on the interstates.
There has even been discussion of putting in checkpoints on the interstates.
Why “even”? Interstates seem to me to be the most vulnerable target currently: There’s absolutely no monitoring right now, you can get a truck bomb on the interstate more easily than you can into a train, it would really upset people and necessitate changes in behavior if car travel became suspect…it seems the perfect point of attack, actually. Plus, cars are evil by their nature. Especially SUVs.
interstates are very sparsely populated. if you’re a terrorist planning to use a bomb to incite, well… terror, then you’ll want to look for dense populations to maximize the bloodshed per pound of explosives.
like, for instance… the crowded lines waiting to go through airport security at peak hours. just saying.
“I think the TSA people who act badly are the minority. But the problem is that when you give large numbers of people unchecked power over people, there will undoubtedly be abuses by a fraction who enjoy exercising it in arbitrary ways. The people who do such things are the same people who are usually jerks in other areas of life, bullying and intimidating those over whom they have petty power.”
In other areas, there are mechanisms where people can defend themselves. There are mechanisms where those who act badly are held accountable and punished.
None of that exists with the TSA. If an agent calls you a troublemaker, you are a troublemaker, no appeal. If an agent assaults you, you are not allowed to defend yourself personally or legally. This only encourages the bad apples, because they know that they can get away with it.
They’re driving Dianne, trust me. You know the train infrastructure in the US is pitiful. I drive far, far more for shorter and medium trips than I used to before air travel got so awful.
I recently travelled via Greyhound from the Northeast to Houston. I was amazed at how little security there was.
I had to get off the bus maybe 10x during the trip. A few times for refueling, a few times to change buses, and a few times for a driver change.
During all these times getting on and off the bus my bags were only checked once and that was on departure.
On the point of interstate checkpoints, we already have them. There are littered all across the border of U.S. and Mexico.
The idea of terrorism is to cause fear. They have done that with air travel. Imagine if a large bomb went off in the broklyn tunnel during rush hour.
“I had to get off the bus maybe 10x during the trip. A few times for refueling, a few times to change buses, and a few times for a driver change.
During all these times getting on and off the bus my bags were only checked once and that was on departure.”
And in all those opportunities the bus didn’t explode once! Go figure!
For the majority of the land mass, yes, the train service in the US is beyond pathetic. But quite a lot of the population is on the east coast which has almost halfway sort of decent train service.
Yeah, they’re driving.
Interstate 78 goes through the Holland tunnel into Manhattan.
And, don’t forget to opt out when you do get ordered into the scanner, if just for the sake of protest!