According to PrisonPlanet.com, The TSA (Transportation Security Administration) has decided to place any and all individuals that loudly and publically disagree with their "enhanced screening techniques" on the "Terror Watch List." This is the biggest infringement on civil liberties since the institution of slavery. Okay, I might be exaggerating a bit, but if you stop and think about it, we are held captive by the TSA when it comes to airline travel. If you agree to have your "junk" touched by some TSA agent, you lose your dignity, and if you complain or disagree with it, you lose your right to fly. That is the damndest catch-22 I have ever heard. I'm sorry, but the only person who should be touching my private areas is my husband. I think that we are going too far in this.
Take this into consideration. Richard Reid, the "Shoe Bomber" of a few years ago boarded his plane in London, England. He got to the states and then tried to light his Nikes on fire. Abumadullah, the "Underwear Bomber" boarded the plane in the Netherlands and then tried to light his Jockeys on fire in Detroit. The "advanced screening techniques" are not being used in airports overseas, and the TSA is not authorized to work in overseas airports. So, feeling up the private areas of law-abiding American citizens here in, say, Washington, DC, is doing no good. These jerks are getting on the planes overseas and then coming here and attempting to blow up themselves and the plane. I have heard private citizen's groups screaming for the TSA to adopt the policy of El-Al, the Israeli airline. They screen passengers three times, but they use profiling in order to determine who is a real threat to the security of the airline. El-Al claims, and I have no doubt about this, that they can get a person from the parking lot to the gate in about 25-30 minutes. Isn't that a lot better than the 2-3 hours that the average American spends standing in line in what amounts to be worthless screenings?
Our government needs to work smarter, not harder. They need to use profiling in order to determing real threats to the airlines. Focus on those individuals of Middle Eastern descent, instead of the 87-year-old grandma that only wants to visit their grandkid, or the 5-year-old little girl screaming about having her teddy bear taken away and put through the x-ray machine. Granted, 5-year-olds can be pretty annoying, but I doubt that they represent a credible terrorist threat. However, our government wants to be "politically correct" and not offend everyone, so they risk ticking off the entire population. Profiling works for El-Al, let it work for us. It is not a crime when it is built on solid investigative and psychological evidence. This isn't some well-dressed African-American getting pulled over by a Redneck cop for "driving while black," this is looking at the age and ethnicity of those that seek to do us harm and saying "hey, maybe we ought to stop this guy."
The other option is to get rid of TSA and have each individual airline have their own security procedure. If the security of an airline is consistantly deficient, then they will not continue to function within the market without making changes. If another airline is extremely good at screening passengers, then they will have a glut of passengers and become very successful. Let the market come to bear. If an airline institutes "agressive screening techniques," passengers will either flock to them or walk away, saying that they don't want to be subjected to the humiliation of being sexually molested.
Just something to think about.
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