What Do You Think?

[jonnyb25]

After reading the post about a the Tsa threatening to restrict federal access and air travel to anyone in Texas. see: http://bbs.troach.net/viewtopic.php?t=2279

I thought it might be good to post a some reminders about why we have do do something remind the federal government who it works for and who it is to be submissive to.

several post follow

[jonnyb25]

http://www.prisonplanet.com/tsa-gives-rapists-and-illegals-the-green-light-while-groping-children.html


TSA Gives Rapists And Illegals The Green Light While Groping Children


While sexually molesting children in the name of security, agency hires pedophiles and allows illegal immigrants to fly planes and access secure areas of airports

Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet.com
Wednesday, November 10, 2010

While the TSA hires rapists to grope and fondle little girls, women, and the physically disabled in the name of security, it gives the green light to illegal aliens to fly planes and work at US airports, emphasizing once again that invasive “pat down” procedures have nothing to do with terrorism and everything to do with treating the American people with less respect than farmyard animals.

As USA Today reported, despite the TSA’s outright lie that the new measures do not constitute groping or even squeezing, “The searches require screeners to touch passengers’ breasts and genitals.”

And just to make you more comfortable with the idea of low grade morons who could barely get toilet cleaning jobs touching up your wife or daughter, it now emerges that the TSA’s background check for their own employees is somewhat less stringent than the harassment travelers are faced with every time they go through airport security.

As AirSafe News reports, “The current system of background checks may have allowed those convicted of rape and other sexually based offenses to join TSA.”

Indeed, back in March it emerged that TSA worker Sean Shanahan, who was employed at Boston Logan International Airport to pat down passengers, had been charged with multiple child sex crimes targeting an underage girl.

Given the fact that the TSA’s new policy allows workers to fondle breasts and genitals, expect a flood of sex perverts and rapists to eagerly sign up.

But it gets worse – not only is the TSA employing pedophiles to grope your kids, the agency is giving the green light to illegal aliens to work in airport cargo security and also to fly planes.

The same background check that allowed rapists to slip through the net also enabled illegal immigrants from Central America and Mexico to work in security at Stewart International Airport, a 2,400-acre facility located about 60 miles north of New York City.

Noting that the fiasco was “par for the course for the TSA,” Judicial Watch reported that “The illegal aliens all had security badges approved by the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), the agency created after the 2001 terrorist attacks mainly to protect airlines. The TSA’s national background check failed to detect the fake Social Security numbers and other bogus documents provided by the illegal immigrants to obtain clearance.”

Just this week Judicial Watch also reported on how the TSA approved flight training for illegal aliens.

“At a flight school in Stow, a rural community about 25 miles west of Boston, more than 30 illegal aliens were cleared by the TSA to train as pilots. This week three of them said they came to the U.S. from Brazil legally but their visas expired, just like several of the 9/11 hijackers. Each man provided official TSA documents approving pilot lessons through the agency’s alien flight student program. The Brazilians assure the agency never asked them about their immigration status.”

The TSA’s claim that it is sexually molesting Americans in the name of security is proven completely fraudulent given the fact that the agency concurrently opens the door for illegal aliens to access sensitive areas of airports while training them how to fly airliners.

As a result of its newly introduced policies that are tantamount to sexual molestation, the TSA has a public relations nightmare on its hands, with multiple prominent travel and pilot associations leading the backlash against invasive “pat down” measures as well as dangerous radiation body scanners.

Two more bodies came out just today to join forces with the growing resistance against airport oppression, with the Association of Flight Attendants and US Airline Pilots Association now becoming part of the boycott against naked body scanners.

The TSA faces insurmountable opposition and must immediately reconsider and drastically scale back its draconian checkpoint measures. The fact that the agency gives the green light to illegal aliens to fly planes while insisting it must grope little girls and physically disabled people in the name of security underscores the fact that the primary purpose of the procedure has nothing to do with stopping terrorists and is designed to humiliate and degrade innocent Americans and train them to accept tyranny.

As case after case of TSA abuse emerges following the Drudge Report’s prominent focus on the issue, another incident came to light where a young woman was handcuffed to a chair, yelled at and had her flight ticket ripped up by TSA thugs who then summoned 12 local Miami police, all because the woman had merely asked what the TSA were planning to do to her after she refused a naked body scan.

[jonnyb25]

http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5h08khPyFPinX_4vNYd1JZwn8hV4Q?docId=CNG.442824fa7c08853af96322d7315a6f02.461


'Naked' scanners at US airports may be dangerous: scientists

By Karin Zeitvogel (AFP)

Nov 12, 2010


WASHINGTON — Some US scientists warned Friday that the full-body, graphic-image X-ray scanners now being used to screen passengers and airline crews at airports around the country may be unsafe.

"They say the risk is minimal, but statistically someone is going to get skin cancer from these X-rays," Dr Michael Love, who runs an X-ray lab at the department of biophysics and biophysical chemistry at Johns Hopkins University school of medicine, told AFP.

"No exposure to X-ray is considered beneficial. We know X-rays are hazardous but we have a situation at the airports where people are so eager to fly that they will risk their lives in this manner," he said.

The possible health dangers posed by the scanners add to passengers' and airline crews' concerns about the devices, which have been dubbed "naked" scanners because of the graphic image they give of a person's body, genitalia and all.

The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) began rolling out full-body scanners at US airports in 2007, but stepped up deployment of the devices this year when stimulus funding made it possible to buy another 450 of the advanced imaging technology scanners.

Some 315 "naked" scanners are currently in use at 65 US airports, according to the TSA.

Passengers and airline crew members, including pilots, are randomly selected to pass through the scanners. They have the option of refusing, but will then be subjected to what the TSA calls an "enhanced" manual search by an agent.

"People are not reacting well to these pat-downs," said a travel industry official, who asked not to be named.

Government officials have said that the scanners have been tested and meet safety standards.

But Captain David Bates, president of the Allied Pilots Association, which represents pilots at American Airlines, urged members to avoid the full-body scanner.

"No pilot at American Airlines should subject themselves to the needless privacy invasion and potential health risks caused by the body scanner," he said in a letter this month, which was obtained by AFP.

"Politely decline exposure and request alternative screening," even if "the enhanced pat-down is a demeaning experience," he said.

A group of scientists at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) raised concerns about the "potential serious health risks" from the scanners in a letter sent to the White House Office of Science and Technology in April.

Biochemist John Sedat and his colleagues said in the letter that most of the energy from the scanners is delivered to the skin and underlying tissue.

"While the dose would be safe if it were distributed throughout the volume of the entire body, the dose to the skin may be dangerously high," they wrote.

The scientists say the X-rays could pose a risk to everyone from travelers over the age of 65 to pregnant women and their unborn babies, to HIV-positive travelers, cancer patients and men.

"Men's sexual organs are exposed to the X-rays. The skin is very thin there," Love explained.

The Office of Science and Technology responded this week to the scientists' letter, saying the scanners have been "tested extensively" by US government agencies and were found to meet safety standards.

But Sedat told AFP Friday: "We still don't know the beam intensity or other details of their classified system."

= = = = = = = = =

(in short this thing may be as safe as the government told people about nuclear radiation, agent orange or any number of other things that later proved to be the direct cause of illnesses and deaths of so many people that innocently and naively trusted the government.)

[jonnyb25]

http://www.prisonplanet.com/tsa-targets-tyner-in-effort-to-chill-nationwide-backlash.html



Refusnik was told to leave airport by TSA agents and is now being sued for following their orders



Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet.com
Tuesday, November 16, 2010



The TSA is intensifying its efforts to chill the nationwide backlash against invasive groping procedures by targeting the refusnik who became a cause célèbre when he told a TSA official this past weekend, “If you touch my junk, I’ll have you arrested.”

John Tyner, the man who was kicked out of a San Diego Airport for refusing to submit to invasive TSA groping measures, is now the target of a TSA investigation and an $11,000 dollar lawsuit.

According to Michael J. Aguilar, chief of the TSA office in San Diego, “Tyner is under investigation for leaving the security area without permission. That’s prohibited, among other reasons, to prevent potential terrorists from entering security, gaining information, and leaving,” reports Sign On San Diego.

Naturally, while considering it a security threat to allow Americans to leave a checkpoint if they refuse to be sexually molested, the TSA isn’t nearly as concerned about the security risk posed by hiring illegal aliens to work in sensitive areas like cargo management and also giving them the green light to fly planes.

In addition, TSA agents told Tyner to leave, before claiming that he would then be sued.

“If you’re not comfortable with that, we can escort you back out and you don’t have to fly today,” Tyner was told. When he tried to leave, he was then accosted again, proving that the whole fiasco was a set up.

The TSA is attempting to send a clear message by pursuing Tyner, that there is no real choice at airports, that you will either be fired with radiation and have officials see your naked body or you will be sexually molested by minimum wage thugs.

