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Airport Security: The Invisible Hand Cops A Feel
"If you touch my junk, I'm going to have you arrested."
John Tyner's line lacks the elegance of "Give me liberty, or give me death" - but it doesn't lack the weight. We've got to pick it up and run with it, now, while the momentum is ours.
The California software engineer's challenge to an airport Transportation Security Administration agent, who wanted to prod Tyner's genitals before he got on a plane, could - if we act now -- become a long-overdue shout heard round the world. It's a rare moment when we call all speak, confidently and assertively, as one people with one voice.
"The Terrorists Have Won," announces the top headline on today's conservative Drudge Report, over a photo of a TSA agent groping a nun.
"Are TSA Screenings Too Much?" wonders liberal MSNBC's website.
No ambiguity, for once. Nearly all Americans - Tea-partiers and radical feminists and investment bankers and Raging Grannies and soccer moms and church groups - can get behind this one. How often is that going to happen? The daily violation at our airports has finally hit the "national conversation" in a big way - and so has the discussion of what the TSA's attitude toward passengers really means, and really is.
"It's all about everybody recognizing their role," Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano explains, helpfully, referring to the full-body scans and pat-downs.
Could it get any plainer? Do you need it spelled out? Sure, she ostensibly meant the ordinary citizen's "role" in cooperating to Keep Our Skies Safe.
But the harder truth slipped out with the puerile platitude, and now it's there in a pile on the floor. We all see it, and smell it. She really means it's all about learning and remembering our place in a world where anyone in a uniform Always Knows What's Best. Oh and so does your Boss, by the way - you know, the person the folks in uniform ultimately work for. As do Napolitano, and Barack Obama, and Congress, and the Supreme Court, and the military, and CNN and Fox News. They're working for rich people who want you to have a lower opinion of yourself so you'll do more work for less money. They want you to believe that sacrifice is noble, that they're making you poorer for our own eventual good, and that resistance is futile.
Last weekend, John Tyner happened to have his brain tuned to what the TSA agent's words really meant, saw them translated in the ugly subtitles of reality: "Your body - your balls, which we're about to cup -- belong to us. Oh, and if you argue about that, we can step into that little room there, and you can bend over, and then something else of yours will belong to us, too."
Because as we all know, sexual predation is about personal power. If that predation is institutionalized, as it is now in our airports, it's about social power, political power, and - most importantly - economic power.
The original motive for these extreme measures was security, but any opportunity for such a fundamental form of control is eventually seized by those who stand to make a buck, and by outright perverts - often in an alliance.
That is the case now, and now that we have this window of truth, we have to point it out to all those we know - your redneck brother-in-law, your vegan neighbor girl, your Tea-party aunt, your college professor uncle. We need to demand dignity in travel and freedom of movement in our own country without a disgraceful trade-off. We need to write to our local newspapers and elected officials, and to talk about this at work and in church, at the drum circle or the hunting camp, around the dinner table and at school _ spread the word now.
"You should never have to explain to your children, 'Remember that no stranger can touch or see your private area, unless it's a government employee,'" say the organizers of National Opt Out Day - Nov. 24, 2010 - when they're urging all U.S. air travelers to refuse to be body-scanned. Check them out here http://www.optoutday.com/.
Right now, while we're all paying attention, we have to say no, loudly, on this one. Because this is what we're being told: "We own your lives. We own your bodies. We own your private parts. They are ours to look at, and to touch - not even sexually, not even lasciviously - but clinically, institutionally, as part of work - like the hand of a farmer, say, on the udder of a cow, or that of a butcher on the neck of a pig."
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95 Comments so far
Show AllThis scenario reminds me of the scene in "Shindler's List" where the work camp prisoners are all forced to strip naked and run in a line before the "Herr Doktor" who is deciding who gets to slave some more and who gets to "take a shower". I can just picture a line of naked passengers hoping that they get their own clothes back after they have passed through the security check.
If the government is going to assure the safety of all air travel, then they should apply the same checks to those CEO's and government officials who are flying in their private jets.
And just for sport, let's do random cavity searches as well.
Except for those selling stuff to TSA it is unlikely that most CEOs even know that TSA exists.
