TSA got you down?

[Toshas79]

Ron Paul is right

 

[Mike Boswell]

Ron Paul is right

Yes. Far right.

 

[Mike Boswell]

I brought two hard Italian salamis east from California last week and they did cause a bit of confusion

This really has the makings of a great new Reality TV series:

The camera would focus on the people being patted down, or up, as the case may be, and evey so often we could cut to the full body scanner. Reaction shots of shocked TSA agents would be interspersed. A medical doctor would moderate, and explain the variety of things seen - light bulbs, toys, prostheses - and discovered. A psychiatrist could explain some of the more "exotic" aberrations, and someone from the street could provide color commentary.

I think we should call the show "What's Up, Doc?"

 

[Toshas79]

better then far left

 

[vladimir]

It APPEARS to me that some of the posters in this debate are scoffing the arguments of others by saying things LIKE..."one in ten million chance....get real". My look on a number like this is....IT's WORKING. Airline security has done a remarkably good job and producing numbers like one-in-a-gazillion chance of getting killed by a terrorist (or even a nut-job) in the air. My point was to get folks to imagine what the statistics would say if airline terrorism were to go unchecked.

If you look back to the Economist link that developed the 1-in-10 million number, it was based on actual flights and fatalities from 1999-2009; in other words, before the backscatter X-ray and enhanced pat-downs. Nobody is advocating no security.

Someone somewhere in TSA makes these rules. By reading the posts here, these rules somehow make all employees of TSA sexual predators and perverts. I object to that line of thinking.

Yes, we seem to have learned from our politicians that the way to win an argument is to get more hysterical and more extreme. Obama is not an incompetent liberal, he's a socialist fascist Manchurian candidate trying to kill our grandmothers.

If a loaded plane were flown into a crowded mall today, we would probably have a public outcry about why airport security was so lax.

Yes, but we have secured the cockpit doors, so that's not happening again. That was a common-sense security step that was un-intrusive, cost effective, and not controversial. Contrast that with an intrusive search of just about everybody (eventually) to thwart the next underwear bomber.

Some highly-trained martial art experts could take over a plane without the need of a single weapon.

We have secured the cockpit doors.

the terrorists have won. They have implanted so much fear in us that, the second they open their mouth or make a statement, we give away our rights and our peace of mind.

Yes, exactly. The change has to come in the American psyche. We should deter, we should fight back, but not without regard to cost and consequence. There will be casualties--get over it. We ask that of our military every day. The spectacle of us spending hundreds of soldier's lives and hundreds of billions of dollars to pacify Afghanistan so that China is safe to mine the country's wealth sickens me. So does the spectacle of Americans docilely lining up to be searched like criminals just so they can board a plane.

 

[annlaur]

Nice post, Vladimir.
FYI, the last two quotes were from my post, not Terry's. Didn't think about the secured cockpit doors.

 

[vladimir]

Thanks, Ann.

 

[Doc Harry]

Another great article

"The hysterical hullabaloo over airport security procedures is a waste of time"

Scanning madness: The hysterical hullabaloo over airport security procedures is a waste of time | Editorial | Chron.com - Houston Chronicle

 

[vshearer]

Is good thing.

 

[Toshas79]

that's a good one