How can we punish the TSA Gate Rapers?

[TraneWreck]

It depends, how badly do i need to fly?

If it is for a medical condition, probably.

If it is for a concert, depends on the band.

If it is for a vacation, i would pick a different place, or find another mode of transportation.

You have to go through many unpleasent things in life, and sometimes the tradeoff isn't worth it. Sometimes it is. It is up to people to use their judgement is a unpleasent proceedure by a trained individual worth it? I can't answer the question for you, but just because your answer may be no, doesn't mean that a new set of rules has to be written.

Again, if this was something that was a guarenteed right, i would be with everyone else. But flying is by no means a right guarenteed by any form of law.

This is the logic I don't follow. What makes this necessary? What makes an airplane any more or less dangerous than a crowded concert hall or a football game or a shopping mall?

Obviously hijacking a plane and flying it into a building creates a unique sort of danger. That can't happen again. We lock the doors now.

Any member of Al Qaeda in the United States can get some explosives and kill lots of people at just about any time. Being on a plane with 200 people is no different than being in any other crowd. Should we get body scans to attend festivals in Grant Park or go to a Cubs game?

That's why this is so much theater. We've decided to focus on airplanes, but even if we made them 100% secure, we'd still live in a dangerous world.

Scanning people on domestic flights means that we expect Al Qaeda members to be in the United States, make explosives, then try to get on a plane. If they've satisfied the first two elements, then they can just skip down to the movie theater and take out a hundred people watching the new Harry Potter flick.

I'm happy to give TSA workers a little thrill by letting them scope out my dong, but all of this is just nonsense.

 

[Ducky]

So um, if you don't like the policies, dont fly seems like the best option.

This reminds me of the people that would call in to mci to get phone service, when told of what they needed ( usually some form of identification, sometimes a deposit.) they would get angry and demand another option. At which point they would be informed that they can always not get phone service.

If you don't like the hoops you have to jump through to get something, don't jump through them, but don't expect to get the service as well. I may not feel like wearing shoes one day, but that doesn't mean i should expect a convience store to revoke their " no shoes no shirt " policy.

Flying is not a right, never has been. This would be different if health care required a groping, but this is a service offered by a company that has no obligation to offer it. If you find their policies offensive, show that by not using them. People got along just fine without flight, for quite some time, i am sure we can still do so.

If i opened a restaurant that required people to be slapped in the face before entering, i should expect not to get that much buisness. But in the same sense when i tell people that the slap is required, they shouldn't be surprized when they get slapped.

I see you missed where I addressed this.

 

[Verde]

A butt search wouldn't reveal anything that has been recently swallowed. The passengers should be forced to drink an emetic, and vomit over sieves, and the vomit investigated for contraband.

For some reason this reminds me of the Derek & Clive¹ "What was the worst job you've ever had?" sketch. As this is a family channel I won't post a link.

As far as I am concerned; if you are going to grope me, do it gently. My testicles are quite sensitive. Take whatever pictures you want with the scanner; put them on Youtube if you wish. If anyone gets off on seeing my flabulous body then they are the pervs; doesn't bother me a bit.

V.

[1] Peter Cook & Dudley Moore, of course. Some of the best, and worst, of British humour.

 

[bookitty]

I don't think it would be unreasonable to ask that people empty colostomy and urostomy bags prior to or during screening. TSA screeners may need to be educated (the screener who soaked the guy reportedly said he didn't know what a urostomy bag was), but if they're screening for prosthetics they'll probably want to screen bags of solids and liquids too.

They can empty it beforehand but if the line is slow (very possible), it can refill. It is not something that people have control of.

The agent in this case was a jerk. The man told him that there was a potential problem and where. Because the agent didn't know what the passenger was explaining, he ignored him instead of listening.

The agent wasn't trying to hurt this guy. He just didn't have enough training to deal with the situation professionally. The problem is that very few TSA agents have enough training to deal with the dichotomy of looking for bad guys while assuming that the people they are checking are actually good guys.

 

[Ducky]

They can empty it beforehand but if the line is slow (very possible), it can refill. It is not something that people have control of.

