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Title: The TSA's Secret Watchlist for Travelers Who Don't Kowtow
Source:
The Future of Freedom Foundation
URL Source: https://www.fff.org/explore-freedom ... for-travelers-who-dont-kowtow/
Published: Feb 17, 2019
Author: James Bovard
Post Date: 2019-02-17 15:23:40 by Hondo68
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Keywords: Grab Their Junk, TSA, Log Cabin Republicans, Ignore pesky Constitution
Views: 2110
Comments: 22
“I need a witness!” exclaimed the worried Transportation Security Administration screener at Reagan Washington National Airport a few months ago. Because I had forgotten to remove my belt before going through a TSA scanner, he explained that I must undergo an “enhanced patdown.” I told him that if he jammed my groin, I’d file a formal complaint against him. So he summoned his supervisor to keep an eye on the proceedings. After his white-suited boss arrived on the scene, I announced that I too, needed a witness. The boss bureaucrat assured me there was a video camera recording the scene. “But does it have audio?” I demanded to know. “That’s confidential security information,” he replied. “Ha! More like security theater,” I retorted. I thought of this exchange when the New York Times revealed that the TSA has created a new secret watchlist for troublesome passengers. The TSA justifies the new list because TSA screeners were said to have been assaulted 34 times last year. “We were seeing an alarming increase in the number of assaults against our officers,” fretted Darby LaJoye, one of the TSA’s top security officials. TSA spokeswoman Lisa Farbstein declared, “TSA is committed to its people and wants to ensure there are safeguards in place to protect TSA officers and others from any individual who has previously exhibited disruptive or assaultive behavior at a screening checkpoint and is scheduled to fly.” However, the TSA’s press office refused to release a list or any details of those assaults, including how many times accused assailants were arrested. The TSA also refused to answer my question: “How does TSA define an ‘assault’ on a TSA screener?” I was told I would need to file a Freedom of Information Act request for that information, but the TSA scorns federal law and often delays responses for months or years. Such tactics help explain why some people believe that “TSA” stands for “tactics to suppress accountability.” Naturally, the TSA’s new official definition of “troublemaker” for this list goes far beyond people who slug screeners. Have you ever “loitered” near a checkpoint? Bingo. Any woman who ever pushed a screener’s hands away from squeezing her breasts could also be guilty — even though the TSA never formally promulgated its territorial claim to that part of the female anatomy. Intrusive patdowns Any behavior which is “offensive [to the TSA] and without legal justification” can get a person secretly listed, according to a confidential TSA memo acquired by the New York Times. “Challenges to the safe and effective completion of screening” also can be punished. If you complain that a TSA agent is violating your constitutional rights, you could be tagged as a troublemaker in perpetuity. The TSA would have been more honest if it announced that anyone who fails to instantly and unquestioningly submit to all TSA demands is guilty of insubordination. ACLU attorney Hugh Handeyside warns that the new watchlist “permits TSA officials to blacklist people for conduct that could be wholly innocuous. This is conduct that’s so completely subjective, and in many cases likely completely innocent, it just gives officers too much latitude to blacklist people arbitrarily and to essentially punish them for asserting their rights and in doing anything other than complying with officers’ demands.” What happens to travelers put on the watchlist? It’s a secret — so far. Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman (D-NJ) declared, “What I don’t want … is an excuse for unfair, secret profiling that doesn’t even offer a chance for people to contest their name appearing on such a list.” The TSA denies that this is a “No Fly” list. However, the TSA has been caught in so many falsehoods over the years that people are naturally wary. The TSA’s latest effort to vilify resistance would be less perilous if it was not one of most incompetent agencies on earth. Last year, a TSA undercover team succeeded 95 percent of the time in smuggling weapons and mock bombs past airport screeners in Minneapolis. The Department of Homeland Security inspector general concluded that TSA screeners and equipment had failed to detect mock threats roughly 80 percent of the time. Recent results parallel earlier findings revealing the TSA’s utter inability to detect smuggled items regardless of how badly it abuses travelers. Despite squeezing millions of behinds and breasts, the TSA has never caught a real terrorist. Despite its debacles, the TSA recently became even more intrusive and punitive in its patdowns: