PO'd Doesn't Begin to Describe It

[mamabearCali]

my point is, you cannot assume that just because someone is an american they would never do harm to another american... as the quoted poster implies.

just as we have to lump all strangers into the 'potential threat until proven otherwise' category, TSA must assume that all flyers have bombs and guns until probed and proven otherwise.

No again. Security needs to be based on reality not some nonsense blanket approach. Even if I did live in such a condition where I was considering every person I saw a threat I would not be at liberty to make them "prove" that they were not a thread by strip searching every person I came into contact with. The TSA should not assume all flyers have bombs because that assumption would not be based on reality. The reality is that very very few people are insane enough to carry out a homicidal bombing. The reality is that most of these situations are detected by FBI and CIA types LONG before they are ever near implementation because it is hard to keep things like that 100% quiet. Even lone wolves have family that notice when they are out of sorts and are acting dangerously (fruit of kaboom bomber was ratted out by his father). So instead of trying to find terrorists we are assaulting millions of grandmas and toddlers. That is insanity and negligent if the TSA is really trying to stop terrorist attacks and not simply harass the American citizenry.

[VMI77]

we DID have metal detectors and screeners at my high school. they DID catch countless idiots trying to sneak all kinds of weapons in; knives, firearms, chains, etc. its amazing that people who walk through those things daily still attempt stuff like that.

Wow, no metal detectors at my school, and we brought guns to school openly. Many a pickup truck had a shotgun or rifle on a rack in the rear window. More than once we looked over a friend's new gun in the parking lot. I think most of the guys probably had a knife on them --yet we never had a stabbing or a shooting, or even a fight on campus, so I have to wonder what those metal detectors have accomplished.

Now I just don't understand the part I highlighted in red. You seem to be saying the metal detectors were not a deterrent. How could this happen daily, can you explain? First day, everyone caught with a weapon is expelled from school, and those with the illegal weapons, like guns, are arrested....might be a few hold outs on the second day, but it seems like by the time the end of the week rolled around all the idiots would be gone so there wouldn't be anything to find.

[sjfcontrol]

i can walk out of this office right now and never return to my job, home, wife or child. it is my CHOICE to be here and do these things as it is anyones choice to live the way they want to live.

you dont HAVE to have a job, you dont HAVE to have a wife... your survival does not depend on any of those things.

and you think the metal detectors that caught countless weapons at my school was a waste of money?? sounds like your school was a great place to be - mine had several drive by shootings while i was there, several stabbings and a row of trees planted in the front to memorialize the students who died violent deaths while on school property.

You CAN (voluntarily) live the rest of your life in a 6 x 6 x 6 cell, fed water and gruel, and live to a ripe old age.
However...
You seem to have forgotten the phrase, "Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness". Or at least the last two parts of that phrase.

[mamabearCali]

there isn't a single thing in this life that you HAVE to do... EVERYTHING you do is the result of a choice. i wholeheartedly applaud your enthusiasm and if you really want to change these things, then write your representative or run for office!

until then, you're just going to have to put up with it...


or not. ;)

Ummm-no. There are many things we have to do. We have to have shelter, food, clothing, to live and in this country we have to work for currency to obtain said needed items. Unless you are planning to be a hobo and live out in the woods someone catching squirrels and eating dandelions, and not have a wife or children, there are things we HAVE to do. Many people have jobs that require air-travel they simply MUST fly--no choice or their children starve/go on gov't assistance. We also have to be able to obtain said food, clothing, and shelter. If the gov't can mandate these things for airports, how long till they do so for other soft targets malls, conventions, grocery stores. Now I am a good gardener and I can grow some amazing tomatoes but I can't subsist on my garden so in order for my family to live I have to be able to obtain currency and exchange said currency for items needed for life.

As for your school. The school I went to had 0 metal detectors. I am sure people had knives, but in my four years of school there was exactly one incident where a knife came into play. One incident and it did not even result in an injury. So I see metal detectors at ordinary schools as wastes of $$ and ridiculous. Another way to train people to accept gov't intrusion into their lives.

That said I have written and called my representatives, my governor, my state representative and even the local board of commerce. Multiple times. So far I have gotten the polite shrug off. TX tried to stop the TSA from groping it's citizens--what did the TSA do. They threatened to shut down every airport in TX, the representatives caved (nice tyranny there). So it is not as cut and dry as you put it.

i can walk out of this office right now and never return to my job, home, wife or child. it is my CHOICE to be here and do these things as it is anyones choice to live the way they want to live.

you dont HAVE to have a job, you dont HAVE to have a wife... your survival does not depend on any of those things.

and you think the metal detectors that caught countless weapons at my school was a waste of money?? sounds like your school was a great place to be - mine had several drive by shootings while i was there, several stabbings and a row of trees planted in the front to memorialize the students who died violent deaths while on school property.

