Napolitano and her TSA surrender to Osama Bin Laden [Reader Post]

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In February the Fiqh Council of North America issued a fatwa that decided going though airport screening scanners would violate Islamic privacy rules.

“It is a violation of clear Islamic teachings that men or women be seen naked by other men and women,” reads the fatwa issued Tuesday. “Islam highly emphasises haya (modesty) and considers it part of faith. The Quran has commanded the believers, both men and women, to cover their private parts.”

The TSA assured us of the safety and privacy of the operation:

“TSA’s use of these technologies includes strong protections in place to safeguard passenger privacy. Screening images are automatically deleted, and the officer viewing the image will never see the passenger.”

Safeguard your privacy? Have a look and make up your own mind.

But hey, said Janet Napolitano, these machines don’t have the ability to store these images.

As sure as the sun rises in the morning, the adminstration lied to us once again:

For the last few years, federal agencies have defended body scanning by insisting that all images will be discarded as soon as they’re viewed. The Transportation Security Administration claimed last summer, for instance, that “scanned images cannot be stored or recorded.”

Now it turns out that some police agencies are storing the controversial images after all. The U.S. Marshals Service admitted this week that it had surreptitiously saved tens of thousands of images recorded with a millimeter wave system at the security checkpoint of a single Florida courthouse.

Within a month of the issue of the fatwa two incidents occurred:

A delegation from a “tribal region” of Pakistan (that’s pahkeestan for you Obama acolytes) refused to submit to body scanners and went home without completing their travel plans.

Then two Muslim women were refused boarding of a Pakistan-bound flight.

The usual procedure for those refusing the body scanner is to go through a metal detector and a body pat-down if one sets off the alarm.

But only for the kuffar.

In perhaps one of the greatest ironies of our time, Muslims are likely to receive exemption to these rules.

CAIR has recommended that Muslims not be subject to body scanners:

CAIR said Muslims who object to full-body scans for religious reasons should know their rights if they are required to undergo a pat-down, including asking for the procedure to be done in a private place. In addition, CAIR offered a “special recommendation” for Muslim women who wear a hijab, telling them they should tell the TSA officer that they may be searched only around the head and neck.

That’s right- Muslim women are going to demand even more special treatment:

In the “special recommendations for Muslim women who wear hijab,” it states: “Before you are patted down, you should remind the TSA officer that they are only supposed to pat down the area in question, in this scenario, your head and neck. They SHOULD NOT subject you to a full-body or partial-body pat-down.”

It also states: “Instead of the pat-down, you can always request to pat down your own scarf, including head and neck area, and have the officers perform a chemical swipe of your hands.”

As for the rest of us, Janet Napolitano has let it be known that we can expect our liberties to be infringed in the name of her stature.

As terrorists increasingly recruit U.S. citizens, the government needs to constantly balance Americans’ civil rights and privacy with the need to keep people safe, said Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano.

The full body scanners are a response to the use of PETN, which magnetometers cannot detect. PETN was the explosive of choice for Richard Reid and Umar Abdulmutallab. The problem is that even these scanners won’t find PETN if it is inserted into the rectum of an adult or a child.

Yes, it’s already been done.

Or placed on the bodies of Muslim women.

“Puffer” machines are probably the most effective tool for searching for explosives but they are being phased out because they require frequent maintenance. Thus Big Sis Napolitano has decided that the cost for maintenance outweighs the need for effectiveness.

In all of this something continues to be ignored, and it is the 800 pound gorilla in the room. There is no question that terrorist techniques can be expected to change over time. But there still is one absolute. The has been no change in who is trying to perpetrate these attempts at catastrophe. And we are likely to grant them exemption from these rules.

Aside from the loss of privacy, there are genuine concerns over the exposure to radiation, especially among aircraft cabin crew.

And there is more. A young Asian man was able to travel in the guise of an old man by wearing a well constructed silicone mask. So the terrible scenario becomes painfully clear. Imagine the next Mohammed Atta wearing a silicone mask making him appear to be a Muslim woman, wearing a hijab, loaded with PETN on his body and immune to a body scan or a full body pat-down.

About those full body patdowns.