This is designed to create a chilling effect so as to prevent million of other potential refusniks from following Tyner’s example and standing up to Big Sis.

Meanwhile, a new CBS News poll shows that eight out of ten travelers believe the TSA’s new pat down procedures are an invasion of civil liberties as lawmakers prepare to grill the head of the federal agency on Capitol Hill today.

Only one in ten voters said the measures were “necessary to guarantee security” and a further eight per cent said that the procedure “may go too far” but are acceptable so long as people are given the choice to opt out, which of course they are not. People who refuse the radiation firing body scanners are mandated to submit to the groping or are kicked out of the airport and threatened with a lawsuit, as we saw in the case of Tyner.

Previous polls show resistance running even higher, with one Reuters survey putting the figure of those who oppose airport oppression at around 96 per cent.

The TSA is now engaged in a full scale propaganda campaign and is brazenly lying to the American people in its defense of both the naked body scanners and the groping measures.

As we highlighted yesterday, DHS chief Janet Napolitano’s USA Today editorial was replete with fallacies and deceptions, the most striking of which was her claim that Johns Hopkins University declared the scanners to be safe, when in fact Dr Michael Love, who runs an X-ray lab at the department of biophysics and biophysical chemistry at the Johns Hopkins, announced two days previously that the devices increased the risk of skin cancer.

[jonnyb25]

http://www.bostonherald.com/news/regional/view.bg?articleid=1238602


Child rape charge rocks TSA
Logan employee pats down air travelers at scan stations

By O’Ryan Johnson

Wednesday, March 10, 2010

Transportation Safety Administration employee Sean Shanahan of Winthrop tries to cover his face as he is moved into East Boston District Court yesterday where he was charged with statuatory rape.

A Transportation Security Agency worker who pats down members of the flying public was charged with multiple child sex crimes targeting an underage girl yesterday.

The bust outraged privacy and passenger advocates who say it justifies their fears about Logan International Airport’s full-body scanner.

[jonnyb25]

http://www.judicialwatch.org/blog/2009/dec/tsa-clears-illegal-aliens-work-ny-airport


TSA Clears Illegal Immigrants To Work At NY Airport


Fri, 12/18/2009

In the latest of many shameful lapses, the federal agency in charge of securing the nation’s transportation system approved background checks for a dozen illegal immigrants working in sensitive areas of a busy U.S. airport.

The illegal aliens, from Central America and Mexico, worked in operational areas of Stewart International Airport, a 2,400-acre facility located about 60 miles north of New York City. Stewart is a major passenger airport for the state’s mid-Hudson region that also handles large quantities of cargo and serves as a military field.

The illegal aliens all had security badges approved by the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), the agency created after the 2001 terrorist attacks mainly to protect airlines. The TSA’s national background check failed to detect the fake Social Security numbers and other bogus documents provided by the illegal immigrants to obtain clearance.

So the embattled 43,000-member Homeland Security agency, which has received hundreds of millions of dollars from Congress to fulfill its mission, granted the undocumented aliens “trusted agent” security badges. This allowed them to work at an airport warehouse business and access key operational areas. An alert airport employee noticed the suspicious documents and reported the illegal aliens.

This sort of negligence is par for the course for the TSA, which has come under fire in recent years for leaving airplanes extremely vulnerable to terrorist attacks. Just last month the Department of Homeland Security Inspector General revealed that the TSA is failing to ensure the security of tens of thousands of cargo packages transported daily in the bellies of passenger planes, leaving aircraft at risk of a terrorist attack.

That probe also found that workers who handle the cargo had not received the required background checks or training, further adding to the security crisis. Previous Inspector General probes have over the years revealed similar problems in the TSA’s dismal air cargo security system and exposed dozens of security failures in other crucial areas nationwide.





http://www.judicialwatch.org/blog/2010/nov/tsa-clears-illegal-aliens-flight-training



TSA Clears Flight Training For Illegal Immigrants


Mon, 11/08/2010

Nearly a decade after the nation's deadliest terrorist attack, “strict security controls” didn’t stop dozens of illegal immigrants from receiving government clearance to train as pilots in the U.S. just as the 9/11 hijackers had done.

The unbelievable story comes via a Massachusetts news station that exposes the government’s failure to adequately protect the nation since Middle Eastern terrorists, trained at American flight schools, crashed airplanes into the World Trade Center and Pentagon. As a result of the 2001 massacre, the government supposedly implemented strict security measures to prevent undocumented foreigners from training at American flight schools.

Incredibly, illegal immigrants still get cleared to take flight lessons because the Homeland Security agency (Transportation Security Administration—TSA) that approves candidates doesn’t bother checking the central agency’s immigration database when it screens foreign flight-school applicants. That means flight schools throughout the U.S. could easily be filled with undocumented foreigners that could represent a national security threat.

At a flight school in Stow, a rural community about 25 miles west of Boston, more than 30 illegal aliens were cleared by the TSA to train as pilots. This week three of them said they came to the U.S. from Brazil legally but their visas expired, just like several of the 9/11 hijackers. Each man provided official TSA documents approving pilot lessons through the agency’s alien flight student program. The Brazilians assure the agency never asked them about their immigration status.

Now that they have flown for dozens of hours each, the government plans to deport them only because the media exposed the scandalous story. In a typical response for a government agency with egg on its face, TSA officials said they will “review the process” for clearing foreign nationals to become licensed pilots. In the meantime, the agency assures it performs a “thorough background check on each applicant.”

[jonnyb25]

http://www.prisonplanet.com/flight-attendants-speak-out-as-tsa-revolt-explodes.html


Flight Attendants Speak Out As TSA Revolt Explodes

Second pilot’s union refuses to submit to irradiating imaging machines and ”sexual molestation”

Steve Watson
Prisonplanet.com
Wednesday, Nov 10th, 2010


The revolt against invasive security procedures at airports continues to explode as flight attendants and a second pilot’s union have joined the huge chorus of complaining travelers that are faced with the choice of walking through radiation spewing naked imaging machines or having their genitals and private parts groped by TSA operatives.

“We’re getting calls daily about peoples’ experiences, our members are concerned,” Deborah Volpe, Vice President of the Association of Flight Attendants Local 66 told ABC 15 News.

The union represents over 2000 flight attendants who mostly work for US Airways, based in Tempe, Arizona.

Flight attendants are reportedly unhappy with both the naked imaging machines and the pat downs that are mandated if one “opts out” of going through the imaging machine.

The union has advised the attendants to ask that the pat-down be conducted in a private area with a witness if it is deemed necessary.

“We don’t want them in uniform going through this enhanced screening where their private areas are being touched in public,” said Volpe. “They actually make contact with the genital area.”

The new pat down procedure, which now allows TSA agents to forcefully feel around breasts and genitalia, is currently conducted in full view of queuing passengers and has been described by many, including New York Times reporter Joe Sharkey, as a form of humiliation to discourage others from refusing the full body scans.

The flight attendants union is also pushing for a crew pass system effectively preventing flight attendants and pilots from having to undergo the procedure.

On Monday we reported that the largest independent union of airline pilots in the world, the Allied Pilots Association, is urging its members to boycott the body imaging machines over health fears and the fact that they produce crisp images of people without their clothes.

Now a second pilot’s union, the US Airline Pilots Association, has asked its members to follow the same advice.

President Mike Cleary has issued a statement that advises pilots to search for a security checkpoint that does not use the scanners. If one cannot be found, Cleary notes that pilots should opt for the pat-down by a TSA officer, with a member of the pilot’s crew witnessing.

In addition to the reasoning that “The TSA has offered no credible specifications for the radiation emitted by these machines”, Clearly also takes issue with the pat downs.

“Let’s be perfectly clear: the TSA procedures we have outlined above are blatantly unacceptable as a long-term solution.” Cleary writes.

“This situation has already produced a sexual molestation in alarmingly short order. Left unchecked, there’s simply no way to predict how far the TSA will overreach in searching and frisking pilots who are, ironically, mere minutes from being in the flight deck.” the statement continues.

The statement makes reference to a pilot who has been left “unable to function as a crew member” following the TSA molestation, describing the pilot as having “vomited in his own driveway” at the thought of going back to work.

“As we all know, it makes no difference what a pilot has on his or her person or in their luggage, because they have control of the aircraft throughout the entire flight. The eyewash being dribbled by the TSA in this instance is embarrassingly devoid of common sense, and we will not stand for it.” Cleary urges. The full statement can be read at the end of this article.

The union legally represents approximately 5200 US Airways pilots.

Despite the testimonies of pilots and flight attendants and multiple reports, videos and pictures of TSA agents groping, molesting and sexually assaulting passengers in a nationwide epidemic of abuse, a TSA.gov website claims that there are no instances of groping or even squeezing occurring at all, and that TSA agents are completely “professional” in their duties.

This claim is of course a flagrant lie designed to quell what has quickly become a massive backlash against the TSA.

