(Source: the-altar, via libertariancontrarian)
(Source: themikebilly)
TSA: Testicles, Scrotum, and Ass-crack
Yesterday, I flew into LA out of Miami International Airport.
As is usually the case, people were very obediently being cattled through the pornoscanners. (Except for one closed-off lane, which I was told was for “employees.”)
TSA grunted commands and motioned with their hands. Words were rarely spoken to the bovine masses. Mercifully, tongue-clicks have yet to employed, but I suppose it’s only a matter of time.
The entire time I was in line, which was a good while, not a single person opted out. Every person did what they were told: without shoes, hats, belts, or backbone, they stood in the machine with their hands in the air and their feet shoulder-width apart as a government agent zapped them with a little radiation in order to get a closer look underneath their clothes. Not exactly the pose of a free individual.
As I do every time I am harassed by the TSA (ever since that opt out that forced my then-20-month-old daughter to be patted down and her diaper checked for explosive residue), I had my phone recording video. Even though the phone is on the conveyer belt, it’s better than nothing. When I reached the machine I informed the agent directing the ruminant masses with grunts and yelling at people for not understanding English (not like it’s an “International” airport or anything) that I was opting out.
She loudly yelled “Male opt out!” and directed me to stand to the side, where I waited. A few minutes later she looked at me and asked if anyone had come to get me. Since I was standing where she asked me to, obviously not. Eventually, an agent motivated himself away from his primary role of “standing” to retrieve me. My phone recording shows it took over seven minutes from the time I reached the scanner and when the male agent finally came to get me.
While gathering my belongings, he saw my phone was recording video. He asked if it was mine, I told him that it was and to not turn it off. He ignored me, and shut off the recording.
He instructed me to place my feet on a mat that had two yellow footprints. He calmly explained what he was about to do.
This exchange then took place:
Me: “Wait… you’re going to put your hands on my balls?”
TSA: “It’s procedure, sir. I need to run my hands up the inside of your thighs until I meet resistance with your privates.”
Me: “‘Privates’?” (I laughed at the non-ironic use of the word.)
TSA: “Would you like to do this in a screening room?”
Me: “It’s better that they [I motioned with my head to the people around me] can see what you’re doing.”
He then began. It’s actually been a while since my last pat-down, and somehow it’s gotten even more invasive. Four times he touched my testicles, and not incidental or glancing contact either - a solid pat. At least when my doctor does it, he lets me know how my prostate’s doing. He passed his fingers along the insides of the waist of my shorts, one swipe even snuck a bit inside my underwear. Twice, he ran his hand along my ass-crack. This guy was treading in areas that even my wife stays away from.
Afterward, he checked the residue on his gloves and then gave me a thumbs-up that I was free to go.
It’s easy to understand why rape victims are so traumatized by the experience. Even my relatively benign encounter with an otherwise “polite” agent was horribly obtrusive and unpleasant.
And, ultimately, it’s a waste. The TSA bottleneck itself serves as a target-rich environment, and would-be terrorists have already found ways to circumvent the humiliating procedures TSA has put in place.
As I explined in my post from 2010, The Case Against the TSA:
We ought not acquiesce to the state’s impractical, inefficient, invasive, expensive, and dangerous procedures by relinquishing the very freedoms that the government was ostensibly created to protect.
The TSA must be abolished, and responsibility of security must be returned to the airlines and airports, where there is greater accountability and incentive for safety, efficiency, and customer service. An airline that fails to take appropriate safety precautions to the satisfaction of customers will not do well. Same with airlines that treat their customers like cattle to be groped and ogled.
"Do rape victims or other people suffering with PTSD have any rights, or is it the usual ‘if you don’t like it, don’t fly!’ bull?"
The husband of a rape victim who ended up in the hospital after an invasive TSA pat-down resulted in vomiting and extreme anxiety. Full story here. (via hipsterlibertarian)
(via thejokell)
I just felt so free with that TSA agent’s hands between my legs.
TSA Defends Pat-Down of 4-Year-Old at Kan. Airport
Seriously, why do we tolerate this stuff? Would you want your four year old to be groped by the TSA and called an “uncooperative suspect”?
“Isabella had just learned about ‘stranger danger’ at school, her grandmother said, adding that the girl was afraid and unsure about what was going on.
‘She started to cry, saying “No I don’t want to,” and when we tried talking to her she ran,’ Croft said. ‘They yelled, “We are going to shut down the airport if you don’t grab her.”’”
Do you think it’s time to shut down the TSA and rethink airport security?But, if we didn’t have the TSA, that tiny terrorist could have slid right between TSA agents’ legs as they scrambled to catch her, and taken out the entire airport with a “stranger danger” device we heard she was taught to build!
With the airport gone, I’d have to find another job in my field (Rectum Inspector) and it’s my Constitutional right as an American to keep my government job forever. It says so in the Interstate Commerce Clause.
I’m not surprised, though. It’s just like you horrible rich people that can afford plane tickets to go around advocating destroying jobs and making us all less safe like that. Why do you hate the poor/America so much, anyway?
Anyway, just gonna need you to bend over, sir, I need to check inside your asshole.
Next time be sure to pick up a copy of this helpful book and go over it with your
terroristchild:
After hugging her grandmother in the airport, a 4-year-old girl was detained by the TSA, "who apparently shouted at her that she would have to be frisked too, and refused to let her mother explain what has happening. [The girl] tried to run away rather than face a full body pat-down, which unsurprisingly enraged the TSA officers further."
