If you’re flying Thanksgiving week, support the national boycott on the radiation-based body scan machines at TSA checkpoints. Insist on a pat-down. It’s humiliating and intrusive, but at least there won’t be a nude image of you on sale somewhere next year. Also, it slows down the system–which could force the government to reconsider this awful decision.
Boycott the Body Scan
Ted Rall
http://rall.comTed Rall is a syndicated political cartoonist for Andrews McMeel Syndication and WhoWhatWhy.org and Counterpoint. He is a contributor to Centerclip and co-host of "The Final Countdown" talk show on Radio Sputnik. He is a graphic novelist and author of many books of art and prose, and an occasional war correspondent. He is, recently, the author of the graphic novel "2024: Revisited."
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If the safety of our country depends on the Paul Blart, TSA Agent, then we are doomed.
If I have to fly with the scanners or pat down option, I am going to strfip down naked, bend over in front of the TSA flunky and ask him to check for polyps while he is looking for the PETN I might have hidden on me.
Now that the fourth ammendment is being torn assunder, when are we qoing to be quartering troops in our houses?
Of course, it hasn’t taken a striking of the quartering clause to force us to board the troops at great personal cost. We have been doing that for a long time.
Actually, come to think of it, quartering would be amazing!
@Ted: thanks for the info, I was unaware there was an option. I will definitely join in on the boycott.
I flew in early Oct. and opted-out before all this hub-bub started. The pat-down wasn’t bad, and the TSA guy didn’t touch my junk. BUT – I’ve been told the pat-down was intensified in late October, so be prepared. Also be prepared for very snotty, rude and aggressive TSA employees. They’re complete assholes, most of them. They probably make ~18k a year doing a shitty job, so they’re bitter. They like to take it out on successful people that can afford to travel. Be prepared for blowback.
when I am finally able to ditch this shithole, it’s comforting to know any second thoughts will be dashed on the way out.
I was wondering when you were going to finally deign to ponder on this matter, since “evil” libertarian blogs have been talking about this insanity for quite a while. Anyway, it’s good to see the left standing for liberty once in a while. You should make a joint cause with the libertarians, “left” and “right” to prevent your country’s descent into full-fledged Fascism.
I dread the next time I’ll have to fly into the US. Maybe driving in from Canada or Mexico would be a better option, if the Man agrees to reimburse that.
Two thumbs up! This is an issue that people of any political persuasion can agree on.
I am not planning to fly anytime soon, and the next time I have to go somewhere I may consider driving. Listening to NPR yesterday and the mentality of the folks in charge of these processes (the outright lies they spew as a matter of course) just makes me not want to engage the system at all. I hope the boycott is widespread.
I find it amusing that nobody seems to get the irony that El Al airlines thinks we’re ridiculous, and their track record is a LOT better than ours.
Such is life in the intensifying police state.
Is it acceptable to fart during a pat down?
Do you suppose that Halliburton or maybe Sequoia makes the scanners?
Y’all are playing right into the terrosists hand. TSA is by no means perfect, but a little cooperation from the traveling public will go a long way. They have a harder job then any of you can even imagine. What would you do different? I hear a lot of complaining but no answers. Think about it, you have to get a bunch of whining, impatient, weary, self-absorbed travelers screened so that no one sneaks anything dangerous on the jet, but you can’t profile them or some group will scream foul, so you have to treat everyone as if they were a badguy, cause, god fobid, some wacko will take over the plane and fly it into a building. No wonder the TSA employees are rude. They put up with abuse from just about everyone, pilots included, the pay is lousy and the job is unfulfilling. Not to mention, if they get complacent then people could die, so they have that on their minds also. If I were a badguy trying to get on the plane then I would act like you all, refuse the scan, complain about the pat down and just maybe the screeners wouldn’t want to hear my crap and do a substandard pat down and miss the gun/knife/bomb that I have hidden down my pants. Give me a break, there is no right to fly. If you want to fly then submit yourself to the security protocols that have been established for our safety, otherwise, take a bus.
ArmyRanger, “just having a job to do” is the same lame excuse the prison guards at Lubyanka probably used (you’re not going to get me on Godwin’s!). There is no right to go to the mall, or to board Amtrak either, and these are just as likely targets for the terrorists that the Usual Suspects want to scare you into believing are all around to get you. Do you think you should have mandatory federal groping every time Joe Random wants to hit Best Buy too?