Just as pilots and flight attendants are doing, passengers need to stand up and say no to the body scanners before they are made mandatory, as well as resisting the forceful groping techniques.

As we have previously highlighted, the procedures have nothing to do with security. According to their own designers, the scanning machines cannot even detect explosive material. Other security experts have dismissed the devices as “useless”.

The issue has gained huge public attention, prompting hundreds of mainstream reports, thanks in great part to The Drudge Report , the world’s largest news aggregator, once again linking through to Infowars and Prisonplanet articles on the great body scanner revolt.


===========================


US Airline Pilots Association President’s Statement in full:

Fellow Pilots,

The TSA’s rapid deployment of Advanced Imaging Technology (AIT) screening machines, followed by the new Enhanced Pat-Down procedures, have caused turmoil for airline pilots and the traveling public alike. These changes are far reaching, intrusive and have been implemented almost overnight, leaving little time for groups who are adversely affected to form a response.

On October 21, USAPA’s Security Committee issued an update on the new AIT scanners and outlined our options for dealing with the new rules. Since that time several pilots and flight attendants have encountered problems with TSOs and their implementation of the rules. One US Airways pilot, after being selected for an enhanced pat-down, experienced a frisking that has left him unable to function as a crewmember. The words this pilot used to describe the incident included “sexual molestation,” and in the aftermath of trying to recover, this pilot reported that he had literally vomited in his own driveway while contemplating going back to work and facing the possibility of a similar encounter with the TSA. This is a very serious situation, and it represents a crossroads for all U.S. airline pilots.

One of the difficulties is the TSA’s intentional random application of the rules. While it might be effective for their purposes, it wreaks havoc with our ability to inform our pilots on how to handle each and every situation.

Here is a summary of USAPA’s current position on AIT screening machines and Enhanced Pat-Down procedures:

• Pilots should NOT submit to AIT screening. The TSA has offered no credible specifications for the radiation emitted by these machines. As pilots, we are exposed to more radiation as a function of our normal duties than nearly every other category of worker in the United States. Based on currently available medical information, USAPA has determined that frequent exposure to TSA-operated scanner devices may subject pilots to significant health risks.

• Pilots should employ the following method of avoiding AIT screening:

• Make every effort to use security access lines that utilize standard magnetometer devices. If security access points with magnetometer devices are not available, or if there is a change in the device being used once in line, pilots should elect to submit to a private TSA-agent pat-down.

• When submitting to a private, enhanced pat-down procedure, pilots must be sure that a witness, preferably a crewmember, accompanies them during the pat-down.

• After being subjected to an enhanced pat-down procedure, pilots must evaluate their fitness for duty. As has been determined, there is a wide range of possibilities once you submit to a private screening, and the results can be devastating. Unacceptable as this is to all USAPA pilots, and until these invasive measures are no longer implemented on airline pilots, it is your responsibility to make sure you are emotionally fit and not stressed in any way by your close encounter with the TSA.

• Remain professional and courteous in all situations.

• Contact any member of the Security Committee if you need any assistance.

[Names redacted.]

Let’s be perfectly clear: the TSA procedures we have outlined above are blatantly unacceptable as a long-term solution. Although an immediate solution cannot be guaranteed, I can promise you that your union will not rest until all U.S. airline pilots have a way to reach their workplace … the aircraft … without submitting ourselves to the will of a TSO behind closed doors. This situation has already produced a sexual molestation in alarmingly short order. Left unchecked, there’s simply no way to predict how far the TSA will overreach in searching and frisking pilots who are, ironically, mere minutes from being in the flight deck. As we all know, it makes no difference what a pilot has on his or her person or in their luggage, because they have control of the aircraft throughout the entire flight. The eyewash being dribbled by the TSA in this instance is embarrassingly devoid of common sense, and we will not stand for it.

USAPA’s Security Committee and USAPA Legal are working diligently on several fronts to find an acceptable remedy. I directed our legal team to request of the TSA, pursuant to the Freedom of Information Act, any written materials that contain the protocol for conducting these enhanced pat-downs. Should this situation not be resolved by working with the TSA, we will take our concerns to Capitol Hill. On a parallel track, we are working with the other CAPA pilot unions to find allies in our struggle. Make no mistake; this is a fight to restore the dignity we deserve as the last line of defense against terrorists who would use airplanes as weapons of mass destruction. We are not the enemy, and we will not stand for being treated as such before each duty period. The TSA needs to recognize professional airline pilots for the security asset that we are, even as many of us serve as Federal Flight Deck Officers. There are a number of access mechanisms available as a remedy, including CrewPass and biometric identification. These solutions will allow the TSA to capitalize on airline pilots as security assets.

This letter is meant to provide you with important interim guidance as we seek long-term solutions. Please stay up to date on this critical affront to our profession. Documentation will be a critical element to this battle. Therefore, should you have any difficulties traversing security, please outline the incident with as much detail as possible, including TSO names and badge numbers, and send it immediately to [email protected]. I urge each of you to continue to maintain your ultimate professionalism in the face of these attacks on our profession. As you maintain your composure, your union will fight unequivocally with all of our resources and allies to right this wrong.

Sincerely,

Captain Mike Cleary
President

[jonnyb25]

http://www.infowars.com/worlds-pilots-reject-naked-body-scanners-over-radiation-danger-privacy-breach/


World’s Pilots Reject Naked Body Scanners Over Radiation Danger, Privacy Breach


Steve Watson
Infowars.com
November 8, 2010

The largest independent union of airline pilots in the world is urging its members to boycott body imaging machines currently being rolled out in airports all over the globe, citing dangers of excessive exposure to harmful levels of radiation during the screening process.

The president of the Allied Pilots Association, which represents 11,500 pilots, many of whom work for American Airlines, has urged members of the union to revolt against the devices.

Captain Dave Bates voiced the union’s concerns in a letter published by The Atlantic late last week.

Bates asks that members be aware “that there are ‘backscatter’ AIT devices now being deployed that produce ionizing radiation, which could be harmful to your health.”

The move follows the detention and suspension of an American pilot who refused to be scanned.

Captain Bates suggests that pilots refrain from being put through the scanners and if necessary opt for a pat down by TSA officials instead.

“We already experience significantly higher radiation exposure than most other occupations, and there is mounting evidence of higher-than-average cancer rates as a consequence.” Bates’ letter states.

Earlier in the year, scientists warned that the machines constitute a potential health risk, noting that the radiation given off by the devices has been dangerously underestimated and could lead to an increased risk of skin cancer.

Despite these fears, the blatant violation of privacy laws, and the consistent lies that the authorities have engaged in over capabilities of the machines, Janet Napolitano, head of the DHS, recently announced plans to expand the full-body scanner program even further.

In the U.S., travelers can refuse the body scanner and opt for the pat down, however, this option is not offered by the TSA, rather the traveler must declare that they wish to “opt out”.

A recent New York Times report describes the humiliating turn of events should airline passengers exercise this right, with individuals being singled out and prodded, probed and poked by TSA agents in front of everyone else queuing in the security lines.

New pat down procedures have recently been instituted by the TSA, allowing agents to use their fingers and the palms of their hands to feel around breasts and genitalia. Previously agents were instructed to brush the backs of their hands against these areas.

The APA president, Captain Bates, acknowledges how humiliating the new pat downs are in his letter:

“There is absolutely no denying that the enhanced pat-down is a demeaning experience. In my view, it is unacceptable to submit to one in public while wearing the uniform of a professional airline pilot. I recommend that all pilots insist that such screening is performed in an out-of-view area to protect their privacy and dignity.” he writes.

The new pat down technique has even been likened to “foreplay”. An American Civil Liberties Union spokesman has called the new security procedures a choice between a “virtual strip search” and a “grope.”

“Travelers are being asked to choose between being scanned ‘naked’ and exposed to radiation, or getting what people are describing as just a highly invasive search by hands of their entire bodies.” Chris Ott, a spokesman for the ACLU of Massachusetts, said.

People traveling out of the UK and other areas of Europe don’t even get the choice – they are forced to go through the scanner if asked and cannot refuse or they are banned from traveling. This policy seems to be slowly extending into the U.S., however, given recent reports from airport workers in El Paso, Texas who say that everyone is now being forced through the machines.


Privacy group Big Brother Watch has backed the APA’s advice to pilots, with director Alex Deane, noting “Scanners are dangerous. There’s a reason that the nurse stands behind a screen when you get an x-ray at hospital. Radiation is potentially harmful, even in small doses, and the regularity with which frequent flyers are exposed to potentially cancer-causing radiation.”

“If pilots aren’t going to be scanned, why should members of the public?” Deane added.

“This stance from a professional group, the world’s leading association of pilots, must shake the government out of its absurd position on scanners.”

The TSA has a regularly updated list of which American airports are using AIT full-body scanners here.