Terrorism achieves it's maximum effect when it makes people change behavior in negative ways. Immediately habeus corpus was suspended and internment began they had won. Their success increased with the body searches etc etc at airports. Why does anyone honestly think once one method of 'attack' has been used would a terrorist use the same method again? If it makes us safer indeed.....safer than what I wonder? And what would be the maximum level of 'intrusion' would people accept in the interests of being 'safe'. The question rather is just how succesful do we want these terrorists to be, so far they are doing pretty well with very little effort on their own behalf.
Give me freedom with little or no security and I will take my chances on the rest. Folks: Ever since the false flag of 911, the real terrorists that passed the Patriot Act have been winning. Big Sis: "its all about everyone recognizing their role ". Puerile platitude indeed! One wonders what is behind this ad hominem of hers. Maybe she has a financial interest in the scanners like Chertoff. This is just one more way to make you fear the boogey man when it is your own Government you need to fear because that is where the real boogey man is hiding; behind the curtain of fear and intimidation.
Have you noticed that when US television stations cover the body scanner story they selectively flash waiting airline passengers whose reponse is invariably "I guess its OK if it makes us safer" ?
Yes, that's the standard teevee news script.
Yesterday's Philly, PA local news followed that pattern exactly. There's some preliminary setup that referenced the Tyner incident, and describes the wholly unnecessary and abusive goon squad policies and tactics as "controversial".
But they always key on some craniorectally reversed Average Joe or Jane who complacently and obediently supports and endorses these bogus "anti-terrorist" practices.
They even threw in some "polls" indicating that a vast majority of Amerikan travelers are fine with whatever scanning and groping is "necessary" to ensure their safety.
The message is clearly that all right-thinking, mature, reasonable citizens shouldn't have a problem with anything the government deems necessary to preserve law, order, and security.
O.S. Gotta love the title of this article!
It made me think of the basis for a sci-fi, where, in spite of all the bells and whistles around purported airport security, what really takes down the nation is a mild mannered "terrorist" who manages to get work at a Viagra production plant. There, in time, he sees to it that a contaminated "lot" of the drug gets sent to the military big whigs. With a little imagination, the plot line extends into a rather unique extrapolation on the "Big Bang" theory, effectively taking out those terrorists who probably were the real masterminds behind our little shin dig with Inverted Totalitarianism.
Starting with the shoe removal the TSA is instilling obedience training for adults and the USG success in keeping fear alive through obedience training is a stunning success far beyond Bin Laden's wildest expectations. It's a no brainer that using the TSA for obedience training of adults was so successful the obedience training would be expanded. The logical outcome will be mandatory orifice probes. Our criminal USG has studied how the NAZI's were so successful at the concentration camps that the NAZI techniques are now implemented by the USG by the TSA goon squads. The only difference being that the USG is an equal opportunity molester, just not being selective as the NAZI's were against the Jew.
Starting with the shoe removal the TSA is instilling obedience training for adults and the USG success in keeping fear alive through obedience training is a stunning success far beyond Bin Laden's wildest expectations. It's a no brainer that using the TSA for obedience training of adults was so successful the obedience training would be expanded. The logical outcome will be mandatory orifice probes. Our criminal USG has studied how the NAZI's were so successful at the concentration camps that the NAZI techniques are now implemented by the USG by the TSA goon squads. The only difference being that the USG is an equal opportunity molester, just not being selective as the NAZI's were against the Jew.
Starting with the shoe removal the TSA is instilling obedience training for adults and the USG success in keeping fear alive through obedience training is a stunning success far beyond Bin Laden's wildest expectations. It's a no brainer that using the TSA for obedience training of adults was so successful the obedience training would be expanded. The logical outcome will be mandatory orifice probes. Our criminal USG has studied how the NAZI's were so successful at the concentration camps that the NAZI techniques are now implemented by the USG using TSA goon squads. The only difference being that the USG is an equal opportunity molester, just not being selective as the NAZI's were against the Jew.
Whenever I hear someone sway that, I want someone to ask that person: "How? How, exactly does this make anyone safer? Do you really think that a terrorist who is committed enough to strap explosives to his or her body, do you really think they won't simply put the same explosives inside a body cavity, where these scanners cannot detect them?" God, it's like this entire country has had a piece of its collective brain removed.
Miggy-2. Yeah, I can smell the stench too!