Best part: The agents claimed the frisking was needed in case grandma gave her a gun.
And the mission of the TSA, to terrorize and cow the American people, continues.
Absolutely asinine.
Wow, I feel so safe now. Thanks for that, TSA.
(via disobey)
The TSA is now charging you for your freedom
Hate the full-body scans, pat-downs and slow going at TSA airport security screening checkpoints? For $100, you can now bypass the hassle.
I saw something about this when I was going through customs the other day at Dulles.
Visiting the TSA website is like seeing the refrigerator door of a retarded kindergartener.
Look what I made, Mommy!
In Midland, Texas, a guy in the military tried boarding a plane with military grade explosives in his carry-on bag, only to be stopped by airport security.
He had C-4 explosives on him wrapped in military-grade wrapping, according to local police; the FBI has yet to explain what he was carrying on him, but the guy is in custody. To folks who say the TSA has never caught anyone bringing anything dangerous onto a plane: Here’s the exception to the rule.
Sure, they caught the guy. Then again, if you read the story, they caught him not because of invasive molestation pat-downs or cancer-causing radiation bombardment machines, but because of an x-ray baggage scanner. That is a routine practice put into place before 9/11 or the TSA. So really to credit the TSA specifically isn’t exactly accurate. This guy would have been caught regardless if it was the TSA.
(via rigatonideology)
Teen stopped at airport for the design on her purse
A teenage girl’s sense of style got her in trouble at the airport.
Vanessa Gibbs, 17, claims the Transportation Security Administration stopped her at the security gate because of the design of a gun on her handbag.
Gibbs said she had no problem going through security at Jacksonville International Airport, but rather, when she headed home from Virginia.
“It’s my style, it’s camouflage, it has an old western gun on it,” Gibbs said.
But her preference for the pistol style didn’t sit well with TSA agents at the Norfolk airport.
Gibbs said she was headed back home to Jacksonville from a holiday trip when an agent flagged her purse as a security risk.
“She was like, ‘This is a federal offense because it’s in the shape of a gun,’” Gibbs said. “I’m like, ‘But it’s a design on a purse. How is it a federal offense?’”
After agents figured out the gun was a fake, Gibbs said, TSA told her to check the bag or turn it over.
By the time security wrapped up the inspection, the pregnant teen missed her flight, and Southwest Airlines sent her to Orlando instead, worrying her mother, who was already waiting for her to arrive at JIA.
Goddammit, Norfolk. This is why we can’t have nice things.
10 years of the TSA violating your personal and Constitutional freedoms.
Happy birthday assholes.
Is the TSA’s 10th birthday cause for celebration?
Happy birthday, TSA.
The federal agency charged with protecting the nation’s transportation systems turns 10 Nov. 19. And although its supporters will probably spend the coming days talking about its apparent successes, including the absence of a 9/11 sequel, the question of whether we’re better off with this fledgling $8 billion-a-year federal agency remains very much unanswered.
(Source: 21st-century-classical-liberal)
TSA Arrests Me for Using the Fourth Amendment as a Weapon (Tales from the Edge of a Revolution #2)
Albuquerque International Sunport Security Checkpoint:
I pass a camera crew filming the ticket counter. I stop and consider telling them what I am about to do, but decide against it. They probably won’t care. Instead, I wheel my baggage to the security area.
I can feel my heart beat in my chest. I’ve never done anything like this. I’ve always said “Yes sir,” even when I didn’t agree. Even this simple act fills me with conflicting emotions.
New Mexico is far warmer than my native Pacific Northwest. I’m sweating by the time I reach the first inspection of my ID. I’m sure I already look like a terrorist. The TSA agent, perched on his stool, takes no notice. I look enough like my driver’s license and I have a valid airline ticket. He black lights my ID and lets me pass with hardly a glance.
I’ve come here to moonlight from my real job. My daughter had an operation, and I had to come up with thousands in deductible. She’s in college and, so far, I’ve managed to keep her from becoming a debt slave, like her mother. I took eight extra weekends of work in the Land of Enchantment to cover the cost. I’m lucky, I guess, I can do that. Others, with fewer job opportunities, have no choice but to go bankrupt.
My heart kicks it up another notch when I get to the conveyor belt. Shouldn’t have had that coffee this morning but thank God I didn’t eat anything, or I’d be hugging the trash can right now.
Come on, I tell myself, what are they going to do? Confiscate your toothpaste? Say something mean to you? So what. Relax. You can do this. You should do this. You have to do this.
I take off my shoes and strip my backpack of computer and the baggie of incidentals. I stand in line while my armpits grow embarrassingly moist and I feel my heart race. I think, Get a hold of yourself. You’re being a drama queen.
When it is my turn, I decline to go through the monitor that scans under your clothes, as I always do. The TSA agent starts his spiel about how safe it is. I’ve done my research. His statements are questionable, but that is not why I am doing this. I start my own spiel.
“The Fourth Amendment of the Constitution reads: The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrant shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, an particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”
(via Rondam Ramblings)
Read this.
(via perpetualjourney)
"To be governed is to be watched, inspected, spied upon, directed, law-driven, numbered, regulated, enrolled, indoctrinated, preached at, violated, controlled, measured, checked, estimated, valued, censured, invaded, commanded and groped by creatures who have neither the right, nor the wisdom, nor the virtue to do so."
(via hesspartacus)
