okay, this TSA thing

[mickeym]

I've been reading this article about the scans/pat-downs, and I got to a paragraph that's confusing the hell out of me:

Pistole pointed out that the pat downs are not mandatory -- passengers receive them only if they opt out of a screening with advanced imaging technology. The technology is the TSA's best effort, he said, to head off attacks like the would-be Christmas Day bomber last year. Umar Farouk AbdulMutallab allegedly had a bomb sewn into his underwear on a flight from Amsterdam, Netherlands, to Detroit, Michigan. (the bolding is mine)

If all of this is being ramped up due to that incident, don't they have it kind of backwards? The flight was coming IN TO the US from another country. So the full-body scans and pat-downs at US airports...isn't going to make one bit of difference if the would-be bomber is coming from somewhere NOT here. Right?

And then this: There has never been an explosive found on a flight from one U.S. city to another, Pistole acknowledged. But, he pointed out, domestic terrorists exist -- Timothy McVeigh, Eric Rudolph and Ted Kaczynski, for instance -- and there are people who want to do the government harm. While America is "fortunate" that such an incident has not occurred on a domestic flight, he said, it could conceivably happen.

Again, I understand the idea that they're presenting, can't be too careful, we've had domestic terrorists, etc., BUT. The three men used as examples had nothing to do with bombs aboard airplanes. Even Kaczynski's bombs -- he sent them to airLINES, but they weren't found on board any flights.

So, anyone want to try and make this make sense for me? Because things just aren't adding up completely for me.

And now I really think I'm going to go to bed. Also? Very glad I'm not traveling and definitely not planning to fly anytime soon.

Comments

[zillahseye.livejournal.com]

I just got in a huge deal with family about this one today, and my personal feeling is that it DOESN'T make sense. It's the whole Think Of The Children straw man argument in another guise. How many domestic terror deaths have we really suffered in this country versus, say, smoking deaths? Or traffic deaths? Or deaths due to negligence, or poor road care, or unwillingness of state/federal agencies to protect citizens, or shitty health care policies, or usurous insurance costs, or stress caused by economic failure, or by environmental hazards? You know how they say locks are for honest people? I don't care how careful anyone gets, YOU ARE NOT GOING TO STOP TERRORISM OR DEATH BY TERRORISTS. IF A PSYCHO REALLY WANTS TO MAKE A POINT, HE/SHE WILL FIND SOME WAY TO GET SOME KIND OF DAMAGING WHATNOT IN OR OUT OF A POPULATED AREA AT SOME POINT. IT WILL HAPPEN. THAT IS THE PENALTY FOR LIVING WITHIN A HUNDRED MILES OF OTHER HUMANS. All they're going to do with these creepy-ass authorized-grope measures is make sure the frigging terrorists win by setting up a system by which our citizens' freedoms are legally compromised and people's rights to body/sexual/personal/identity privacy are violated. Sure, blowing up some buildings ten years ago and killing around the same number of people who die in my state yearly from traffic accidents = bad. Okaying sexual molestation of people who don't dig machine rape = ALSO BAD. Okaying the public identification of external sex characteristics in people who might identify as trans-male or female in front of onlookers = ALSO BAD. Needlessly targeting and terrorizing a lucrative tourist trade that might help vitalize the economies of large port cities = ALSO BAD. I'm not a person who'd suffer weeks or months of triggers and flashbacks, and I would still take the 1/290820384 shot of a bomb to being fingered by a transit agent in front of an audience. The whole thing is UGH UGH UGH to me.

[vickita.livejournal.com]

It doesn't make *any* sense. It's capitulating to irrational fear, and a CYA move -- this way, in the MASSIVELY unlikely event that something does happen (and let's don't kid ourselves, if someone did take it into their head to do this, they could almost certainly find a way to get past the screeners and do it -- it's been other passengers, not screeners, who have stopped these incidents to date), TSA and Homeland Security (God, I hate that term) officials could stand behind their podiums and say, "We did all we could."

Security theater. That's all it is, but it's gone waaaaaaaaay too far. Thank God I'm not needing to fly these days. I haven't been on a plane in a year and a half, and have no plans to fly anywhere until this gets resolved.

[geneli4.livejournal.com]

it's not about passenger safety, it's about money. there's a fuckload of money in the installation of the body imaging machines and the follow-up maintenance of them. and it's about seeing how much more the american public will give away in the name of "safety", because if you'll agree to this shit what won't you agree to? anyway, i'd say more, but since i've already gotten my rant on about this many times in my journal, i figure you've heard it all before!

[raynedanser.livejournal.com]

There are a lot of people that feel the scans/pat downs are only providing a false sense of security ("Look! We're doing something!") and not really doing anything helpful at all. Well, except pissing people off.

[rainbow.livejournal.com]

No, it doesn't make sense at all for real security. IMO that's because it's NOT about security -- it's about dividing the country, making people more fearful (because the more fearful the more easily they're controlled and convinced that giving up basic rights isn't a bad thing), and lining the pockets of people like Chertoff, who was the one to get the imaging put into airports and has financial stakes in them.

Bruce Schneier has a lot of great information; he's a security expert who refers to it as "security theatre"

I think it's important to remember that more people are killed by drunk drivers in a few months than have been killed by terrorists using airplanes in *decades*.

[quiet000001.livejournal.com]

The quoted paragraph you start with is also WRONG.

Yes, you can opt between the scanner and the pat down - but the TSA agent can, at any time, decide that you need a pat down ANYWAY. So you can be scanned and they still decide to pull you for a pat down - with no justification necessary whatsoever. (In theory, it's because the scanner image isn't clear or something, but in reality they can do it Just Because They Want To.)

Plus, if you've opted for the scanner (say, because you worry that a pat down will be a horribly triggering event for you) and they decide they want to pat you down anyway - YOU CANNOT LEAVE. You cannot say 'you know, that's okay, I just won't fly." If you do, they can fine you and/or file CRIMINAL charges.

So, basically, you end up in a situation where TSA agents can do whatever they want, and you CANNOT SAY NO.