Alex Jones’ recent analysis of this issue and an interview with an employee who was subjected to the new TSA pat down procedure has so far been viewed by almost 200,000 on You Tube after the top rated news aggregator The Drudge Report linked to the video:

http://www.youtube.com/v/5EqV2Rmkqaw&hl


= = = ===


APA president Captain Bates’ letter in full:

Fellow Pilots,

In response to increased threats to civil aviation around the world, the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) has implemented the use of Advanced Imaging Technology (AIT) body scanners at some airport locations.

While I’m sure that each of us recognizes that the threats to our lives are real, the practice of airport security screening of airline pilots has spun out of control and does nothing to improve national security. It’s long past time that policymakers take the steps necessary to exempt commercial pilots from airport security screening and grant designated pilot access to SIDA utilizing either Crew Pass or biometric identification. As I recently wrote to the TSA Administrator:

“Our pilots are highly motivated partners in the effort to protect our nation’s security, with many of us serving as Federal Flight Deck Officers. We are all keenly aware that we may serve as the last line of defense against another terrorist attack on commercial aviation. Rather than being viewed as potential threats, we should be treated commensurate with the authority and responsibility that we are vested with as professional pilots.”

It is important to note that there are “backscatter” AIT devices now being deployed that produce ionizing radiation, which could be harmful to your health. Airline pilots in the United States already receive higher doses of radiation in their on-the-job environment than nearly every other category of worker in the United States, including nuclear power plant employees. As I also stated in my recent letter to the Administrator of the TSA:

“We are exposed to radiation every day on the job. For example, a typical Atlantic crossing during a solar flare can expose a pilot to radiation equivalent to 100 chest X-rays per hour. Requiring pilots to go through the AIT means additional radiation exposure. I share our pilots’ concerns about this additional radiation exposure and plan to recommend that our pilots refrain from going through the AIT. We already experience significantly higher radiation exposure than most other occupations, and there is mounting evidence of higher-than-average cancer rates as a consequence.”

It’s safe to say that most of the APA leadership shares my view that no pilot at American Airlines should subject themselves to the needless privacy invasion and potential health risks caused by the AIT body scanners. I therefore recommend that the pilots of American Airlines consider the following guidelines:

Use designated crew lines if available.

Politely decline AIT exposure and request alternative screening.

There is absolutely no denying that the enhanced pat-down is a demeaning experience. In my view, it is unacceptable to submit to one in public while wearing the uniform of a professional airline pilot. I recommend that all pilots insist that such screening is performed in an out-of-view area to protect their privacy and dignity.

If screening delays your arrival at the cockpit, do not cut corners that jeopardize the safety of the flight. Consummate professionalism and safety are always paramount.

Maintain composure and professionalism at all times and recognize that you are probably being videotaped.

If you feel that you have been treated with less than courtesy, respect and professionalism, please submit an observer report to APA. Please be sure to include the time, date, security checkpoint and name of the TSA employee who performed the screening. Avoid confrontation.

Your APA Board of Directors and National Officers are holding a conference call this week to discuss these issues and further guidance may be forthcoming.

While I cannot promise results tomorrow, I pledge to dedicate APA resources in the days and weeks to come to achieve direct access to SIDA for the pilots of American Airlines. In the meantime, I am confident that you will continue to exhibit your usual utmost professionalism as you safely operate and protect our nation’s air transport system.

[jonnyb25]

http://www.prisonplanet.com/tsa-no-fondling-groping-or-squeezing-is-taking-place-at-airports.html


TSA: No Fondling, Groping Or Squeezing Is Taking Place At Airports

Agency at center of molestation controversy caught in flagrant lie in pathetic effort to counter growing resistance

TSA: No Fondling, Groping Or Squeezing Is Taking Place At Airports 101110top

Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet.com
Wednesday, November 10, 2010


Despite multiple reports of TSA agents groping, molesting and sexually assaulting passengers in a nationwide epidemic of abuse, a TSA.gov website claims that there are no instances of groping or even squeezing occurring at all, and that TSA agents are completely “professional” in their duties.

The denial appears on the blog.tsa.gov website, an official Transport Security Administration clearinghouse for news about the TSA and airport security.

After being asked the question, “Why are you posting about this and not about TSA’s ongoing sexual assault on travelers who don’t wish to be irradiated by untested machines run by poorly trained screening clerks?,” Bob the TSA blogger responds with the following.

“There is no fondling, squeezing, groping, or any sort of sexual assault taking place at airports. You have a professional workforce carrying out procedures they were trained to perform to keep aviation security safe.”

This claim is of course a flagrant lie designed to quell the massive backlash against invasive new airport security measures which is being led by numerous prominent travel and pilots associations.

New TSA “pat down” measures introduced at the end of last month for people who refuse the dangerous naked body scan involve TSA agents using the front of their hands and literally cupping and squeezing women’s breasts and men’s testicles. As USA Today reported last week, “The searches require screeners to touch passengers’ breasts and genitals.”

The (tv kxly news) video below demonstrates the procedure.

http://www.youtube.com/v/p2GIDXxSDO4&hl

The photograph linked here ( http://cache.gawkerassets.com/assets/images/7/2010/08/500x_51848351.jpg )also clearly shows a TSA agent fondling a women’s breasts. Another image linked here ( http://www.jesus-is-savior.com/Evils%20in%20Government/Police%20State/tsa_breast_groping.jpg ) shows a TSA agent fondling an elderly woman’s breasts.

As ExpressJet Airlines pilot Michael Roberts recently told CNN, during the multiple times he was able to bypass airport security he witnessed passengers being “aggressively” groped and fondled. “They’re not just patting people’s arms and legs, they’re grabbing and groping and prodding,” said Roberts.

Writing about his own treatment ( http://www.prisonplanet.com/pilot-to-tsa-%E2%80%98no-groping-me-and-no-naked-photos%E2%80%99.html ), Roberts relates the story of how he was interrogated and eventually had his job placed under threat after refusing to be groped by TSA agents.

Don’t be fooled into thinking that sexual molestation of airport passengers is only a recent phenomenon. Back in 2002, we covered the story of how Nicholas Monahan’s pregnant wife feared losing her baby after a traumatic experience during which her breasts were fondled aggressively by TSA workers and she was made to lift her skirt in front of hundreds of other passengers. Monahan was subsequently thrown in the airport jail for complaining about the brutal treatment of his wife which left her in tears.


One of our own employees was also subject to sexual molestation at the hands of a male TSA worker, who groped and fondled her breasts and genitals, before attempting to do the same to her 8-year-old daughter.

http://www.youtube.com/v/5EqV2Rmkqaw


The ritual abuse and humiliation of innocent passengers at the hands of TSA thugs has been going on for at least nine years. We hear stories just about every week from people who go through traumatic and degrading experiences at the hands of low grade morons in TSA uniforms.

The TSA blogger claims that the agency displays the characteristics of a “professional workforce”. If you consider screaming “I am god, I’m in charge,” as one TSA agent at LAX did earlier this year, or if you consider TSA colleagues taunting their co-worker about the size of his penis after he passed through a body scanner as “professional,” then you also probably think that discriminating against the elderly and disabled by subjecting them to intense harassment and debasement, while physically attacking women, is also perfectly reasonable.

Pulling down disabled men’s pants to reveal their underwear in public view, stripping teenage girls with prosthetic legs, and making women pull out their nipple rings with pliers is also entirely “professional” according to the TSA.

To claim that the TSA is a “professional” body could not be further from the truth. This is a cadre of mental incompetents, perverts and jackboots who get off on sexually molesting, interrogating and abusing mainly women, children and the elderly. Now that their reputation has been torn to shreds and a huge resistance is building against airport tyranny, TSA apologists are being forced to lie and spin the manifestly provable fact that travelers are now being subjected to abusive so-called “pat-down” procedures that would be considered too extreme for most prison inmates.

[jonnyb25]

http://www.prisonplanet.com/pilot-to-tsa-%E2%80%98no-groping-me-and-no-naked-photos%E2%80%99.html


Michael Roberts


My name is Michael Roberts, and I am a pilot for ExpressJet Airlines, Inc., based in Houston (that is, I still am for the time being). This morning as I attempted to pass through the security line for my commute to work I was denied access to the secured area of the terminal building at Memphis International Airport. I have passed through the same line roughly once per week for the past four and a half years without incident. Today, however, the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) agents at this checkpoint were using one of the new Advanced Imaging Technology (AIT) systems that are currently being deployed at airports across the nation. These are the controversial devices featured by the media in recent months, albeit sparingly, which enable screeners to see beneath people’s clothing to an extremely graphic and intrusive level of detail (virtual strip searching). Travelers refusing this indignity may instead be physically frisked by a government security agent until the agent is satisfied to release them on their way in what is being touted as an “alternative option” to AIT. The following is a somewhat hastily drafted account of my experience this morning.