You have an interesting idea of what choice is in life. I don't have to have a job--and how pray tell do I get food, shelter and clothing? Our country was made so that people could live how they wanted to free of tyrannical gov't intrusion. Not so that they could be strip searched at the local market. Perhaps you are ok with being a hermit in the woods to avoid gov't intrusion, but most people aren't. We should not have to accept sexual assault by the authorities as a part of every day life.

It sounds like the metal detectors at your school did precious little to help the students. Another example of it is not the item you need to worry about, but the person. A sharp pencil can do just as much damage as a knife--never mind the compasses in math class or the forks in the cafeteria.

[VMI77]

That said, imagine how you would feel if your wife and child were on a plane and because the TSA did not investigate a positive alarm, some skell hijacked the flight, or, blew it up.

Where's the logic in that statement? You think the TSA really believed she had explosives?

I don't know what the TSA people were thinking because I wasn't there, and I ain't one of 'em.

However, I have seen pre-teens used to deliver explosives before (Vietnam 70-71) - if it happened there, it COULD happen here.

I think you're forgetting a key difference: you were in a FORIEGN country, fighting a war against a FOREIGN population, on one side of a CIVIL WAR. To them you were a FOREIGN enemy. You're also ignoring huge cultural differences, but let's go ahead and ignore them: this is America --American parents aren't strapping bombs on American pre-teens, and just what enemy do you think American parents would be fighting by strapping bombs on their children to blow up airplanes? Seriously, if this is really a problem --if Americans are strapping bombs on their children in order to blow them up with a bunch of other people on a plane-- then the WOT is over, and we lost. But they aren't.

Furthermore, I didn't ask you what the TSA was thinking in that particular instance because it's irrelevant and I don't care. To use your comparison, if you really believe it is like back in Nam' and bombs on grandmas and pre-teens are a serious threat, would you approach someone a machine told you might be carrying a bomb and stick your hands down their pants? Is that what you did in the war if you thought some kid might be rigged to blow up? There are only two possibilities here: either the TSA is criminally negligent and stupid, or they don't really believe any of these people are carrying bombs. Critic of the TSA that I am, I still don't believe they're criminally negligent and stupid, and that tells me they don't really believe any of these people they're searching are carrying bombs, and hence, we have security theater.

Timothy McVeigh was an american

Maybe you should re-read what I wrote --I highlighted it in red for you. Timothy McVeigh was an ADULT military veteran. He wasn't an old lady in a wheelchair. He killed other people's children. He didn't put a bomb on his pre-teen daughter and get on an airplane with her and his wife. The inability to distinguish the differences is part of what is wrong with the TSA.

[schufflerbot]

my point is, you cannot assume that just because someone is an american they would never do harm to another american... as the quoted poster implies.

just as we have to lump all strangers into the 'potential threat until proven otherwise' category, TSA must assume that all flyers have bombs and guns until probed and proven otherwise.

No again. Security needs to be based on reality not some nonsense blanket approach. Even if I did live in such a condition where I was considering every person I saw a threat I would not be at liberty to make them "prove" that they were not a thread by strip searching every person I came into contact with. The TSA should not assume all flyers have bombs because that assumption would not be based on reality. The reality is that very very few people are insane enough to carry out a homicidal bombing. The reality is that most of these situations are detected by FBI and CIA types LONG before they are ever near implementation because it is hard to keep things like that 100% quiet. Even lone wolves have family that notice when they are out of sorts and are acting dangerously (fruit of kaboom bomber was ratted out by his father). So instead of trying to find terrorists we are assaulting millions of grandmas and toddlers. That is insanity and negligent if the TSA is really trying to stop terrorist attacks and not simply harass the American citizenry.

so, you're assuming the TSA agents are psychic?

not understanding your logic or perspective here, i guess. the 'reality based' assumptions that the agents are basing these searches on are their equipment. the OP stated that THE ALARM WENT OFF and the agent investigated accordingly. yes, very few people have the cojones to pull something like a bomb or hostile takeover... i'd rather someone be there to thwart as much of it as possible by way of deterrence, hence the TSA.

[VMI77]

Timothy McVeigh was an american

Then should we have the TSA do searches on every vehicle before it's allowed into a city because they might be filled with ANFO? Not to mention full-cavity searching the driver.

my point is, you cannot assume that just because someone is an american they would never do harm to another american... as the quoted poster implies.

just as we have to lump all strangers into the 'potential threat until proven otherwise' category, TSA must assume that all flyers have bombs and guns until probed and proven otherwise.

Neither what I said or implied. I highlighted it in red for you in another post, and mamabearcali makes essentially the same point in different words. Your comparison is apples and oranges.