I am a frequent traveler and I have noticed that screenings have become more and more invasive. And they have become astonishingly stupid. The agents always say “I have to tell you that if the wand alarm goes off I have to pat the area down.” I have an artificial left knee, it being replaced three years ago. Sure enough, my knee set off the metal detector and the guy wanded me. He waved the wand over the front of my knee and it beeped. And he patted my knee down. Then he wanded the back of ny knee and it beeped and he patted my knee down. Then he wanded both the inside and outside of my knee and it beeped over both areas and he patted down my knee on both sides.

I was wearing shorts. I have a five inch scar over the front of my knee and he patted it down repeatedly.

This is your tax money at work. I feel really safe with this sort of intelligence on my side. Again, no matter what the technique, it is going to be a Muslim who commits the act. Al Qaida is not about to take a Catholic, Baptist or a Jew into its confidence and train him or her how to be a suicide bomber. Only one “religion” promises afterlife rewards for blowing yourself up. This is an undisputable fact. And it’s the one we keep ignoring because we’re so abysmally stupid as we kowtow to one “religion” so as not to offend them.

So what happens after the next bomb goes off in someone’s rectum? Cavity searches for everyone who wants to fly because a Muslim wants to blow us up?

AYFKM?

Somewhere in a cave in Waziristan, Osama Bin Laden is laughing his ass off. He’s already won.

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@Skookum: I agree with almost everything you said. The only thing I disagree with is when you said, “Who cares what side Obama is on….” I want a president and a congress that are on the side of a free and thriving USA. I know you agree that there are politicians in congress who want the USA to become a socialist country or direct dictatorship and are trying to bring this to pass. I think Obama is one of them.

This TSA thing goes all the way back to the Lockerbie plane bombing. A commission was set up to decide what to do so that it wouldn’t happen again. One of the members was the wife of one of the victims on the plane. They came up with a list of things that should be done.

As our American companies do so many times, the airline industry didn’t want all of the added expenses. The airline companies asked Al Gore to keep those suggestions from becoming law, and he did. Not one of them was enacted. This is another good reason why we need to take the money out of running for political offices.

Why are we telling everyone what we are doing? We are giving our enemies plenty of time to figure out how to counteract the procedures before they are put in place. It’s just like our military developing a new weapon. We are we telling our enemies all about it before it is even built. Shouldn’t this stuff be kept as secret as possible?

I disagree with anyone who calls any of the members of King Obama’s court stupid, incompetent, etc. They are very smart and have an agenda they are trying to accomplish, and it ain’t so we can keep living in a free USA.

@ Ditto, #50:

Some might consider being blown up by a random fanatic on an airplane an even greater degree of interference with their rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Franklin might agree.

Maybe it’s time to get rid of the TSA and tell the world…. any numb nut that blows up or attempts to blow up one of our aircraft… we’ll determine the nationality of said individual and then deliver 100 tons of munitions via military aircraft to the capital city of said nation and gently drop them from the underbelly of those aircraft in an indiscriminate fashion… I think it would only take one example of this in action before nations would police their own before those individuals ever thought about bringing the wrath of the US down upon their fellow countrymen’s heads.

There’s two sayings…. Keep it simple stupid… and walk softly and carry a big stick. I think this method embodies both would be absolutely wonderful and I would then be happy and confident to take my chances of getting on a plane where there were no security checks whatsoever.

As far as Greg is concerned…. he can bend and spread all he wants… I find it an affront!

@DonaldBly: #53

Think your statement through. What you are saying is if an American blows up or attempts to blow up a Chinese plane, China has the right to blow up Washington DC. The good thing about that happening is that we would have to elect all new politicians.

Let’s not start acting like liberals do.

@ Greg, OK is this alright with you?

TSA Hit With Lawsuits As Revolt Explodes

http://www.prisonplanet.com/tsa-hit-with-lawsuits-as-revolt-explodes.html

Nationwide outrage against the TSA is not only bringing to light new cases of airport abuse, it’s throwing fresh attention on previous incidents that have been going on for years.

One of the most disturbing, which is subject to an ongoing lawsuit, involved a 21-year-old college student from Amarillo Texas. The woman was passing through security at Corpus Christi airport on May 29 2008 when she was subjected to “extended search procedures” by the TSA.

