Security Theater

Today is the busiest travel day of the year, the day before Thanksgiving.  


Today Security Theater will be in full mode.

The ridiculous, ineffective, invasive new security procedures at airports of full body scans and pat downs will be in effect for the prisoners  airline passengers traveling today.

Editorials are being written about telling airport passengers to "get over it" and submit to the new humiliating and ineffective procedures of having their bodies scanned revealing all and/or having a personal "pat down" which in effect is a full body grope.  What has happened to our society?  I thought these procedures were for folks arrested for crimes and prisoners upon entering prison?  

Many of the talking heads on TV also voice "what's the big deal?"  I find it amazing that people who are paid a LOT OF MONEY to analyze these things are SO STUPID.  Chris Matthews of "Hardball" is one that comes to mind.  He says he will do "anything" to comply with airport security.  Really Chris?  How about a deep cavity search before you board a plane?  That's where this is going you know.

The new full body scanners are ineffective in detecting liquid or powder explosives. What's to prevent a potential terrorist in putting a tube or vial of these kinds of explosives in their anus, vagina, or penis?  Huh?  HUH?  

Let's get serious folks.  The terrorists are dead serious.  It's about time we stop this Security Theater and do some real airport security.  And what is that?

1. Metal detectors (remember those?  That's what we were doing to detect guns and knives)
2. Conveyor belts (remember those?  That's what we were doing to detect potential weapons)
3. Wanding (remember those?  That's what we did when we were pulled out of line - it's not invasive but very effective in detecting any potential weapon on a body
4. Having a trained security expert observe the passengers waiting in line for their tickets and question anyone who fits a certain profile (yes, I said it PROFILE) or acts nervous.
5. If this security expert suspects anyone, then pull them out of the line for a further questioning and a possible full body scan and pat down.

With these new "enhanced procedures" folks, all we're doing now is Security Theater.  It's all for show.  It is looking for the bomb and not the bomber, and it's not even effective in doing that.

All the new procedures is doing is assaulting passengers with unconstitutional body searches.  Remember, in the constitution is says "......a reasonable cause for search."  To subject the mass of the riding public for such invasive searches IS NOT REASONABLE.  

So all you talking heads and experts who are advising us to "get over it" and surrender our basic right to privacy are wrong.  You're wrong, wrong, wrong. 

It's amazing.  Here I am speck of sand on the eastern shore of coastal Delaware.  A "nothing" in the big scheme of things.  But I know MORE than all these overpaid so called "experts", editorial writers and talking heads on TV.  

Just look at the pictures I have posted on this blog.  


This is just WRONG.

Don't Touch My Junk!

"Don't touch my junk!" is the new phrase de jure.  Actually the exact phrase was "If you touch my junk I'll have you arrested for sexual assault!"  It was uttered by a young man from San Diego who was undergoing the new "enhanced" airport security measures.  


I stopped flying when you had to take your shoes off before boarding an airplane.  Hey, I make most people take off their shoes before they enter my house but this idiotic requirement to take off your shoes to check them for explosives is asinine.  How many potential shoe bombers have we caught since the practice was put into place? 

 NONE.

Now we have new "enhanced" requirements that the TSA airport screeners use the front of the hand to go around a woman's breast and up and down a man's leg.  I don't know about you but the last time I underwent a "procedure" of that sort was when I was in a gay bar on New Year's Eve.  Back then we called it groping.  And that is what it is today, GROPING.  


The way they keep escalating the invasive security checks it is only a matter of time before everyone will be required to strip to buck ass nude and undergo full cavity searches.  


You think I'm kidding?  I put NOTHING past the stupidity of our government, no matter which political party is in charge.  


Airport security checks are a shame.  They're phony.  It's all cosmetic to make it look like they're doing something when in effect, there is no airport security.  


Osama bin Laden and his henchmen are sitting in their caves now laughing at us.  


The terrorists have won folks.  We're jumping to their tune.  


Now is the time to get serious about airport security and do it the way the Israelis do, check the people waiting in (which they have to do anyway) and look for tell tale signs of a potential terrorist. 


Of course this means the government has to do some real training of TSA employees, not just hire any Jim, Judy or Jack off the street to feel you up at the airport security check.  


Will the government finally get serious?  I don't know.  What I do know is that this new security check isn't going to work.  


All those politicians, especially the Tea Baggers who complain about Big Gubment, here's a real intrusion on your personal liberties. 


Where in the Constitution does it say the government can grope its citizens?  But maybe that's a moot point because the Gubment has been screwing us for a long time.  Just saying.

Up in the Air

I haven’t flown since 9/11. The reason I haven’t flown isn’t the one that might come to you mind at first. No, it isn’t that I am afraid to fly. The reason I haven’t flown is that I refuse to be subjected to the ridiculous security measures that are now the norm for the average airline passenger.


Flying before 9/11 was an ordeal. At 6’3” I was usually stuffed in a middle seat. Even though my weight is only about 160 pounds, I was always physically uncomfortable flying. It was just an ordeal I had to get through to get from point A to point B.

Most of my flights were between Philadelphia and Boston’s Logan Airport where I would switch over to catch the local commuter flights to Provincetown, Massachusetts. Again, the whole procedure was an ordeal. From making sure my luggage was transferred (make sure you tip the airport skycaps in Philly or else that luggage doesn’t even get on the plane) to getting a seat that wasn’t right behind someone smoking.

I’ve only made three other flights to different destinations in my life. One flight I made to San Francisco, California for a lost weekend. Another flight I made to Cleveland, Ohio for another lost weekend. The “lost weekends” were both gay related. Don’t ask.

The third flight I made to visit my brother and his family in Greenville, South Carolina. That wasn’t a lost weekend like the other two. That was a legitimate flight that I would like to make again.

My Mother now lives with my brother in South Carolina. I would love to visit her and my brother and his family. However, I will not do it as long as I have to go through this ridiculous routine of taking my shoes off before I board a plane.

As I have mentioned in previous blog postings, I’m not the smartest person in the world but there are certain things in which I am an absolute genius about. My biggest claim to fame was that I saw through was this whole “weapons of mass destruction we must go to war with Iraq” fiasco. I also knew from the get go that George W. Bush was a fraud (but I was far from alone in figuring that out. I had a lot of company.) Of course I also knew that most of Congress, both parties are corrupt and care nothing about the average American but only their chances of getting reelected and perpetuating themselves in power. Again, I wasn’t alone in this statement of the obvious.

Oh every now and then I slip. For instance I did believe in Barrack Obama and “Change that you can believe in.” Since he has been in office he has shown himself to be nothing more than George W. Bush Light. The only positive thing he has accomplished is lowering the level of hatred of the United States by the rest of the world. While important he has done nothing that directly affects my life. But this is a subject to another blog posting that I won’t go into here

On Christmas Day a Nigerian man attempted to blow himself up on a plane bound from Amsterdam to Detroit. He did not succeed. All he succeeded in doing was setting him self on fire and being subdued for a few brave fellow passengers. Now there is your real airline security. It is the vigilant eye of the fellow passengers and their willingness to subdue any potential terrorists.

All the millions of passengers who removed shoes didn’t prevent this terrorist trying to blow up a plan. What did this terrorist do? He put the package of explosives next to his package. So now what are the “experts” on airline security going to do? Pat everyone’s “package” before they board a plane? Are you looking forward to going through that security check? That sounds very much like what used to go on at the New Year’s Eve celebrations at the “packed to the gills” gay bar in Philly I used to frequent in the 70’s.

Folks, I think it is time to announce the obvious. The terrorist have won.