Search Results for: security%20theater

Clayton Keith Dovel Update: SSCC #251 – TSA

Here is an update on the incident with Clayton Keith Dovel.

 Clayton Keith Dovel, 36, of Bedford, Texas, was sentenced by state District Judge Sharen Wilson to three years’ deferred-adjudication probation, which means that he will not have a conviction on his record if he completes the probation without incident.

Think about that for a second, Clayton Dovel knowingly and willfully abused his position and victimized the American people and for his crimes his record will remain clean.  He took the job and used it specifically for his own personal financial gain and got caught.

Dovel paid restitution of $4,746, split among six victims whose iPads were stolen as they traveled through DFW Airport. The restitution was paid before the guilty plea as part of a deal with prosecutors.

So Clayton Dovel had to pay out to replace the stolen property.  His biggest mistake here was that he got caught and that is exactly what this punishment is.  You got caught son, so pay back what you stole, stay clean for 3 years and then feel free to try again.

There is a reason there are pedophiles, thieves, and other predators working for the TSA.  No one is punishing them.  The TSA “zero tolerance” policy is a huge joke, doubly so when after committing a crime the rest of the legal system breaks down on holding them accountable.

So given the above, lets ask another question, why do we need them when we also have incidents like the following?

The TSA’s bungling reached a new low yesterday when a JFK Airport terminal had to be evacuated and hundreds of passengers marched back through security screening all because one dimwitted agent failed to realize his metal detector had been unplugged, sources told The Post.

At least they caught their mistake, but you mean to tell me that absolutely no one that got through security got on a plane and took off before the mistake was noticed?  The TSA is A Security Theater, period, no exceptions.  They do absolutely nothing to increase security and their effect is purely a placebo for sheep too trusting to understand how futile the TSA’s efforts are.

Clayton Dovel is nothing more than a shining example of why the TSA should have been disbanded yesterday.  Doubly so since our legal system and government is doing nothing to limit the power of these tyrannical blue handed goons.

A More Free America

10 Years ago today I woke up in the morning astonished as to what I was seeing on the news.  I woke up that morning to head to class, it was my senior year of high school.  As always I watched the news while getting ready and at first I thought it was an ad for some new movie.  Then I watched the second plane crash into Tower 2 live.  I collapsed on my bed and yelled to my mom to turn on the TV down stairs.

We knew that nothing would be the same, sadly as my dad seemed to be able to do, he called what would happen.

A friend of mine nailed the correct response to the question, “Where were you 10 years ago today?”

His response, “A more free America.”

He’s right, everything has been done in the vain of security but the result has done nothing but destroy the freedoms and liberties we have.  My dad was right in his call because after that morning, we have done more damage to ourselves than they ever possibly could.  If they hated us for our way of life and freedoms prior to that day, they needed to do nothing more than watch us destroy ourselves.

Not even a month before the 9/11 attacks I walked on to a plane carrying my pocket knife.  While I was a scout in uniform, I can tell you that A Security Theater would molest me and steal my property today.  With DHS deeming us Scouts nothing more than terrorists that are intent on a suicide mission.  Sadly though I think that’s the point, none of this has been for security, but instead to destroy the freedoms we had.  If the TSA was about security, explain this, this, or this.  (I could keep going but you probably get the point.)

My dad actually called me to make sure I wasn’t going to run and enlist, he knew exactly what I was feeling. In the end I felt that it would do nothing to help, and it would be far better for me to continue the existing plan of going to the Academy or doing NROTC.  I received an appointment to Rice University the following February. 

I have not forgotten, nor will I ever forget. 

I have not forgotten what happened that fateful day, nor will I ever forget what America once was and what it should be.  This is no longer America.

Like JayG I’m still angry.  I however am not just angry at the people who perpetrated this attack, but also pissed at my elected representatives who seized on the opportunity to squander away my freedoms and that of my children.  Those freedoms are NOT yours to take.

