Women Arrested For Refusing TSA Search of Children 1017
CelticWhisper writes "A Tennessee mother was arrested for refusing to allow TSA screening clerks to subject her child to a body scan or patdown. This comes in the wake of a promise by the TSA Administrator to make repeated attempts at non-physical screening of children, after which another video of a child patdown surfaced. This event may signify a tipping point in the public's willingness to tolerate invasive and inappropriate security procedures at airports."
Interesting.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Not the groping, not the invasion of someone putting their hands on you (think about those that hate being touched, or fear of germs, etc), or 3d images of your body for all to see.
Nope, its fear of pediophilia and children being touched.
We have come far.
So... (Score:4, Insightful)
Think of the children! (Score:5, Insightful)
The "think of the children" argument has managed to get all sorts of ridiculous legislation passed, so it's clearly an effective argument. It's about time we started using it to protect some of our rights.
Re:Uhh... (Score:2, Insightful)
She wasn't arrested for a refusing a patdown. She was arrested for being belligerent.
You're the problem, Mr. Authoritarian dumbass.
"belligerent" (Score:5, Insightful)
Another word for not being properly subservient to our masters.
Re:Uhh... (Score:5, Insightful)
Good mother! (Score:5, Insightful)
This woman should be applauded, her sticking up for the health of her children (those backscatter machine REALLY safe?) and their dignity (because "pat downs" are degrading). She was willing to get herself arrested to stand up for her children. We need more people like her.
Re:Arrested for disorderly conduct, not refusing s (Score:5, Insightful)
Short version, she got her knickers in a twist and threw a hissy-fit without even a modest attempt at politely refusing.
How do you 'politely refuse' someone who's demanding to grope your children?
Re:"belligerent" (Score:4, Insightful)
If she had calmly stood her ground the worst that would have happened would be refusal to board the plane. Instead, she went all trailer park on them.
Re:Uhh... (Score:5, Insightful)
She wasn't arrested for a refusing a patdown. She was arrested for being belligerent.
And in an unrelated Slashdot story, it's the 40th Anniversary of the Stanford Experiment.
Re:Uhh... (Score:5, Insightful)
She wasn't arrested for a refusing a patdown. She was arrested for being belligerent.
1. TSA officer tries to fondle/irradiate children
2. Parent refuses
3. TSA officer insists on fondling/irradiating children
4. Parent gets upset
5. Parent charged for being "belligerent"
Offences like "resisting arrest", being "belligerent", "abusing officer" and so on are generally total b.s. - one in a thousand arrests for these things would be legit, the other 999 being tools for wannabe fascist bully boys to prevent people from asserting their otherwise legitimate rights.
I think a good law would be that unless the person arrested had actually committed a real crime (one that doesn't involve any of these 'police' crimes) then there should be no power to charge them with offending the sensibilities of the authorities. Dealing with hostile people is your job if you're a member of the police, TSA etc.
Re:Uhh... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Uhh... (Score:5, Insightful)
She wasn't arrested for a refusing a patdown. She was arrested for being belligerent.
And?
That still does not make the TSA policy any less clear or enforced. Once you hand your drivers license over and boarding pass, and you pass through the little gate inside the checkpoint, you have passed the point of no return.
According to the law, and TSA policy you cannot refuse to complete the screening process. Note, I said complete the process. You do have the right to say that you will not subject yourself to A, B, or C, but there is no going backwards. You have to make a choice.
Failure to comply and attempts to leave the screening area, even to leave the airport, are offences that can allow you to be arrested. I know this personally. I did choose the pat down and crotch grab vs the 3D porno image machine.
Note, that I wholly disagree with the practice, but the fact they charged her with disorderly conduct is because they did not want to charge her with the other offence.
That is strategic on the part of the TSA. If she had been arrested for failure to comply with the screening or leaving quietly, there could be a court case. The TSA could be forced to hand over data under subpoena. They could lose and precedence would be established. When this case goes to trial she will be surprised that the screening measures will have practically nothing to do with her case, and the judge will more than likely not allow it to be presented as evidence, nor will the judge allow the TSA to be forced to hand over data and anything, and the whole thing might have everything to do with disorderly conduct. Basically, her court case will be about her behavior, and the airport and TSA will be irrelevant.
