AP: TSA Has Met the Enemy - and They Are Us ("that line has been crossed")

http://abcnews.go.com/Business/wireStory?id=12204356

TSA Has Met the Enemy _ and They Are Us
Agency's enemy is terrorists, but travelers wonder why they're made to feel the target
By ADAM GELLER | AP National Writer

How did an agency created to protect the public become the target of so much public scorn? After nine years of funneling travelers into ever longer lines with orders to have shoes off, sippy cups empty and laptops out for inspection, the most surprising thing about increasingly heated frustration with the federal Transportation Security Administration may be that it took so long to boil over. The agency, a marvel of nearly instant government when it was launched in the fearful months following the 9/11 terror attacks, started out with a strong measure of public goodwill... "After 9/11 people were scared and when people are scared they'll do anything for someone who will make them less scared," said Bruce Schneier, a Minneapolis security technology expert who has long been critical of the TSA. "But ... this is particularly invasive. It's strip-searching. It's body groping. As abhorrent goes, this pegs it."...

Indeed, TSA has a history of stirring public irritation. There was the time in 2004 when Sen. Ted Kennedy complained after being stopped five times while trying to board planes because a name similar to his appeared on the agency's no-fly list. And the time in 2006 when a Maine woman went public with her tale of being ordered by a TSA agent to dump the gel packs she was using to cool bags of breast milk. And the time in 2007, when a Washington, D.C. woman charged that another TSA agent threatened to have her arrested for spilling water out of her child's sippy cup... Over time, TSA has settled into a pattern of issuing directives with little explanation and expecting they be followed. But increasingly fed-up travelers don't understand the agency's sense of urgency and aren't buying it.

That goes beyond public relations, experts say. As more and more layers are added to air travel security efforts, it creates difficult and potentially unpopular choices. But the TSA has been unwilling to openly discuss how it arrives at policies or to justify the trade-offs, highlighted by its insistence over the need for the scanners. "They're very expensive and what they (TSA officials) should be able to do is answer if it does reduce the risk, how much does it reduce the risk and is it worth it?" said John Mueller, a professor of political science at Ohio State, who has researched the way society reacts to terrorism.

The pushback against the body scanners and pat-downs shows the agency at its worst, Elliott said, issuing a policy that wasn't properly vetted or explained, but determined to defend it. Growing dissatisfaction with TSA has even led some airports to consider replacing the agency with private screeners. Such a change is allowed by law, but contractor must follow all the security procedures mandated by the TSA, including body scans and pat-downs. But frustration with the TSA was building even before the latest furor. In a December 2007 Associated Press-Ipsos poll asking Americans to rank government agencies, it was as unpopular as the Internal Revenue Service... The pushback suggests that a growing number of consumers, particularly frequent travelers, are questioning the premise at the heart of the agency's existence. "I think at some point Americans said to themselves, maybe in their collective subconscious...there's a line here where it's not just worth it anymore," he said. "There's a growing sense that that line has been crossed."

you were stopped when entering the grocery store and with zero probable cause you were given an aggressive pat down by the store security guard.

That was next and you spoiled the plan! Why do you hate America?!?

:sarcasm:

:sarcasm:

hand your grocery list over to someone who wouldn't mind having his/her bunghole searched for deadly carrot bombs or poisonous pork chop/mustard gas packets.

the feds will be on to that trick soon enough!

:tinfoilhat:

AKA a company that made a couple of brand name lines of kids' clothing.

I worked in the office. Each day when we left work we would see the line formed by the women who worked upstairs sewing the stuff together. They had all their bags searched...because, you know, you just can't tell if someone might try to steal a giant spool of thread or maybe some buttons. It would not have surprised me to see them being frisked on their way out. Fortunately, we office slaves weren't subjected to the same scrutiny, but if we needed, say, a bottle of White-out, or a pencil or something, we had to request in writing for the supplies closet to be opened.

One day during lunch I sat on the stoop outside the office (the entire building was fenced so the door was often left open for the air flow).

Not long after, that door was shut and locked. It was like working in a prison.


It was demoralizing and depressing to be treated like a criminal without cause, and I didn't last very long there.

strip-searched for diamonds (when they work with gems).

And a juicy story- when this designer was just starting out... they took a flight and SOMEHOW the bag the of jewelry they were carrying went missing. They collected the insurance on it.

Don't give them any ideas.

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assault after assault on our liberties and privacy were OK, so long as they did not go too far. Every inch they grabbed, most of America stepped back a foot from complaining.

Now, the TSA has gone too far, and aroused (ahem) America enough to take a close look at what has happened to our country. They no likeee.

But this was bound to happen. They would have kept expanding their powers and their control, until we said stop. I say we are 6 yrs too late, but it is good to see people finally complain.

Oh, I don't know, maybe it was when you decided it was okay to allow strangers to see us half-naked on scanners and strip us of our basic human dignity.

Maybe it was when you allowed Chertoff to make a buck off of public fear.

And, the headline says it all: TSA Has Met the Enemy — And They Are Us

No, the enemy is not US and that is the fucking problem and, fuck you, Associated Press. Demanding our rights doesn't make us the enemy, it makes us citizens who happen to know a thing or two about our rights.

Okay, rant off, but that headline got me a little steamed when I read it first thing this morning.

Peace.

I really believed Obama was bright enough to understand the law of unintended consequences, but after he let his Fatherland Security Secretary do this, I'm not so sure anymore.

a fucking idiot, or he doesn't give a shit. Take your pick. Neither one is good.

Next up - the embarrassing climb-down from this politically untenable position. Every day the man looks more and more like a Carteresque one-termer. The only real question is whether he takes the Democratic Party down with him.

This was the worst possible thing to support, because it's so incredibly invasive.