SSCC 128 – TSA

Here’s yet another unpossible, inconceivable addition from our infallible overlords at the TSA.

A Transportation Security Administration security officer is out on bail after he was arrested and charged with child pornography.

Remember, this is by no means the first time and it most certainly won’t be the last. The claims that they thoroughly screen their agents are yet again proved false.

State Sponsored Criminal Count: 128 – Michael Scott Wilson

Because the real reason for the TSA is to acclimate our children and provide compliant victims under color of law for sexual predators.  It’s a security theater, it has nothing to do with security.

DC Metro randomly searching riders

This past December the DC Metro announced that it was going to start randomly searching DC Metro riders.

Metro Police Chief Michael Taborn said the coordinated effort with the Transportation Security Administration was not in response to a specific threat but was part of a continuing effort to keep the system safe from explosives. Boston, New York and New Jersey transit officials do similar searches, according to the agency.

Evidently trying to travel to your job at work is grounds to consider you a criminal.  Again the claim of necessity is much like that used for aircraft and these shenanigans even involve A Security Theater.  This has absolutely nothing to do with security, but giving them more control.  The TSA is out of control and it seems some still feel like they need more.

Just when it seemed when it couldn’t get any worse, this new article surfaces.

Richard Sarles said Tuesday that the agency’s random bag-searching policy is here to stay. He defended the searches that he used when running NJ Transit, arguing that they help to disrupt terrorists’ plans.

"It’s not as much about detection as it’s about deterrence," he said in an interview on WTOP radio.

(Emphasis mine.)  They even admit publically that they will probably fail to detect someone attempting to smuggle explosives on.  It’s all about “deterrence”, aka, providing the illusion of security.  This is the second time this idea has been pushed, the first time it was shot down.   The person who pushed it the first time was recently promoted to a higher position.  Given all of that I guess someone really wants to run around saying “Respect my Authoritah!”

H/T to myself, I emailed it to myself and then forgot about it, I discovered it while cleaning up my inbox tonight.

Update on EPIC TSA Lawsuit

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 imagesThe 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 abuseThis 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.)

WSU Student Rights and Little London

So the level of brainwashing that has been inflicted upon our youth has been quite apparent over the past few weeks of reading the Washington State University news paper.  The first article is an effort to bring a little bit of Brittan right here to the heartland of America.

The Pullman Police Department will install security cameras in high
crime public areas in College Hill as a part of a two-year grant the
police department received from the United States Department of Justice.

The royal kicker though is what the editorial board admits in a following opinion piece.

The Daily Evergreen Editorial Board would like to urge students to
accept and support the installation of security cameras in Adam’s Mall.
The cameras will probably do little to deter crime as drunken brawlers
are unlikely to consider the fact that a camera is watching them.

(Emphasis mine.) They readily admit that the cameras will not deter crime.  The school continues to prohibit the ability for students to lawfully carry on campus and the paper is more than supportive against allowing lawful carry.  Yet they are more than willing to argue that students throw away their privacy for semblance of security.  It is a public place after all so really how much privacy should you have.  Well the editorial board obviously doesn’t care considering the following piece I saw in yesterdays paper.

Barring campus police from patrolling the most densely populated living areas on campus is a huge mistake.


Residence halls are not private residences. They are not houses
or apartments – they are more akin to hotels. They are places students
stay for a few short months, then leave for vacation, then come back to
again, then leave, return, leave for the summer and usually never return
afterward.

About 5 years ago while I was a student there was a court case involving unnecessary access by police to the residence halls.  The judge ruled that the police were not allowed access to the dorms except in an emergency.  The reasoning is that dorms were a residence much like an apartment building.  Evidently the editorial board is acting like their brethren the Brady Campaign in ignoring the reasoning behind the case.  The editors would prefer to ignore this much like CSGV disregards Heller and McDonald.

Further the comparison they use to a hotel fails their litmus test, not to mention their other excuses as well.  The police are not allowed to meander around the halls of a hotel without cause or warrant.  Their statements smack of a belief that the police exist to operate as an RA for the school.

