"If You've Got Nothing to Hide..."

One of the more conservative medical bloggers -- whom I will not link to because he's such a dyed-in-the-wool-right-wing whackjob (but also a helluva medic) -- was bitching about the TSA.

BillyJoeBobBubba "forgot" to remove live ammunition from his bags before heading to the airport to board a plane, and was complaining about the search that ensued.

This from one of those "If you've got nothing to hide, you've got nothing to worry about" types. It was HIS philosophical cronies, after all, who established the TSA (and the rest of DHS) and rammed it down our throats.

Apparently, the fact that they searched a white man instead of a scary brown Moozlum is, well... intolerable.

Got news for ya, Bubba: you're the ones screaming that everybody should be armed, so it makes sense that you're the ones who should pay the price when your gun mania gets you in hot water. You're the ones who say "security trumps everything else", including Fourth Amendment freedoms. You're the ones who demanded the PATRIOT Act. You're the ones who supported the establishment of the American version of the Gestapo. You're the ones who insisted -- screechingly -- that TSA damn near strip search everyone within 5 miles of an airplane.

You wanted it, BillyJoeBobBubba, and you got it. Now YOU get to live with it, too, just like the rest of us.

Moronic redneck LOSER.

Oh, HELL, No.

According to NBC Nightly News, the moronic losers at TSA have decided they want to arm some of the TSA goons, in response to yesterday's shooting at LAX.

As you know, I'm not a big fan of TSA. In fact, I regard them as a buncha moronic loser thieving perverts. For example, see these previous posts.

And to prove I'm not alone, if one Googles "tsa screeners arrested," you find 202,000+ hits. They've been grabbed for theft, sexual assault, and all sorts of other crimes of moral turpitude.

Plus, they're completely in-freakin-competent: they can't find bombs or guns in luggage... hell, they couldn't find a frickin BABY that went through one of their Xray machines.

One of those loser screeners will grope some woman's breasts *, she'll complain about it... and he'll shoot her ass.

And they want GUNS?!?

 

 

* And that came from LewRockwell.com, which is far to the right of Faux, Frothy Santorum, and most of the rest of Teabagistan.

TSA Strikes Again... With Credit Where Credit is Due?

I don't really know if this should be filed under "TSA Strikes Again" or "Credit Where Credit is Due."  Senator Rand Paul (Teabaggin Independent Lunatic Fringe) was denied boarding at Nashville, after he refused a pat-down search (he had allegedly "triggered a routine alarm").

"When an irregularity is found during the TSA screening process, it must be resolved prior to allowing a passenger to proceed to the secure area of the airport," TSA spokesman Greg Soule said in a statement. "Passengers who refuse to complete the screening process cannot be granted access to the secure area in order to ensure the safety of others traveling."

At least the TSA goons treated a teabaggin "moran" the same way they treat us.

TSA Strikes Yet Again: They Stole My Cupcake!

A woman flying from Las Vegas to Boston learned the hard way that "what comes from Vegas, stays in Vegas." Well, sorta, at least. The woman attempted to pass through the TSA screening with a frosted cupcake.  A cupcake. The TSA officer (shown below) thought the frosting could be a security risk, so he seized it.

 

Bubba consumed the cupcake to keep 'murrica safe.

Seriously, though, this is just another instance of TSA using its obscene power and authority for the sole purpose of oppressing the American public in the name of security. It was bad enough when Richard Reid tried to light his shoe, and caused the American public to shuffle through the local Checkpoint Charlie barefoot. Then we had last year's infamous "UndieBomber" and the rigamarole about water and shampoo. Now, frosting is considered a possible terrorist threat.

C'mon, people, get real.

Frosting?  A threat?

Maybe to the Jenny Craig crowd, but fergawdsake, give me a break.

TSA Strikes Out. Again.

Good Godamighty, this is getting really discouraging, considering how much we're paying for TSA to "protect" us.

TSA conducted yet another of its tests of its airport screeners. You know, the folks who are supposed to prevent bombs and guns from getting on board American airliners.

And, once again, TSA screeners have failed the test.

CNN asked if it could send a camera crew to tape one of the tests, and TSA agreed. Unfortunately, the CNN crew taped a test at Tampa International Airport.

The CNN report detailed how a covert officer with a metal knee beat security by claiming a slender mock explosive strapped around his waist was a back brace. Nice to know the screeners will believe us when we say a bomb is a back brace. Now if we could just get them to believe a bottle of Pert really is shampoo.

Of course, this isn't the first time TSA screeners have dropped the ball on finding mock explosives. See my previous post on TSA for more details.

The CNN report quotes a TSA spokesdrone as pointing out that:

Six years ago, the administration focused intently on handguns. As a result, screeners became more adept at ferreting them out before they made it on board....

This explains how a guy was able to get on a plane last week with a gun.

Guns? Okay.

Bombs? No problem.

A bottle of Poland Springs? Big problem. BIG problem.

Does it seem like I'm ragging on TSA too much? If it does, that is because TSA -- and it's parent super-agency, the Department of Homeland Security -- are violating one of the main tenets of the security profession. They are too busy trying to protect us from the last attack, and not worrying their beautiful minds about the next one.

