'Straighten Up and Fly Right' Has Just Taken on a Whole New Meaningby David KramerDavid Kramer, LRC Blog May. 26, 2010 |
AP: 'Israeli Strikes on Gaza City of Rafah Kill 22, Mostly Children, as U.S. Advances Aid Package'
Sen. Hawley: Send National Guard to Crush Pro-Palestine Protests Like 'Eisenhower Sent the 101st to Little Rock'
John Podhoretz Demands National Guard Be Sent Into Columbia U to Put Down Pro-Palestine Protests
House Passes $95B Foreign Aid Giveaway to Israel, Ukraine and Taiwan, Combined With TikTok Ban
Senate Passes FISA Spying Bill, Includes New Measure to Turn U.S. Businesses Into NSA Spies
The Terrorist Scam Authority is running scared--but not of terrorists. Of us. The TSA is keeping a database of passengers who exhibit any sort of “aggressive” behavior while waiting to board a plane at the Scareport. Kicking a wall, throwing luggage (Don’t we usually leave that sort of abuse to the baggage handlers?), or making a pithy comment to a screener (Did you get that, Doug Casey?)* will end up getting the scofflaw’s name onto a Homeland (In)Security database. The database can include “names, birth dates, Social Security numbers, home addresses and phone numbers of people involved in airport incidents, including aggressors, victims and witnesses.” (What--no DNA samples? The TSA must be slipping.) Here’s the best part: Out of the 240 incidents that have been reported of screener abuse, most of them are incidents where screeners have had conflicts with other screeners!!! Only 30 incidents involved passengers allegedly abusing screeners. No word yet about a database of screeners who have shown abusive behavior toward passengers. (Probably because that would require memory capacity that today’s advanced supercomputers aren’t powerful enough to handle.) [Thanks to Travis Holte] ____________________________ *A number of years ago, LRC contributor/Libertarian author Doug Casey wrote in his newsletter about a conversation he had gotten into with one of the screeners at the airport he was flying from that I’m sure would have gotten him onto this database had it been around then. UPDATE: A former Captain for a major airline writes: I’m a retired Airline Captain of 25 years, and if I’m within a 2 day drive of anywhere…I DRIVE!!! Why? Because I’m SICK of the TSA! |