Search Results for: node/tsa the children

The Truth About the TSA

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So many of you saw my last rant about the TSA.  Well more information keeps coming out, and it just keeps getting better and better.  I’m going all Kevin Baker on this now cause I’m going from simply annoyed and pissed, to all out furious.  I have a feeling that I’m going to end up in all out JayG Hate-Rage here soon.

Organized State Sponsored Corruption

First up, a nice hustle:

Suddenly, a small middle-aged woman wearing a TSA (Transportation Security Administration) uniform moved along that line, pushing a wheelchair while asking, in a thick non-English accent, if anyone was in need of her help.

…

Zoom. Off we went, the four of us, circumventing roughly an hour’s shuffle line, until we reached the screening stations. Along the way, the woman in the TSA uniform said in her broken English, “I take care of you; you take care of me.”

The TSA has nothing to do with security and everything to do with providing a sandbox where criminals, thieves, and hustlers can attack their victims while they are held at gun point by their own government.  Don’t believe me that it’s government sponsored?

I reached into my pocket, selected a $5 bill from a fold, and conspicuously handed it to her. No moderately alert TSA or NTSB uniformed personnel in the vicinity could have missed it. It was clear: I was paying off a uniformed TSA worker officer for privileged access.

Every last person there working for the government was complicit in the behavior.  I have heard some say that if they were paid better they wouldn’t risk it by stealing or committing crimes.  I call bull shit and here’s why.

  • Anything they steal is extra income under the table.  Tax free, no snooping about, free to do with it what they wish.
  • They are immune even when they are caught.  Sometimes they’re fired, but that’s usually someone who I find probably should have won a Darwin award as a small child.  Instead due to all parents being so risk adverse their kid made it through childhood to steal and molest us, such wonderful parents wishing the pain of their offspring upon the world.
  • Why should they be paid more than the people actually paying their salaries?  I work my ass off, went to school, and most of those illiterate tree dwellers never even graduated high school.  Why should they be paid more just so they wont steal from me?  That argument sounds like the Barbary Pirates asking for tribute.

I could start to list all the other instances of state sponsored criminals but I have a series dedicated to that.  Here are some of the other incidents I have talked about previously that the TSA is responsible for. 

A Black Hole Consuming Money at Ever Increasing Rates

First we will look at the costs of training up workers.

It cost $1 billion just to train workers, which now number more than 62,000, and “they actually trained more workers than they have on the job,” Mica said.

Wait, they’re training more workers than they currently have jobs for?  Why in the Sam hell would they do something like that?

“As part of TSA’s ongoing efforts to ensure staffing efficiency, TSA requested a new authority to be able to continue to utilize early retirement as needed through 2013,” the agency said in a statement provided to The Hill.

”By lowering the age and service requirements, and increasing the number of employees eligible for retirement, TSA will be able to efficiently manage its resources as the agency stays ahead of evolving threats,” the statement continued.

Oh now it makes sense.  Get some people to work for you, then offer them early retirement on the taxpayer dime.  Lets not forget either about how the TSA has been allowed to unionize.  They are already robbing the private sector blind by over hiring, and then offering the excess hires early retirement.

This must be Obama’s job stimulus right? Hire people using the stimulus bill and retire the others currently working here?  Think about that, if a business ran their books and hiring practices like that they would be broke.  Oh wait, what’s the current debt clock count again?

They Create Even Further Security Problems

The TSA through their hiring practices have actually added problems to the one’s they’re supposedly attempting to solve.  For instance take the ability for unverified personnel to be able to access secure area’s in airports.  The TSA solved this problem right?  If you said yes, you’re wrong.

This month a federal audit reveals that, after nearly a decade, the TSA still can’t guarantee that agents working in “secure” areas of airports don’t pose a risk. That’s because the agency doesn’t always verify the identity of job applicants or even their legal status against a government immigration database.

This means that the TSA can’t account for agency employees with access to secure areas of airports, according to a Homeland Security Inspector General report made public a few days ago.

Wait, the TSA has provided a path to allow unsecured personnel access to secured areas!?  I thought these guys were big into security and understood the importance of validating people are who they say they are.

Couple issues like this along with lost uniforms and other identification materials.  And it further illustrates how the TSA is really just A Security Theater.  If anything they have increased the attack area for airports.

Not to mention the fact that the backups caused by their “security” actually provide an even better point of attack that taking down an airplane itself.  Instead of getting just a single plane, imagine getting a whole terminal?  That’s what happens when you create choke points where a lot of people are congregated at.  Moving forward from that though, how would you effectively defend against that?  You really can’t apart from screening before everyone gets stuck at that single choke point.  For example as you enter the airport, but honestly that isn’t entirely effective now is it? 

