Someone has coined the phrase "meaningless security theater" or something like that. Since TSA has not found a single thing to date that I'm aware of, to dial up the gain in this fashion is meaningless security theater at its most absurd.

The whole idea of it is not to make anyone more secure; it is only to make people "think" they are more secure.

If that statement of the bald truth does not bring black helicopters to your house, nothing will. Nice one.

Having been to places where they do practice good security, I can tell the difference, and the TSA has some catching up to do in effectiveness and public relations. I am afraid that there is a tendency in the US to associate anything with LE or security with overt and heavy handed displays of control. It is one of the reasons the US is not that popular around the world. Now the treatment is being meted out at home, Joe and Jane Public are less than happy, especially when it is so clear that much of it is window dressing.

Cessna 172 XP, full King panel, 180HP Lycoming. IFR

If the Gov gets more personal in their screenings, I see a new profession in flying others around. Depending on their gender, I will not subject the passengers to any screenings.

At this point, it seems as though there isn't really even a pretense on the part of the screeners that this is about security. Now, it's just about displays of dominance by people with power issues.

Apparently, the ONLY place where one can fondle a child in a sexual way without fear of being arrested... or shot, is in public in an airport. Strange isn't it, that in most places, a teacher can't hug a student, but in an airport, an uncredentialed (and likely ill-vetted) thug can touch a child's genitals.

If somebody besides my doctor had touched my genitals when I was a child, my father would have beaten them until their face looked like an M.C. Escher drawing.

Mess with people's children, and sooner rather than later, somebody's going to end up busted up or dead.

Around 1970 near baker california on I-15, a multi millionair heir to I belive the campbell soup company, (Or was it heinez)?, decided to commit suicide and take a bunch of people with him. He left the SB lanes, drove across a wide medium and hit a bus going NB to vegas. The bus caught fire and killed I think, 40+ people! My buddy and I were traveling to vegas on our harleys and saw the aftermath.
The point is the average person on the road probley could be killed about a thousand times a day if a suicidal driver wanted to end it all and take someone with him! Our entire life we have to live on faith that we dont meet such a nut. At some point we have to decide what "reasonable" precautions we will take, or just lock ourselves in a fortress or basement when we arent forced to be out makeing a liveing!
There isnt one damn day in your life that we couldnt be taken out by a nut! Untill the muslems got the idea to have some of their dupes belive their lies of 40 virgins to make our lives miserable, we got along just fine since the airplane was invented. We did go to metal detectors and that wasnt too invasive.
We have been set up for this a long time now. Maybe it started when we were foriced to wear seat belts and motorcycle helmits for our own good without a wimper. After all, the goverment must know whats best for us, and seatbelts and helmits does make good sense,---doesnt it?
Is this not really a prime example of how we slowly give up our rights?
My answer to the situation is to take basic precautions like the metal detector, and yes it does not detect powder or liquid, but we have been hamstringing ourselves by not useing the most sane tool and that is PROFILEING!! We are more worried about some foriegn muslems rights, that by the way, happens to be the very people that caused 100% of the delemma! Are we insane? To me that is as insane as it can get!
No, most of us are not insane. Our elected officals are not insane nor are they dumb. They do have a agenda. As I said in earlier posts. Isreal is the most hated and targeted country by the muslems , and are we not really talking only about muslems here? They are sucessfull, and they mostly use profileing. Isreal is a fraction the size of america. They live amoung muslem nations. We dont. We are half way around the world, while they have to live next door to them. They dont have a fraction of the resources that we have. Yet they have been far more sucessfull with airline security than us. It kind of makes me wonder just on who`s side some of our elected officals are really on!

It just dawned on me that I'm going to have to go through this demeaning process on November 29. Sheeeesh. Unfortunately, I can't drive to my destination.

While my heart lies with Mr. Don't Touch My Junk, I think I'm going to take a powder and do with the pat-down. At least I know how those are supposed to work. What about you guys?


