6 Year Old Girl Groped By TSA

[Pug]

you despicable cynic you, you know the government only has THEIR best interest at heart

Guilty as charged. And I fixed your statement for you

[03Lightningrocks]

Wow!!! In keeping with the belief that the safety of all man kind is of paramount importance, we should all immediately turn in our firearms. I am stunned at how many folks are OK with government abuse of power as long as the intrusion does not APPEAR to take anything from them personally. Yep... flashlight body cavity searches are next. It seems there is no limit to how far we are willing to go in the name of "security". Maybe the government can make some regulations to keeps us all from getting fat too! Oh wait, they are already working on that one.

[jmra]

We could just go back to the way things were on 9/10. Nay, to hard to get all that sand out of the ear holes.

The government seems to always have a similar argument. "You don't want bad things to happen to planes in the sky, do you?" No, of course I don't. At the same time, the threat of hijacking planes does not issue a license for the government to behave in anyway that it wants, including "enhanced" patdowns of 6 year old girls.

In context, TSA screening procedures are regularly being breached with far more deadly things than this 6 year old could have carried. TSA/ Comrade Napolitano doesn't want to make public how often this happens because it would be an invitation to terrorists. To me, however, the effort should be made to improve the security against real threats before we stoop to tactics like this.

One only has to look at the little girl's clothing on her slender frame to determine that should couldn't be carrying any quantity of anything. The fact that she was randomly selected among other passengers for this egregious search simply underscores the fact that TSA is targeting the wrong things. If I were just a bit more of cynical, I would suggest that incidents like this are contrived for the sole purpose of reminding the public of the awesome power of our governmental entities. It certainly serves no purpose for security.

According to the news she was not selected randomly. The backscatter machine or whatever it is called showed something strange that resulted in the search. Didn't find anything so I assume op error of glitch with the machine.

[jmra]

We could just go back to the way things were on 9/10. Nay, to hard to get all that sand out of the ear holes.

Funny you say that, since the search regime you're excusing wouldn't have prevented 9/11. None of the hijackers were six year old American girls. None of the hijackers used big bottles of hand lotion or shampoo to take over the plane. None were old men in wheelchairs, grandmas, or Americans traveling with their children. All of them were young adult men, most of them from Saudi Arabia. When the passengers overwhelmed the last set of hijackers, that was the last 9/11. The tactic used on 9/11 can only work once, since now everyone knows what's going to happen if they don't take the plane back.

TSA passenger screening cannot possibly prevent another attack on an aircraft. And using limited resources to screen American grandmas and little girls make the odds of a terrorists getting through security greater, not less. Even if we assume the best, that they are 100% effective in screening passengers, they cannot prevent someone blowing up a bunch of passengers in the airport, or even from planting a bomb on a plane, since they're not screening ground crews or limiting access to planes except by card swipe.

It strikes me as a little odd that a guy who carries a gun seems to believe the TSA can make the world a safe place. Do you worry about little girls attacking you in the parking lot too or do you focus your attention on the more likely threats? After all, bad guys might hide a weapon on a little girl or lull you into a false sense of security by getting one to pretend she's in trouble. Do you worry that those little girls selling cookies are just trying to get you to open your door in advance of a home invasion? I think you don't because you don't consider those to be realistic threats, but they're just about as realistic as an America couple planting a bomb on their six year old daughter to bring down an airplane.

And if there was perfect security at airports and for airplanes, which there will never and can never be, terrorists will merely shift targets to buses, trains, subways, malls, etc. Then the same excuses will be used to justify frisking six year old girls on the subway and at the mall and we'll be told to just walk if we don't like it, or stay home.

First of all I haven't excused anything. I don't agree with pat downs. Show me one time where I have defended pat downs. I have stated that I do not believe this girl was groped but I have never stated that I agreed with the policies of TSA. But because it suits your purpose you will take what I say out of context and put words in my mouth in order to make your illogical arguments sound credible.