Same reason the IRS will usually choose to settle instead of going full on in court if they think they even have the smallest chance of losing. It is to deny the citizenry precedence in law to allow us to fight them effectively through the courts.
Don't be fooled because of the way she was charged. What caused the whole situation is that she did not want pornographic (that which can be considered obscene) images of her children and did not want her children touched and groped by another person. She had no choices her according to TSA policy and was backed into a corner. Golly jee willickers....... I can't possibly understand why she blew her top and got arrested for "disorderly conduct". You back anybody into a corner with zero options and that is what you get. Especially, when they feel their children are being harmed.
Not fear - disgust (Score:4, Insightful)
Nope, its fear of pediophilia and children being touched.
We have come far.
We have come far.
But the thing is, people groping children is utterly senseless and, to many people, disgusting. There is no way to defend or condone it.
That is why people are against it, not of some odd pedophile fear but because it's stupid and gross.
Re:Uhh... (Score:4, Insightful)
Totally true. First, look at her picture.
You're right. Only good looking, smart people with tech skills deserve to have their rights respected.
PS - is your sig from the blurb to a low budget gay porno or what?
Re:Uhh... (Score:5, Insightful)
She wasn't arrested for a refusing a patdown. She was arrested for being belligerent.
You know, if someone (uniformed or not) insisted on touching my daughter I'd be belligerent too, at the minimum. An arrest would probably be necessary as well. You can keep your false sense of security and freedom America, I'm staying the fuck out.
Re:Uhh... (Score:4, Insightful)
She wasn't arrested for a refusing a patdown. She was arrested for being belligerent.
So, if she had been less uppity, and just known her place, none of this would have had to happen?
Re:So... (Score:5, Insightful)
the right to travel freely in my country: GONE. if it means air travel, its gone. if it means driving and there's a 'mandatory roadblock' where they steal your blood against your wishes (not kidding, forced DUI checkpoints and they DO draw blood if they want to) then your freedom to travel unimpeded is gone.
why does the US government hate us for our freedoms?
Re:Not fear - disgust (Score:5, Insightful)
Considering they use the back of their hands, it wouldn't call it 'groping'. The media likes to incite the locals with such terminology but the pat downs are pretty benign. In this case she simply didn't want to put her child through the scanner. As far as I can tell from TFA, she never even got to the point where they offered to do a pat down instead.
Next time you are out in public, touch a woman in a sensitive spot with the back of your hand and see if she cares whether it was the front or back of your hand.
(and don't blame me if you get arrested)
Re:So... (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually, most people who board an aircraft that doesn't fly to US destinations aren't being patted on the fanny or squeezed by the buttocks and don't have to take off shoes, belts, open suitcases and have them rummaged, etc.
Still, the people who don't fly to the US are being hassled to some extent because of the common ICAO regulations pushed by the US. So, I'd say it isn't the 6 billions out there that are the problem, but the US government and its sponsors, who are milking the security theater for all it is worth.
This Woman is a Hero (Score:5, Insightful)
If enough Americans had the balls this woman's got, we might have a functional fourth amendment.
Re:They really need to figure out what they're doi (Score:5, Insightful)
...Thing is, in the case of children, they need to have actual medical staff like RNs and MDs on hand to handle children and teenagers. One RN per security checkpoint, one Doctor to every four or five checkpoints or per terminal or airport, depending on the size of the terminal or airport.
Er, considering that quite a few parents would agree that any sort of patdown down by a stranger is more of a psychological impact than a physical one, how exactly is your solution going to help at all when the child is still standing in the middle of a damn airport with thousands of people around them, all impatiently waiting for the good "doctor" to get done with their screening?
Sorry, but in the big picture, even a lollipop ain't gonna help. This bullshit needs to stop. When attacking the obscenities against our Rights, it's best to go for the throat, or root cause in this case, which is questioning why in the hell we even need the continued "support" of the TSA.
Trying to figure out a more polite way to fondle my child in order to board an airplane is not the answer.
Not more flawed, more obviously stupid (Score:4, Insightful)
The whole enterprise of gaterape as a security measure is flawed; but it isn't more flawed in children than it is in adults.
No, but that doesn't matter. It's just that people "know" a child isn't going to have anything on them. It might be irrational but it's a stronger feeling that makes the whole thing more obviously stupid.