The agent in this case was a jerk. The man told him that there was a potential problem and where. Because the agent didn't know what the passenger was explaining, he ignored him instead of listening.

The agent wasn't trying to hurt this guy. He just didn't have enough training to deal with the situation professionally. The problem is that very few TSA agents have enough training to deal with the dichotomy of looking for bad guys while assuming that the people they are checking are actually good guys.

IT's very true that the TSA doesn't have time to train it's employees.

http://www.aclu.org/blog/technology-and-liberty/tsa-has-no-time-train-its-screeners

 

[JJM 777]

This is a new policy... acceptable in a free society? Genital groping?

Is there anything you won't give up in the name of security?

Yep, a new policy.

Forced unilateral nudism, and some occasional genital groping, is not a new thing in free societies, however, medical personnel have done that for centuries already.

Is there anything you won't give up in the name of health?

 

[Bob Blaylock]

It's not sexual assault if it's consentual; and by flying the airlines, you consent to their security procedures. It's in the literature that accompanies the ticket you buy, period.

Solid digestive waste from a male bovine.

By the same logic, you could say that by accepting a job, you consent to whatever the employer wants to do to you.

An employer cannot do this to its own employees. It would be treated as sexual harassment, at the least.

No reason that customers should be assumed to have consented to this abuse either.

 

[Drewbot]

Your sarcasm suggests you do think it's unreasonable to ask people to empty bags of waste before boarding. Since a urostomy bag could contain flamable liquid, and a colostomy bag could contain plastic explosive, may I inquire as to why you would find such a requirement unreasonable?

A 61 year old caucasian, cancer survivor, does not strike me as terrorist material. At some point you have to use common sense. A seven year old girl on her way to Disneyworld with the family does not have a block of C-4 strapped to her groin.

 

[Bob Blaylock]

I will still fly, but I wouldn't think of flying with my family and letting one of them 'pat down' my 7 year old daughter. Scrap the Florida flight, we will drive.

P.S. now I will be putting my family in a more dangerous form of transit. How many people will they really save by driving people away from flying?

I suppose it depends on how you define “dangerous”. The danger of being killed or seriously injured in a crash is greater in a car, than in an airliner. This would remain true even if we did nothing at all about the possibility of terrorists taking control of airliners; if terrorists had completely free reign, your chances of having the particular plane on which you were flying fall prey to them would be very tiny compared to your chances of being killed in a car accident.

There is more to “dangerous” than being killed or injured in a crash. The threat of being sexually-assaulted also constitutes a danger. Now I am sure that most people would rather be sexually assault than be killed, if it came down to that, but if your family travels by airline, what are the chances that your wife, your daughter, or you will be sexually-assaulted? As things currently stand, that chance is very, very high, compared to the other dangers that have been mentioned.

I'd have to say that a very high chance of being sexually-assaulted constitutes a greater danger than an extremely small chance of being killed.

 

[Mr.D]

No, you're not the only moderate. See my first post.

And note for the record: I didn't say anything about being for or against any of the TSA measures. I'm just wondering how "punishing" the TSA employees (See the topic title and OP) is going to help.

Take it to court? Great, all the more power to you.

Boycott? Absolutely! Vote with your dollars.

Take it up with your congresspeople? That's what they're for.

Protest by peacefully and lawfully gumming up the system? Your right, but the seventeen people behind you who miss their flight have a right to bitchslap you (metaphorically speaking) in return.

But "punish" the TSA employees? Really? You can justify it however you like, but why not just call it what it is : venting your anger on a convenient target.

 

[Uncayimmy]

The ACLU doesn't seem to think this is "settled law": http://www.aclu.org/technology-and-liberty/airport-security

Your citation doesn't support your premise. The ACLU didn't mention anything about the legality. They correctly point out that it's not a good policy, but they don't offer any comments about constitutionality of the policies. They say the policies "threaten American values," but that's not the same thing as being unconstitutional. I'm reasonably confident that they would file a lawsuit if there was a legal approach.

Once again, what's the legal premise under which a lawsuit would be filed?

 

[Checkmite]

An employer cannot do this to its own employees. It would be treated as sexual harassment, at the least.