My post that you replied to was simply a way of showing that although I don't agree with the current policies I also don't believe that we can pretend that 9/11 never happened. Some changes had to be made. Obviously what we have now is not the answer but what was in place prior to 9/11 is not either.

[Liberty]

I think its interesting to note that that the TSA has never actually stopped a terrorist attack, although passengers and crew have stopped a few .. under wear bomber and shoe bomber come to mind. It seems reasonable that if the gooberment was serious about stopping terrorist they would encourage CHL holders to carry on board instead of going to great lengths to prevent guns on board. Giving up liberty in the name of psuedo-safety is not a great idea.

[92f-fan]

interesting stats about the cost of "security"

According to a survey by the consulting service Resource Systems Group Inc., in the three years following September 11, the number of people arriving at an airport one hour before departure fell from around 20 percent to less than 10 percent, and the number arriving two to three hours in advance rose from around 20 percent to nearly 40 percent. Thomas Adler, one of the authors of the survey, says that evidence suggests that Americans still spend this much more time when flying. "It seems as though arrival patterns have stabilized at those new levels," he says.

That extra time spent at the airport has a cost. It means less time to spend at work, less time to spend with children, and less time for leisure. Another survey by the Resource Systems Group found that average airline passengers traveling on business would be willing to pay about $70 to reduce one hour of their travel time. For all other fliers, the survey found that the price of an hour is $31. Poole calculates that the annual cost to the country of the extra wait times from post-September 11 security procedures is about $8 billion. But he arrives at this number through a few assumptions that probably understate the real amount. Poole assumes that an hour of time is worth $50 for a business traveler and $15 for everyone else. He also assumes that the new security procedures added only a half-hour to passengers' travel time.

There are also ripple effects from the delays that create new costs. For example, longer delays at the airport encouraged passengers to seek new modes of transportation for their trips, such as driving. Beefing up security generally makes people feel safer. But long security lines following September 11 had a more important effect on travelers' motivations to drive instead of fly. "It's hard for people to evaluate the additional benefit of security measures. But it's easy for people to say, 'I'm going to have to stand in line for an hour; I don't like that,' " says Garrick Blalock, a Cornell University economist, who coauthored a paper looking at the connection between airport security and driving fatalities. Because driving is so much more dangerous than flying, the thousands of more people who took to the roads rather than the skies after September 11 led to more car accidents. Blalock estimated that from September of 2001 to October of 2003, the enhanced airport security led to 2,300 road fatalities that otherwise would not have occurred. If security delays were to lengthen again, a similar driving fatality effect could happen, Blalock says, as more travelers choose to drive to avoid the increased inconveniences of flying.

from here
http://money.usnews.com/money/business- ... -costs-you" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
and another good read here

http://books.google.com/books?id=l_grTC ... &q&f=false" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Its about keeping the economy going, and the medias insatiable appetite for plane crash related news ....

[chasfm11]

I don't agree with the current policies I also don't believe that we can pretend that 9/11 never happened. Some changes had to be made. Obviously what we have now is not the answer but what was in place prior to 9/11 is not either.

I'll certainly concede that the word "groped" is probably too strong for what we witness on the video tape. On the other hand, touching "sensitive" areas on such a young child outside of the medical profession evokes strong emotions for me and probably many others. One of the roles that society should play is the protector of children and this activity flies in the face of that to me. I can find no redeeming social value in it in spite of the references to young children in war being used a delivery mechanisms for ordnance.

I would also agree that 9/11 taught us many things that we should have understood all alone. The most valuable of which was "fight back." Authorities had conditioned us to compliantly accept hijackers as a supposed way of preserving life. If you will remember all of the singular highjackings (as opposed to the coordinated 9/11 mass attack), some individuals were killed but the overall groups of passengers were saved in most cases. The passengers on flight #93 quickly learned and adapted to the change in rules and I believe that the subsequent thwarting of attacks by the underwear and shoe bombers can be attributed to the same learning by the flying public. To me, it is much less about our sticking our heads in the sand than it is about ignoring the demand for subservience from our authorities.

