TSA overstepping bounds

[DShiznit]

[qazz42]

Related interesting piece of news: http://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2012/04/18/man-strips-naked-at-oregon-airport-to-protest-tsa/
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[DShiznit]

Very interesting, but is it really fair to punish the agents? I know they get leave to do messed-up things, but aren't we, in a way, responsible for giving them that power? We elect representatives and then demand from them protection. When the protection we ask for comes in a form and at a cost we don't like, should not the man in the mirror be the first on which we place blame? I don't like the practices of the TSA anymore than the next guy, but are they not the product of our own demands? Whenever someone finds a new way to blow up a plane, everyone demands something be done about it, puts the responsibility on this agency, and then blames them when we get an unsavory result. How many of you can honestly say you were concerned with civil liberties on 9/11? I was 9, I was knocking over lego towers with a toy plane. But from what I can remember of my parent's conversations, just about everyone was supportive of an agency to enforce security at airports. Noone cared what they would have to do to keep terrorists off planes. Now that this thinking has taken the country in a dark direction, is it really right to blame the guy whose first job is to touch your balls? Should we not blame ourselves instead for creating this monster?

[elfprince13]

[KermMartian]

Sickening. Apparently 4-year-old children are terrorists.
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[elfprince13]

[KermMartian]

[DShiznit]

[elfprince13]

Great, the country as we know it is disintegrating. And Ron Paul probably wouldn't have to veto the budget anyway, since the executive branch is responsible for actually spending the money anyway and he intends to dismantle a swath of federal agencies right of the bat.
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StickFigure Graphic Productions || VSHI: Vermont Sustainable Heating Initiative

[DShiznit]

[elfprince13]

[TheStorm]

[DShiznit]

[elfprince13]

[qazz42]

http://www.wfaa.com/news/local/Fort-Worth-woman-traumatized-by-TSA-pat-down-at-Dallas-Love-Field--162983586.html

Basically another horror story with the TSA where a woman with a gastric tube was insulted by TSA agents and then had her medically required food thrown out.
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[KermMartian]

[Tari]

As a counterpoint to the negativity in this thread, I recently flew out of OAK, and opted out of the backscatter x-ray scan (specifically because I don't mind being patted down to make a point about my opinion on that procedure). The person who patted me down was very professional about it, and I didn't have any issue with them.

That's not to say I support the TSA (on the contrary, I think it should be dismantled because their brand of security is really just security theatre), but it's useful to keep in mind that these horror stories are still fairly rare (I'd probably argue that any such stories are too many, really).
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Ask questions the smart way · タリ

[DShiznit]

I'm gonna restate my previous position that the FAA should be setting airport security standards and the local airports should be carrying them out(with the same group of people who check the planes and ground crews also checking security). The standards don't need to be terribly high, metal detectors and bomb sniffers(each of which take 5 minutes tops) would do the trick without any hassle. Local airports can then focus on making the lines move as quickly as possible. We also would no longer have a large agency to blame everything on when people get harassed, so local airports would take the responsibility and thus the hiring standards would be much higher.

[willrandship]

I actually really like that idea. Having the local airport take care of it all would allow for a more streamlined system, customized for their situation. They would also take the blame if anything goes wrong.
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Hmm...what to put here....

[DShiznit]