As I loaded my bags onto the X-ray scanner belt, an agent told me to remove my shoes and send them through as well, which I’ve not normally been required to do when passing through the standard metal detectors in uniform. When I questioned her, she said it was necessary to remove my shoes for the AIT scanner. I explained that I did not wish to participate in the AIT program, so she told me I could keep my shoes and directed me through the metal detector that had been roped off. She then called somewhat urgently to the agents on the other side: “We got an opt-out!” and also reported the “opt-out” into her handheld radio. On the other side I was stopped by another agent and informed that because I had “opted out” of AIT screening, I would have to go through secondary screening. I asked for clarification to be sure he was talking about frisking me, which he confirmed, and I declined. At this point he and another agent explained the TSA’s latest decree, saying I would not be permitted to pass without showing them my naked body, and how my refusal to do so had now given them cause to put their hands on me as I evidently posed a threat to air transportation security (this, of course, is my nutshell synopsis of the exchange). I asked whether they did in fact suspect I was concealing something after I had passed through the metal detector, or whether they believed that I had made any threats or given other indications of malicious designs to warrant treating me, a law-abiding fellow citizen, so rudely. None of that was relevant, I was told. They were just doing their job.

Eventually the airport police were summoned. Several officers showed up and we essentially repeated the conversation above. When it became clear that we had reached an impasse, one of the more sensible officers and I agreed that any further conversation would be pointless at this time. I then asked whether I was free to go. I was not. Another officer wanted to see my driver’s license. When I asked why, he said they needed information for their report on this “incident” – my name, address, phone number, etc. I recited my information for him, until he asked for my supervisor’s name and number at the airline. Why did he need that, I asked. For the report, he answered. I had already given him the primary phone number at my company’s headquarters. When I asked him what the Chief Pilot in Houston had to do with any of this, he either refused or was simply unable to provide a meaningful explanation. I chose not to divulge my supervisor’s name as I preferred to be the first to inform him of the situation myself. In any event, after a brief huddle with several other officers, my interrogator told me I was free to go.

As I approached the airport exit, however, I was stopped again by a man whom I believe to be the airport police chief, though I can’t say for sure. He said I still needed to speak with an investigator who was on his way over. I asked what sort of investigator. A TSA investigator, he said. As I was by this time looking eagerly forward to leaving the airport, I had little patience for the additional vexation. I’d been denied access to my workplace and had no other business keeping me there.

“Am I under arrest?” I asked.

“No, he just needs to ask you some more questions.”

“But I was told I’m free to go. So… am I being detained now, or what?”

“We just need to hold you here so he can…”

“Hold me in what capacity?” I insisted.

“Detain you while we…”

Okay, so now they were detaining me as I was leaving the airport facility.

We stood there awkwardly, waiting for the investigator while he kept an eye on me. Being chatty by nature, I asked his opinion of what new procedures might be implemented if someday someone were to smuggle an explosive device in his or her rectum or a similar orifice. Ever since would-be terrorist Richard Reid set his shoes on fire, travelers have been required to remove their footwear in the security line. And the TSA has repeatedly attempted to justify these latest measures by citing Northwest flight 253, on which Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab scorched his genitalia. Where, then, would the evolution of these policies lead next?

“Do you want them to board your plane?” he asked.

“No, but I understand there are other, better ways to keep them off. Besides, at this point I’m more concerned with the greater threat to our rights and liberties as a free society.”

“Yeah, I know,” he said. And then, to my amazement, he continued, “But somebody’s already taken those away.”

“Maybe they have,” I conceded, watching the throng of passengers waiting their turn to get virtually naked for the federal security guards.

As a side note, I cannot refrain here from expressing my dismay and heartbreak over a civil servant’s personal resignation to the loss of civil liberty among the people by whom he is employed to protect and serve. If he no longer affirms the rights and freedom of his fellow citizens, one can only wonder exactly what he has in view as the purpose of his profession.

The TSA investigator arrived and asked for my account of the situation. I explained that the agents weren’t allowing me to pass through the checkpoint. He told me he had been advised that I was refusing security screening, to which I replied that I had willingly walked through the metal detector with no alarms, the same way I always do when commuting to work. He then briefed me on the recent screening policy changes and, apparently confused, asked whether they would be a problem for me. I stated that I did indeed have a problem with the infringement of my civil rights and liberty.

His reply: “That’s irrelevant.”

It wasn’t irrelevant to me. We continued briefly in the conversation until I recognized that we were essentially repeating the same discussion I’d already had with the other officers and agents standing by. With that realization, I told him I did not wish to keep going around and around with them and asked whether he had anything else to say to me. Yes, he said he did, marching indignantly over to a table nearby with an air as though he were about to do something drastic.

“I need to get your information for my report,” he demanded.

“The officer over there just took my information for his report. I’m sure you could just get it from him.”

“No, I have to document everything separately and send it to TSOC. That’s the Transportation Security Operations Center where we report…”

“I’m familiar with TSOC,” I assured him. “In fact, I’ve actually taught the TSA mandated security portion of our training program at the airline.”

“Well, if you’re an instructor, then you should know better,” he barked.

“Really? What do you mean I ‘should know better’? Are you scolding me? Have I done something wrong?”

“I’m not saying you’ve done something wrong. But you have to go through security screening if you want to enter the facility.”

“Understood. I’ve been going through security screening right here in this line for five years and never blown up an airplane, broken any laws, made any threats, or had a government agent call my boss in Houston. And you guys have never tried to touch me or see me naked that whole time. But, if that’s what it’s come to now, I don’t want to enter the facility that badly.”

Finishing up, he asked me to confirm that I had been offered secondary screening as an alternative “option” to ATS, and that I had refused it. I confirmed. Then he asked whether I’d “had words” with any of the agents. I asked what he meant by that and he said he wanted to know whether there had been “any exchange of words.” I told him that yes, we spoke. He then turned to the crowd of officers and asked whether I had been abusive toward any of them when they wanted to create images of my naked body and touch me in an unwelcome manner. I didn’t hear what they said in reply, but he returned and finally told me I was free to leave the airport.

As it turned out, they did reach the chief pilot’s office in Houston before I was able to. Shortly after I got home, my boss called and said they had been contacted by the TSA. I suppose my employment status at this point can best be described as on hold.

It’s probably fairly obvious here that I am outraged. This took place today (now yesterday, when I wrote all this down), 15 October 2010. Anyone who reads this is welcome to contact me for confirmation of the details or any additional information I can provide. The dialog above is quoted according to my best recollection, without embellishment or significant alteration except for the sake of clarity. I would greatly appreciate any recommendations for legal counsel – preferably a firm with a libertarian bent and experience resisting this kind of tyrannical madness. This is not a left or right, red or blue state issue. The very bedrock of our way of life in this country is under attack from within. Please don’t let it be taken from us without a fight.

[jonnyb25]

http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig3/monahan1.html



Coffee, Tea, or Should We Feel Your Pregnant Wife’s Breasts Before Throwing You in a Cell at the Airport and Then Lying About Why We Put You There?

by Nicholas Monahan


This morning I’ll be escorting my wife to the hospital, where the doctors will perform a caesarean section to remove our first child. She didn’t want to do it this way – neither of us did – but sometimes the Fates decide otherwise. The Fates or, in our case, government employees.

On the morning of October 26th Mary and I entered Portland International Airport, en route to the Las Vegas wedding of one of my best friends. Although we live in Los Angeles, we’d been in Oregon working on a film, and up to that point had had nothing but praise to shower on the city of Portland, a refreshing change of pace from our own suffocating metropolis.

At the security checkpoint I was led aside for the "inspection" that’s all the rage at airports these days. My shoes were removed. I was told to take off my sweater, then to fold over the waistband of my pants. My baseball hat, hastily jammed on my head at 5 AM, was removed and assiduously examined ("Anything could be in here, sir," I was told, after I asked what I could hide in a baseball hat. Yeah. Anything.) Soon I was standing on one foot, my arms stretched out, the other leg sticking out in front of me à la a DUI test. I began to get pissed off, as most normal people would. My anger increased when I realized that the newly knighted federal employees weren’t just examining me, but my 7½ months pregnant wife as well. I’d originally thought that I’d simply been randomly selected for the more excessive than normal search. You know, Number 50 or whatever. Apparently not though – it was both of us. These are your new threats, America: pregnant accountants and their sleepy husbands flying to weddings.

After some more grumbling on my part they eventually finished with me and I went to retrieve our luggage from the x-ray machine. Upon returning I found my wife sitting in a chair, crying. Mary rarely cries, and certainly not in public. When I asked her what was the matter, she tried to quell her tears and sobbed, "I’m sorry...it’s...they touched my breasts...and..." That’s all I heard. I marched up to the woman who’d been examining her and shouted, "What did you do to her?" Later I found out that in addition to touching her swollen breasts – to protect the American citizenry – the employee had asked that she lift up her shirt. Not behind a screen, not off to the side – no, right there, directly in front of the hundred or so passengers standing in line. And for you women who’ve been pregnant and worn maternity pants, you know how ridiculous those things look. "I felt like a clown," my wife told me later. "On display for all these people, with the cotton panel on my pants and my stomach sticking out. When I sat down I just lost my composure and began to cry. That’s when you walked up."