I do not believe that any security prevention measures are going to succeed 100% of the time. I do understand that some basic precautions are necessary and must be used. But we have this whole security matter as wrong as our criminal justice system. We punish and incarcerate people for contrived "crimes" while we let recidivist violent offenders back onto the streets to commit further violent acts. Some say that TSA has learned not to take the fingernail clippers from 80 year old grandmas now but this video is evidence that they still don't have the right focus. The concentration is on the "long shots" from a security risk standpoint, regardless of what the stupid scanner might have burped out as a warning. It is the TSA equivalent of "zero tolerence." Because I'm cynical, I don't believe that the government is smart enough to outwit and thwart the terrorists who take a new direction to breaching security. This could be done but will not be as long as we continue to emasculate the CIA in intelligence gathering. That is where the true "head in the sand" tactic lies.

[PappaGun]

I think its interesting to note that that the TSA has never actually stopped a terrorist attack, although passengers and crew have stopped a few .. under wear bomber and shoe bomber come to mind. It seems reasonable that if the gooberment was serious about stopping terrorist they would encourage CHL holders to carry on board instead of going to great lengths to prevent guns on board. Giving up liberty in the name of psuedo-safety is not a great idea.

The TSA has "created or saved" thousands of jobs (TSA)
and hundreds of attacks in this administration's mind I'm sure.
We've spent billions, so it must be working.
Just don't ask for proof.
Therefore it's worth it, right?

[03Lightningrocks]

interesting stats about the cost of "security"

According to a survey by the consulting service Resource Systems Group Inc., in the three years following September 11, the number of people arriving at an airport one hour before departure fell from around 20 percent to less than 10 percent, and the number arriving two to three hours in advance rose from around 20 percent to nearly 40 percent. Thomas Adler, one of the authors of the survey, says that evidence suggests that Americans still spend this much more time when flying. "It seems as though arrival patterns have stabilized at those new levels," he says.

That extra time spent at the airport has a cost. It means less time to spend at work, less time to spend with children, and less time for leisure. Another survey by the Resource Systems Group found that average airline passengers traveling on business would be willing to pay about $70 to reduce one hour of their travel time. For all other fliers, the survey found that the price of an hour is $31. Poole calculates that the annual cost to the country of the extra wait times from post-September 11 security procedures is about $8 billion. But he arrives at this number through a few assumptions that probably understate the real amount. Poole assumes that an hour of time is worth $50 for a business traveler and $15 for everyone else. He also assumes that the new security procedures added only a half-hour to passengers' travel time.

There are also ripple effects from the delays that create new costs. For example, longer delays at the airport encouraged passengers to seek new modes of transportation for their trips, such as driving. Beefing up security generally makes people feel safer. But long security lines following September 11 had a more important effect on travelers' motivations to drive instead of fly. "It's hard for people to evaluate the additional benefit of security measures. But it's easy for people to say, 'I'm going to have to stand in line for an hour; I don't like that,' " says Garrick Blalock, a Cornell University economist, who coauthored a paper looking at the connection between airport security and driving fatalities. Because driving is so much more dangerous than flying, the thousands of more people who took to the roads rather than the skies after September 11 led to more car accidents. Blalock estimated that from September of 2001 to October of 2003, the enhanced airport security led to 2,300 road fatalities that otherwise would not have occurred. If security delays were to lengthen again, a similar driving fatality effect could happen, Blalock says, as more travelers choose to drive to avoid the increased inconveniences of flying.

from here
http://money.usnews.com/money/business- ... -costs-you" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
and another good read here

http://books.google.com/books?id=l_grTC ... &q&f=false" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Its about keeping the economy going, and the medias insatiable appetite for plane crash related news ....