Bullseye


P.S.: +1 again on Merril's comments about profiling. Imagine if we applied the TSA approach to medicine -- we'd be treating everyone for everything all the time, rather than focusing on those people with a known risk for the disease in question.

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Five screws and 3-1/2 inches.

+1. Plus,the scenery is great!

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WALSTIB

I haven't flown since Clinton was President and have no plans to do so for the foreseeable future.

I havent flown commerical in a long time. If I do I would go through the machine. I belive I would get in trouble if someone "grabbed my junk" just by reaction! About 10 years ago I was traveling through fortunna california with my dad. We stopped at a cheap indian owned (From india) motel. The owner had me come into his living quarters on the pretense of offering a piece of indian style cooked chicken. Turned out he wanted to pimp his wife and daughter to my dad and me! I nicely declined and got up to leave. He said you got something wrong there? And started to "grope my junk"! By reflex, I threw him up against the wall in his own liveing room. I really had to check myself from farther violance to him as I was in his house! At that time my dad was 87 years old with alzheimers. Now dad in his prime was 6ft 5"s and a real gentilman but a bad *** fighter when crossed. I didnt dare tell him what happened when I went back to the room. I did tell him the next morning when we got about 50 miles down the road. Dad said, "Did ja beat him up?" I admitted I hadnt, and he really gave me hell!

Even when traveling for work, anything up to about 700 miles, I was quicker driving than flying. If you count time to the airport, time sitting, flight, time getting stuff, rental car, then driving to the final destination.

I also don't care for the TSA and the airlines rules. So I don't fly, unless absolutely necessary.

Besides, I LIKE driving. And I have my own car, with all my stuff in it.

And I for the guy that said he had never had a bag lost. I did it for him. Twice on one trip, once going to Chicago, and the other end of the trip coming home. Got my bags the next morning going up and three days after I returned home on this end.

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I hope I copied that right

When I flew for a living, they lost my luggage. I was on a three day trip and the first night, when I got off the plane, my travel bag was gone. We didn't cross paths again until the end of day 3.

But, you can get four days out of one pair of underpants (forward, backward, then inside-out f&b), so I was in good shape.

I thnk we gropees should have a choice of the gender of the gropers. Personal preference. I am a lot more comfortable with the idea of a female groper than I am with a man, and that's a fact. Maybe they ought to just make all the gropers women. I bet just about all women would prefer women, and I bet just about all men would prefer women, too.

Ya know, I bet the great majority of TSA male employees don't like being ordered to grope male passengers either. Not being a woman, I am not sure, but I suspect they do not have the same intense, instinctual revulsion to groping the same sex and rage at being groped by the same sex that we do.

And profiling is the way to do it. The Israelis interview everyone for something like 30 seconds, and those that seem a little off get further investigation. Seems a lot more civilized for everyone involved to me than what we are apparently now going through. Interviewers would need to be trained, intelligent people though.

I have to fly on occasions and I’m not looking forward to my next encounter with the TSA. However humiliated and righteously undignified, I will survive it. I will not like it and I too will hereafter drive to my closer destinations whenever possible. As I see it, about the only way to return some sanity to the situation will be to collectively reduce our use of air travel.

Sensing that the “rant light” seems to be lit here, I think that another way that the Israelis have made the terrorist situation more bearable is through retribution. As I understand it, the Israelis will make it a very high priority to identify, seek out and dispatch with extreme prejudice the perpetrators of terrorism when it has been aimed at the Israelis. We should learn something from that.

I think that I could put up with a little patting-down if I had some degree of confidence that my government would go after the perp and his family; his friends and neighbors; his sponsors; or even his dog should they attempt to do me or my family harm through an act of terrorism. Sadly, that archaic, irrational and politically incorrect way of thinking seems to be lacking within the current administration. –S2

I've seen these TSA women and I'd be very afraid to be "interviewed" by them.
I'd bet they don't like men.So maybe it's fair in some weird way?

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Dum vivo cano