Don't Touch My Junk

Flying has never been one of my favorite things to do.  Even before 9/11, I just didn't like flying.  It wasn't that I was particularly nervous or afraid of flying, it was more just the amount of time spent at the airport waiting for my flight.  Plus, let's face it, planes are just loud, cramped, and generally uncomfortable.

I still remember my first flight.  It was a flight from Maryland to California for an assessment center to test for a promotion with the company I was working for at the time.  The person sitting next to me was a wreck.  She was holding on to her armrests, white knuckled the whole way up.  When we got in the air, she turned to me and apologized for how nervous she was.  I asked her if it was her first flight.  Turns out it wasn't. Had I known that, I might have been a little more nervous that I was.

Of course, since 9/11, flying has gotten considerably more complicated.  I remember when my wife and son could sit with me at the gate until my flight took off or meet me when I landed.  Now you need a ticket to get close.  Every year, security has gotten tighter and tighter, until we have gotten to where we are today.  Now we have scanners that essentially can take a nude photo of you or you can be subject to the now infamous new patdown policy from the TSA Agents.

 

I fully understand the uproar out there over the new screening procedures.  Nude photo or groped by a stranger?  Not much of a choice.  I wouldn't want either of those options either.  Having said that, on those occasions where I have to travel for business, if I have to choose one or the other, I would probably opt for the scanner.  Though it might be fun to tell the agent "a little more to the left please" while they are performing the patdown.

As I said, I understand the outrage.  However, at the same time, I do not understand the logic of some, like this one lady I heard call in to Sean Hannity's radio program.  She felt that people should not stand for these new procedures and should boycott the airports.  The sad thing with this narrow mindedness is that would have no impact on the TSA.  It would only impact the airlines, retail shops, restaurants, and the workers that are employed at the airports.  It would only harm those folks.

Related articles

• TSA: Pose Nude, or We'll Touch Your Junk (bigthink.com)
• Touch My "Junk" And I'll Miss My Flight! (chicagonow.com)
• Airline passengers fed up with security pat-downs (ctv.ca)

Underwear Bomb, OK. Play-doh, Not So Much

I don't usually find myself in agreement on too much with Len over at First Door on the Left. I find myself, at least in part, in agreement with his post called They Win in which he discusses the attempted bombing on Christmas Day by the Underwear Bomber.

To quote from that post:

First, they want to disrupt our way of life. Their goal is not, as the Republicans would have you believe, to kill us or to wipe us off the face of the planet. Their goal is to destroy our freedoms and our way of life, both of which they are extremely jealous and envious. Since we so eagerly become more paranoid and so willingly give up more of our freedoms each time one of them pulls one of these stunts, in this they are definitely succeeding.

For the most part, I agree with this assessment, though I believe they want to take as many of us out as they possibly can.  He is absolutely correct that they want to disrupt our way of life and have us give up the freedoms we enjoy in this country in the name of security.  A prime case in point is an incident that occurred in New Orleans.

A TSA officer at the New Orleans airport confiscated Play-doh from a 3 year old boy.  It was a Christmas present from the child's grandmother, and it was one of his favorite gifts he had received.  Needless to say, he was quite upset.  When we get to the point where we take toys away from a 3-year old child in the name of security, we have lost and the bad guys have won.

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• DOH! - TSA takes Play-Doh from child at airport checkpoint (gadling.com)

Enhanced Screening, the ACLU, and CAIR

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In response to the Underwear Bomber's, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, failed attempt to blow up a Northwest Airlines flight headed for Detroit on Christmas day, the U.S. Transportation Security Administration has issued more stringent screening guidelines. The guidelines, or enhanced screening, apply to passengers traveling from countries that have been identified as "state sponsors of terrorism."

The TSA states that, "Every individual flying into the U.S. from anywhere in the world traveling from or through nations that are state sponsors of terrorism or other countries of interest will be required to go through enhanced screening."  The majority of these countries could best be described as "Muslim" countries.

It should come as no surprise that civil liberties groups have come out to condemn the new guidelines. The ACLU (the Anti-American Civil Liberties Union) has said that the new guidelines are,"essentially a pretext for racial profiling, which is ineffective, unconstitutional and violates American values. We shouldn't complacently surrender our rights for a false sense of security." 


Not to be left out, CAIR (the Council on American-Islamic Relations) had to put in their two cents, "Under these new guidelines, almost every American Muslim who travels to see family or friends or goes on pilgrimage to Mecca will automatically be singled out for special security checks -- that's profiling," said CAIR National Executive Director Nihad Awad in a statement. "While singling out travelers based on religion and national origin may make some people feel safer, it only serves to alienate and stigmatize Muslims and does nothing to improve airline security," Awad said.

My response?  I could give a flying fuck what the ACLU or CAIR has to say on the subject.  Conservatively, I would say that I probably disagree with the ACLU at least 90% of the time, and I would say most patriotic Americans feel the same.  And let's not even get me started about CAIR.  CAIR leaders have been quoted as saying that they want "Islam to be the dominant religion of the United States," and they want "the US to be under sharia law."  

Let's face it, if you are going fishing for tuna are you going to go to the desert or are you going out to the ocean? While not all Muslims are terrorists, the vast majority of terrorists have been Muslims.  If you are going to try to find terrorists and prevent them from coming to this country, don't you need to identify them where they are?  I am sorry (not really) if that viewpoint offends the sensibilities of groups like the ACLU and CAIR, but CAIR has been silent for too long and too slow in condemning terrorist activities.  Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab never should have been on that flight on Christmas day.  If so called "profiling" can prevent another Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab then it is worth it in my humble opinion.    

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• Muslim-American group criticizes TSA plan as profiling (cnn.com)
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