TSA and DHS have their heads in the sand. As a New York Times writer pointed out a couple of weeks ago, the primary reason the 9-11 hijackings succeeded was not that the terrorists were able to smuggle box cutters aboard the aircraft; the reason they succeeded was that they broke the existing paradigm of hijackings, that the craft would be diverted to another destination. By being willing to sacrifice themselves (and the passengers, crews, and planes), the terrorists brought a new paradigm into play. And it is a paradigm the TSA cannot comprehend.

It is impossible to prevent weapons on planes, as TSA has demonstrated time after time. No matter how much they check our shoes, pour out our shampoo, or grope our pregnant wives' breasts, they can never keep all potentially dangerous weapons off the planes. It just cannot be done.

In years past, a takeover meant hostage negotiations and standoffs; crews were trained in the concept of “passive resistance.” All of that changed forever the instant American Airlines Flight 11 collided with the north tower. What weapons the 19 men possessed mattered little; the success of their plan relied fundamentally on the element of surprise. And in this respect, their scheme was all but guaranteed not to fail.

For several reasons — particularly the awareness of passengers and crew — just the opposite is true today. Any hijacker would face a planeload of angry and frightened people ready to fight back. Say what you want of terrorists, they cannot afford to waste time and resources on schemes with a high probability of failure. And thus the September 11th template is all but useless to potential hijackers.

I said it then, and I'll say it now: this is the template to which DHS and TSA fanatically adhere.

TSA Strikes Out One More Time...

This is starting to get monotonous. Can't these frickin' MO-rons get anything right?



The fine folks at TSA ("Thousands Standing Around") are continuing to wage the good fight against liquids aboard planes, while still managing to miss legitimate threats. It appears a man managed to get through the all the security checkpoints at Reagan National Airport with a gun.

Before the passenger boarded his flight about 7:30 a.m. Sunday, he realized that he had the gun and returned voluntarily to the checkpoint... Yingling [a spokesman for the airport] said that the agency's officers took the gun and issued a summons and that the man was allowed to continue his trip.

A TSA spokesdrone had this to say: "...testing shows that the agency has a "very high success rate" in detecting firearms." Yeah, if the screeners know they're being tested. See, for instance, here, here, here, and here. These are, of course, the same TSA screeners who are too busy groping a woman's breasts and stealing from passengers (see here, here, here)to focus on their primary job, which is "keeping us safe from terrists."



Bringing liquids on board a plane brings down TSA on you like the wrath of God. But bombs, guns, and knives? Eh, everybody's human, right?

"Prearing for the Last Attack," Part Whatever...

A number of times in the past, I have accused the bush administration, the Department of Homeland Security, the Transportation Security Administration, and/or FEMA of "preparing for the last attack," a phrase I swiped from security guru Bruce Schneier.

A recent blog post at the NY Times shows Schneier and I are not alone in this belief. Writing in Jet Lagged, commercial airline pilot Patrick Smith (who also writes Salon's "Ask the Pilot" column), makes the point that the 9-11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon were successful not because the terrorists were able to smuggle weapons aboard commercial jets, but because the hijackers broke the existing paradigm of hijackings:

In years past, a takeover meant hostage negotiations and standoffs; crews were trained in the concept of “passive resistance.” All of that changed forever the instant American Airlines Flight 11 collided with the north tower. What weapons the 19 men possessed mattered little; the success of their plan relied fundamentally on the element of surprise. And in this respect, their scheme was all but guaranteed not to fail.

Smith continues:

For several reasons — particularly the awareness of passengers and crew — just the opposite is true today. Any hijacker would face a planeload of angry and frightened people ready to fight back. Say what you want of terrorists, they cannot afford to waste time and resources on schemes with a high probability of failure. And thus the September 11th template is all but useless to potential hijackers.

Yet it is this "template" to which DHS and TSA fanatically adhere.

Smith's piece -- which should be another must-read (Gawd, I'm finding a lot of those these days) -- is a thoughtful, detailed analysis of why our current airline security program is destined to fail.

TSA Laptops Stolen... Along With Hazmat Driver Info

Transportation SECURITY Administration, which is part of the Department of Homeland SECURITY…

"TSA Laptops With Hazmat Driver Info Stolen"
Dark Reading (10/16/07) ; Higgins, Kelly Jackson

The Transportation Security Administration has experienced a security breach involving stolen laptops from a TSA contractor containing sensitive information about hazardous material commercial drivers. Two laptops, belonging to Integrated Biometric Technology, contained Social Security numbers, driver's license numbers, and names of about 4,000 hazmat drivers. Information regarding the presence of drivers' personal data was obfuscated by two separate accounts from TSA, first stating they had erased all sensitive information on one laptop, then confessing the data was still present on both laptops. Although the TSA ordered all contractor information to be encrypted following the breach, Paul Kocher of Cryptography Research says the agency enacted "basic measures" only after a disaster occurred. A previous incident involving a missing external storage device left 100,000 TSA employees' bank accounts, payroll information, and Social Security numbers exposed. Security experts say they would not be surprised by terrorists attempting to attack the agency because of their failure to adhere to security best practices, such as deleting or encrypting sensitive data. Integrated Biometric Technology will provide those exposed by the breach with one year of free credit-report monitoring. [Emphasis added]

Now, what part of SECURITY do these MO-rons not understand?

Yup, makes me REAL confident in their ability to safeguard our security.