“As the TSA agent was frisking plaintiff, the agent pulled the plaintiff’s blouse completely down, exposing plaintiffs’ breasts to everyone in the area,” the lawsuit said. “As would be expected, plaintiff was extremely embarrassed and humiliated.”

TSA workers continued to laugh and joke about the incident “for an extended period of time,” leaving the woman distraught and needing to be consoled. After the woman re-entered the boarding area, TSA workers continued to humiliate her over the incident.

“One male TSA employee expressed to the plaintiff that he wished he would have been there when she came through the first time and that ‘he would just have to watch the video,’” the suit said.

The woman filed an administrative claim against the TSA but was forced to launch a full lawsuit after the agency failed to respond.

You are basically either morally bankrupt or marching in lockstep with the rest of the ‘useful idiots” and dullards that have no problem with this degree of lawless behavior. This known as SEXUAL ASSAULT in my neck of the woods but passes for amusement with you?

You are one sick pup and a dullard besides!

@ Old Trooper 2, #55:

Of course there’s always the remote possibility that such accounts are 90% bullsh-t, blown out of all proportion to create sensationalist media stories, to score political points against the Obama administration, and to enrich aggressive tort lawyers, who are always on the prowl for any new exploitable situation.

There’s also the remote possibility that the TSA–acutely aware of repeated efforts to destroy commercial aircraft in flight–is doing what it can to avoid the next instance of family travel that ends with an oil slick, or in a smoking crater in some frozen cornfield.

People seem to have short memories.

@Greg

Note regarding your reply to Old Trooper: Try checking the links before replying, so you don’t end up looking foolish. The events in the case Trooper mentioned happened in May 29 2008. How would that be an attack on Obama?

So, let me see if I have this straight: You would rather be ruled by fear, into acceptance of knee-jerk, paranoid, political reaction, until you end up in a controlled police state. (As it eventually will, given the proven axiom that; bureaucracies tend to grow in power and scope, and rarely are they ever dissolved.) You prefer a society where everyone is a suspect and subject to invasive, offensive sexual assault of their persons, with no respect whatsoever for their civil rights? However, you refuse to allow profiling of an infinitesimally smaller segment of society who may fit the profile of “possible terrorists.” and only screen them. because; there might possibly be a handful who fit the profile, but who will be quickly be cleared and passed on their way. (Such profiling by the way is very successfully done by Israel with a minimum of inconvenience.) To ease your paranoia, we should slow down the whole airport screening process and inconvenience everyone, rather than only a few. You have no problem with the psedo-sexual groping of children by government officials to ease your safety concerns, but you don’t want people who may here illegally to be checked for identification.

You would clearly be much happier in a communist/socialist police state. So why don’t you just move to one where you can be a blissful comrade in a land of pogroms, and allow those who love our freedoms keep this one.

I can hardly wait for my next commercial flight. I have a peripheral nerve stimulator (similar to a pacemaker) embedded in my gut and a pair of wires leading up to my head. I wonder if the screener will notice anything unusual? I have a card I keep in my wallet that explains the stimulator, but it would be an easy matter for someone to make a fake card and just conceal a some detonator or other devise (hell, I can make a taser that fits the same “footprint” as my stimulator, and a taser would be just as effective as a box-cutter for creating mid-flight mischief.)

In addition to that, the three-ounce rule for liquids is a joke. I can fit four three-ounce containers in a zipper-seal plastic bag, and if the liquids were explosives, my twelve ounces could make quite a “statement” (and as someone with a chemical engineering background, I guarantee I can make a big bang with a lot less!) If I also fly with, say, a couple dozen like-minded individuals, what would stop us from combining our fluids mid-flight? (That sounded awfully dirty, I realize. Sorry!)

Pseudo-security measures like these will only stop second-rate terrorist wannabe’s. For every “security” measure instituted by politically-correct groups like TSA, the terrorist training groups have a dozen counter-measures. Airline security is too important to play politically correct games. I understand the religious objections, but there have to be smarter ways to effect security. Just how many would-be terrorists have TSA agents found with all of these security measures anyway?