Of course when I say she "told me later," it’s because she wasn’t able to tell me at the time, because as soon as I demanded to know what the federal employee had done to make her cry, I was swarmed by Portland police officers. Instantly. Three of them, cinching my arms, locking me in handcuffs, and telling me I was under arrest. Now my wife really began to cry. As they led me away and she ran alongside, I implored her to calm down, to think of the baby, promising her that everything would turn out all right. She faded into the distance and I was shoved into an elevator, a cop holding each arm. After making me face the corner, the head honcho told that I was under arrest and that I wouldn’t be flying that day – that I was in fact a "menace."

It took me a while to regain my composure. I felt like I was one of those guys in The Gulag Archipelago who, because the proceedings all seem so unreal, doesn’t fully realize that he is in fact being arrested in a public place in front of crowds of people for...for what? I didn’t know what the crime was. Didn’t matter. Once upstairs, the officers made me remove my shoes and my hat and tossed me into a cell. Yes, your airports have prison cells, just like your amusement parks, train stations, universities, and national forests. Let freedom reign.

After a short time I received a visit from the arresting officer. "Mr. Monahan," he started, "Are you on drugs?"

Was this even real? "No, I’m not on drugs."

"Should you be?"

"What do you mean?"

"Should you be on any type of medication?"

"No."

"Then why’d you react that way back there?"

You see the thinking? You see what passes for reasoning among your domestic shock troops these days? Only "whackos" get angry over seeing the woman they’ve been with for ten years in tears because someone has touched her breasts. That kind of reaction – love, protection – it’s mind-boggling! "Mr. Monahan, are you on drugs?" His snide words rang inside my head. This is my wife, finally pregnant with our first child after months of failed attempts, after the depressing shock of the miscarriage last year, my wife who’d been walking on a cloud over having the opportunity to be a mother...and my anger is simply unfathomable to the guy standing in front of me, the guy who earns a living thanks to my taxes, the guy whose family I feed through my labor. What I did wasn’t normal. No, I reacted like a drug addict would’ve. I was so disgusted I felt like vomiting. But that was just the beginning.

An hour later, after I’d been gallantly assured by the officer that I wouldn’t be attending my friend’s wedding that day, I heard Mary’s voice outside my cell. The officer was speaking loudly, letting her know that he was planning on doing me a favor... which everyone knows is never a real favor. He wasn’t going to come over and help me work on my car or move some furniture. No, his "favor" was this: He’d decided not to charge me with a felony.

Think about that for a second. Rapes, car-jackings, murders, arsons – those are felonies. So is yelling in an airport now, apparently. I hadn’t realized, though I should have. Luckily, I was getting a favor, though. I was merely going to be slapped with a misdemeanor.

"Here’s your court date," he said as I was released from my cell. In addition, I was banned from Portland International for 90 days, and just in case I was thinking of coming over and hanging out around its perimeter, the officer gave me a map with the boundaries highlighted, sternly warning me against trespassing. Then he and a second officer escorted us off the grounds. Mary and I hurriedly drove two and a half hours in the rain to Seattle, where we eventually caught a flight to Vegas. But the officer was true to his word – we missed my friend’s wedding. The fact that he’d been in my own wedding party, the fact that a once in a lifetime event was stolen from us – well, who cares, right?

Upon our return to Portland (I’d had to fly into Seattle and drive back down), we immediately began contacting attorneys. We aren’t litigious people – we wanted no money. I’m not even sure what we fully wanted. An apology? A reprimand? I don’t know. It doesn’t matter though, because we couldn’t afford a lawyer, it turned out. $4,000 was the average figure bandied about as a retaining fee. Sorry, but I’ve got a new baby on the way. So we called the ACLU, figuring they existed for just such incidents as these. And they do apparently...but only if we were minorities. That’s what they told us.

In the meantime, I’d appealed my suspension from PDX. A week or so later I got a response from the Director of Aviation. After telling me how, in the aftermath of 9/11, most passengers not only accept additional airport screening but welcome it, he cut to the chase:

"After a review of the police report and my discussions with police staff, as well as a review of the TSA’s report on this incident, I concur with the officer’s decision to take you into custody and to issue a citation to you for disorderly conduct. That being said, because I also understand that you were upset and acted on your emotions, I am willing to lift the Airport Exclusion Order...."

Attached to this letter was the report the officer had filled out. I’d like to say I couldn’t believe it, but in a way, I could. It’s seemingly becoming the norm in America – lies and deliberate distortions on the part of those in power, no matter how much or how little power they actually wield.

The gist of his report was this: From the get go I wasn’t following the screener’s directions. I was "squinting my eyes" and talking to my wife in a "low, forced voice" while "excitedly swinging my arms." Twice I began to walk away from the screener, inhaling and exhaling forcefully. When I’d completed the physical exam, I walked to the luggage screening area, where a second screener took a pair of scissors from my suitcase. At this point I yelled, "What the %*&$% is going on? This is &*#&$%!" The officer, who’d already been called over by one of the screeners, became afraid for the TSA staff and the many travelers. He required the assistance of a second officer as he "struggled" to get me into handcuffs, then for "cover" called over a third as well. It was only at this point that my wife began to cry hysterically.

There was nothing poetic in my reaction to the arrest report. I didn’t crumple it in my fist and swear that justice would be served, promising to sacrifice my resources and time to see that it would. I simply stared. Clearly the officer didn’t have the guts to write down what had really happened. It might not look too good to see that stuff about the pregnant woman in tears because she’d been humiliated. Instead this was the official scenario being presented for the permanent record. It doesn’t even matter that it’s the most implausible sounding situation you can think of. "Hey, what the...godammit, they’re taking our scissors, honey!" Why didn’t he write in anything about a monkey wearing a fez?

True, the TSA staff had expropriated a pair of scissors from our toiletries kit – the story wasn’t entirely made up. Except that I’d been locked in airport jail at the time. I didn’t know anything about any scissors until Mary told me on our drive up to Seattle. They’d questioned her about them while I was in the bowels of the airport sitting in my cell.

So I wrote back, indignation and disgust flooding my brain.

"[W]hile I’m not sure, I’d guess that the entire incident is captured on video. Memory is imperfect on everyone’s part, but the footage won’t lie. I realize it might be procedurally difficult for you to view this, but if you could, I’d appreciate it. There’s no willful disregard of screening directions. No explosion over the discovery of a pair of scissors in a suitcase. No struggle to put handcuffs on. There’s a tired man, early in the morning, unhappily going through a rigorous procedure and then reacting to the tears of his pregnant wife."

Eventually we heard back from a different person, the guy in charge of the TSA airport screeners. One of his employees had made the damning statement about me exploding over her scissor discovery, and the officer had deftly incorporated that statement into his report. We asked the guy if he could find out why she’d said this – couldn’t she possibly be mistaken? "Oh, can’t do that, my hands are tied. It’s kind of like leading a witness – I could get in trouble, heh heh." Then what about the videotape? Why not watch that? That would exonerate me. "Oh, we destroy all video after three days."

Sure you do.

A few days later we heard from him again. He just wanted to inform us that he’d received corroboration of the officer’s report from the officer’s superior, a name we didn’t recognize. "But...he wasn’t even there," my wife said.

"Yeah, well, uh, he’s corroborated it though."

That’s how it works.

"Oh, and we did look at the videotape. Inconclusive."

But I thought it was destroyed?

On and on it went. Due to the tenacity of my wife in making phone calls and speaking with relevant persons, the "crime" was eventually lowered to a mere citation. Only she could have done that. I would’ve simply accepted what was being thrown at me, trumped up charges and all, simply because I’m wholly inadequate at performing the kowtow. There’s no way I could have contacted all the people Mary did and somehow pretend to be contrite. Besides, I speak in a low, forced voice, which doesn’t elicit sympathy. Just police suspicion.

Weeks later at the courthouse I listened to a young DA awkwardly read the charges against me – "Mr. Monahan...umm...shouted obscenities at the airport staff...umm... umm...oh, they took some scissors from his suitcase and he became...umm...abusive at this point." If I was reading about it in Kafka I might have found something vaguely amusing in all of it. But I wasn’t. I was there. Living it.

I entered a plea of nolo contendere, explaining to the judge that if I’d been a resident of Oregon, I would have definitely pled "Not Guilty." However, when that happens, your case automatically goes to a jury trial, and since I lived a thousand miles away, and was slated to return home in seven days, with a newborn due in a matter of weeks...you get the picture. "No Contest" it was. Judgment: $250 fine.