No reason that customers should be assumed to have consented to this abuse either.

That is a matter for the courts to determine.

 

[WildCat]

Your citation doesn't support your premise. The ACLU didn't mention anything about the legality. They correctly point out that it's not a good policy, but they don't offer any comments about constitutionality of the policies. They say the policies "threaten American values," but that's not the same thing as being unconstitutional. I'm reasonably confident that they would file a lawsuit if there was a legal approach.

I think they're gathering information for a lawsuit, that's why they're asking people to write complaints to them.

Once again, what's the legal premise under which a lawsuit would be filed?

That the nude scanners and genital groping is unreasonable, as opposed to the reasonable metal detectors and pat-downs.

 

[Soapy Sam]

So- how was it for you?

 

[Bob Blaylock]

This is why Obama CANNOT get rid of the scanners or stop the pat-downs. If a bomb goes off in a plane after he ordered the machines removed, he would be impeached.

Between all his various fraudulent “stimulus” scams and bailouts, the clusterfoxtrotting of the health care business, and now the sexual molestation of airline passengers, Obama is long going to be remembered as the President under whom government ran outrageously amok.

 

[TraneWreck]

Between all his various fraudulent “stimulus” scams and bailouts, the clusterfoxtrotting of the health care business, and now the sexual molestation of airline passengers, Obama is long going to be remembered as the President under whom government ran outrageously amok.

Oh god. Start a new thread if you want to take up these issues. I have a bad habit of derailing to combat these Zombie lies. To make the mods job easier I'm going to stop that.

That doesn't mean any of the nonsense in your post stands.

 

[ZirconBlue]

Imagine if Obama steps in and says, "the pat downs are too intrusive, we're ending them," and then a bomb goes off in a plain.

What, like Nebraska or something?

And again, the fact that flying is not a right is the crux of the matter. You can simply not fly. It is not any type of guarenteed right. If you don't want to get punched in the face , don't box. Currently if you don't want to get groped, don't fly.

Or you could simply not get so offended at a groping. It is a security measure, and despite the best straw men we can make, i doubt seriously that the person having to grab a 10 50 year old men by the bozac is loving it.

Or, here's a wacky thought: How about, instead of just rolling over and taking it, we actually try to get the policy changed? Crazy, I know.

 

[I Am The Scum]

For all the talk of "stopping terrorism," let's take it a step back. Ultimately, it's a question of safety. Dying from a terrorist attack isn't really that different from dying in a car accident.

So we have to ask ourselves whether or not this is a prudent measure. We cannot ignore the fact that more and more screening is costly in both time and money. So does it live up to our expectations? How much safer are we with these measures in effect? If the answer to that question is unknown, then why go through the trouble?

 

[Polaris]

What, like Nebraska or something?



Or, here's a wacky thought: How about, instead of just rolling over and taking it, we actually try to get the policy changed? Crazy, I know.

I'm having trouble understanding the outrage toward the outrage. If you don't mind being manhandled, then don't complain, but what do you care if someone else does mind? It's not like any of this is making anybody safer.

Very few things we do are essential to life and good health. There isn't a pressing need for most things people like to do. That doesn't mean that it's reasonable to allow the government to make each and every one of them as uncomfortable and difficult as possible.

I shouldn't have to choose to not go someplace I want to go on vacation because of an illusion of safety.

 

[Uncayimmy]

That the nude scanners and genital groping is unreasonable, as opposed to the reasonable metal detectors and pat-downs.

The scanner is optional, so I'm not seeing how an optional method of search would be unconstitutional. Do you disagree?

As for the invasiveness of the pat-down, you might have something there. It's not like this type of pat-down is new technology. Do you know of any cases that have addressed this? I am familiar with cases where police have the right to pat down and even handcuff people who are not suspected of a crime in order to create a safe environment for the encounter such as patting down passengers in a vehicle stop. I don't recall if checking a person's junk was involved or not. Then there's the issue that flying is voluntary, thus the entire process can be avoided.

Not everything that is stupid is unconstitutional.

ETA: Tranewreck - you're a lawyer, right? Can you shed any light on this?