Such abuses spurred Flyersrights .org, the nation’s largest airline-passenger organization, to complain to the TSA last year about “highly invasive patdowns, especially on children, disabled, elderly, transgender, and sexual assault victims, thereby undermining public confidence and instilling fear and loathing by many passengers for the TSA, and used by no other country.” Americans have filed thousands of complaints that TSA screeners had used excessive force or touched them inappropriately. How many TSA screeners have been fired as a result? Maybe none. What is the ratio of alleged assaults on TSA agents to the actual number of assaults on passengers (based on prevailing local definitions) by TSA agents? Alas, such trivia could never hold a federal bureaucracy’s attention. Or perhaps the agency simply presumes that “it’s not an assault when federal agents do it.” We do know that the TSA dismally fails to police its workforce: the number of TSA misconduct allegations (including bribery, smuggling, and voyeurism) is up more than 50 percent since 2010 — including more than 17,000 misconduct allegations against TSA’s 55,000 employees in 2015. A House Homeland Security Committee report derided the agency’s “Misconduct Industrial Complex” for failing to respond to proliferating problems. Judicial permission An ongoing federal court case is showcasing the TSA’s accosting prerogatives. Airplane captain James Linlor was traveling through Dulles Airport in 2016 when he suffered a brutal patdown that left him requiring surgery. A TSA video shows that the patdown was proceeding normally — if somewhat aggressively — until the TSA agent with no warning administered what appeared to be a karate chop to Linlor’s testicles. Linlor sued, claiming that the TSA violated his rights with an unconstitutional and unreasonable search. The TSA asked the court to dismiss Linlor’s case because, instead of suing, he could have phoned in his complaint to the TSA Contact Center. In a federal court hearing last year, Justice Department lawyer Nicole Murley insisted that “there’s no law … establishing a specific degree of permissible intrusiveness of a [TSA] security screening patdown.” And since there’s no law, Americans should have no legal recourse no matter how they are abused. The TSA also insisted that its screener deserved legal immunity even if he did pummel Linlor’s private parts. Federal judge James Cacheris scoffed at the government’s “oratorical calisthenics” and rejected the inference that “a reasonable federal officer would be surprised to learn that gratuitously striking an individual in the groin while searching them violates the Fourth Amendment.” The judge quoted an earlier court decision that stressed the illegality of using “unnecessary, gratuitous, and disproportionate force to seize a secured, unarmed citizen.” Linlor’s case is currently before a federal appeals court. The TSA has a long history of maximizing intimidation. In 2002, it created a secret system of fines to penalize travelers who had bad attitudes towards TSA screeners. It fined some Americans $1,500 for “nonphysical interference” at a TSA checkpoint — which included any “situation that in any way would interfere with the screener and his or her ability to continue to work or interfere with their ability to do their jobs,” according to TSA spokeswoman Ann Davis. The TSA failed to specify precisely how much groveling was necessary at checkpoints. It claimed the right to inflict surprise ex post facto penalties long after flights were completed on the basis of a 2002 Federal Register notice that announced that people could be arrested if they acted in a way that “might distract or inhibit a screener from effectively performing his or her duties…. A screener encountering such a situation must turn away from his or her normal duties to deal with the disruptive individual, which may affect the screening of other individuals.” Practically any comment or behavior that makes a TSA screener “turn away” from whatever he was doing can thus be a federal offense. The TSA’s attitude fines eventually fell into disuse. So am I on the new TSA Troublesome Traveler watchlist? I have been hammering the TSA in print for 15 years, and TSA chief John Pistole claimed that a 2014 article I wrote was “misleading, inaccurate, and unfairly disparages the dedicated [TSA] workforce.” The following year, after I endured a Portland patdown that seemingly sought to turn my family jewels into a pancake, I raised hell in USA Today and elsewhere. More recently, a TSA press officer condemned me for an “outrageous” article as well as my previous “TSA hit pieces,” but his boss warned him against “picking a fight” (as I learned from a long-delayed Freedom of Information Act disclosure). If I didn’t make the new TSA watchlist, it was not for lack of trying. The TSA’s latest anti-privacy charade is one more proof that the agency must be abolished. After pointlessly groping millions of Americans, the TSA has no excuse for groping millions more.