"... rich people who want you to have a lower opinion of yourself so you'll do more work for less money. They want you to believe that sacrifice is noble, that they're making you poorer for our own eventual good, and that resistance is futile... it's about social power, political power, and - most importantly - economic power." These words give the most salient description of the last 30 years I've heard in a long time. Unfortunately, speaking in these terms results in being called anti-American. I've often said it's going to get a helluva lot worse before it gets any worse. This is our time, indeed.
"The scanners are manufactured by Rapiscan Systems."
Maybe we should start calling it Rape-iscan Systems. Not an exact metaphor, I know, but it will certainly get attention.
Are these also the owners of the food irradiation machines? I've wondered if the peanut scare and, before that, the almond scare, were "false flag" food taintings in order to speed the food irradiation contracts.
"Are these also the owners of the food irradiation machines?"
I'm not sure it is unless scanners can irradiate food. I don't get it.
Miggy- 2. Thanks for the homework on Rapiscan and OSI (stock initials OSIS) and the surprise founder (chairman, chief-executive office and president), Deepak Chopra. A quick look and we see he is by far the largest personal holder of the stock at almost 500,000 shares but is well behind 10 other institutional owners of which the largest is Well Fargo at 2.2 million.
I don't have a deep knowledge of George Soros but I am aware that the extreme right and their media lackeys have been gunning for him for years with Glen Beck going after him again this past week. As far as I can tell the reason is he doesn't quite fit into the traditional billionaire boys club play book of them owning ninety nine percent of everything and everyone. He has spent much of his charitable monies helping to lessen illiteracy in third world countries along with furthering democratic ends in governments and institutions. Granted he still is a billionaire and an investment one at that but the right has gone after him almost as much as they did Acorn but with less immediate success as he has a few silver bullets (money) in his arsenal to fight back with. I'm sure the small amount (for Soros) that he has in OSI (if your amount is correct), could probably for an investment banker/hedgefunder, be found in hundreds of corporations. I.E. His 1200 shares of OSI at $35 per share would be less then .5 million. Where as Deepak's .5million shares would be over 17 million which is getting up to real money, and Well Fargo's 2.2 million shares (77 million) is getting close to some sort of mild foreplay for a billionaire.
That said these types of huge corporate/government repressive and costly undertakings are a windows into the future of complete corpor/fascist control.
Remember the security powder tests of a few years ago that where popping up at many airports? In one instance they went into my dopp kit at airpot security for about a have hour. Got some false positives but ultimately found nothing except some really old Aqua Velvet stains. Well it was subsequently proven that these machines didn't really work but hundreds of them where sold as the real deal by insider deals.
This and many more bogus government acquisitions where made possible by the early unfunding of the official government scientist testing agency (can't remember the official name) so they really couldn't test any of the new pork gadgets coming out of the MI(congressional)Complex in the early bushboy days. They couldn't destroy the agency with one swift blow as it made no sense but simply starved it to a comatose state. It's all from the right wing playbook with social security and medicare being their next big targets.
Not the same "Deepak Chopra:
http://people.forbes.com/profile/deepak-chopra/61002
Thanks abbybwood and seventhson for informing us that it is another deepak chopra. As I stated in my comment above "I was shock" because I am not one of those who dismisses deepak out of hand as he makes as much or more sense then most of the various health/doctor, psychology/therapy, popular media types. He has also tried to address world peace and climate change issues. So a tip of my hate and an apology to you Mr. Chopra.
Oh, and I went back up my conversation change of today to correct this misinformation I passed on.
Deepak Chopra. What a fucking joke of a snake oil salesman. Now add totalitarian-fascist to his bullshit resume.
And I'm all for the opt-out day. But why one day only? Why not just opt out permanently? The end result of anything less is all too foreseeable.
BUGMENOT,
It's not the same Deepak Chopra you are thinking of. I just went to OSI System's website, and they have pictures of all their executives. It's not the same guy - they just happen to have the same name.
http://investors.osi-systems.com/management.cfm
You mean to tell me that the new-age guru of the ditzy, vegan, "alternative healer"-going liberal idiots is the CEO and principal stockholder of Rape-O-Scan?
SABO,
See my reply just above yours. It's not the same guy.
Chopra was involved in a tryst with a prostitute in the mid 90's and she claimed his personal persona was not nice. She had a copy of his credit card which he used to pay her. She went public and quickly paid off by Chopra to hush up, which she did. It doesn't qualify as blackmail because she went public and Chopra offered her to shut up. Must have been a lot of money because she shut up and it long since has disappeared.