Re:Uhh... (Score:5, Insightful)
If a stranger wanted to touch my daughter's genitals after claiming that a sonogram uses radio waves, I'd get as belligerent as I would with any other pedophile. She'll walk, eventually, and probably get enough of a settlement to pay for the kid's college. If there were any justice in the world, the TSA goon would be in prison for attempted child rape (along with every single person involved in coming up with this plan.
I mean, c'mon. You create thousands of jobs that involve sexually groping children, and you're surprised when you end up with pedophiles filling those jobs because nobody else wants them? If it were a deliberate conspiracy to sanction, with government violence, the sexual assault of children, they couldn't come up with a better plan.
Re:Not fear - disgust (Score:2, Insightful)
So now a TSA pat down is equivalent to being molested? I'm sure people who've actually been molested might take issue with that. I've been 'patted down'. It was hardly traumatizing. If someone has an issue with it, they should take another means of transport. They aren't forced to fly.
Re:Interesting.... (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't think it's fear of pedophilia. As a parent I observed that from early childhood on my children began to develop their own senses of bodily integrity. It's one of the things that keeps the manufacturers of Band-Aids in business--gotta maintain that bodily integrity in the face of cuts, scrapes, and assorted boo-boos by sealing them up with adhesive bandages. The first trip to the beauty or barber shop is often a terrible trauma, and so are the holiday visits where one is plunked against one's will on the lap of some terrifying bearded stranger in a red suit. If you watch compassionate pediatricians, nurses, or even barbers, you'll see them explain to the child what they're about to do, what it will feel like, and why they are doing it.
We spend a lot of time cultivating and encouraging this sense of integrity in our children lest they be hurt or taken advantage of by strangers, but we're just reinforcing the sense of self that is already developing. It's natural for children not to want to be touched, mauled, or manhandled by people they don't know. It's natural for adults, too, only we've learned to repress it in certain instances. Children are working very hard on their independence and self-determination, and they're well aware that they can be overpowered by large adults. The wails of the child undergoing the TSA search go straight through any parent because the parent hears the violated child--not sexually violated but deprived of self-esteem and self-image by an adult who is a stranger.
I don't think TSA agents are pedophiles, though it would certainly be an appealing job for someone who was. I don't perceive the children as being groped. I do see them being swooped down on and overpowered by strangers, no matter how well-meaning. It has to be terrifying.
There has to be a better way of handling this.
Re:Not fear - disgust (Score:5, Insightful)
Who the fuck cares about the semantics? What we have here is a bureaucracy that has decided it is smarter than the people it serves, which is a situation that should always be challenged by those who desire freedom.
Over here in the UK and Europe... (Score:5, Insightful)
... we can't believe you let yourselves be driven to a point where you have to be strip-searched, molested and interrogated before they let you on a plane - and all that while maintaining an attitude of utter submission to your TSA masters.
Seriously, guys, you're the only ones doing this shit. You need to stop it, you're beginning to look silly.
Re:Not fear - disgust (Score:4, Insightful)
They aren't forced to fly.
Right, try travelling around the US without using a plane.
Re:Not fear - disgust (Score:5, Insightful)
Terrible analogy. You take positive steps that are considered consent to be searched possibly by pat down. Telling someone you will grope her isn't a positive action by the person to be groped. Buying a ticket with the knowledge that you will be searched. Arriving at the airport. Entering a restricted (sterile, secure whatever they call it) area. Getting in line for a search. All positive steps that signify a consent to be searched. Up until you enter the secure area you can not be searched without probable cause. Once you enter you have consented and cannot unilaterally revoke.
And as far as it being "groping" or "sexual molestation" those are criminal charges with specific elements to be met. TSA pat downs, if done right, don't meet those elements or it would be illegal. Go ahead, sue one of 'em. It will be thrown out of court on summary judgment. Not because it's a government search, but because a properly done pat down isn't molestation. Same goes for police pat downs.
Yes, IAAL.
Re:Not fear - disgust (Score:5, Insightful)
I've been molested, and I find it to be damn near the same thing.
To a child under 10 intent matters little, and to a lot of people it matters not at all. Its the event that is problematic.
Most children would have difficulty even distinguishing intent.
Re:This Woman is a Hero (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm afraid you are completely and utterly incorrect: 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 RIGHT after that, it explains exactly what "reasonable" means in context: (1) probable cause, (2) supported by oath or affirmation, (3) a description of the things being searched for, and (4) a fucking WARRANT.
