http://www.jbs.org/jbs-news-feed/6004-in-the-name-of-safetyMost people knew it was coming, of course. The minute the “underwear bomber” let loose with the latest innovation in terror-tactics, anybody reading a newspaper could have surmised that upstanding Americans would be in for a whole new round of inconvenience. Trouble is, we’re all getting used to it — and that’s always good news for government, or more accurately, for overzealous bureaucrats, who can’t get enough of playing “big shot.” And unfortunately, that leads, slowly and inevitably, to a police state.
Here’s the latest, which, of course, will not affect the primary suspects in the least, but will wreak havoc among already grossly delayed and affronted citizens. One has to read past the headlines, though (with such benign lead-ins as: “TSA Announces Roving Explosives Screenings At Airports”) to get to the part that’s going to incur our wrath, thus the additions of emphases to certain portions of quoted news reports below. These are the lightening rods of yet another exercise in futility.
The NBC Nightly News’ lead story on February 17 reported, for example, that “the young man accused of trying to blow up a plane in mid-air on approach into Detroit” was “responsible” for a new security measure coming to U.S. airports. The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) announced that screeners would “begin randomly screening the palms of passengers, beginning soon.” The new random tests, which take “just a few seconds,” come in addition to “other security enhancements since December… more dog teams; Federal Air Marshals; more behavioral profiling, seen and unseen, all designed to make it hard for terrorists to predict when and where they might be spotted.”
This author has written extensively on the dangers inherent in behavioral profiling, such as looking annoyed, harried or confused (elderly persons, especially, tend to drop things in all the commotion along the conveyor-belt queue, leading frequently to their being pulled out of line). The real terrorist is trained, meaning that he (or rarely, “she”) is the picture of cool. All their documentation, fake and otherwise, is at the ready, their faces inscrutable, their carry-ons simplified, and checked baggage often absent entirely.
Then, in a report on CNN's Rick's List the same day, Secretary Napolitano was shown being asked what happens when “a swab comes back positive.”
Napolitano was shown responding, “When there's a positive reading, what will happen is the passenger will be pulled aside and there will be a secondary screening. They'll be asked questions. There may be a hard pat-down, things of that sort, to make sure that they're not trying to bring something like an explosive onto the aircraft.”
CNN added, “Experts are pretty enthusiastic about this. They say that it will pick up most of the explosives of the kind that are used by terrorists.”
Question is, will it also be scanning for, say, peanuts (some people are allergic, after all, and you may have eaten them); perfume (most women now leave their perfumes home so as to avoid having their luggage ransacked by the TSA — i.e., anything that has a distinctive smell tends to be removed). Remember, more dog teams. And the tidbits of new information just kept coming.
Fox News’ Studio B aired yet another report that day stating that, while the technology is currently being used in stationary machines near airport magnetometers, the machines coming down the pike in the new effort will be “mobile, and they will literally be rolled around airports, beyond the checkpoints, where TSA workers will be able to take chemical swabs from passengers, also from their carry-on luggage, to detect even the tiniest amount of explosive material or residue.” Fox News’ Rick Folbaum added that the measure “very well might have” stopped the Christmas Day bombing attempt. “I'm told this is not a silver bullet, but it's a very good new tool for the TSA to use that layered security approach that they like to talk about.”
Just how might this measure have stopped the underwear bomber? No doubt he would already have heard about the procedure and done something really amazing, such as: wash his hands prior to getting in line.
The Associated Press reiterated further on February 18 how TSA spokeswoman Kristin Lee assured that “the stepped-up screening is random and that travelers will not see the same procedures at all airports.”
How reassuring! Random inconvenience for all, just like before, so as not to discriminate — unless your name is Nancy Pelosi or Al Gore; then, of course, you can just charter a plane and avoid it. The New York Times added the new screenings “could take place at the security checkpoint, in the checkpoint queue, or [in] boarding areas.” Wonderful! Now you can plan on being harassed anywhere and everywhere — today, in the airport, tomorrow in the subway, the next day in the train station and, well, who knows? Guess it depends on what gets blown up next!
With all real suspects passed over in a politically correct attempt to avoid lawsuits, here’s what we will have from our future TSA controllers: One, two, three, FOUR: Passenger Number 4 in line gets extra screening; count four more passengers — careful to skip anybody with a Middle Eastern-look, and possibly other minorities, and never, EVER look at anyone with a criminal record, something easily cross-matched with modern computer technology. Then it’s back to the old one, two, three, FOUR screening scenario.
On February 18, then, The Washington Post reported that while the explosives checks generally come “when passengers are selected for additional scrutiny...the Abdulmutallab [underwear bomber] case exposed gaps in the government's ability to identify people who might pose a threat.”
Gaps? Gaps? How about the time and money wasted harassing and delaying upstanding American citizens? Maybe agents could concentrate on foreign nationals!
Moreover, as so many noted from the start, in the 1980s, government is just getting warmed up. Schools suspend little children for saying “bang, bang” with a pointed finger; adults get harassed over a comb that has a long, pointed end; Rush Limbaugh gets his bags ransacked for a valid prescription label on every bottle, so that that a precedent is now set to do likewise for everybody, should government feel like it.
All for your own good, in the name of “safety.”
Topic: In The Name of 'Safety' (Read 1103 times)