To take pride in the place you were born is a vanity that we all share. “I’m Scotch, I’m Irish, I’m Cherokee, I’m Nepalese. I’m special because of the accident of my birth.” It’s not a bad thing, really, because without that particular universally shared quirk, we would feel unconnected, if not utterly lost. My point is that national pride is a good thing. So with that in mind, I want to express my dismay at the state of the America I was born in. It’s gotten a lot different than it used to be and I’m worried. I really am.
I travel for work. I am on the road ALL the time. I don’t like the TSA. I don’t like their methods, I don’t like their agenda and I most certainly don’t like their screeners. I don’t like them one bit. They and all they stand for are a problem that doesn’t need to exist. Many may say I’m a tin foil hat wearing lunatic, but hear me out. The TSA, under the auspices of public safety, are raping your rights and literally molesting you and your children. They say they’re doing it for your own good and safety, but they’re doing nothing to keep you safe from the terrorists they say are rampant among us.
I’m barely started but I can see that this essay could go on for pages and pages, so let’s try to keep this simple. The TSA has not caught one terrorist. They have not stopped one bombing, not one hijacking; in fact they can point to a huge zero when it comes to averting any sort of air disaster. How do I know this? Because if they had, you can bet it would have been all over the news. In case you didn’t know, while the TSA is screening wheelchair-bound paraplegics for your safety, they also allow known terrorists to board planes. I wish I could make this up. I really do. But, since I did collect some links, here’s one from CBS’ 60 Minutes. There’s so much in this segment I could rant and rave about, but if you take only one thing away from it, be it this: The TSA will grope your grandma and legally molest your children while they simultaneously allow known terrorists to fly. Do you feel safe yet?
You can find any number of horror stories illustrating the sad fact that the majority of TSA agents couldn’t find their asses with both hands and a flashlight. If you think I’m making this up, do a Google search on “colostomy bag TSA”, or “muscular dystrophy boy TSA”, or (pick your ailment) TSA. Oh, and if you have a prosthesis, good luck. You and your stump can sit and wait while the security professionals try to figure out if that mechanism attached to your body is a detonator or an artificial ankle. I have a short anecdote to relate that isn’t nearly as intrusive and offensive as some others, but the important thing is that, like the extreme examples, it shows in a glaring light how ridiculous the screening process is, and how it does absolutely nothing to keep you safe. I know, because I could have pulled it off.
I was in Tampa, about a year ago, before the “Detroit Underwear Bomber” episode (and I’ll get to that). I had a carry-on duffel bag. Inside it, among other things, was a 15oz package of Metamucil. It’s about 2/3 the length of a paper towel tube, and about twice as wide. It’s a cylindrically shaped package. It was full of powdered…Metamucil. I put my bag on the belt and it showed up on the X-ray screen as a suspected “boogey” item; it had to be inspected more closely. I assumed it would, and I was asked if it was my bag and if I’d care to step over while a professionally trained TSA agent rooted through it. I wondered why they asked me, because I had no choice, but if that’s how they wanted to play…well, again, I had no choice. So, as Mr. Safety is tossing my belongings, he’s telling me, in a stern and directive tone, that cylinders with powder in them are considered suspicious and must be eyeballed to ensure they’re not an incendiary device. I told him I understood, and I also said that the result of his search was going to yield a powdered laxative in a big orange canister. He dug through the bag I had packed not two hours previously, and while he was elbow-deep in my stuff, he said, “Got it!”
I expected to see a bright orange cylinder, but to my surprise he was holding up a tube of toothpaste. He was beaming with a sort of righteous validation; he had found what he was looking for. I know you’re not supposed to joke with TSA agents, probably because they don’t understand humor, so I refrained from telling him that the tube of toothpaste he was holding wasn’t a cylinder and that I had known what a cylinder was since I was in the third grade. I smiled my best self-deprecating smile and said, “I don’t think that’s what you’re looking for”, and in an instant, I realized that was a mistake. He said, “Sir, you are not allowed to have any liquids more than 3 ounces on an aircraft. This tube is 7 ounces. I’m going to have to confiscate it.” He gave me his best authoritative stare, fairly daring me to speak up. It occurred to me to say, “So do you pack your lunch or take the bus to work?”
The point is, we were talking, but we weren’t communicating. He thought he was being vigilant for the sake of my safety, and I was trying to make his job easier, but anything I had to say was irrelevant. He handed me my bag after dumping my possibly explosive toothpaste in a huge rubber garbage can behind him, where it sat, presumably, until it was full enough to be emptied. It never seemed to occur to him or any of the other highly trained TSA agents that all those water bottles, face creams and God knows what liquids might be explosive materials waiting patiently for just the right jostle to blow the entire security area to bits. I thought that was kind of funny.
He told me to have a nice day, but I couldn’t, because I was worried that I had forgotten my Metamucil. After all, he was a professional, and he had failed to find it, so the first thing I did when I got my bag back was to check it, and there, under the first pair of neatly folded pants, was my HUGE ORANGE CYLINDER of Metamucil. For one brief (and admittedly wanton) discretionary moment, I wanted to shout to everyone within earshot that the TSA agent had failed to find my HUGE ORANGE CYLINDER of Metamucil, and wasn’t it great that it wasn’t a HUGE ORANGE BOMB! I did no such thing, of course, but I wanted to.