Why is the government so afraid of its citizens?
Why is the King so afraid of his subjects?
100 years ago US big business was afraid of woman suffrage because they knew women would vote against child labor.
Women don't vote against child labour. Very very few do. They merely vote against child labour WHERE THEY CAN SEE IT. There are millions of children making the trinkets with which most women (and men) adorn themselves.
When Rosa Parks saw that her civil rights were being violated, she and Dr. Martin Luther King organized the Montgomery bus boycott. It worked.
Too bad that flabby, soft modern Americans can't cancel their frivolous travel plans long enough to bring the airlines to their knees. A small sacrifice could bring a big win. The airlines are already hanging by a thread, so it would be easy.
Your civil rights are there for the taking, if not by yourself, then by someone else.
You hit the nail right on its head.
Thanks.
the airline industry is rather unique in product...
the strategic needs for air travel, and companies providing, have resulted in a continual subsidizing of their operating economics by the national government...
how far might the government go to ensure the operation of some airlines, even in the face of blatant boycott by the public?
don't get me wrong: the boycott idea is good...
on this planet, 2 and 2 don't always equal 4..
"how far might the government go to ensure the operation of some airlines, even in the face of blatant boycott by the public?"
I don't know, but there's only one way to find out. Even if it doesn't succeed completely, a boycott would still give us all the malicious satisfaction that comes from screwing up their game for a while.
I am sure, by the way, that the Pentagram would take over air transport as a matter of national security. But what would happen to the price of airline stocks?
Maybe a little consumer vandalism could grow into a black swan with ill effects cascading throughout the ponzi-conomy.
People who live in glass prisons should throw stones. Big ones.
Your analysis is simplistic.
It isn't the airlines doing the scans. It is the TSA, via the government. Put yourself in the position of an airline; do you seriously want to subject your customers to these kinds of invasive scans, pissing them off, and at least potentially encouraging them to find other means of travel?
Instead of boycotting the airlines, a more effective solution would be for everyone to do what the guy did: refuse to cooperate with the TSA.
The airlines are corporations. Corporations control the government. If the airlines thought that the TSA was getting in the way of their profits, the TSA would be history.
Refuse to cooperate with the TSA? OK. Boycott also. It's not like you have to pick one or the other.
Rosa Parks refused to cooperate with the bus driver. She also helped boycott the entire system.
"...do [the airlines] seriously want to subject ...customers to these kinds of invasive scans, pissing them off, and at least potentially encouraging them to find other means of travel?"
The bus company in Montgomery sure didn't give a crap about humiliating its customers. Oh, and what other means of travel? The US hasn't had passenger rail since GM ripped up the tracks.
Right. The airlines are corporations. So what? There are lots of corporations. Different corporations can have conflicting interests. Some corporations are more powerful than other corporations. The best example of this is sugar. Both the corn, ie, high fructose corn syrup, and sugar cane, industries, have corporate lobbying power. Their interests conflict with each other. The more powerful one, ie corn, wins, and gets the subsidies and governmental support. Government subsidies of corn does NOT benefit sugar cane, nevermind that sugar cane is also controlled by corporations.
And actually the airlines do think that the security measures used in the US, and worldwide ARE interfering with their business. They have been quietly complaining for some time.
"The bus company in Montgomery sure didn't give a crap about humiliating its customers. "
Do I have to repeat that it isn't the airlines running the scans?
"Oh, and what other means of travel? The US hasn't had passenger rail since GM ripped up the tracks."
Heard of cars before?
"Heard of cars before?"
Try driving from Atlanta to Miami for a business meeting and then driving back the next day.
As for the rest of your comment, could you boil it down to a logical sentence?
"Some corporations are more powerful than other corporations." No shit, Sherlock. And some alligators are bigger than others, too.
The US government gives huge subsidies to Archer Daniels Midland (corn sugar) and also huge subsidies to the Cuban exile cane growers (cane sugar) in Florida.
"Different corporations can have conflicting interests."
Their interests do not conflict. Government subsidies DO benefit cane sugar AS WELL AS corn sugar.
If your best example is sugar, you better keep looking.
"And actually the airlines do think that the security measures used in the US, and worldwide ARE interfering with their business. They have been quietly complaining for some time."
Key word: "quietly".
