Take it all off!
posted by saurabh in Insanity, No pants |This essay on the subject of the miserable TSA regulations seems almost redundant. Does anyone approve of the meaningless protocols set in place at airport security?
I’m not sure which is more troubling, the inanity of the existing regulations, or the average American’s acceptance of them and willingness to be humiliated. These wasteful and tedious protocols have solidified into what appears to be indefinite policy, with little or no opposition. There ought to be a tide of protest rising up against this mania. Where is it? At its loudest, the voice of the traveling public is one of grumbled resignation. The op-ed pages are silent, the pundits have nothing meaningful to say.
Holiday travel => airport security => taking off my shoes again. I gather this is the result of infamous would-be shoe-bomber Richard Reid, whose failed attempt has since resulted in more bunion and hangnail exposure than the founding of the Birkenstock sandal company. It’s only a matter of time before a Catholic church pedophilia-like scandal sweeps the TSA and it is forced to admit it covered up the legions of foot fetishists who have since joined its ranks, lecherously ogling unclad arches and sweat-stained socks.
But why should foot-fetishists have all the fun? Airports have a disproportionate number of young, attractive travelers, and I, too, want to be able to ogle my pound of flesh. The time is ripe: we need a pants bomber pronto.
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I was removing my shoes for airport security for years before today’s terrorism mania. Many shoes have a metal strip in the sole that sets off the metal detector. Mine set it off so many times I just started taking them off as routine.
OK, that’ll work: Let’s get Levis et al to put more metal in their pants.
Same with the thong-makers.
But seriously. One aspect of this that the article forgets is the earlier round of idiotic, useless “security” methods implemented against the Unabomber in the 1990s. Foremost among them is the requirement that you show ID when boarding a plane. This has become such second-nature around the world that we forget that it was introduced after lobbying by the airlines, which for years had suffered the horror of having passengers buy round-trip tickets and then sell the return passage rather than having two passengers buy pricier one-way tickets. Has the ID check cut terrorism or crime in general? Hard to say. Has it eliminated the secondary market in air tickets? Yes it has. Air tickets are up there with IPod downloads as one of the only things you can buy but can’t sell. Pretty absurd.
The solution of course is to avoid flying. I decided decades ago to travel by foot, bike or hitchhike whenever possible. Living now outside of the continent where my family lives makes this a bit trickier — intercontinental travel within the law requires not just an air ticket but a visa, subjecting travelers to a level of surveillance unknown by those who stay home. I have known people who have avoided this by traveling illegally. We’ll see if I decide to go that route. One thing I’ve learned is how to travel very light and keep stashes of dangerous objects all over the world: a toothpaste here, a pair of scissors there, a bike light over yonder.
You are right. After many unanswered letters to Congressional and Airline Company authorities, I am convinced that it is the Supreme Court interpretion of what the Government Agency is calling an “Administrative Search” which is behind it, as well as security equipment companies and the job-creating aspects of airport “screener” jobs and as a result we now have a catastrophic invasion of privacy which flies in the face of freedom. What can be done against the forces of evil and government bureaucracy which are ruining our reputation in the World? A Class Action suit comes to mind, petitions, a new government administration which will urge Congress to reverse the paranoid trend in using a “security” which is in no way guaranteed in the first place,support from the Airline companies and government security people themselves who must be aware of the folly of their embarassing actions,or can the American Bar Association help or can the AMA be requested to state simply that the airport “security measures” are mentally disturbed? Organizations such as the FBI, TSA, Justice Department, Senate and House Judiciary Committees, FAA and Department of Transportation have lost their way as to protecting travelers’ rights,and have played into the hands of foreign subversives who have achieved their goal of disrupting our piece of mind and comfort in using air travel. It is ultimately a “frisking” operation and lately has reached the extreme of fingerprinting foreign visitors as well as phone and e-mail monitoring, which of course, is against the Constitution. We used to accuse the Soviet Union of these techniques in the old days. The unprofessional “frisking operation” may find its’ way into other areas of our life, such as in the entrances to buildings, or on the subways, trains and buses. The reason we can’t fly is that a possible “pat-down” or request to take shoes off is, in fact, an insult to our way of life in America, just as is the uncontrolled gas price increases. Where this is coming from, other than plain stupidity, is that the Administrators are more bent on their salaries than any possible good the invasions of privacy are accomplishing. As to airplane use safety, there is no difference now as to accidents, etc. than 20 years ago and insurance rates bear this out. On a statistical basis alone, no evidence exists that the unbelievable amount of money spent and harassment caused has made flight any more safe than it has ever been in the past. The madness has been caused by political bungling, wrong interpretations of the Constitution and wrongful government action. When the whole problem is considered in an international context, we should expect that the United Nations would issue a sanction against airport regulations such as these, as being in violation of international law. When you have a virus like this, a consumer group backed up by millions of dollars and corporate donations,is necessary to combat the spread of the illness. We have to act now to prevent being known as “the age of airport frisking”.