I tell this story because, as I said at the beginning of this rant, I am getting fed up with the government that works for me (yeah, I’m delusional) dictating how I am to behave while their “agents” trample on my basic American right to be innocent until proven guilty. “But we’re doing it for your safety!” Bullshit. Show me the terrorists you’ve stopped. I want somebody to explain to me EXACTLY how I’m safer on an airplane because your agents don’t know the difference between a tube of toothpaste and a plastic can of laxative. I’ve been screened by a person who is unqualified to get a job without saying, “You want fries with that?” Call me crazy, but I’ve been to enough airports to know that the vast majority of TSA screeners don’t carry in their craniums a brain that generates enough power to move their dumb asses around.
Am I an elitist? Am I looking down my nose at the professionals of the TSA? Did you know that the TSA’s recruiting efforts include posting job availability on delivery pizza boxes in Washington DC? DELIVERY PIZZA BOXES. Did you know that? The Washington Post does. Do you feel safer now?
The big problem with the TSA is that they’re retroactive. Some idiot boards a plane (not in the USA) with something flammable in his shoes. His cunning, well thought out plan doesn’t work, but we all have to take our shoes off in the airport forevermore. Some idiot boards a plane (not in the USA) with something flammable in his underwear. His cunning, well thought out plan doesn’t work; in fact, it really didn’t work out for him at all, but because no one got hurt and he was a moron, we all have to have our crotches felt up forevermore.
This is fear-mongering at its worst. In case you didn’t know, both of these incidents involved persons who had no chance of blowing up the airplane. None. I’m not going to bore you with the details of how an explosive device works, but in a nutshell, you need two things to cause an explosion: pressure and a detonator. Neither of these things can be achieved with a powerful enough force to blow a hole in an airplane without being encased in metal in a space small enough to be carried on your person with no one noticing that you’re a man but look like you’re at the end of your third trimester. I don’t care how James Bond does it, but in the real world, not you, and certainly not the shoe or underwear bomber can do it. We already know that.
Here’s all I have to say about backscatter scanners: The TSA says a lot of things about imaging devices. They say it can’t store pictures, but it can, and they do, and the machine’s manufacturers have already been proven to be lying when they say it can’t. Don’t believe me? Proof is a click away. Oh, and by the way, did you know that former Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff, who cried for the use of these machines after the Detroit “bomber” (who wasn’t a bomber), just happens to work for the companies that make the body scanning machines? Do you feel safer now? I swear I can’t make this stuff up.
They say you can forgo the scanning, but if so, you’ll be subjected to an “enhanced” pat down, which involves cupping your balls, patting your cooch, and sliding hands between, around and beneath your breasts. And it also includes a hands-down, in and around your-waistband job; sorry, no tongues or smoking, as well as the slide of a finger between every fat fold as well, and it’s topped off with an atmosphere of presumed guilt. If you want, you can have them switch rubber gloves before they touch you after the sweaty ogre they just groped, but you HAVE TO ASK for that. Oh, and let’s not forget that it doesn’t matter how old you are. Your six year old son or daughter is eligible, I’m sorry, REQUIRED to undergo the same procedure, because you never know…the terrorists could be anyone. ANYONE! Feel safer now?
Follow the money and you’ll see why we have these ridiculous policies. It’s not to keep you safe. It’s about money. It’s all about money. It has nothing to do with our collective safety. To believe otherwise is to bury your head in the sand or stick your fingers in your ears and shout “Lalalala I’m not listening to you!” The truth is you can’t protect yourself from crazy. If someone really wants to get you, they will, but make no mistake: They will have a much harder time doing it on a plane than anywhere else. It’s easy to say “Oh, remember 9-11”, but that’s a line that doesn’t sit well with me. There were no bombs on those flights, and the only reason they succeeded was because they could a) get to the cockpit and b) terrify the passengers. As much as I loathe the phrase, in our post 9-11 world, neither of those things will happen again. First, you ain’t getting in the cockpit on ANY commercial plane these days. Second (and I’ve seen it happen), if you act like a dick on a plane, you’re gonna get the big smack down from every passenger who even thinks that you’re going to try and fix it so it doesn’t land safely. Trust me. A plane bombing isn’t going to happen. You have a better chance of dying from being struck by lightning as you stretch out to catch a meteor while being eaten by a shark.
Here’s my humble solution: What we need is what we used to have. We need metal detectors. I know we still have them, but everyone acts like they’re antiquated. We need bomb sniffing dogs. More people like dogs than don’t. I would much rather walk past Rover the police (or TSA) pooch for a quick sniff than to have Shaniqua the Arrogant bawl at me for putting my shoes and laptop in the same bin while waiting for Donald “Cooter” McFeely to grope my privates as he leers at the 9 year old girl behind me in line. Your daughter, maybe?
Metal detectors, dogs, and people who are trained not only in security but civility would be good enough for me.
I love America’s freedoms, but I’m worried about their longevity. As I write this, I’m living and working in South Central Los Angeles, and I feel safer here than I would at any airport. When the TSA shows some common sense in their endeavors, I’ll be much less inclined to lean back and moan loud enough for the entire security area to hear when I have my crotch fondled in the name of safety.