TSA Violating Common Health Practices Concerning Radiation

The TSA body scanners emit ionizing radiation in some instances.  What is disturbing is that the TSA will not allow employees to wear proper safety equipment that is normally required when working around radioactive material.  Not to mention the fact that the machines weren’t even certified by NIST like Napolitano claimed, but NIST doesn’t even do equipment safety checks like that.

It gets better though because many claim repeatedly how safe those machines are.  Yet there was an incident of the machines giving higher doses.  Not to mention the fact they detected a woman’s IUD.  While they may test the machine on a lower setting, it is obviously capable of a larger dose.  Remember that ionizing radiation is cumulative, the exposure meter doesn’t reset to 0 after you’ve been away for a while.  The more you fly, or are exposed to other sources through your work, the more your risk goes up.

So it is completely unsurprising I would see something like this in the news then:

After Union representatives in Boston discovered a “cancer cluster” amongst TSA workers linked with radiation from the body scanners, the TSA sought to downplay the matter and refused to issue employees with dosimeters to measure levels of exposure.

Unsurprisingly the TSA promptly began the game of cover your ass, trying to downplay the issue and suppress the significance of the situation.  They needed to continue the belief that the government could do no wrong and is as infallible as god herself.

The Parents Are Noticing 

It gets better though since the person responsible for the creation of the TSA stated the following:

“The whole program has been hijacked by bureaucrats,” said Rep. John Mica (R. -Fla.), chairman of the House Transportation Committee.

“It mushroomed into an army,” Mica said.  “It’s gone from a couple-billion-dollar enterprise to close to $9 billion.”

As for keeping the American public safe, Mica says, “They’ve failed to actually detect any threat in 10 years.”

There are many that believe that the government can solve our problems, and if it can’t immediately the solution is a bigger government.  That’s like saying your house is on fire and you’re going to put it out by setting fired to the other side.  Government just creates new issues, they don’t solve them.  Even more importantly they cannot solve a problem such as terrorism.

Previously it was mentioned how A Security Theater is doing nothing more than being reactionary and operating like a defensible position, I’m not alone in that connection since even Mica noticed.

One of the most important rules in the world is to never bite the hand that feeds you.  Well the TSA has a knack for doing exactly that.

The people who have been hired to do these jobs have the mental brain pan of a cockroach and the moral compass of a New Orleans pimp.  It appears that this was a government program that started with “noble intent” claiming necessity but in reality was nothing more than a wealth redistribution plan.  In the end that’s all government does.  It takes wealth from one group of individuals and gives it to another, whether or not that wealth was actually earned is irrelevant.  It has been the role of our political system to elect people to steal from others by the force of government.  While not everyone is this way, it has become the goal of the simple majority of the electorate.  It is wrong, it is immoral, it is despicable, and it has to stop.  How we actually stop it though I am unsure.

Unpossible, TSA screener a pedophile?

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It’s been a while since I’ve talked about the TSA.  The reason for this is much along the same lines as Dave talked about here.  What I came across tonight though damn near caused me to crack a tooth my jaw clinched so tight. 

The DHS and the TSA has been constantly claiming the screenings are needed for our own safety, even the full search of a 6 year old girl.  They constantly use fear mongering tactics claiming that the terrorists will use any exploitable advantage given them.

To every complaint leveraged though they claim that their screeners are thoroughly trained and are thoroughly screened themselves.  So it must be completely unfathomable that a screener was busted today for distributing child pornography.

Federal agents also allege that Transportation Safety Administration Officer Thomas Gordon Jr. of Philadelphia, who routinely searched airline passengers, uploaded explicit pictures of young girls to an Internet site on which he also posted a photograph of himself in his TSA uniform.

Remember these are the people who are searching violating your wives and your children.  This individual, if he operated a body scanner, had at his disposal numerous images of people disrobed by the force of government.  The TSA is an out of control monster who has again and again abused the American people under the guise of protecting them.  It is reasonable to suspect at this point that the government itself is trying to empower these criminals, especially given the fact that the TSA has never stopped any terrorist attack.  The have however stopped US representatives on their way home, cause you know those congress critters are totally terrorists.  So here’s a list off the top of my head of things the TSA has done to different American’s under the force of government.