RAs have complete access to each individual’s room within a
residence hall. They are the ones now expected to enforce the law within
the dorms. The only problem is, RAs are students like the rest of us.
They are subject to enjoying the same vices they are supposed to be on
the lookout for.


Police officers have years of training and experience when it comes to upholding the law. RAs do not.

The job of the RA is not to enforce the law, but to ensure the dorm rules are followed and mediate disputes.  If the law is broken it is the job of the police to investigate after the fact.  It is not the job of the police to prevent crime, that is the job of the populace at large.  In other words, fellow residents should be acting in a manner to aid in preventing crime.  The police have no duty to protect and it is the responsibility of the citizen to protect themselves and their property.

The Daily Evergreen Editorial Board is doing no good by attempting to destroy the rights of their fellow students.  Many fought long and hard to secure their right from the police unlawfully entering their place of residence.  While living in the dorms, many leave their doors open not out of want or an open door policy, but because it is so damn hot they need the air flow.  An officer walking up and down the hall would now be able to see into the room by incidental viewing.  He could also achieve this as they occupant gains entrance into their room and close the door behind them.  With so many laws and rules on the books now, why are you attempting to surrender one of your defenses from their abuse? 

While many college campuses swing a bit to the left, this over reliance on the state and belief that the police are the solution to all their problems is very disconcerting.  Doubly so when you consider the fact that they have not bothered to look into the context of why the push was made to throw officers out of the dorms.  The universities own rules as well as the expectation of privacy created the reasons the police were illegal within the dorms.  The Daily Evergreen Editorial board should examine its view on personal liberty and freedom and explain why they believe that college students should surrender it because they are attending school.  Because some students are criminals doesn’t make them all criminals and the law exists to protect the innocent, not catch the criminal.  That is not a bug, it’s a feature.

SSCC #335–TSA

This one is just all sorts of fail.   The article leads off with this.

A security supervisor at Newark Liberty International Airport accused of stealing the identity of a murdered Queens man two decades ago began using the victim’s identification three weeks before he was killed, officials said today.

To which I said, well he hadn’t done anything illegal until after hiring maybe?  Nah I didn’t really think that, though the following did actually surprise me.

The supervisor, Bimbo Olumuyiwa Oyewole, 55, of Elizabeth, a Nigerian immigrant living in the United States illegally, is accused of using the birth certificate and Social Security number for Jerry Thompson, who was shot and killed in Queens on July 20, 1992.

Emphasis mine.  That’s right folks, our fearless leaders in the department of homeland security who claim to be doing everything in their power to protect us from those dangerous terrorists couldn’t even find someone using the identity of a dead man.  They couldn’t find someone who was violating the law and walked up to them and asked for a job.  It almost makes you think that they don’t bother vetting these miscreants before letting them rape and pillage the populace.

Oh wait, they don’t.  That’s why you have pedophiles working for them.  That’s why you have thieves working for them.  It is where criminals go to have the state protect them.

State Sponsored Criminal Count #335: Bimbo Olumuyiwa Oyewole

Because proper background checks and rectal exams are for people who want to fly, not for the people doing the checking!

SSCC #297–TSA

A manager at the Transportation Security Administration has lost his job after being arrested on prostitution-related charges. According to court documents, the agency had received a complaint of “very similar” activities back in 2009.

(Emphasis mine.)  So much for their “holding employees to the higher professional and ethical standards.”  The TSA’s statement on the matter:

“TSA cooperated fully with law enforcement during their investigation into this matter. The allegations against this individual are unacceptable and in no way reflect the integrity and professionalism of the more than 50,000 security officers who strive every day to ensure the security of the traveling public.”

Guess they were really just upset he got caught second time because it seems the first time would be enough to swing the axe.

State Sponsored Criminal Count 297: Bryant Jermaine Livingston

Because it’s only a problem after you get caught multiple times, we just say that stuff about integrity, ethics, and professionalism to make people feel good.