Yesterday in Lisbon, Portugal, President Barack Obama said he's talked to the TSA about their new security screening procedures and discussed other alternative ways of screening. However, he said supports the new security procedures saying that their necessary to ensure airline passenger safety.
Obama even said "I understand people's frustrations"
But here's the thing: You don't. You know how I know?
Because, besides the fact that Obama himself has never personally undergone the new TSA grope-and-grab security procedures, if he really understood people's frustrations he'd call on the TSA to revert back to older screening methods. The truth is, we have ways of screening people for explosives that are far less
a) humililating
b) intrusive
c) degrading.
We have puffer machines that can detect explosives and we have dogs that are trained to detect chemicals used in making bombs. The TSA says there is no other way of ensuring the safety for passengers, that there is no other less intrusive way, but that's false. Plain and simple. In addition to the new TSA procedures being legalized sexual assault, the backscatter scanners also pose a potential health risk to frequent airline travelers. Some scientists (like these guys) are worried that the full-body scanners could cause cancer in some passengers. Of course, even though the TSA said the scanners are safe it wouldn't be the first time they've lied. Remember how they said the scanners couldn't store images? Yeah, that turned out to be false. Some of the pictures were even leaked to the internet. It's also been shown that you can invert the colors of the picture to get a nearly perfect naked picture of someone.
The excessive amount of security in airports only serves to provide passengers with the illusion of safety, but it doesn't make airports any safer and it doesn't make the United states any safer. If a terrorist wants to kill a large number of people, then they'll do it. Nothing stops a terrorist from blowing themselves up in a movie theatre, on a bus, in a mall, etc. Should we have full-body scanners and patdowns there too? Of course not. So why do we concentrate so much money into airport security?
I suppose one of the most alarming ways we know that the new TSA procedures are entirely unnecessary is the effect it's having on Americans. Cathy Bossi, a flight attendant and breast cancer survivor, was forced to remove her prosthetic breast and show it to the TSA agent during a patdown. Even pilot's unions like the U.S. Airline Pilots Association have said they're against the new procedures. What's the point of even screening a pilot? If a pilot really wanted to kill the people in the plane they wouldn't need a bomb. They're the pilot.They could just crash the plane. Honestly, whose idea was it to screen pilots?
I also hate the argument the TSA tries to make to people that "They don't have to fly. You have a choice not to." Okay, so I guess I'll just drive my car across the ocean to go to New Zealand. I'll just swim the distance to Japan. I'll row a fucking boat to Iceland. What do you expect the average traveler to do? When it comes to long-distance traveling people certainly don't have a choice when it comes to transportation and people shouldn't have to be groped and shot with radiation if they want to go outside the country.
So, I encourage all who read this to opt-out of the full-body scanner machines and to instead go for the public patdown to show the other passengers exactly how we're treating our own citizens. Oh, and if you're a guy who's getting a patdown, try to get the biggest boner you can just before you get patted down. I mean, if you're going to get groped down there, you might as well try and get a free handy while the agent's at it.
There are at least 10 more arguments I could make against these procedures, but I want you to let me know your thoughts on these new TSA security procedures in the comments section!
Sources:
No comments:
Post a Comment