There are countless more incidents, I probably should start making my own counter called the TSA counter, cause you notice when dealing with the TSA how it always starts with, “The Stupid Asshole.”  I know of a couple ways that we could shut down the TSA, but none of them are really legal and well I’d rather avoid that route.  Something obviously needs to be done though.  The government is using the threat of force to hand ourselves and our children over to sexual predators.  Failure to comply will result in your ass heading to jail at worst, at best your walking home. 

The only thing I think we can do currently is to ostracize anyone who works for the TSA.  If you have a “friend” who works for the TSA, they’re no longer a friend.  Do not associate with anyone who works for the TSA, provide the bare minimum of interaction, and sure as hell tell them to leave you alone afterwards.  These are not your countrymen, these are not your friends, these are not patriots on the front line of the defense of liberty.  If anything they are the antithesis of the above.  A person who was any of those things would strive to defend your liberty, freedom, and safety from the government they are claiming to represent.

The bottom line is that the TSA is A Security Theater and all their claims about the strict professionalism of their employees is bull.  While some may remain professional, the bottom line is they still aren’t telling their bosses NO.  These searches are pointless, unnecessary and do nothing more than verify our subservience to the state.  To prove that point, if you voice your displeasure towards these practices you will receive special treatment.

Hosting Issues

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So I have had this hosting provider since 2005 and they have been bought out a couple times.  Some of the pluses though include the fact my email is hosted in Exchange, unlimited disk space, and supposed unlimited bandwidth (found that today).  I have never had any issues at all requiring extensive customer support until this past week.

Starting last week Windows Live Writer stopped posting correctly to my blog.  It had happened intermittently previously and I figured it was another glitch.  After the issue didn’t clear in 24 hours to the support console I went.

Date Type
09/15/2011 12:10 AM EDT Ticket Created
09/15/2011 12:10 AM EDT TMM contacted PowWeb
Subject:

Problems with libXML2
Customer Quote:

Earlier this year I started using XMLRPC to post content to my blog. Start in July I had incidents where posts would have the tags brackets(<>) stripped off. I ignored it figuring it was a glitch when it started working a couple days later. 

Starting about the middle of last week though this issue has become permanent. While I was normally easily able to work around it, the work around fails when I am posting images. 

Have there been any changes to the server configuration recently? 

I know it was not caused by a site configuration change because 3 other sites all exhibit the same behavior that are not used as frequently. 

Currently this is still just in the annoyance category, but as I start needing to put more pictures in content its’ going to increase on my ladder. 

All assistance I could find online pointed to server configuration with PHP version and libXML version issues. 

Thank you, 

TMM
09/15/2011 4:00 AM EDT Updated Ticket: Work in Progress
09/15/2011 7:53 AM EDT Updated Ticket: Work in Progress
09/15/2011 8:51 AM EDT Updated Ticket: Work in Progress
09/15/2011 9:50 AM EDT PowWeb contacted TMM
Subject:

[P08757884000000000] Problems with libXML2
Comment:

Hello, 

Thank you for contacting Support. 

We apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused you. In order to further investigate on your issue, please get back to us with the following information: 

1) Exact steps to duplicate your issue. 

2) URL of the page. 

3) WordPress username and password. 

Thank you! 

Sincerely, 

Kaila Pearson 

Customer Support
09/15/2011 9:19 PM EDT TMM contacted PowWeb
Customer Quote:

Drupal User Info: 

Username: TestUser 

Password:

URL: http://www.the-minuteman.org Full URL varies based on post title, it happens when content is published or sent as a draft to the server. Reproduction steps below show how to make it appear on the front page. 

Reproduction steps: 

1) Configure Windows Live Writer for an “Other services” blog and point to http://www.the-minuteman.org 

2) During configuration tell it to identify the blog theme. 

3) At this point configuration will hang because the post displayed on the front page website (http://www.the-minuteman.org) is incorrect. For example I get the following: 

pThis is a temporary post that was not deleted. Please delete this manually. (1eb91935-d1da-4e9a-85fd-82ce1220f24d – 3bfe001a-32de-4114-a6b4-4005b770f6d7)/p 

This should actually be: 

<p>This is a temporary post that was not deleted. Please delete this manually. (1eb91935-d1da-4e9a-85fd-82ce1220f24d – 3bfe001a-32de-4114-a6b4-4005b770f6d7)</p> 

But the tags were stripped, and the inner text passed through as part of the blog post text. 

Alternatively, you can skip the theme detection and attempt to post to the blog through Live Writer. The content within the post will exhibit the same loss of tags. 

