{"id":348464,"date":"2010-02-22T05:23:53","date_gmt":"2010-02-22T10:23:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.szone.us\/f86\/s-okay-what-you-do-just-keep-me-safe-39770\/"},"modified":"2010-02-22T05:23:53","modified_gmt":"2010-02-22T10:23:53","slug":"it%c2%92s-okay-what-you-do-just-keep-me-safe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/348464","title":{"rendered":"It\u0092s Okay What You Do. Just Keep Me Safe"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>02.21.10 07:01 PM<\/p>\n<p>Scan  me, strip me, pat me down, abuse my kids: it&amp;rsquo;s all okay, just keep me safe.  That&amp;rsquo;s the mindset of today&amp;rsquo;s airline passenger. So that&amp;rsquo;s precisely what  agents from the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) do.<\/p>\n<p>And  the more compliant passengers become the more abusive government becomes.<\/p>\n<p>In  the wake of the 9\/11 attacks the traveling public gladly handed over their 4th  Amendment (that&amp;rsquo;s the one that is supposed to keep people &amp;ldquo;secure in their  persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and  seizures&amp;rdquo;) rights to a government promising to keep them &amp;ldquo;safe.&amp;rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>Hoping  to remain safe we allowed airline security personnel to search through our  luggage and carry-on bags as if we&amp;rsquo;re criminals and, if we &amp;ldquo;looked suspicious,&amp;rdquo;  pat us down as well. Then the TSA was formed and in a matter of months  thousands of new people were hired as screeners, and things got worse.<\/p>\n<p>Now,  according to press reports, this is what we get:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><b>Sippy cups taken from toddlers<\/b>&amp;mdash;A former       Secret Service agent who left the service to raise her child was stopped       by TSA because there was water in her 19-month-old son&amp;rsquo;s sippy cup. She       asked if she could have it back if she drank or poured out the water but       the &amp;ldquo;friendly&amp;rdquo; TSA agent refused. She asked for a supervisor. The       supervisor told her she had to leave security, empty the cup and be       re-screened. While being escorted out by TSA and a police officer she       unscrewed the cap to drink the water and some spilled.  She was then made to get down on her       hands and knees to clean up the spill while her son cried for his cup.       Then she was ordered to apologize for the spill and was threatened with       arrest. In all, three TSA agents and four police officers were brought in       to detain and harass a mom trying to have on hand what she needed to keep       her son happy on a flight. Of course, she missed her flight. (<i>The Philadelphia Enquirer<\/i>)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><b>Moms forced to drink breast milk<\/b>&amp;mdash;A mother with       an infant brought bottles of breast milk in her carryon bag so she       wouldn&amp;rsquo;t have to nurse her child on the plane. TSA agents made her drink       it to prove it wasn&amp;rsquo;t harmful.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><b>Kids&amp;rsquo; Play-doh confiscated<\/b>&amp;mdash;TSA agents       found tubs of Play-doh in a parent&amp;rsquo;s bag and confiscated it in front a 3-year-old,       saying it looked like plastic explosives. The parent brought it to occupy       the child on the flight. Sorry kid, you could be a terrorist.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><b>White-haired grandmothers strip       searched<\/b>&amp;mdash;Suspicious-looking       white-haired grandmothers are often taken out of the screening line and       taken to another room for extra screening. It makes perfect sense. They       fit the profile after all.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><b>Diminutive business woman charged with       assaulting TSA agents<\/b>&amp;mdash;A small 57-year-old business woman was for some       reason singled out for extra screening and TSA agents began emptying her       carry-on bags. She objected and asked for a private screening. TSA took       her to a private room and examined everything in her bags, including       sniffing lipstick and pulling out credit cards. TSA agents claim the woman       demanded the bags be carefully repacked. Upon leaving the room, according       to TSA, the woman hit TSA agents with her bag and threw sandals. She was       arrested, spent 17 hours in jail and charged with 10 felonies. A judge       threw out all the charges and expunged her record because TSA didn&amp;rsquo;t save       the video tape of the alleged incident. (<i>The Philadelphia       Enquirer<\/i>)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><b>TSA agents as jokesters<\/b>&amp;mdash;A TSA agent       confronted a young woman who had just come through the metal detector.       Holding up a bag of white powder he asked her, &amp;ldquo;What&amp;rsquo;s this?