I believe it is a physiological issue. We feel "in control" when driving. In an airplane we are at the mercy of others.

[Dave2]

interesting stats about the cost of "security"

According to a survey by the consulting service Resource Systems Group Inc., in the three years following September 11, the number of people arriving at an airport one hour before departure fell from around 20 percent to less than 10 percent, and the number arriving two to three hours in advance rose from around 20 percent to nearly 40 percent. Thomas Adler, one of the authors of the survey, says that evidence suggests that Americans still spend this much more time when flying. "It seems as though arrival patterns have stabilized at those new levels," he says.

That extra time spent at the airport has a cost. It means less time to spend at work, less time to spend with children, and less time for leisure. Another survey by the Resource Systems Group found that average airline passengers traveling on business would be willing to pay about $70 to reduce one hour of their travel time. For all other fliers, the survey found that the price of an hour is $31. Poole calculates that the annual cost to the country of the extra wait times from post-September 11 security procedures is about $8 billion. But he arrives at this number through a few assumptions that probably understate the real amount. Poole assumes that an hour of time is worth $50 for a business traveler and $15 for everyone else. He also assumes that the new security procedures added only a half-hour to passengers' travel time.

There are also ripple effects from the delays that create new costs. For example, longer delays at the airport encouraged passengers to seek new modes of transportation for their trips, such as driving. Beefing up security generally makes people feel safer. But long security lines following September 11 had a more important effect on travelers' motivations to drive instead of fly. "It's hard for people to evaluate the additional benefit of security measures. But it's easy for people to say, 'I'm going to have to stand in line for an hour; I don't like that,' " says Garrick Blalock, a Cornell University economist, who coauthored a paper looking at the connection between airport security and driving fatalities. Because driving is so much more dangerous than flying, the thousands of more people who took to the roads rather than the skies after September 11 led to more car accidents. Blalock estimated that from September of 2001 to October of 2003, the enhanced airport security led to 2,300 road fatalities that otherwise would not have occurred. If security delays were to lengthen again, a similar driving fatality effect could happen, Blalock says, as more travelers choose to drive to avoid the increased inconveniences of flying.

from here
http://money.usnews.com/money/business- ... -costs-you" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
and another good read here

http://books.google.com/books?id=l_grTC ... &q&f=false" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Its about keeping the economy going, and the medias insatiable appetite for plane crash related news ....

I believe it is a physiological issue. We feel "in control" when driving.

And less molested.

[03Lightningrocks]

And less molested.

[Skiprr]

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Thanks!

[Heartland Patriot]

@VMI77:

I just want to say thank you. You are on point...zero tolerance policies and collective punishments are the hallmarks of an oppressive state...just because they "have our best interests at heart" or they are doing it for the most serious reasons does NOT excuse violating Constitutional rights. The type of screenings the TSA are conducting force each and every passenger to be assumed to be a threat until TSA has declared otherwise. The vast majority of LEOs in the USA must operate upon "probable cause" standards. Do some bad guys get away because of this? Yes, but I believe that is a price we pay for living in what has been a very free society. Lots of people may think: "Don't do bad things and you won't have anything to worry about" The point is, I do NOT do the types of things TSA is looking for...but they act like I will, and you will, and the 75-year old grandpa will, and the little 6-year old girl will. And THAT, is simply ridiculous. The TSA should base enhanced screenings upon probable cause, but to do so might (will) invoke the wrath of certain politically sensitive activist groups...and there is very little to no stomach in our politicians to stand up to such threats. We've all heard the maxim about "Be polite but have a plan to kill everyone you meet"...but in reality, that is nigh on impossible. Thus, especially for CHLers, we focus on the most likely threats to our persons...it sure would be nice if TSA could simply do the same.

[Oldgringo]

And less molested.

You never went to the Drive-In movies ?

[03Lightningrocks]

I stand corrected... .