Sunday, June 26, 2011

Terrorism Fears Invokes Police State Mentality

I find it odd that Americans celebrate their "love of liberty" but have been one of the fastest peoples on the face of the earth to give up basic freedoms and personal dignity in the name of "security". It is tragic and laughable.

Here is a report from the Northwest Florida Daily News -- which is ironically owned by "Freedom Communications" -- reporting this indignity:
Elderly woman asked to remove adult diaper during TSA search

Jean Weber of Destin filed a complaint with the Department of Homeland Security after her 95-year-old mother was detained and extensively searched last Saturday while trying to board a plane to fly to Michigan to be with family members during the final stages of her battle with leukemia.

Her mother, who was in a wheelchair, was asked to remove an adult diaper in order to complete a pat-down search.

“It’s something I couldn’t imagine happening on American soil,” Weber said Friday. “Here is my mother, 95 years old, 105 pounds, barely able to stand, and then this.”

Sari Koshetz, a spokeswoman for the Transportation Security Administration in Miami, said she could not comment on specific cases to protect the privacy of those involved.

...

She said her mother was first pulled aside into a glass-partitioned area and patted down. Then she was taken to another room to protect her privacy during a more extensive search, Weber said.

Weber said she sat outside the room during the search.

She said security personnel then came out and told her they would need for her mother to remove her Depends diaper because it was soiled and was impeding their search.

Weber wheeled her mother into a bathroom, removed her diaper and returned. Her mother did not have another clean diaper with her, Weber said.

Weber said she wished there were less invasive search methods for an elderly person who is unable to walk through security gates.

“I don’t understand why they have to put them through that kind of procedure,” she said.

Koshetz said the procedures are the same for everyone to ensure national security.
I always find it hysterically funny with bureaucrats cover their ass with a claim that they can't talk about an issue because "they are concerned about the privacy of those involved". But they weren't concerned enough to not impose this indignity on a dying 95 year old woman. Who are they kidding with their "concern".

By the way, it is the very same government which says that dying 95 year olds must be brutalized for "security" which also decided that an Al Qaeda double agent, Balawi, didn't need any "pat down" when he met with high CIA agents and killed 7 of them with a suicide vest (more in the UK's Guardian newspaper). On the one hand you have American "security" policy degrading a 95 year old dying woman "because of security policy" but you have the leading lights of the "war on terrorism" deciding they didn't need to pat down a known terrorist who they thought they had "turned" against Al Qaeda and were "surprised" when he blew them to kingdom come because of their stupid gullibility. This is madness.

What this shows it that Americans would rather have a police state with all the trappings of "security theatre" rather than have a society in which the dignity and freedom of individuals are upheld.

I find it funny that it is the Republican party that waves the flag most vigorously over "freedom" and "family values" but it was specifically the Republican party under George Bush who threw aside all rights and allow an intrusive police state to grow and swell into its current behemoth state. The US is spending $664 billion on its military and a poorly disclosed amount of spying and intelligence. This is over $2000/person in order to have 95 year old terminally ill women forced to get out of wheelchairs and strip off their adult diaper in public so that a bureaucrat can run his hands over her body to assure "safety" to the American people. What a joke!

A truly "freedom-loving people" does not live on its knees with security goons feeling them up while ordering them around. The American people needs to open its eyes and realize they made a pact with the devil when they bought the "war on terror" sold to them by Bush and continued by Obama. Since there will always be "terror", this is a proscription for eternally living on their knees while mumbling about the "love of liberty".

Update 2011jun27: I don't buy into Rand Paul's crazy right wing politics, but I fully agree with his tongue-lashing of the TSA for their failure to respect the rigths of Americans and their absolutely idiotic "security theatre" pat downs...



Rand Paul asks the right questions about the kind of investigative background and risk assessment that should be done and the need to target the searching to real suspects. It is mind-boggling that Americans put up with the complete destruction of "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" on the part of the TSA bureaucracy. This TSA "testimony" is absolute idiocy.

The right wing Rand Paul politics I don't buy into: turning over security to "private enterprise" is idiotic. There is nothing about a private company that implies that it can be more intelligent in providing security. In fact, there are good arguments that private companies by their very nature, i.e. primary goal is profit-seeking, owners can be world-wide, limited liability means they can walk away if something absolutely reprehensible is done, cannot provide the same kind of honest, diligent security that a government agency can provide. So I don't go for the right wing Kool-aid that Paul is selling. But his points about TSA being brain dead and wasting resources of "security theatre" are right on the mark.

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