[schufflerbot]

Now I just don't understand the part I highlighted in red. You seem to be saying the metal detectors were not a deterrent. How could this happen daily, can you explain? First day, everyone caught with a weapon is expelled from school, and those with the illegal weapons, like guns, are arrested....might be a few hold outs on the second day, but it seems like by the time the end of the week rolled around all the idiots would be gone so there wouldn't be anything to find.

what i meant was, people walk through these metal detectors on a daily basis, every time they enter the school. KNOWING these things are there and that they will have to walk through them still didn't stop the occasional idiot. no, weapons were not found daily - only occasionally. the police would actually arrest the person, then hold them until class change so they could parade them in cuffs across the commons area as an example.

[mamabearCali]

my point is, you cannot assume that just because someone is an american they would never do harm to another american... as the quoted poster implies.

just as we have to lump all strangers into the 'potential threat until proven otherwise' category, TSA must assume that all flyers have bombs and guns until probed and proven otherwise.

No again. Security needs to be based on reality not some nonsense blanket approach. Even if I did live in such a condition where I was considering every person I saw a threat I would not be at liberty to make them "prove" that they were not a thread by strip searching every person I came into contact with. The TSA should not assume all flyers have bombs because that assumption would not be based on reality. The reality is that very very few people are insane enough to carry out a homicidal bombing. The reality is that most of these situations are detected by FBI and CIA types LONG before they are ever near implementation because it is hard to keep things like that 100% quiet. Even lone wolves have family that notice when they are out of sorts and are acting dangerously (fruit of kaboom bomber was ratted out by his father). So instead of trying to find terrorists we are assaulting millions of grandmas and toddlers. That is insanity and negligent if the TSA is really trying to stop terrorist attacks and not simply harass the American citizenry.

so, you're assuming the TSA agents are psychic?

not understanding your logic or perspective here, i guess. the 'reality based' assumptions that the agents are basing these searches on are their equipment. the OP stated that THE ALARM WENT OFF and the agent investigated accordingly. yes, very few people have the cojones to pull something like a bomb or hostile takeover... i'd rather someone be there to thwart as much of it as possible by way of deterrence, hence the TSA.

No I would hope that those actually in security would be able to understand that an alarm going off on a stroller means the stroller should be searched carefully--not the person. If a bomb sniffing dog hit on a person's crotch then and only then would there be any call for a strip search or pat down. Especially when I have been told by TSA agents that hand lotion is often mistaken for a bomb in those little test kits. They know their equipment is faulty and yet they use it as an excuse to force a woman to take her clothes off--nice.

Your argument of deterrence disappears as soon as a person of a higher IQ than 80 decides to be a suicide bomber--they will simply bomb the security line not the plane. Then what? Deterrance obviously did not work at your High School with the lowlifes there, do you think it will work with the lowest of the low? I doubt that.

[VMI77]

I'm not understanding your logic or perspective here, i guess. the 'reality based' assumptions that the agents are basing these searches on are their equipment. the OP stated that THE ALARM WENT OFF and the agent investigated accordingly. yes, very few people have the cojones to pull something like a bomb or hostile takeover... i'd rather someone be there to thwart as much of it as possible by way of deterrence, hence the TSA.

That's certainly not what I read in his post. But even if he thought the "agent investigated accordingly" I have to disagree. You have a machine that says someone may have explosives on them the kind of search they conducted was suicidal. In fact, the entire process is a suicidal process, since it makes no provision whatsoever for the possibility that the alarm is real.

[schufflerbot]

Maybe you should re-read what I wrote --I highlighted it in red for you. Timothy McVeigh was an ADULT military veteran. He wasn't an old lady in a wheelchair. He killed other people's children. He didn't put a bomb on his pre-teen daughter and get on an airplane with her and his wife. The inability to distinguish the differences is part of what is wrong with the TSA.

this is America --American parents aren't strapping bombs on American pre-teens, and just what enemy do you think American parents would be fighting by strapping bombs on their children to blow up airplanes?

this is the statement i was referencing, not the one you highlighted. my point was simply that americans aren't free of guilt when it comes to hostile, violent acts against other americans via terrorist methods, nor can you apply any kind of logic to someone who does something like that. you're implying, with the above statment, that the idea of americans causing harm to other americans while completely ignoring the emotional strings any normal human would be tangled in is completely ludicrous.

im saying it isn't.

[schufflerbot]

I'm not understanding your logic or perspective here, i guess. the 'reality based' assumptions that the agents are basing these searches on are their equipment. the OP stated that THE ALARM WENT OFF and the agent investigated accordingly. yes, very few people have the cojones to pull something like a bomb or hostile takeover... i'd rather someone be there to thwart as much of it as possible by way of deterrence, hence the TSA.