The 4th says "shall not". It doesn't say "except if we're too stupid to harden the cockpits" or "except when we've disarmed the populace in direct violation of the 2nd amendment" or "unless we want to."
It fucking well says "shall not." This clearly indicates that not only is this not an enumerated power, it can't be formed out of an "interpretation" of one of the enumerated powers, because, get ready, it's FUCKING FORBIDDEN. s-h-a-l-l n-o-t. How hard is that for you morons to understand? It means NO!
Sad (Score:5, Insightful)
It's not the children. It's not the elderly. It's not the pregnant women.
It's the people.
Nobody deserves the kind of privacy invasion that the TSA imposes in the US.
Re:Not fear - disgust (Score:2, Insightful)
Militant neo-conservatism, Islam or other violence-backed ideology that is for some reason allowed to run unchecked are all global problems. The only difference between them is the firepower they can summon.
In the case of militant neo-conservatism, the damage so far has been huge, much larger than that from militant Islam. As a result of the policies of militant neo-conservatism (beginning in earnest with Saint Ronald) the whole region between Afghanistan and Morocco has been destabilized for decades, the Western world was practically destroyed financially and will probably never recover, and the ideals of freedom and democracy are now associated with propaganda and lying PNAC style all over the world. Not to mention you have to bend over and have your asshole poked every time you board an aircraft in some countries.
All in the name of 20 people who got the means to try out their crazy ideas because they got the US Christian fundamentalist support behind them.
How's that better than the ayatollahs in Iran?
Re:what crap (Score:2, Insightful)
When the terrorists from Hamas learned that the Israelis were willing to give Palestinian women less of a search than men, they tried two tactics: dressing men in burkhas, and recruiting women suicide bombers.
When they learned it was little kids that wouldn't be so thoroughly searched, they started sending bombs in strollers.
Either you screen everyone, or screening is pointless.
Re:Sad (Score:5, Insightful)
we are conditioning people to accept more and more oppression.
its an unstated goal.
Don't Fly (Score:5, Insightful)
I personally don't fly unless my employer forces me to. My 2 year old daughter will certainly not fly since the porno scanners have been installed. She has flown twice before the porno scanners were installed. My family has chosen to drive to our destinations the last couple of years. The TSA is a joke. Right after 9-11 when President Bush announced the TSA and Patriot Act, I knew we were in for a knee jerk reaction which won't solve anything. President Obama is just accelerating the stupidity.
Re:Uhh... (Score:3, Insightful)
Being belligerent isn't a crime. If it was, then all the people that told me to eat shit, die, fuck off, piss off, etc would have been arrested after they finished hurling those remarks at me, during my stent in law enforcement. Refusing to allow a bunch of government agents to either submit my child to potentially harmful, or touch him or her in an illegal manner, is not illegal; it is the duty of all parents.
Hell, even from TFA:
“(She) told me in a very stern voice with quite a bit of attitude that they were not going through that X-ray,” Sabrina Birge, an airport security officer, told police.
“No, it’s not an X-ray,” she told Abbott. “It is 10,000 times safer than your cell phone and uses the same type of radio waves as a sonogram.”
“I still don’t want someone to see our bodies naked,” Abbott said, according to the police report.
Are you serious? "10,000 times safer than your cell phone?" Just who the fuck made that number up, and how did ionizing radiation become at all safer than non-ionizing radiation?
Oh, yeah, she was arrested for "being belligerent".
Re:Not fear - disgust (Score:5, Insightful)
One thing is that you shouldn't worry about the scanners. The airplane you are about to board is going to expose you to hundreds of times more radiation during the flight that the backscatter scanners. That's not to say whether or not they're healthy for a TSA agent to operate next to for 8 hours a day for five years, but for the traveler, they are simply not exposed to enough radiation to change their risk of harm in a statistically measurable fashion.
Of course, buying the scanners consumed $370 million dollars worth of OUR MONEY, over a dollar for every American, pissed away on a device that has prevented exactly ZERO terrorists from doing anything the metal detectors weren't already catching. That's ZERO value for our money. You would have gotten more utility and value from your money if you had wiped your ass with a dollar bill and flushed it.