Did I feel happy? Only $250, right? No, I wasn’t happy. I don’t care if it’s twelve cents, that’s money pulled right out of my baby’s mouth and fed to a disgusting legal system that will use it to propagate more incidents like this. But at the very least it was over, right? Wrong.

When we returned to Los Angeles there was an envelope waiting for me from the court. Inside wasn’t a receipt for the money we’d paid. No, it was a letter telling me that what I actually owed was $309 – state assessed court costs, you know. Wouldn’t you think your taxes pay for that – the state putting you on trial? No, taxes are used to hire more cops like the officer, because with our rising criminal population – people like me – hey, your average citizen demands more and more "security."

Finally I reach the piece de résistance. The week before we’d gone to the airport my wife had had her regular pre-natal checkup. The child had settled into the proper head down position for birth, continuing the remarkable pregnancy she’d been having. We returned to Portland on Sunday. On Mary’s Monday appointment she was suddenly told, "Looks like your baby’s gone breech." When she later spoke with her midwives in Los Angeles, they wanted to know if she’d experienced any type of trauma recently, as this often makes a child flip. "As a matter of fact..." she began, recounting the story, explaining how the child inside of her was going absolutely crazy when she was crying as the police were leading me away through the crowd.

My wife had been planning a natural childbirth. She’d read dozens of books, meticulously researched everything, and had finally decided that this was the way for her. No drugs, no numbing of sensations – just that ultimate combination of brute pain and sheer joy that belongs exclusively to mothers. But my wife is also a first-time mother, so she has what is called an "untested" pelvis. Essentially this means that a breech birth is too dangerous to attempt, for both mother and child. Therefore, she’s now relegated to a c-section – hospital stay, epidural, catheter, fetal monitoring, stitches – everything she didn’t want. Her natural birth has become a surgery.

We’ve tried everything to turn that baby. Acupuncture, chiropractic techniques, underwater handstands, elephant walking, moxibustion, bending backwards over pillows, herbs, external manipulation – all to no avail. When I walked into the living room the other night and saw her plaintively cooing with a flashlight turned onto her stomach, yet another suggested technique, my heart almost broke. It’s breaking now as I write these words.

I can never prove that my child went breech because of what happened to us at the airport. But I’ll always believe it. Wrongly or rightly, I’ll forever think of how this man, the personification of this system, has affected the lives of my family and me. When my wife is sliced open, I’ll be thinking of him. When they remove her uterus from her abdomen and lay it on her stomach, I’ll be thinking of him. When I visit her and my child in the hospital instead of having them with me here in our home, I’ll be thinking of him. When I assist her to the bathroom while the incision heals internally, I’ll be thinking of him.

There are plenty of stories like this these days. I don’t know how many I’ve read where the writer describes some breach of civil liberties by employees of the state, then wraps it all up with a dire warning about what we as a nation are becoming, and how if we don’t put an end to it now, then we’re in for heaps of trouble. Well you know what? Nothing’s going to stop the inevitable. There’s no policy change that’s going to save us. There’s no election that’s going to put a halt to the onslaught of tyranny. It’s here already – this country has changed for the worse and will continue to change for the worse. There is now a division between the citizenry and the state. When that state is used as a tool against me, there is no longer any reason why I should owe any allegiance to that state.

And that’s the first thing that child of ours is going to learn.

[jonnyb25]

http://www.airsafenews.com/2010/11/is-tsa-allowing-convicted-rapists-to.html


03 November 2010

Is the TSA allowing convicted rapists to perform pat-down searches?

Last Thursday, without much fanfare, TSA announced that it would start a new screening procedure that would include more pat-down searches nationwide. USA Today reports that in the new procedures, screeners' hands would slide over a passenger's body, requiring screeners to touch passengers' breasts and genitals. In addition to questions over whether this change is necessary or effective, another question that many passengers may have in the backs of their minds is whether the TSA screeners have a criminal background that should preclude them from such sensitive duties.

Possible reasons for the new procedures

There is some debate over whether these procedures are either useful or necessary. There are certainly threats to airliners from bombs that could be carried on a person's body, such as the bomb used in the unsuccessful bombing attempt on a Delta airliner last December. However, it is not at all clear that this new pat-down procedure would have found that explosive device.

The more recent incident involving two bombs sent as cargo from Yemen to the US could indicate renewed efforts to target US airliners. However, there has been no public acknowledgement by the TSA, the US government, or any other government that there is any increased threat to air travel from bombs hidden beneath clothing. Certainly the new pat-down procedure is a very public and very noticeable increase in security, but not one that is directly linked to any immediate threat.

TSA employees with faulty criminal background checks
The TSA serves a very important and vital role in airline security, and all of their employees are required to pass security and background checks. However, those checks in the past have been less than thorough. For example, in 2004, the Department of Homeland Security (which includes TSA) released a report that stated that TSA had allowed some screeners to perform their duties before their criminal background checks were complete, and allowed others to continue working while problems with their background checks were resolved. Even if this problem no longer exists for current applicants and employees, a more serious problem may be that the current system of background checks may have allowed those convicted of rape and other sexually based offenses to join TSA.

Are current TSA background checks too limited?
The 2004 DHS report stated that federal regulations (49 CFR. § 1542.209) specified were 28 kinds of felony convictions that would have disqualified an applicant for a TSA screener position, including rapes or crimes involving aggravated sexual abuse, but only if those convictions had occurred in the previous 10 years. It implies that a person convicted of rape, attempted, child molestation, or similar crimes may not be required to report such convictions during their background check and may be allowed to perform pat-down searches on passengers.

It is unclear if TSA has changed its background check requirements since 2004 to exclude any convicted sex offenders from working directly with passengers. However, the fact that in the past it may have been possible that someone with that kind of criminal past may be a TSA screener may concern most passengers.

Are convicted rapists performing pat-down searches?
The full details of the the TSA's process for reviewing current and potential employees is not available to the public. Whatever those procedures are, a reasonable passenger would agree that anyone who has been found guilty of any crime that involves rape or some similar criminal act should not be allowed to search passengers. If the TSA could publicly address the following questions, it may go a long way toward reducing the public's concern over the new pat-down procedures:

Are there any current TSA employees who are convicted sex offenders (either for a felony or lesser crime, either as an adult of juvenile), even if the conviction occurred more than 10 years before joining TSA?

If the answer to the first question is yes, are any of these employees acting as security screeners who have have to have direct physical contact with the flying public?

If the answer to the first question is no, have all TSA employees, as part of their background check, been asked if they have been convicted of rape or some other sexually based crime, whether it were a felony or lesser crime, either as an adult or as a juvenile, even if the conviction occurred more than 10 years before joining TSA?

If the first question can't be answered for a TSA employee because of inadequate information, would this employee be restricted from working in a position that involves direct physical contact with the flying public?

Are TSA security screeners who are convicted of rape or another sexually based crime, no matter how minor, immediately removed from any position where they may have physical contact with the traveling public?



Unless the TSA is both willing and able to answer these and similar questions, the average traveler may be very reluctant to submit to invasive searches where TSA security officers have to physically touch them in sensitive areas, making it more difficult for the TSA to accomplish its security mission.

What to do if searched
While searching passengers, including pat down searches of breasts and genital areas, may be necessary for security purposes, it would be considered very intrusive by most passengers. If you are selected for this kind of search, you should insist that it be done in a dignified manner. It should be done in a screened off area so that you can't be viewed by others in the vicinity, and the TSA representative should act in a professional manner.

Dealing with abuses
If you feel that you were not treated with dignity or respect during a pat down search, you should take appropriate actions such as calling attention to anything that you think is unnecessary or having a TSA supervisor or law enforcement official present. You can also file a complaint with the TSA, with the AirSafe.com complaint process, or with an organization like the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). The ACLU has noted several types of common abuses:

Unnecessary groping of passengers’ breast or genital areas

Humiliating experiences including for disabled or transgendered passengers

Lack of privacy during pat-downs

Lack of respect for religious requirements.


If you feel that you have not been treated in a fair and professional matter, you can contact the ACLU and provide them with details about your experience.

[jonnyb25]

http://www.redstate.com/laborunionreport/2010/11/16/welcome-to-janet-napolitanos-police-state-tsa-retaliates-against-tyner-for-asserting-his-rights/



November 16th 2010


Napolitano’s Police State: TSA Retaliates Against Tyner for Asserting His Rights


It’s okay for the TSA to grope nuns, but Muslim women are exempt (nothing beyond the head and neck). We cannot profile potential terrorists, but it’s okay to molest three-year olds (except we won’t call it molest because it’s the government doing it). Muslim men won’t go through body imaging machines, but it’s okay to grope non-Muslims’ genitals.

And, just to be clear, when one guy expresses his displeasure about his “junk” being touched, the TSA wants to make an example out of him by retaliating and launching an investigation into the guy who resisted the TSA’s overtures.


