The most recent symbol of the ongoing war between the rights of American citizens and the myrmidons of the great fetish, security, is a mild looking software geek named John Turner. His confrontation, including the utterly asinine threat by a Tyrant to see Turner hit with a ten kilobuck fine, is covered here. It is a hoot--and a glowing lesson in the disconnect between the TSA and its master, the Heimatsicherheitsamt on the one hand and the majority of the traveling public on the other.
The cause of the San Diego resistance as well as a growing surge of discontent is the increased use of imaging technology which purports to see all through one's clothing as well as its complement, the "enhanced pat down." The virtual nakedness produced by the microwave or X-ray backscatter machines is objectionable to many people as an unjustifiable invasion of the most intimate of our personal regions.
The objectionable nature of the machines is no way lessened by the lies regarding the capacity of the system to store, retrieve, or transmit images which have been peddled by TSA for months now. Depending on the mode selected, the system either can or cannot store, retrieve, and transmit images captured from the traveling folks. The person in the booth being scanned has no way of knowing which mode is operative. Nor can one be certain, beyond the assurances of TSA, that there is no way a specific identity can be linked to a particular image.
The option of bypassing the scan is available. Exercise of this requires that the candidate passenger submit to "enhanced pat down." This involves a rather firm set of very unpleasant encounters between a Tyrant's hand and the upper segment of the groin as well as a tap on the butt rather too robust to be considered anything other than distasteful. People under arrest or enjoying the hospitality of the corrections industry are well acquainted with the procedure. Most of the flying public is not. Nor are most desirous of becoming familiar with the gloved and groping hand of Authority.
Confronted with the choice of being virtually stripped or materially groped, Mr Tyner declined, brusquely but politely. The Tyrants present objected mightily to the objection raised by the peasant with the effect that reinforcements were called, the local police arrived, and the uppity peasant was ordered to depart, to go hence into the blackness from which he crawled. Upon doing so, the unworthy mere civilian was threatened with a civil suit and a ten thousand dollar fine. Fortunately for Mr Tyner and the rest of us, the entire exchange was caught in audio on his cell phone.
The wave of protest regarding the latest TSA outrage has the Tyrants and their sovereign, Janet Napoleon, in full double down mode. According to the flacks, the intrusions are utterly essential for our collective safety and peace of mind. And, we are assured, both the grope and the strip are conducted in a "professional" manner by well trained "professionals." Well, golly gee, that sure makes me feel better; how about you?
First and foremost the claim that the "strip-or-be-groped" approach enhances safety is specious at best. Even if the backscatter or microwave virtual strip machines were up to the task of detecting a bomb such as that carried by last December's "Underwear Bomber," they would not have detected the "Anus Bomb" which came within an ace of dispatching the Saudi Arabian head of security several months earlier.
The grope the groin and slap the ass method is no more efficacious. An anally deployed bomb would slide on by the Tyrants without the slightest risk of being found. Does this mean the next step will be a drill in three parts: (1) Drop your pants and bend over, (2) Spread your cheeks, (3) Try not to scream as I ream you out.
As the "Anus Bomb" and the "Underwear Bomb" were the products of the same bomb maker, it may be presumed that the Mighty Warriors Of The One True Faith are aware of the deeper alternative as well as the ease with which a martyrdom seeker so equipped can pass on through the phalanx of Tyrants. As the bomb-maker-in-chief of AQAP was willing to use his own brother as the delivery system for the world's first anus bomb, it can be presumed as well that the man is up to the task again.
It also deserves mention that the TSA strip-or-get-groped tactic and the very expensive machines employed for the first option will have no effect in stopping the shipment of bombs as air cargo. It was only days ago that the same maker of infernal machines attempted that gambit only to be thwarted by Saudi intelligence and quick work by security personnel at two foreign airports. It might be prudent for TSA to expend the money and manpower on the less glamorous but more exacting task of inspecting cargo of all sorts in lieu of herding and humiliating human passengers.
The Geek has had the opportunity to see the methods of American and foreign passenger screening methods from an up close and personal perspective. While countries such as the Netherlands and Israel do possess genuinely well trained and quite professional security personnel on frontline duty, such is not the case here. In airports large and small, crowded, and nearly deserted, the US version of frontline passenger security remains what it has been from the beginning--the preserve of poorly trained, excessively egoed folks some of whom have only the most nodding of acquaintance with standard English. What they lack in intelligence, education, empathy, or the slightest vestige of any attribute meriting the appellation "professional" they more than compensate for with an inclination toward the temper of the bully. Apparently unable to make the cut for the job of warder in a backwoods country jail, they have had no recourse for their personality and skills beyond joining the TSA.
In short, the human dimension of security for the domestic air transport system is as flawed as the technological. The circle-the-wagons attitude exhibited recurrently by the senior management and executives of both TSA and the Department of Homeland Security is an indirect but quite unmistakable indication that the folks topside in both organs are aware that for all the money and all the new hires, they have failed miserably.
The first line of our defense is today what it has been for years--offshore intelligence. The last line is today what it has been for years and what was exhibited by the desperate heroism high over Pennsylvania farmland or on the approach to Detroit's airport--the passengers. The very passengers who are seen by TSA as a type of scum to be threatened and humiliated.
Cheers for John Tyner. And, boos to TSA
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