Jesse Ventura sues the TSA for violating the Constitution

What TSA issues are not extensions of what they've been doing for most of the past decade?

I don't know when airport scanner development began, but I became aware of them during Bush's first term, when a test subject image was published in a technical trade magazine.

 

The Constitution gives you the right to travel 'freely' without constraints. But whether this rises to the level of constraint or not is up for interpretation and as Stev0 rightly points out, those who give up essential liberties for temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.

 

The present "Feel-up" searches? Which in the past were never so extensive. Just the other day while waiting in line for a flight a lady opted for the scan instead of a "Feel-up" search and ended up getting both! I asked the TSA agent why she had to have both and he said that if the scan sees anything "strange" and he mentioned that with women it was usually an underwire bra, then you get both.

 

I hope you don't expect me to believe that planning for these intrusive searches began after the current administration was inaugurated. I wasn't born yesterday. Democrats are not that fast and efficient on that large a scale, so the plan, and the preparations for training the workers, must have started under the previous administration.

From that scan image years ago, it was immediately clear that tens of millions of passengers would not voluntarily give up that degree of privacy unless the alternatives were worse.

 

Note that the initial body scanner effort was developed for searching prisoners entering and leaving prisons. Not in their wildest dreams did the scanner makers think of the market encompassing every airline passenger when they started.

 

Note also that these devices were developed in the mid-1990s. By the time I learned of them in the aftermath of 9/11, they were absolutely intended for screening airline passengers.

 

SNOPES.COM is the FIRST place to go when a story has implausible/improbable elements (e.g. masturbating in public) ...

snopes.com: Body Scanner Operator Caught Masturbating at Colorado Airport

Such stories are almost always, like this one, fabrications.

 

Exactly. When you fly your own airplane you don't have to go through security.

Tom

 

That used to be true. Not any longer.

If you own an airplane above a certain carrying capacity you are required to screen your passengers and test your crew for drugs. So those who travel the friendly corporate skies cannot just fire up the Lear and go, albeit the screening procedures are not as odious as the cattle processing of commercial flyers. Not yet, anyway.

If you base your airplane at an airport with scheduled airline service you must go through security review at least biennially, wear a badge at all times on the field and never let any guests you are escorting out of your sight for any length of time (including to go to the restroom - you are required to accompany them to as great an extent as possible to minimize the time they are out of sight. No, I'm not kidding). Bizarrely, you CANNOT escort someone who is badged to be on the airport but hasn't got their badge; if you have a badge you cannot be on the field without it, period. Violations if caught cost not just the offender $10,000 per violation but also anyone deemed able to have prevented the violation but didn't.

Which is complete nuts because visitors who fly into the field can roam the ramp at will with neither escort nor badge, albeit if they get too far from whatever FBO they're patronizing security may swoosh in and start asking questions that could cost the FBO $10,000 for letting a visitor wander outside its zone of control.

Visiting aircraft are not free to taxi anywhere; if you inadvertantly taxi onto ramp area restricted to commercial scheduled carriers you could face FAA license suspension/revocation and perhaps that $10,000 fine. Ground Control usually is vigilant enough to steer lost pilots clear.

The most unfortunate development is the surrounding of ALL airports with barbed wire, by federal mandate, right down to the lowliest public access dirt strip. This has killed outright a species that used to be as common as jackrabbits on the taxiways, ramps and hangar rows: airport kids, those erstwhile young teenagers (and younger) who would trade elbow grease for flying lessons and from the ranks of whom the piloting profession got its most capable and devoted aviators. The only airport kids today are kids whose parents own airplanes, and while some are just as deeply in love with the avocation as the vanished ramps rats of yesterday, they are nowhere near as numerous. The EAA and other groups sponsor events (closely supervised) especially to introduce aviation to youngsters, but they're a weak sister to the days when kids haunted the airports absolutely free to give their hearts and hands to whatever enterprises they found in the hangars and on the ramp.

 

I feel like making a poll, the two options being:

1) I enjoy having my and my kids' private parts be groped by strangers to keep theoretical terrorists from boarding planes
2) I enjoy having terrorists board planes just so I won't have to go through a scanner.

 

So a woman TSA agent asked the flight attendant to take out her prosthesis to check it, to make sure it wasn't something else, in a private room, and that devastated her? I know a lady with a prosthesis boob, and she doesn't care if you see it or not, oh well, I wouldn't think its a big deal.

 

The same is also true now for boats. The Beaver Island Boat Company had to surround the dock and parking area with a tall security fence. Likewise they supposedly screen all passengers and baggage. I say supposedly because it's all a joke. Nobody there is interested, so they go through the motions because they have to, not because it makes sense or does any good.

Tom

 

Finding a person who doesn't care is not grounds for dismissing the concerns of others who do care.

 

The same thing's happened with railways. As a kid, I got offered cab rides, got to blow the horn, and even operate both diesels and steam locomotives, all for showing a little enthusiasm. Railway companies got all sorts of free publicity and goodwill. Now, you're not allowed on the property, not permitted to take pictures, and you might get sued for building an accurate scale model without first obtaining permission and paying a licencing fee. It's not like there's a huge risk involved - nobody's going to fly a train into a building or couple onto a car load of high grade narcotics.

Somehow, ultimately, we need to eliminate the motivation to blow up other people's stuff. I'm not sure how to get there from here, but probing people's nether regions before they can leave their house isn't it. Asking women to remove their breast implants so they can be tested for drugs and explosives is utter insanity.

 

Mainly because people like you who refuse to pay for it, you want it for nothing. The worst part about the border fence is, that it wouldn't accomplish what people expect, at any cost, its a boondoggle in the making.

 

Part of the problem with border security is restricting trade. You can't just put up a huge fence and tell the rest of the world to go away. There won't be any market for your goods and services, and you won't be able to enjoy anything not produced entirely within your own borders from raw materials you already have. Obviously that's not going to happen, but the stricter the border controls are, the harder trade becomes. People will travel elsewhere, and find other markets.