Sorry – there I go trying to be reasonable again.

Jeff

Smorgasboard…. I’m pretty sure that if a blond haired blue eyed American blew up a Chinese commercial aircraft that you’d see some pretty serious repercussions …. either economic or military. As well as some very serious American efforts to ensure that it never happened again. The last thing I think that the Chinese would do is subject their citizens to strip searches and body gropes while exempting blond haired blue eyed Americans from such searches…

Smorgasbord: It was a round about way of thinking with reverse logic. My point, in a moment of intense anger and outrage over Obama’s PC and incompetence, was that Obama is so far around the bend, as far as being there to help America, that he is irrelevant; we know whose side he is on and it ain’t ours; therefore, the safety of our citizens is our primary concern, Obama’s loyalty is no longer a consideration.

Two more years until we can get rid of this dink! I hope it makes sense; it seemed to make more sense this morning.

@Skookum: #60

I was sure you didn’t mean it “exactly” how it was printed, but my comment was meant for “anyone” who really feels that way.

Two more years until we can get rid of this dink!

I had to look up “dink.” (Dual Income No Kids)

I hope Obama doesn’t make it two more years. With the democrats admitting that they didn’t check to see if he was a legal citizen of the USA before they let him run for their nomination to run for president, and the House taken over by the republicans, I hope to see a committee formed to check into our illegal president.

The picture in my mind of his hautiness in prison is priceless. The only way it would be better is if he were convicted of treason. If convicted, I don’t want him executed; I want him to get life away from his high society living. I am guessing that would be worse than death to him. I also hope he is assigned to a non-smoking prison.

@Dr.John

This is your tax money at work. I feel really safe with this sort of intelligence on my side. Again, no matter what the technique, it is going to be a Muslim who commits the act. Al Qaida is not about to take a Catholic, Baptist or a Jew into its confidence and train him or her how to be a suicide bomber.

@Charles

Am a Catholic, and am not aware of any Catholic suicide bombers, the same for Jews, etc. The only suicide bombers that I am aware of are muslims. I believe in profiling. three year old children and 75 year old seniors do not meet the profile of suicide bombers, but muslims do, and are going to be given special treatment by TSA

The Japanese and Sri Lankans, have in their time be known for suicide bombing and most of them aren’t muslim.
And how do you know what religion some one is – by the colour of their skin? Maybe just check arabs. But then Richard Reid, the Shoe Bomber – wasn’t arabic.
Even white women can be suicide bombers http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/iraq/article598536.ece
and apparently Al Qaeda is trying to recruit white people
http://news.scotsman.com/latestnews/AlQaeda39s-white-army-of-terror.3667425.jp
My religion isn’t stated in my passport – is yours?
What about muslim kids and muslim elderly – which line do they go in? Islamists have used kids and the elderly as suicide bombers.
And what about hijackers – are they ok? Like last year when José Marc Flores Pereira hijacked a plane and threatened that he had a bomb. As he was from Bolivia – the chance are he is Catholic.
And you certainly get Catholic terrorists (IRA & ETA)
And how about nutjobs like Andrew Joseph Stack III – who flew his plane into the IRS killing one another besides himself. White guy who spent some time in a Catholic orphanage. He didn’t seem to care what innocents he took out with him.
Maybe we should only allow blonde hair, white, Christian 5 year old through without checks? lol

Or maybe we should allow the authorities to try and be one step ahead of the terrorists – so rather than wait for the next attack which changes the usual MO – let us all go through the mild inconvenience of everyone being screened so which minimises the chance of weapons being smuggled aboard. That should include all religions, gender and race – whether they are women in burkas, white kids or the elderly.

@GaffaUK

I like the El Al model. They know about you before you get to the airport. Then they ask questions- a lot of questions, repeating questions.

As for kids and the elderly:

Turning a blind eye to child suicide bombers

Elderly suicide bomber kills Afghan policeman

So why hasn’t our beloved President said word number one about the situation?!?! Perhaps he’s all for the special treatment of Muslims.

I’ve had it with tis “Earn while you learn” presidency and him sending his henchmen (women) to screw up the nation!