&amp;rdquo; The woman       said she was dumbfounded and became very frightened because nothing like       that should have been in her bag. After harassing her about it for a       moment the TSA agent smiled and said, &amp;ldquo;Just joking.&amp;rdquo;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><b>Four-year-old forced to remove leg       braces and walk himself through screening<\/b>&amp;mdash;A Camden,       N.J., police officer, his wife and their 4-year-old son were traveling to Orlando for the       child&amp;rsquo;s birthday. The child, who was born 16 weeks premature, is       developmentally delayed and has malformed ankles, was forced to remove his       leg braces and walk through the metal detector on his own&amp;mdash;something that       he was just learning to do. He managed to make it through. The father,       understandably upset, confronted a supervisor who turned and walked away.       A local police officer approached and told the father he should calm down       and enjoy his vacation. When a reporter asked a TSA spokesperson how such       a thing could happen the TSA representative said the boy should never have       been made to remove his braces, he should have just been taken to a       screening room and had his braces swabbed for explosives instead. (<i>The Philadelphia Enquirer<\/i>)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Incidents  like these leave you scratching you head. But it&amp;rsquo;s not just foolishness on the  part of some undertrained agent&amp;mdash;although there is a lot that throughout the  TSA&amp;mdash;it&amp;rsquo;s a power play by people given a little authority that they begin to  abuse. And it plays into the hands of government seeking more control.<\/p>\n<p>And  here&amp;rsquo;s an example of how they always want more control: On the heels of the  Christmas Day underwear bomber incident, TSA said it was installing naked body  scanners in all airports: a boon to some well-heeled government players, as we  documented <a href=\"http:\/\/www.personalliberty.com\/freedom-concerns\/intelligence-ties-to-the-underwear-bomber\/\" >here<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Now  it&amp;rsquo;s not enough for them to rifle through your bags, humiliate you or feel you  up, they now want to see you and your kids naked&amp;mdash;and expose you to harmful  radiation to boot. We documented the health risks posed by naked body scanners  <a href=\"http:\/\/www.personalliberty.com\/freedom-concerns\/the-health-risks-of-naked-body-scanners\/\" >here<\/a>. <\/p>\n<p>Of  course, TSA promised that there is no way for the images taken by the scanners  to be saved or transmitted. As implausible as that was, that was their story.  Now we see that TSA was indeed lying when it said the machines could not store  or transmit images.<\/p>\n<p>In  London, Indian film star Shahrukh Khan told a  British television audience that after he went through security at Heathrow Airport female security agents had  printouts of his image made by the scanners. He said &amp;ldquo;you could see  everything.&amp;rdquo; He autographed them and returned them to the women.<\/p>\n<p>As  usual, the goal by government is not to keep you safe, as evidenced by the  facts that have come out about the Christmas Day underwear bomber. The goal is  to continue to peel back your resistance to their tyranny. Scare you, show you  a government solution and sell it, all while enriching a few well-connected  people. That&amp;rsquo;s the government way.<\/p>\n<p>But  most go along to get along, as long as a semblance of safety is promised.<\/p>\n<p>Scan  me, strip me, pat me down, abuse my kids; even take pictures of my kid&amp;rsquo;s naked  body. I feel safer already.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.personalliberty.com\/freedom-concerns\/it%e2%80%99s-okay-what-you-do-just-keep-me-safe\/\" >http:\/\/www.personalliberty.com\/freed&#8230;-keep-me-safe\/<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>02.21.10 07:01 PM Scan me, strip me, pat me down, abuse my kids: it&amp;rsquo;s all okay, just keep me safe. That&amp;rsquo;s the mindset of today&amp;rsquo;s airline passenger. So that&amp;rsquo;s precisely what agents from the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) do. And the more compliant passengers become the more abusive government becomes. In the wake of the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4498,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-348464","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/348464","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4498"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=348464"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/348464\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=348464"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=348464"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=348464"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}