-

The Transportation Security Administration has opened an investigation targeting John Tyner, the Oceanside man who left Lindbergh Field under duress on Saturday morning after refusing to undertake a full body scan.

[snip]

Michael J. Aguilar, chief of the TSA office in San Diego, called a news conference at the airport Monday afternoon to announce the probe. He said the investigation could lead to prosecution and civil penalties of up to $11,000.

TSA agents had told Tyner on Saturday that he could be fined up to $10,000.

“That’s the old fine,” Aguilar said. “It has been increased.”

-


You know, the picture of Napolitano with the little mustache was taken off of Sunday’s post because a couple of people thought it was a little offensive. I was wrong to have done that–take down the picture, that is.

These people are sick!


= = = =

links referenced in the article:

http://www.leftcoastrebel.com/2010/11/new-low-tsa-pats-down-molests-nun.html

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/cair-tsa-can-only-pat-down-muslim-women%E2%80%99s-head-neck/

http://www.redstate.com/snarkandboobs/2010/11/15/government-at-work-groping-children-is-preferable-to-perceived-profiling/

http://www.redstate.com/laborunionreport/2010/11/14/the-touchy-feely-groping-tsa-its-not-sexual-assault-when-its-the-government/

http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/2010/nov/15/tsa-probe-scan-resistor/

[jonnyb25]

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2010/12/02/923832/-TSA-on-kids:-Call-it-a-game-and-make-it-easier


TSA on kids: "Call it a game and make it easier"



This one is beyond belief:

===

Addressing the controversy over pat-downs of children last month, TSA regional security director James Marchand told the press the TSA was working on new practices to make children more comfortable during the pat-down process.

"You try to make it as best you can for that child to come through. If you can come up with some kind of a game to play with a child, it makes it a lot easier," said Marchand, promising to make it part of TSA training.

===

I'm not saying that TSA personnel enjoy these so-called "enhanced pat-downs". But millions of children travel by air every year, and each time they may have to pass through the TSA "game". And "making it a game" is a standard ploy of child molesters. Child resist child abuse by knowing they have control over their bodies. This TSA policy will show children exactly the opposite, that they must let authority figures touch and look at their genitalia

And remember, this is TSA policy, so the usual "few bad apples" defense ain't gonna work this time.

Ken Wooden, an expert in educational techniques to enable chldren to resist being the victim of abuse, states:

===
"How can experts working at the TSA be so incredibly misinformed and misguided to suggest that full body pat downs for children be portrayed as a game?" Wooden asked in an email. "To do so is completely contrary to what we in the sexual abuse prevention field have been trying to accomplish for the past thirty years.
===

Of course, the uniquely coercive environment of the airport check in, plays a unique role here.

Outside of the check-in, no parent would ever permit a stranger to walk up to their child and do what TSA has done to children. Inside of the security checkpoint, the parents are in a terrible position. They natually want to proceed to the flight, they are afraid to object, because it may cause them perhaps even to be arrested. So the child learns that not only is it a game, and it is permitted by the parents.

On this point, you must read Roger Ebert's column from 11/12/10, "Where I Draw the Line", where he imagines how horrible it would be to have to work as a TSO:

===
Thanksgiving is the busiest time of the year for air travel. The airports are jammed with non-frequent fliers, all in a hurry to get somewhere for the holiday. If they miss their flight, they lose their discount fare and don't get to see their loved ones. And I have to follow the letter of the law, because my supervisor is watching me with an eagle eye. He's at a much higher pay grade and his job depends on my job.

So I'm standing there, explaining to some guy why he can't be with his kid while the terrified kid gets his groin groped. He's always told the kid if anyone ever tries that, just call dad and he'll clock the son of a bitch. Now the kid is flying on an airplane for the first time, and daddy has been pulled aside by a man in a uniform, who must be a cop, and daddy and mommy may be arrested for all he knows, and another cop-looking man is feeling around down there, and daddy can't stop him.
===

And TSA proposes to do this to every child who travels by air until the Global War on Terror® is won, or forever, whichever comes first. Eventually that would mean that almost every child in America would have to encounter this, probably multiple times.

Affected to a greater degree would be he smaller but unfortunately still large portion of the population of children who are the victims of child abuse.

===
This policy is also incredibly insensitive to the countless victims who have already been traumatized by unwanted touching in their lives and could be re-traumatized by such pat-downs."
===

Nor can one blame the parents for not going through the full body image scanner. First, many people who go through the scanners have still been subject to the "enhanced pat down." Second, airports without the scanners have enforced the "enhanced pat downs" Third, there is the radiation issue, which has a greater effect on children. And fourth is the fact that the scanner generates a naked image of the child which is can be stored and transmitted anywhere.

Now, supposedly TSA is coming up with a "modified pat down" for kids 12 and under. No explanation of why the 13th birthday means children magically become terror suspects. And there's no explanation of what a "modified pat down" would be for "security reasons".

TSA claims on their website

===
We specially train our Security Officers and they understand your concern for your children. They will approach your children gently and treat them with respect. If your child becomes uncomfortable or upset, security officers will consult you about the best way to relieve your child's concern.
===

Perhaps this is an example of the TSA's respect and concern for you and your children:

===

(11/4/10, Nashville) We were given no option to opt out of the scans that I could see, no signage or instructions. I later found out you can opt out and choose the pat down instead. Well, we all three went through the machine. Husband and I were fine. They scanned the kid and then informed us they had to pat him down. I asked why, they said he moved. So I am thinking run of the mill pat down, wand over his body and light touch. He is 9 years old for the love of Pete but that was not the case. Had anyone but a physician doing a necessary medical exam touched my child in the places the TSA agent put his hands, I would have filed charges. He groped the inside of his legs and touched his genitals. He put his hands around my son's neck in a choking position, felt all the way down his chest area and his buttocks. He placed his hands inside my son's pants waist band and felt around his waist. The agent was loud and intimidating even for me, a 36 year old women. He barked at him to "hold up your pants" and "spread your legs, shoulder width." All I could think was my son looked like he was being frisked and how humiliating this was for him to be stared at by everyone as they passed by us. Now, this whole scenario was out in the open, we were not given the option of privacy. My son was scared and humiliated. I am not a momma hen or a wacko and we fly regularly and have never minded the security measures needed but this was a shocking experience. Shocking enough for us to forgo air travel (which we have always loved) until these new security rules change and come closer to something akin to reason.

===
Roger Ebert has a humble suggestion in this regard:

===

Keep your goddamn hands off our kids!
===

TSA is also supposed to be developing some kind of physical search which is "sensitive to the needs of sexual abuse victims." Wonder what that could possibly be? Candy, balloons? How does TSA propose to identify sexual abuse victims? A questionaire maybe? Or just holler it out in the security area?

This isn't a security issue. It's a goddamn corporate give-away, and they're molesting our children to force us to pretend that our money isn't being flushed down a rathole.

Can you imagine how thrilled Osama bin Laden must be to learn that he has forced America to have its government grope millions and milions of its children, while their parents are forced to watch and do nothing?

Land of the free?

Home of the brave?

Roger Ebert again speaks for me and I hope a lot of us:

===

Once, some time ago, during another time of economic downturn, a president named Roosevelt created a federal program called the Works Progress Administration. It hired unemployed people to construct buildings, dams, roads, river works, ports, bridges and schools. Is there any possibility of a program like that today? Not a dream. That would be "socialism." You can't have the federal government spending our tax dollars to fund public works. But spending them to grope our genitals? Why, that's different. It's a matter of principle.

[jonnyb25]

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/parental-nightmare-tsa-security-checks-for-children/


Parental Nightmare: TSA Security Checks for Children
November 15, 2010



A video making the rounds online today purportedly shows another incident involving the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) clashing with air passengers as a three-year-old girl screams as she’s patted down, “Stop touching me!”

Though the video seems to have made a surge on the internet today, it was actually captured on cell phone video by a local news reporter in 2008. The young girl seen being patted down (not with the back of an agent’s hand, mind you) is the reporter’s daughter:


http://www.mrctv.org/public/checker.aspx?v=hdSUSU2GSU


Like I said, while the video is troubling, it’s a little dated. Regardless, the protection of children like the reporter’s daughter is one key factor driving public objections to the TSA’s new security screening procedures. Is it appropriate for young children’s near-naked images to be captured by a “scatterback” full-body scan? Or if a parent refuses to subject their children to the scan, is it really okay for an adult stranger to put their hands on children?

On top of all of this, an image captured in the Indianapolis International Airport suggests that while some parents are taking these new invasive procedures, some security professionals are getting a laugh out of it. Via Gizmodo:





This picture shows a computer desktop’s image at one security checkpoint in Indianapolis. Here’s the desktop image:





What kind of sick person thinks “My First Cavity Search” is funny? The sad answer is that it’s apparently someone who works for the TSA.