Draft posts can be open and viewed from this listing: 

http://www.the-minuteman.org/admin/content/node 

For some reason the tags are being stripped off and every piece of information I have found points to server configuration, not blog software.
09/15/2011 9:30 PM EDT Updated Ticket: Work in Progress
09/15/2011 10:54 PM EDT PowWeb contacted TMM
Subject:

[P08757884000000000] Problems with libXML2
Comment:

Hello, 

Thank you for contacting Support. 

We apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused you. Could you please get back us with the exact URL where you are trying to login to Drupal admin page, so that we can assist you further. 

Please reply to this email with the requested information, so that we can assist you further. 

Sincerely, 

Riley Malson 

Customer Support
09/16/2011 12:26 AM EDT TMM contacted PowWeb
Customer Quote:

This is not tied to my Drupal web browser interface but the XML-RPC interface that different external programs use to post content. 

The symptoms of the failure are visible on my blog. Here is an example post that failed. 

http://www.the-minuteman.org/content/2011/September/15/failed-test-post-TMM 
09/16/2011 12:27 AM EDT Updated Ticket: Work in Progress
09/16/2011 12:41 AM EDT Updated Ticket: Work in Progress
09/16/2011 12:41 AM EDT Updated Ticket: Work in Progress
09/16/2011 2:31 AM EDT PowWeb contacted TMM (Resolved)
Comment:

Hello, 

In order to further investigate, could you please get back to us with the Drupal admin login details. 

If you have any further questions, please update the Support Console. 

Sincerely, 

Mae Silva 

Technical Specialist
09/16/2011 8:24 PM EDT TMM contacted PowWeb
Customer Quote:

Here is the primary user account information: 

Username: TMM 

Password:
09/16/2011 8:44 PM EDT Updated Ticket: Work in Progress
09/16/2011 9:49 PM EDT PowWeb contacted TMM (Resolved)
Comment:

Hello, 

Thank you for your reply. 

I have checked there is no error logs to investigate further on this issue. Since Drupal is the third party application I suggest you to contact the vendor of the application. 

If you have any further questions, please don’t hesitate to reply through Support Console. We are available 24×7. 

Sincerely, 

Neville Kodner 

Technical Specialist
09/17/2011 1:26 AM EDT TMM contacted PowWeb
Customer Quote:

I have investigated the drupal forums regarding this issue and I have gone one step further and mirrored my site on to a local development server I use for updates. 

The mirrored version of my site, a fresh copy of files and snapshot of the database, placed within my test environment works as it should. I fail to see how this is my blog software or site configuration when I can turn the problem on and off by placing it on my test server here or uploading it to Powweb. 

Not to mention the fact that it was running reliably at the beginning of August and I have not done any changes to configuration other than unrelated module updates. The issue also has seemed to come and go, finally becoming permanent over the past week. I initially ignored it thinking it was a glitch because it would come back later. 

All information I have been able to find regarding this type of issue online points again to the web services host, not the drupal software. 

My test server is running PHP 5.3.2 

Apache 2.2.14 

SQL Version 5.1.46 

Here is the exact error in the Drupal forums: 

http://drupal.org/node/415566 

Here is a similar issue in the Drupal forums: 

http://drupal.org/node/347298#comment-1209085 

http://drupal.org/node/347298#comment-1295684 

I’m confused though since you guys are running 5.2.17 and the issues reported were with 5.2.8. However this has turned on and off entirely on it’s own on your servers with my altering absolutely nothing in the configuration or settings within my blog. Meaning something changed in the hosting configuration. 

There are no error logs because it is a function erroneously stripping out data that it should not. Drupal gets a result from a function call that it thinks is correct but is in fact wrong.
09/17/2011 1:28 AM EDT Updated Ticket: Work in Progress
09/17/2011 1:37 AM EDT PowWeb contacted TMM (Resolved)
Comment:

Hello, 

Thank you for your reply. 

We support PHP version 5.2.17, Apache version 1.3.33 and MySQ version 5.0.45. 

If you have any further questions, please update the Support Console. 

Sincerely, 

Ariel Danson 

Technical Specialist
09/17/2011 1:42 AM EDT TMM contacted PowWeb
Customer Quote:

Has your supported versions changed since June? Something has changed and it doesn’t appear to be by my hand. I created a virgin test site and it is having the same problems. 

I have been using Windows Live Writer since January without issue until about the middle of last month.
09/17/2011 1:42 AM EDT Updated Ticket: Work in Progress
09/17/2011 1:46 AM EDT PowWeb contacted TMM (Resolved)
Comment:

Hello, 

Thank you for getting back to us. 

We apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused you. We have not changed the supported version recently. Please reinstall the application or contact the application provider to fix the issue. 

Thank you! 

Sincerely, 

Aden Nelson 

Technical Specialist

So maybe I’ve been spoiled by the company I work for by the fact that we think customer service is a big deal.  Ownership of a problem is a big deal.  Making sure the customers problem is solved is a big deal.  Getting to root cause is a big deal.  Notice how it was marked resolved long before anything was actually solved.  Very quickly they blamed it on third party software without any actual proof.

This company has totally shifted the blame for the problem from them to me. Ignoring the fact that this has happened on two independent Drupal installs who’s configurations haven’t changed.  No single individual took lead to deal with this problem and just bounced it around.  I’m stuck copying and pasting the source code from WLW into the submission form in Drupal.  Any pictures I want to submit become an arm twisting game of getting the URL correct to point to the image if I’m uploading it.

I just checked, I have prepaid 2 years of hosting starting in Nov 2010.  That gives me a year to come up with a new hosting solution and a solid game plane for site and email migration.  I will actually probably move earlier because I pay per month for my Exchange hosting and if I can find it cheaper, that’s money back in my pocket that I haven’t spent yet.

In the past I was more than happy to recommend Powweb to friends but given the first time I really had a serious issue and support utterly face planted.

If anyone has any input on what the problem might be, here’s an example of what happens when I submit through WLW currently.  I have disabled the TestUser account, and regenerated a new site password for myself since they think this issue is resolved they no longer require access.  Keypass makes stuff like this much easier to handle.  I am NOT going to close this ticket until I find a resolution to this problem.  WLW worked without issue from January to the beginning of August.  At which point I had a few flaky issues, but they always came back.  Then last week it died permanently.

I am going to continue posting new content, I won’t be putting many of my own pictures up except through my photo gallery.

So I am all ears on good hosting providers that support PHP, MySQL, and Exchange services.  I’ve got time and if I move early I’ve got some side sites that can live out there that can die around November 2012.  I know I could host myself, my bandwidth out in BFE though isn’t that great and I hate general IT maintenance with a passion.  So fellow bloggers, what would you recommend.

Update on EPIC TSA Lawsuit

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EPIC has submitted numerous Freedom of Information Act requests regarding the body scanners.  They have posted the information online for all to see.

These documents include:

Initially it was claimed that the TSA body scanners could not store or transmit images.  Then the US Marshal Service in August 2010 reported they had saved more than 35000 images.  The TSA responded by claiming that it has not done so and the machines do not have the ability.  Some still believe the TSA, the smart one’s have distrusted them from the start.

One WBI system,  identified by  the Government, shall (26) have the capability, which can be configurable at the superuser level. to record  images for training purposes. The superuser password shall(27) be managed by  the TSA. The capability to retain  images at the superuser level will be disabled on operational systems

Later in the same document(emphasis mine):

Incorporate a three  level user and password scheme allowing supervision and “superusers” access and override capabilities

While they claim for it to be possibly disabled the fact that the feature is there means that someone can re-enabled it.  Some would claim that no one would possibly want it.  However there have been rumors about a “new fetish”.  The thing is though, it’s already happened.  That could be your one of your loved ones.  We know the types of people the TSA employs.

While reading through the Operational Requirements, you can find the following:

image

Normally one would avoid conjecture, however what could be considered critical to national security regarding the privacy capability of the device?  NMAB-482-1 can be found here, the section we really care about is here.

It appears that the tactic being used for airport security is to rule this search as being administrative.

Airport security searches fit quite naturally into the administrative search exception to the Fourth Amendment. Administrative searches are justified on the basis that they serve a societal purpose other than standard criminal law enforcement (Vernonia School District 47J, 1995, citing Griffin, 1987). After all, the Fourth Amendment cannot be construed to prevent the government from fulfilling a variety of other necessary functions, such as maintaining school discipline, preventing drunk driving, detecting illegal aliens, or even ensuring air traffic safety (Vernonia, 1995; Michigan Dept. State Police, 1990; United States v. Martinez-Fuerte, 1976).

Each of those examples though require some sort reasonable suspicion.  Randomly stopping cars for drunk drivers and testing everyone, until recently has never happened.  In the instance Florida’s new checkpoints, there will probably be a strong legal challenge.  When attempting to maintain school discipline they must be disruptive to begin with.  As for illegal aliens, detecting them is extremely difficult. If it is as they claim above, why isn’t Arizona’s law legal unquestionably?  Especially since it requires contact of a lawful nature, they can’t just walk around carding people.

