TSA what's next?

[cotejy]

Good one. What will they come up with next.

I love the face of the agent in center who do the hand search. 

[vldflight]

Hats off to you buddy, you have hit a homerun with this one.

[Oddball]

Got checked twice by security in St Petersburg in May on my way home. once to get into the check out area then again to get onto the plane almost left my passport behind getting all my gear sorted out. 

[Rooster Cruiser]

I am on a Pro Pilot forum, and this particular subject is the topic of TWO threads that now run over 6 pages in length each!  I went ahead and posted your cartoon on one of them.  Very well done guys!   

Your rant is very correct Stef.  Steve Forbes beat you to it when he wrote, "We do not have airport security...  we have airport security THEATER (my italics)."

Its all a show, and Bin Laden and Anwar al-Awlaki are both laughing their heads off over our knee-jerk reactions to a single underwear bomber.  Man what a friggin' waste of time, effort, money, and resources.

If they really want airport security, they should fire TSA and hire El Al.  Forty years of security operations in the Middle East where everyone wants to literally kill them and there hasn't been a single successful hijacking of that airline.

Rant Over

RC

[ZAIZAI]

I am sure the guys who designed the mm-wave scaner are laughing all the way to the bank...

[Dillo]

Not only a waste of time, effort, money, and resources, but also an invasion of privacy and a violation of our civil rights. Until I can afford my own plane (at least as part-owner), I'll be taking the train or driving. Which sucks because it means not visiting my family, who live 2000 miles away. But I'm not willing to submit to virtual strip searches or molestation to climb on an airliner.

[chuckar101]

What gets me is as their invading your privacy and violating you, they don't have the simple courtesy of responding to a "Hi, how are you?"  I mean seriously can't show a little positive customer service to your supposed customers.  Maybe its just the uniform, they must strap something around their balls to piss them off like they do at the rodeos.  That has to be it.

[Rooster Cruiser]

I hear you, chuckar.  Worse than that, they've done enough fondling of children it has become a joke now.  I will not allow my 2 young kids to travel by airline until this groping stops.  The reason for that is because if ANYONE tries to touch my kids in that way the very least thing that will happen to the agent will be a kick to the groin!  More likely they'll end up in the hospital or the morgue and I'd be in jail.

No one touches my children!   

RC

[Rooster Cruiser]

A friend of mine sent me this about his TSA experience. He, unlike most of us, was coming back into the country from Afghanistan on a military charter.

——–

As the Chalk Leader for my flight home from Afghanistan, I witnessed the following:

When we were on our way back from Afghanistan, we flew out of Baghram Air Field. We went through customs at BAF, full body scanners (no groping), had all of our bags searched, the whole nine yards.

Our first stop was Shannon, Ireland to refuel. After that, we had to stop at Indianapolis, Indiana to drop off about 100 folks from the Indiana National Guard. That’s where the stupid started.

First, everyone was forced to get off the plane–even though the plane wasn’t refueling again. All 330 people got off that plane, rather than let the 100 people from the ING get off. We were filed from the plane to a holding area. No vending machines, no means of escape. Only a male/female latrine.

It’s probably important to mention that we were ALL carrying weapons. Everyone was carrying an M4 Carbine (rifle) and some, like me, were also carrying an M9 pistol. Oh, and our gunners had M-240B machine guns. Of course, the weapons weren’t loaded. And we had been cleared of all ammo well before we even got to customs at Baghram, then AGAIN at customs.

The TSA personnel at the airport seriously considered making us unload all of the baggage from the SECURE cargo hold to have it reinspected. Keep in mind, this cargo had been unpacked, inspected piece by piece by U.S. Customs officials, resealed and had bomb-sniffing dogs give it a one-hour run through. After two hours of sitting in this holding area, the TSA decided not to reinspect our Cargo–just to inspect us again: Soldiers on the way home from war, who had already been inspected, reinspected and kept in a SECURE holding area for 2 hours. Ok, whatever. So we lined up to go through security AGAIN.

This is probably another good time to remind you all that all of us were carrying actual assault rifles, and some of us were also carrying pistols.

So we’re in line, going through one at a time. One of our Soldiers had his Gerber multi-tool. TSA confiscated it. Kind of ridiculous, but it gets better. A few minutes later, a guy empties his pockets and has a pair of nail clippers. Nail clippers. TSA informs the Soldier that they’re going to confiscate his nail clippers. The conversation went something like this:

TSA Guy: You can’t take those on the plane.

Soldier: What? I’ve had them since we left country.

TSA Guy: You’re not suppose to have them.

Soldier: Why?

TSA Guy: They can be used as a weapon.