"No shit, Sherlock. And some alligators are bigger than others, too. "
So, you agree then. Good to know.
"The US government gives huge subsidies to Archer Daniels Midland (corn sugar) and also huge subsidies to the Cuban exile cane growers (cane sugar) in Florida. "
Which gets bigger subsidies? Pull any food of a supermarket shelve and look at the ingredients. What are you likely to see? HFCS, or cane sugar. Go ahead.
"Their interests do not conflict. Government subsidies DO benefit cane sugar AS WELL AS corn sugar. "
Their interests do conflict. Government subsides benefit corn sugar MORE than cane sugar.
"Key word: "quietly"."
No, key word, complaining. The issue at hand is whether the current rules benefit the airlines, and are supported by them. If you agree that they are complaining, even if quietly, then you agree that the airlines have something to complain about: ie the rules.
On Opt Out Day maybe 1% of travelers will try to opt out, and then be taken into the room where they get their asses probed. With not so much as a courteous reach-around. Anyone "urging all Americans" to do anything, unless it's watch some TV extravaganza where at least a majority might comply, is pissing into the wind.
We even have a writer from Forbes magazine weighing in on this suggesting that we need to "ABOLISH THE TSA!"
http://blogs.forbes.com/artcarden/2010/11/14/full-frontal-nudity-doesnt-make-us-safer-abolish-the-tsa/
Here's a short video interview of a radio personality from South Florida who had QUITE a traumatic experience with the TSA recently:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sJGvsAgpfig
And I really do not appreciate Napolitano's response to all this uproar over the TSA's "procedures":
"If people don't like these procedures they are FREE TO TRAVEL IN OTHER WAYS."
Personally, I don't travel very often, but I am fervently hoping that on November 24th the flying public will send a loud and clear message to Ms. Napolitano that we are not going to take this anymore.
Seems the purpose of these scanners is to see how cowed we are and to further enrich thieves. To fly you either expose your naked body to smirking power trippers or get groped.
When the airports are empty, maybe they'll listen.
I'd get rid of the whole TSA and let airlines provide their own security. What a shocking thought altho budget minded congresscritters might agree.
We have a corporate owned government and complaints to the TSA will fall on deaf ears. The only way to stop it is to stop flying and tell the airlines why you've stopped flying. When the economic damage begins to be felt and the airlines start screaming the TSA will knuckle under and knock off the crap. It's the only way to get THEM by the gonads. Amtrak takes longer but it's a hell of a lot more relaxing.
Amen!
Boycott commercial airlines. Boycott airports.
The only way to stop the insanity is to stop acting like sheep.
Unfortunately we only have trains using 19th century technology because the banksters who dominate our nation don't want to threaten the profits of the oil and auto multinationals with modern, welded stainless steel ultra fast trains like you can experience in France. So go along with the clickity-clack while the fast trains go whoosh and zing and travel just about as fast as a Boeing 737 all around France.
Oh happy day! America reaps its reward. The National Security State has been in place for decades, you've sown the wind, now reap the wirlwind.
Right now, while we're all paying attention, we have to say no, loudly, on this one. Because this is what we're being told: "We own your lives. We own your bodies. We own your private parts. They are ours to look at, and to touch - not even sexually, not even lasciviously - but clinically, institutionally, as part of work - like the hand of a farmer, say, on the udder of a cow, or that of a butcher on the neck of a pig."
"...like the hand of a farmer...on the udder of a cow, or that of a butcher on the neck of a pig." What goes around, comes around, folks.
How "we" treat the other animals comes back on us. As a vegan, I see it all the time. Cows DO mind having their udders handled by human hands instead of nursing their calves, just as horses DO mind having a bit placed into their mouths. Their spirits have to be broken before they will accept what they cannot escape from. "It's beyond their control."
--"They" (those in power over others) treated "us" (oppressed people) like animals!-- It is counterproductve for progressives, humanists, environmentalists, and oppressed people to denigrate the cow, the pig, the sheep, the hen, etc. Because there will always be human beings in positions of privilege and power, who command enforcement of their wishes and rules, who feel entitled to treat the rest of us like devalued "subhumans."
I agree and it has been building for a long time. We need the middle class to identify with the working class and together we need to flood the streets and overthrow the banksters of Wall Street. Until we do, get used to total fascism.
Creeping Fascism = full employment for Fascist Creeps