With regard to the TSA though, they claim the right to do this to any person for any reason.  No reasonable suspicion is required of a crime having been committed.

Against the special need of the government, the court must consider the passenger’s expectation of privacy. This consideration involves the same analysis used in the threshold issue of whether a search has occurred, with one important difference. Deciding whether a person has a reasonable expectation of privacy for purposes of determining whether or not a search has taken place is a yes-or-no-question. Either one does or does not have a legitimate expectation of privacy in this context. On the other hand, expectation of privacy as a factor in the balancing test becomes a matter of degree. Thus, the court in Vernonia (1995) held that schoolchildren, because of the supervisory role schools have over them, have a decreased expectation of privacy at school. As discussed in the first section, airline passengers most probably have a legitimate expectation of privacy against being searched in an intrusive manner. Nevertheless, this expectation could decrease if passengers perceive the threat level to be high.

Emphasis mine.  Their method to get around this problem is to convince the public that a statistically rare event (you’re actually more likely to be struck by lightning) is actually more common than it is.  The comparison to school children also shows the view they have of the public in general of being children and the government has the supervisory role.  We’re the children in school and they’re the principal.

Further the NMAB states:

Thus, measures should be taken to minimize the appearance of nakedness, the number of people having access to and identifying the image with the traveler, the time the image endures or is preserved, the uses to be made of the data, etc., to the extent consistent with safety objectives. The next section deals with the concept of less versus more intrusive means.

The assumption though that is enough for some people regarding their privacy is false.  If it wasn’t why would these have popped up overnight?  Also the ability to store the images as I talked about earlier has been proven to be false.  While they may claim it is not “normally” enabled.  The machines do have the capability and there is no way for the public to verify that it does not store the image.  We must take the governments word, which at this point should be worthless to everyone. If you opt out of the scanner the TSA humiliates anyone who refuses to go through the body scanner.  They are doing a procedure that is highly intimate and detrimental to victims of sexual abuse.  This scanner can also reveal however private medical information that may not want to be shared because it’s no one’s business but yours and your doctors.  This also ignores the health concerns regarding the radiation exposure.  What is disturbing is this is the only time I’ve ever heard of people working around equipment that uses radiation that do NOT wear dosimeters. 

These documents display a crafted, thought out, and planned destruction of our 4th Amendment rights.  Their justification to violate the 4th Amendment centers around creating the illusion of necessity.  A Security Theaters has yet to stop any terrorists.  Yet they claim that their infringements are necessary and merely administrative to stop this “common” threat.  They need to be rendered impotent to stop the spread of their idiocy and evil.

(Sorry about going all Kevin Baker(it’s a complement Kevin) on this post.)

TSA Screws the Pooch Again

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Seriously the TSA just needs to stop issuing statements considering it has become blatantly obvious they do not operate according to their own policies.  It is nothing more than sponsoring child molesters and pedophiles to prevent their arrest.  Don’t believe me, here’s TSA’s statement regarding pat downs of children under 12.

"After a thorough risk assessment and after hearing concerns from parents, we made the decision that a modified pat-down would be used for children 12 years old and under who require extra screening," TSA spokeswoman Kristin Lee said in a statement.

Pistole then modified that statement to the following:

Indeed, the only “change” to the TSA’s policy is that it now says it will “make every effort” to exempt children under 10, where as before it said all children under 12 were unequivocally exempt.

Don’t believe me, some TSA pedophile felt that a 6 year old boy heading to Disneyland on a surprise trip.  He got not one, but two pat downs, and did it severely enough to where he didn’t want to go anymore.

The better half saw two people in TSA uniforms in Pullman recently while filling up Lite.  I was a bit bummed I wasn’t there because I’ve reached the point where I have no issues with verbal harassment to make them feel uncomfortable.  If I’m not flying there is absolutely nothing stopping me from voicing my opinion of those jack booted thugs.  They are doing more than any other government agency to abuse the citizenry and turn this country into a police state.  If you see an TSA agent in uniform outside of an Airport, please make their lives as uncomfortable as they did to this little boy.  While you can’t get physical, you can make them feel ostracized.  They have created this us versus them atmosphere and it’s by time we start playing ball on our court.