@ Ditto, #57:

So, let me see if I have this straight: You would rather be ruled by fear, into acceptance of knee-jerk, paranoid, political reaction, until you end up in a controlled police state.

Oddly enough, that was the very question many were asking through much of the previous administration.

Everyone, except terrorists of course, want to feel safe and secure while on a flight. Unfortunately the medhods being used by TSA and hailed by Napolitano and the rest of the Obama lackeys are simply not doing the job!

The entire situation has gotten completely out of hand and is need of some expert guidance to establish methods which both work and are not demeaning to the innocent public.

Seems again – Terrorists win! Especially when assisted by idiots!!

@Greg

As usual, you’re evading directed debate about your positions by attempting to change the subject. I’m disinclined to indulge your evasions further. Answer what is directed to you in #57, or don’t bother responding. I’m no longer amused by your dissembling and distractions.

@Gerry

The TSA is responding in typical incompetent knee-jerk fashion, reacting to yesteryear’s terrorist tactics, while terrorists have moved on to new methods. The terrorists are surely laughing at the way our government agencies are reacting: Taking away more and more freedom and rights from and harassing innocents, treating all citizens as suspects. Creating useless security backlogs, while refusing to intelligently use proven criminal profiling skills to focus on finding actual terrorists. We need people managing this who aren’t blinded by having their heads up our orifices.

This from a colleague of mine:

We pretend that we go through this nonsense as a small price paid to assure the safety of air travel. Rubbish. This has nothing to do with safety — 95 percent of these inspections, searches, shoe removals and pat-downs are ridiculously unnecessary. The only reason we continue to do this is that people are too cowed to even question the absurd taboo against profiling — when the profile of the airline attacker is narrow, concrete, uniquely definable and universally known. So instead of seeking out terrorists, we seek out tubes of gel in stroller pouches.

I think a great deal of this is just knee-jerk “don’t just stand there; do something” policy making, combined with the incessant politically-correct notion of not offending a subset of the population (by profiling.) As has been mentioned before, effective crime-solving often includes the use of profiling, but profiling by itself is just a tool. Nobody here has said that profiling should be the only basis on which to interrogate or search people waiting to board a plane. The question to be asked is what methods will work to provide the best security with the least risk to citizens’ rights.

However, even then we’re missing the bigger picture. Why do we just care about airline passengers? (Airline crew members pass security clearance checks, but let’s leave that discussion for another time.) Terrorists can and do blow up train stations, airports, museums, markets, etc., so why don’t we have similar security measures for all persons entering all public areas?

I think it boils down to

A) the airline companies, individually, not wanting an incident aboard one of their planes, and

B) the airline industry, not wanting to lose business to other transportation outlets, and

C) the government doing as much as it can to reduce the likelihood of something slipping through their fingers, and in doing so, admitting the poor job it has done with its “intelligence” operations.

I don’t fault airlines or the airline industry for wanting to protect their businesses or industry. There’s no doubt in my mind that the increased security measures have made it harder for terrorists to wreak mid-air havoc on our airplanes, but there needs to be an emphasis on common sense. Let me see if I can phrase this with the right amount of decorum for a public forum: Can TSA agents tell the difference between a stick of plastic explosive and a “Viagra moment?” Are we going to hear “I need you to pull that out so I can inspect it, Mr. Jones” or something similar?

There are better technologies for detecting plastic explosives (neutron sniffers being the most effective, and not posing a radiation risk.) Together with the metal detectors now being used, with secured pilot cabin doors and with armed martials on flights, these are much safer, more effective, and less personally intrusive than the body scans and pat-downs. Add in intelligent use of profiling, trained guards asking questions of passengers, and maybe even trained dogs, I think we can improve on safety while not trampling on civil rights or putting passengers through undue stress.

Unfortunately, for political reasons, the politicians aren’t likely any time soon to discontinue the body scans, but there’s very little to be gained by continuing the pat-downs. Anything I can carry on my person I can easily place in my carry-on luggage. Until the pat-downs are discontinued, TSA officials who do not clearly follow established protocol MUST NOT be allowed to continue doing pat-downs. Yeah, the job sucks, but so does getting groped when you don’t know it’s coming.

Jeff