Soldier: [touches butt stock of the rifle] But this actually is a weapon. And I’m allowed to take it on.

TSA Guy: Yeah but you can’t use it to take over the plane. You don’t have bullets.

Soldier: And I can take over the plane with nail clippers?

TSA Guy: [awkward silence]

Me: Dude, just give him your damn nail clippers so we can get the f**k out of here. I’ll buy you a new set.

Soldier: [hands nail clippers to TSA guy, makes it through security]

This might be a good time to remind everyone that approximately 233 people re-boarded that plane with assault rifles, pistols, and machine guns–but nothing that could have been used as a weapon.

[G-man]

Just to throw this out there--I flew on the airlines last week for the first time in well over a year...and yes it was from a major international airport--St. Louis. I also passed through Phoenix and arrived in Sacramento.

I was NOT strip searched.

I was NOT molested.

SO....personally, I am having a hard time understanding everyones frustration. I will be flying back to St. Louis next week on the airlines and will let you know if it has changed by then.

[Mike]

Just to throw this out there--I flew on the airlines last week for the first time in well over a year...and yes it was from a major international airport--St. Louis. I also passed through Phoenix and arrived in Sacramento.

I was NOT strip searched.

I was NOT molested.

SO....personally, I am having a hard time understanding everyones frustration. I will be flying back to St. Louis next week on the airlines and will let you know if it has changed by then.

but you still had to take your shoes off, and keep your fluids in a littls plastic bag, right?!

In Japan they have a scanner for the fluids, so you can actually take your waterbottle with you which I really like.

And my main frustration is the fact that the whole procedure is unnecessary, the fact that it feels like the terrorists have already won, not so much the fondeling. At my last strip search I looked the guy square in his eyes the whole time and made him feel way more uncomfortable than I was. 

[Rooster Cruiser]

Here's one taken from this link:  http://www.infowars.com/tsa-desktop-image-makes-joke-of-cavity-searching-children/

I don't know if its for real or photoshopped, but the link shows this cartoon as a desktop screensaver on a TSA computer!   

If true, we have some real perverts working in TSA.

[Champagnemikey]

Here's a real life example of their bullying techniques!   

http://www.boreme.com//boreme/funny-2010/tsa-breast-milk-screening-harrassment-p1.php

[4X-NTY]

Adam Savage from Mythbusters tells a story about TSA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q3yaqq9Jjb4&feature=player_embedded#!

And BTW, RC, the security guys on El-Al's airplanes and in Israeli airports are mostly soldiers serving the IDF and Shabak people (general security service), not by civillian organizations, and this is what makes the difference.

[Stef]

I'm happy to see all the positive reactions to our strip. Well, it was Well, we kinda expected people to identify with this strip! 

Here's a real life example of their bullying techniques!  

http://www.boreme.com//boreme/funny-2010/tsa-breast-milk-screening-harrassment-p1.php

Well, that woman was clearly Al Qaeda! Breastmilk in a bottle? That looks like something only those goshdarn terrorist moozlims would do! Those brave Sturmführers did well in their valiant act of defending the homeland! 

Well, here's one more private opinion of mine: It's kinda easy to bash the TSA, because it's just so obviously ridiculous, but the problem is actually much more deeply rooted. Our governments worldwide have been co-opted, bought and degraded to being the enforcement arm of giant corporations (banking, pharma, defense etc.) and the people who own them. Every four or five years the people vote to throw the current administration out, which is then replaced by the next one that seamlessly continues along the same agenda! Usually it's "conservative" vs. "socialist" in Europe or Republicans vs. Democrats in the States, but in reality it doesn't matter, they're just two sides of the same coin. All over Europe (and I am sure it's the same in the States) everybody gets told to "tighten their belts", that "we have lived beyond our means". Every million for education, welfare or whatever has to be fought for with demonstrations and months of negotiations. But when the banks are in trouble, WHOOPS, the parliament passes a law to give them hundred billion Euros (as so happened here in Austria) quicker than you can say "fascism".

We're being lied to and defrauded on such a massive scale that most good-natured people are not even capable of getting it. And tjhat's the main problem.

Wake up and smell the tyranny! Don't trust governments! Any! Ever! True, we need governments, but people have to be and stay aware that government power is like any other instruments of force and can be abused. (The founding fathers of the US were very wise in that respect. Limiting the power of government is practically all the constitution is about). Using incompetence to explain away the things we see is convenient, but although it is true that the lower lever minions we have to deal with every day, (such as the TSA) might be incompetent, the ones who designed the structure are not. I know I might be called a conspiracy nut, but I don't care. I tell you, it's planned! The merging of corporate power with governmental power is called fascism. And that's what we're dealing with.

[getting off the soap box...]