That said, did you notice how the post you responded to used the word "contraband" instead of "weapons"? I don't give a greasy fart whether the guy next to me is carrying 10 pounds of cocaine. It's not my problem. I don't care about contraband. And you better not make me stand in a goddamn hour-long line to search for coke, because IT DOESN'T MATTER TO MY SAFETY. Contraband is a bullshit argument.
I also don't even care if someone boards the damn plane with a knife. I used to carry them on planes every time I flew, and strangely enough they didn't cause a terrorist incident. Knives are only dangerous on a plane if you're trying to shave in turbulence.
If someone wants to use a knife on a plane to threaten someone, he's going to have me and about a dozen other pissed off guys to contend with. I'll take my chances with a knife or even soak up the bullets in his gun before letting the plane my family is on go down in a crash for his fucking crazy cause. And that attitude is not mine alone. Another box cutter fueled 9/11 just isn't going to happen.
The TSA should be cut immediately by 50%, and the backscatter machines donated to some clever third world country engineering school to re-equip them as medical X-ray devices so at least someone can get some use from them.
As for the politicians who supported the USA PATRIOT act? They should never hold another term in any office in this country. They can go run for office in Saudi Arabia for all I care, but they're not American patriots, and don't deserve the flags they pompously wear on their lapels.
Re:Interesting.... (Score:5, Insightful)
There has to be a better way of handling this.
There already is: lock the door to the cockpit, and put an armed TSA officer on the plane. Everything else is just security theater and sweetheart deals with backscatter machine manufacturers.
Re:They really need to figure out what they're doi (Score:5, Insightful)
The irony is that any terrorist with half a brain is never going to attempt to get a bomb or weapon onto a plane again. The next big terrorist attack in the US will not be on an airplane. It may be at an airport though but it would be in the lobby or curbside maybe. Bombings in Mumbai today, all in outdoor public areas where the bomber never once had to pass any security screening or metal detector or road block, etc.
Security theater is the correct term for this. Because the TSA is in no way trying to make things safer for US citizens, and nothing they are doing is providing extra safety. Instead they provide merely the appearance of security and they allow lawmakers to go home during the elections and say "look, we're doing something!" If we really wanted to stop terrorism we'd do something to eliminate the causes of terrorism.
Re:Not more flawed, more obviously stupid (Score:5, Insightful)
That's not only it. An adult can understand the whole scenario and then make a rational choice to be part of it or not. Children make no such choice, but are often, by measures beyond control of the parent, required to be with their parent when they fly. Sometimes people cannot avoid flying and bringing their kids, thus if opposition to the measure, swallowing a bit of their moral and personal belief foundation to overcome the TSA barrier and get to, for example, their father's funeral in time.
You can't say parents have a choice not to fly, and you can't expect everyone to agree with the idea of it.
Re:what crap (Score:5, Insightful)
Either you screen everyone, or screening is pointless.
The screening is pointless anyway, if the goal is to prevent a terrorist attack. The airport screeners were found to routinely miss knives and even firearms during the screenings in the last test.
Re:Not fear - disgust (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Not fear - disgust (Score:5, Insightful)
How about if TSA 'only' sticks one finger up your ass to check for items, as opposed to using two if they thought you had an evil eye? The point is they should be using ZERO. It's a straightforward violation of unreasonable search and seizure and as well as freedom of movement.
Re:Don't Fly (Score:2, Insightful)
The "porno scanners"? Give me a break. You are so scared that somebody is going to see your naked body? Big whoop. What are you ashamed of? This is getting ridiculous.
While I personally do think that the TSA is ridiculously ineffective and this is security theater, I don't get why most Americans are so ashamed of their bodies. It is ... unnatural for lack of a better words. It reminds me of the idiocy surrounding Janet Jackson's nipple. The whole world was laughing. Duh, she is a woman - she has nipples. My mother has them too.
I remember in Europe little girls and boys as old as 5-6 years old used to run completely naked on the beach. Of course in the USA that would be considered "perversion", I guess. The perversion is in fact the exact opposite.
Re:They really need to figure out what they're doi (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem is that there are only two times when it's acceptable for somebody to touch my junk, if I get sick and need medical assistance or with my consent. Telling children that there are times when somebody can flash a badge and touch their genitals is not something that is acceptable to any reasonable person.
I personally won't fly because I care about my body and my rights apparently more than you do. These machines are known to be ineffective and all the TSA is doing is moving the vulnerability from a plane with a fixed payload to a security checkpoint with a lot more people.