That's certainly not what I read in his post. But even if he thought the "agent investigated accordingly" I have to disagree. You have a machine that says someone may have explosives on them the kind of search they conducted was suicidal. In fact, the entire process is a suicidal process, since it makes no provision whatsoever for the possibility that the alarm is real.

lol

read the OP again, then!

the reason she was searched is because she set off an explosives alarm. she was not randomly selected and stripped on the spot, she was taken to a private room and searched because there was reason to believe that there might be something of an explosive nature on her person.

and don't confuse 'accordingly' with 'appropriately.'

ac·cord·ing·ly Adverb/əˈkôrdiNGlē/
1. In a way that is appropriate to the particular circumstances.

[VMI77]

Now I just don't understand the part I highlighted in red. You seem to be saying the metal detectors were not a deterrent. How could this happen daily, can you explain? First day, everyone caught with a weapon is expelled from school, and those with the illegal weapons, like guns, are arrested....might be a few hold outs on the second day, but it seems like by the time the end of the week rolled around all the idiots would be gone so there wouldn't be anything to find.

what i meant was, people walk through these metal detectors on a daily basis, every time they enter the school. KNOWING these things are there and that they will have to walk through them still didn't stop the occasional idiot. no, weapons were not found daily - only occasionally. the police would actually arrest the person, then hold them until class change so they could parade them in cuffs across the commons area as an example.

OK, guess I'm missing something --these are different people being caught or the same people being caught more than once? It seems like the thinning process should just take a little longer, and there might be someone new getting caught up on occasion.

[mamabearCali]

the reason she was searched is because she set off an explosives alarm. she was not randomly selected and stripped on the spot, she was taken to a private room and searched because there was reason to believe that there might be something of an explosive nature on her person.

and don't confuse 'accordingly' with 'appropriately.'

ac·cord·ing·ly Adverb/əˈkôrdiNGlē/
1. In a way that is appropriate to the particular circumstances.

If they believed she had a bomb they should have called the bomb squad and the police. If they really thought that she could have had a bomb they acted in a criminally negligent manner. Unless their rooms are blast proof (and I highly doubt that) they were putting hundreds of people lives at risk.

[schufflerbot]

my point is, you cannot assume that just because someone is an american they would never do harm to another american... as the quoted poster implies.

just as we have to lump all strangers into the 'potential threat until proven otherwise' category, TSA must assume that all flyers have bombs and guns until probed and proven otherwise.

No again. Security needs to be based on reality not some nonsense blanket approach. Even if I did live in such a condition where I was considering every person I saw a threat I would not be at liberty to make them "prove" that they were not a thread by strip searching every person I came into contact with. The TSA should not assume all flyers have bombs because that assumption would not be based on reality. The reality is that very very few people are insane enough to carry out a homicidal bombing. The reality is that most of these situations are detected by FBI and CIA types LONG before they are ever near implementation because it is hard to keep things like that 100% quiet. Even lone wolves have family that notice when they are out of sorts and are acting dangerously (fruit of kaboom bomber was ratted out by his father). So instead of trying to find terrorists we are assaulting millions of grandmas and toddlers. That is insanity and negligent if the TSA is really trying to stop terrorist attacks and not simply harass the American citizenry.

so, you're assuming the TSA agents are psychic?

not understanding your logic or perspective here, i guess. the 'reality based' assumptions that the agents are basing these searches on are their equipment. the OP stated that THE ALARM WENT OFF and the agent investigated accordingly. yes, very few people have the cojones to pull something like a bomb or hostile takeover... i'd rather someone be there to thwart as much of it as possible by way of deterrence, hence the TSA.

No I would hope that those actually in security would be able to understand that an alarm going off on a stroller means the stroller should be searched carefully--not the person. If a bomb sniffing dog hit on a person's crotch then and only then would there be any call for a strip search or pat down. Especially when I have been told by TSA agents that hand lotion is often mistaken for a bomb in those little test kits. They know their equipment is faulty and yet they use it as an excuse to force a woman to take her clothes off--nice.

Your argument of deterrence disappears as soon as a person of a higher IQ than 80 decides to be a suicide bomber--they will simply bomb the security line not the plane. Then what? Deterrance obviously did not work at your High School with the lowlifes there, do you think it will work with the lowest of the low? I doubt that.

how many times has a security line been bombed?

one could consider that proof that the deterrence is working ;)

and i think it's silly to ask a TSA agent to make an assessment on the spot when there are hundreds of lives on the line. to ask them to ignore a potential threat is just begging for a disaster. as i indicated in my 'what would you do?'post, i think TSA agents should be cold, unwavering and calculating in their duties. if one takes a job like that seriously, there should be NO room for human emotion.