Note: Do not get physical, just verbal, exercise your first amendment to cause them to be uncomfortable.  Now if while you are verbal, they resort to being physical, at that point feel free to defend yourself.  These ass hats want to spread to malls and searching vehicles while traveling, at that point they’re absolutely on our turf and it’s time to fight back.  When people who lived through the Soviet terror think that our country has turned into the USSR, it’s time to listen to those who have lived through the horror.

Can We Start Ridiculing TSA Agents Publicly Yet?

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About a year ago I called for people to start verbally harassing and otherwise making people who work for the TSA ashamed of what they do.  There were a few people who seemed to think that it was a pointless idea and that those people were just doing a hard job.

Here’s my problem with that.  TSA agents blatantly violate and ignore their own rules and regulations, and then you have some agents while violating said rules, they act in a way as to desecrate a deceased loved one.  Then they laugh about what they just did.

“I was told later on that she had no right to even open it, that they could have used other devices, like an X-ray machine. So she opened it up. She used her finger and was sifting through it. And then she accidentally spilled it.”

The agent’s response?

“She didn’t apologize. She started laughing. I was on my hands and knees picking up bone fragments. I couldn’t pick up all, everything that was lost. I mean, there was a long line behind me.”

The TSA website has the following statement regarding their policy on human remains:

 Out of respect to the deceased and their family and friends, under no circumstances will an officer open the container even if the passenger requests this be done. Documentation from the funeral home is not sufficient to carry a crematory container through security and onto a plane without screening.

So I’m sure this particular agent will receive some extra training but that doesn’t excuse her attitude and behavior toward this passenger.  Behavior such as this from TSA agents is not the exception but the norm. There was a recent congressional report for Congressman Marsha Blackburn that detailed only 50 of the numerous crimes since 2005.  Most disturbing of the 50 detailed was the following statistic:

Theft is followed closely by sex crimes and child pornography charges, with 14 such incidents listed in Blackburn’s report. Six TSA employees were charged with possession of child pornography; one of them got caught because he “uploaded explicit pictures of young girls to an Internet site on which he also posted a photograph of himself in his TSA uniform,” the report notes. Eight others were charged variously with child molestation, rape (including child rape), and even running a prostitution ring. It’s not hard to figure out why persons possessing such proclivities would seek jobs where they would be able to ogle and grope other people’s private parts with impunity.

So I again ask, why do people put up with this behavior and not start causing discomfort?  At a minimum you might make them police their own instead of everyone just looking the other way.  Heck, even the legal system is looking the other way and the real reason these individuals are in trouble is they got caught.  That’s why they are given probation for knowingly and willfully committing a crime.  Not just probation, but their record will remain clean without a conviction.   Whereas if you’re unlucky enough to get in an auto wreck from bad weather, you end up with a conviction, even though you intended no malice or harm.  They willfully violate other agency rules and cause damage to medical equipment.  Then after they’ve done the damage they play dumb about it.

Our congressional representatives instead of actually attempting to solve the problem have instead just exempted themselves from the indignities and crimes done by the TSA.  There have been a few instances where the TSA has abused a congress critter but the furor quickly dies out.  Our legal system as shown above is refusing to hold agents accountable for their actions.  For all intents and purposes though government has been shown to be incapable and inept and reining in the monster they created.  So other than hanging agents from trees, running them out on rails, and buckets of tar and feathers what is there left?  What is left to cause agents to either police themselves or leave the corrupt service they have created?

Agents themselves have absolutely no issue disgracing, abusing, and otherwise violating the public which they supposedly serve.  Their job itself is a farce and nothing more that a wasteful joke intended to make those who are sheep feel better.  The batting average of the public at large for stopping terrorist attacks since September 11th is 1000.  The batting average for the TSA since that date is 0.  Sure they’ve lucked out and found items people forgot about, but they have yet to actually find someone who set out with an intent to deceive the system.  They actually fail red team tests on a regular basis.

So given this information, why do the people who actually succeed at stopping terrorist attacks put up with this garbage from a bunch of high school dropouts who are incapable of reading at a 1st grade level?  I think any kid could read that statement from the TSA above and know thou shall not open the urn.

At this point, I want to see a group of passengers start chanting, “Two by two hands of blue”* while others continue to educate the agents on why they’re a bunch of tyrannical tories who deserve no love from their countrymen.

The TSA has created this us vs them environment and the sooner we all realize it already exists the better.  The only argument I have heard against calling these jack booted thugs out as they are was that we could increase the rift.  Well the rift is already pretty damn big, what the hell else do you want?  A hole through the middle of the earth, would that finally be big enough for you to say the time is now?

