We’re Being Conditioned By The TSA For A Police State
According to the TSA, they’re not backing off their “virtual strip searches” or the intrusive, genital-groping “pat downs” any time soon. TSA chief John Pistole is telling those who are thinking of boycotting the body scans to reconsider, pointing out that only a relatively small portion of travelers are being screened in this manner anyway:
John Pistole said in nationally broadcast interviews he understands public concerns about privacy in the wake of the Transportation Security Administration’s tough new airline boarding security checks.
But at the same time, he said a relatively small proportion of the 34 million people who have flown since the new procedures went into effect have had the body pat downs that have come under withering criticism in recent days.
The TSA clearly intends to grind down dissent. They’ll just keep doing what they’re doing and hope that eventually the public will get distracted by some other issue at which point the TSA is free to continue feeling up grandmothers and producing nude body scan images of 12 year olds.
I wonder how much of their game plan is to lower the foot print of these screening techniques in the short run. In traveling back to North Dakota from Mississippi recently I was obliged to stand in the screening line at the Gulfport, MS airport for about 30 minutes. During that time I saw roughly 75 people screened, and not one went through the visible Rapiscan body scanner. Nor was anyone subjected to a pat-down.
A recent poll indicated that 81% of the American public approved of, or at least didn’t mind, the new TSA screening tactics. But I would suggest that less than 10% of the American public has been subjected to the screenings or even observed them first hand. I would also argue that the approval numbers for those who have had their bodies groped and/or scanned would be much, much lower.
The fewer people the TSA gropes in the short term the higher the approval ratings for these new tactics will remain. Which is why those who feel that this is an atrocious abuse of government power must act.
Paul Ruden, a spokesman for the American Society of Travel Agents, told the Associated Press “Just one or two recalcitrant passengers at an airport is all it takes to cause huge delays.” His group is warning its membership of potential delays caused by boycotters.
This indicates just how effective a boycott could be, and why it should happen. The powers that be are counting on our anger fading so that they continue with this power grab. The only way things will change is if the people push back.
Tags: airport security, john pistole, tsa
