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July 13, 2011 in
We’re back from our trip to and around the East Coast—about 6,000 miles on the highway, a riskier mode of travel than taking sixty-seven random airline flights would have been in 2001. Do I feel justified in putting my family in such terrible danger? Let’s review some of the TSA news while we were gone.
Our friends at the TSA have been busy. The day that we left, TSA Administrator John Pistole told Congress that the agency had “changed the policy to say that there’ll be repeated efforts made to resolve that without a pat-down.” That might be nice, in a limited way, except that the American people can’t believe a word that Pistole says; the following clip is from 15 November 2010:
Flash forward to 22 June 2011; the same day that Pistole is lying to Congress, saying that TSA has changed its policy with regard to children, while the Bennetts are heading to Memphis up US-59, TSA goons are groping a six-year-old on his way to DisneyLand. (Napoleon’s Third Rule of Infantry Combat applies.)
There is a bright side to the TSA: it doesn’t just hire pedophiles; it has room for other paraphiliacs, like folks who prefer fondling and humiliating dying 98-year-old women.
(Yeah, yeah, I know: zey are chust doink zeir chobs.)
While we were gone, Texas’s anti-TSA-groping bill (not this one, which would have made TSA gropes a felony, but a watered-down one) died, showing the Texas Legislature incapable of calling a US Attorney’s bluff.
Fear is still the order of the day, the “whatever it takes” quislings are still running the show, and we’re still expected to submit ourselves and our loved ones to the not-so-gentle ministrations of the mall-cop wannabes in the security line in order to get on a plane (or maybe a train, or a ferry, or a subway, or a bus…).
So was the additional risk of driving justified? You bet!
Our days of driving around the country free from TSA interference are limited, if many more people don’t get off their complacent fear-raddled fat American butts and stand up for our shared freedom, but we’ll keep enjoying these days while we can.
Mark, I think you may already know about Jon Corbett’s lawsuit, now making its way through the appeals process. You’ll obviously understand the legalese better than us laymen, but he calls attention particularly to Page 22:
https://tsaoutofourpants.files.wordpress.com/2011/07/corbett-v-us-appellate-brief.pdf
OK, I’ll bite. What’s Napoleon’s Third Rule of Infantry Combat?
Thank you.
“When your enemy is in the process of destroying himself, do not interfere.”
And how exactly do you avoid patdowns? Oh, right, if you fly on a commercial airline, you can’t.
Here is my request to authorities to end TSA interference with a criminal investigation, (excuse the graphic description):
The TSA is stalling cooperation with an investigation by the Port of Seattle Police Criminal Investigations Unit of a sexual act on my person at The Seattle-Tacoma International Airport on March 5, 2011. The Detective requested information from the TSA on the personnel working at the checkpoint, but the TSA has not been forthcoming. The investigation requires photo IDs of TSOs on duty fitting the description, in order for me to make positive identification ofthe perpetrator.
My TSA Assault
I did not opt-out of the scanner nor set off the metal detector, but was given an invasive “pat-up” anyway. My report states how the agent lifted their straight hand up into my vulva, up between the lips of my labia, and repeated this with my legs separated in the opposite direction.
My PTSD
I was sexually assaulted at knifepoint by a stranger who broke into my home when I was seventeen years old. Memories of that event have returned to me because of the TSA’s practices, and what I believe to be an assault of opportunity that March morning. These elements are factors in my own PTSD, triggered by the TSA: a coercive setting, non-consensual sexual contact by a stranger, and actual penetration ofmy body by the hand–all present when I was attacked as a girl. In March the perpetrator was an on-duty agent ofthe Federal government.
TSA is oblivious to the danger their methods pose to the survivors of rape and sexual molestation by re-igniting the victim’s psychological trauma, stored in the body’s memory. I hope the Committee on Oversight & Government Reform can help overhaul the methods used by the TSA, which themselves fit the definition of domestic terrorism.
No one should have to re-live a rape because they fly in America.
I need your help in getting the TSA to stop withholding information from investigators. Please demand the TSA’s cooperation. Thank you.
Mark I’m not sure the TSA is in the process of destroying itself; rather, it is aggressively probing how apathetic and undignified Americans have become.
It’s an important data point for a tyrannical government. One needs to know what level of resistance one will face when forcing the cattle onto cattle-cars.
It’s also an important lesson to the cattle themselves: Submit. Obey.