Personally I think verbal abuse isn’t enough any more, a rail, tar, and feathers I think still might be too nice for most of these folks.  Start off verbally and if they double down on stupid, break out the rail.

*If you don’t get the reference, go watch Firefly… now.  Seriously why are you still here? It’s on Netflix and Hulu and you can watch the whole series and Serenity in a day.

h/t To Uncle on this one.

TSA – Defending Freedom From Terrorisim

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Seriously every time I think the TSA couldn’t stoop to a new level of stupidity they prove me wrong.

First up is an incident involving an 85 year old grandmother for refusing to receive an unnecessary dose of radiation provided by the local high school drop outs.  The results:

An 85-year-old woman said Saturday that she was injured and humiliated when she was strip searched at an airport after she asked to be patted down instead of going through a body scanner, allegations that transportation security officials denied.

Of course as usual the TSA claims that this never happened and that it violates their policies and procedures.  There’s one problem though, we regularly hear about incidents like this and the TSA always claims it never happened.  They only admit they screw up when it’s caught on tape.  Just because policy says you don’t do that, doesn’t mean one of your agents demanded it because she wasn’t a compliant sheep.  The can verify before and after but not during the screening as it wasn’t recorded. Why not record it if there’s not strip search involved and it’s just a pat down?

Then as if the TSA needed to further display their stupidity and show exactly why none of them were able to graduate high school we hear about this incident.

Vanessa Gibbs, 17, claims the Transportation Security Administration stopped her at the security gate because of the design of a gun on her handbag.

Well, maybe it was a really realistic gun design and they had good cause.

pursegun

See what happens when you try and justify the idiocy of the TSA, they just show you how much of a bunch of morons they really are.  Then the TSA agents babble on as amateur lawyers to intimidate passengers.

“She was like, ‘This is a federal offense because it’s in the shape of a gun,'” Gibbs said.

So the agents delayed her long enough to ensure this girl missed her flight and for what!?  A lesson to her about how she should just be a good little sheep.  

The list of problems with the TSA is long and distinguished.  Anyone who says the TSA is necessary to prevent the next terrorist attack is lying.  The score board currently says otherwise because it’s been the people the TSA has been violating that stop the terrorist attacks.  The TSA is a security theater and needs to be done away with.  Even a congressman that called for their creation thinks they are bloated and need to go.

h/t to Disavowed with Honor

SSCC #312 – TSA

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Here’s another one.

And a recent incident in Wichita,
Kansas has reinforced that argument, as a four-year-old girl was
apparently subjected to a humiliating ordeal after she hugged her
grandmother while she was waiting in line.

The girl was accused of having a gun and declared a ‘high security threat’,
while agents threatened to shut down the whole airport if she could not
be calmed down.

Seriously, I know exactly why that little girl was abused and assaulted.  Don’t try and argue that wasn’t the case because there’s a couple things you’re forgetting if you think the TSA was right.

  1. The TSA is A Security Theater.
  2. Their batting average in stopping actual threats is 0.
  3. Their employees have a history of being sexual predators and criminals.

On that last point, it isn’t just a history of preying upon adults either.  Children are more often than not prey for these sexual deviants.  If the cost of freedom is a little risk, so be it.  Frankly I’d rather have the option of ventilating some asshat screaming “Allah Akbar” trying to kill us all at 30 thousand feet than have my wife and children violated by a sexual deviant.  They don’t stop actual terrorists, they abuse the law abiding, and now they want to expand to harass you on the way to works?

Fellow bloggers say “Disband the TSA Yesterday”.  I am of the firm opinion that is too good for these jack boots.  I say a good application of tar, feathers, and a rail are all necessary for anyone who works for the TSA.

Some would say I’m wrong in that assessment and that not all TSA agents are bad.  To them I say this:

Not a single other agent in that airport attempted to stop those agents from assaulting and violating that scared little girl.

Not a single official has stated how that incident was wrong and a violation of her rights.

Not a single person did anything to stop it and the agents were allowed to work with impunity by intimidating and scaring others into their will.

Think about that for a second, every last one of those agents in that airport share responsibility and blame for what happened.  Give me a break that a 4 year old clinging onto her grandmother because she’s scared of a tyrannical government, and obviously rightly so, is reason to abuse her.  Anyone who attempts to justify that is nothing more than a pedophile attempting to justify the actions of their buddies.

molest_kid_thumb

State Sponsored Criminal Count #312: Every last TSA Agent in Wichita Kansas

Because when a small young girl is terrified of her government, that means that means she must be trying to kill everyone while screaming “Allah Akbar” right?

via Uncle