Re:Not fear - disgust (Score:5, Insightful)
Better yet, how about we stop being a nation of cowards and accept the fact that nothing is safe? You;re in far more danger of being killed by a relative than by a terrorist!
Re:Not fear - disgust (Score:4, Insightful)
Having your throat cut by a terrorist is also potentially required if you board a plane. Can't really object, because you can always take a bus, train, car, or whatever else. Conclusion: if you decide to fly sit quietly to facilitate throat-cutting.
You think that scares me into agreeing with you? How cheap. Hey when both the facts and the will of the people are overwhelmingly against you, just go for the emotional angle and see if you can play on their fears. That's not completely transparent at all. The fact is, you're more likely to get struck by lightning than fall victim to any sort of terrorist attack.
It's perfectly rational to be much more wary of the US government than any terrorist. Meanwhile, the US government is giving the terrorists exactly the panic-based security-theater overreaction they wanted. A terrorist's wet dream is to perform one attack or a small number of attacks and have those forever change the way the attacked nation is run. It lets them know that conducting such attacks means they get their way and have the impact they desired to have.
If you really want to secure airports, take a hard look at how the Israelis do it. They have many more problems with terrorism than the US has ever had. Hint: their methods don't involve groping and they don't involve using radiation to see beneath clothing. Instead, they use this crazy thing called good old-fashioned police work. Like so many other things we simply refuse to do, it works every time it's tried. The Israelis are not looking for inanimate objects like guns, knives, and explosives. The Israelis are looking for terrorists, you know, the people who have to wield the weapons before those weapons can do harm. At this they have been most successful by any law-enforcement or security standard.
It's quite difficult to argue with success. The surest sign of someone who makes a factual matter into a religious issue and an article of faith is that they will try to do it anyway.
Re:Good mother! (Score:4, Insightful)
no no let me fix it for you.
In the opinion of a gun crazed right wing sycophant called C6 gunner, a mother protecting her children from abuse
who seems to have a better understanding of science then C6gunner must be stupid for standing up for their rights.
You sir are a complete asshole.
the use is trying to become the CCCP (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Over here in the UK and Europe... (Score:4, Insightful)
"Seriously, guys, you're the only ones doing this shit. You need to stop it, you're beginning to look silly."
America was starting to look silly 10 years ago.
Now the rest of us non-Americans just shake our heads in disbelief.
Land of the Free?
Leaders of the Free World?
You have got to be kidding me...
Re:Not fear - disgust (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem is that they already do profiling. There's no other way to explain why I have been "randomly" singled out for this treatment nearly EVERY SINGLE TIME I have gone through Mineta San Jose Airport (including this very morning). It has gone so far beyond what would be considered acceptable by any reasonable person that I am currently seeking legal representation.
Even before today, I was already so fed up that I'm doing the vast majority of my travel this year by Amtrak. Unfortunately, due to scheduling constraints, this one trip required me to travel by plane for one leg. I'm taking Amtrak for the return trip. Henceforth, I will not be traveling by commercial airlines anymore within the continental United States until the TSA is disbanded. If I miss family funerals, so be it. If I miss other special events, that's life. I refuse to be degraded and humiliated as a precondition for travel.
To the Tea Party, want to cut $43.6 billion in government pork? Dissolve the TSA, fire everyone, and cancel all outstanding contracts to Rapiscan and L-3 Communications. Also, add a permanent ban on all future government contracts across the board for these two companies. They're dirty crooks who manipulate politicians into putting our people at risk and forcing the public to give up its fundamental legal right to free travel within our nation's borders, and that is something that simply cannot be tolerated.
Finally, may Satan reserve a special place in Hell for everyone involved in trying to force any parent to choose whether his or her child should be felt up by a stranger or irradiated. If that is what safety demands, then fuck safety. If the only way to be safe is to give up our most basic moral values, our most basic freedoms, and everything else that makes the United States better than some shithole dictatorship, then what are we bothering to fight terrorism for? If that is truly the price of freedom, then the United States that we know and love died and was buried on September 11, 2001, and we're just waiting for the fat lady to arrive to sing Ave Maria and give the eulogy.
God help us all.
Yeah, airport security is pointless (Score:4, Insightful)
Hint: it's not because of the lighthearteed casualness of their security staff.