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Now under new management, President Donald J. Trump
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#1. To: hondo68 (#0)
Simple really. Buy your own aircraft or don’t fly. I’ve flown hundreds of times since the inception of TSA. Never a problem. I personally like it when they weed out the terrorists, Paultards and drug traffickers from smelling up the plane I’m on. lol
I'm the infidel... Allah warned you about. كافر المسلح
Doesn't seem like nearly enough. These cretins act like gestapo perverts. Leftists scream about border enforcers, but stay strangely and puerilely silent about this off the track TSA. Profiling should be used and many of us don't fit the profile of a terrorist murderer.
Liberals are like Slinkys. They're good for nothing, but somehow they bring a smile to your face as you shove them down the stairs.
Admit it psycho - you get a boner when you see TSA goons molesting children, the elderly and decorated military veterans. Shameful and disgusting! TSA slammed for invasive groping of triple-amputee US veteran
Government is in the last resort the employment of armed men, of policemen, gendarmes, soldiers, prison guards, and hangmen.
Why is it, they don’t ever “molest” me or a single fucking person I know.. If “molestations” are an epidemic? Can you come up with a logical reason for that?
I'm the infidel... Allah warned you about. كافر المسلح
Rand is a good person, and a good father & son. I don’t hold animosity against Ron... however I do loath his 6% following. They are assholes and they act like disruptive assholes on every Internet forum you’ll ever post on. Period.
I'm the infidel... Allah warned you about. كافر المسلح
Sure, Gatlin's Canaries all love it when guys grab their junk.
I don’t know where you fly, asshole,but my “junk” has never been “grabbed”. You’re either making shit up... or you dream about it happening.
I'm the infidel... Allah warned you about. كافر المسلح
The simple phrase “consider the source” along with the neutrality-cultivating “that’s interesting”, will save you much consternation when trying to figure out the who, what, where, when and why of “perceptions.” Why is “consider the source” so powerful when dealing with criticism? Second, it gives you a chance to decide whether the negative feedback is valid … or not. Third, for some magical reason, this phrase has the ability to temporarily diffuse emotions, just like a dab of aloe vera on a sunburn. This means that you have an opportunity to be fully present and think more clearly, without the cloudiness offered by revved-up feelings. Fourth, if you decide that the person delivering the criticism is a trusted source and the feedback is valid, you can make the choice to constructively learn from the experience and integrate it into your way of showing up in the world. On the other hand, if you decide that the criticism is not being delivered from a place of integrity, accuracy and goodwill, you can quickly sweep it into the dust bin and carry on with your day, secure in the knowledge that you at least took the time to process the criticism in a healthy, open, and proactive way … meaning that you don’t act and feel like a victim. Like most things in life, the more you practice, the better you become at automatically moving into “consider the source” mode when criticism strikes.
Gatlin: shill for TSA perversion. Why do you condone the reprehensible treatment of this highly decorated military veteran, children and the elderly?
Government is in the last resort the employment of armed men, of policemen, gendarmes, soldiers, prison guards, and hangmen. Hi there. I’m so glad you stopped by as I was thinking about you when I read the article below and I have a question to ask you. First the article: The Boulder County Coroner’s Office has identified the man who was found dead Tuesday in a house on Chestnut Drive in Longmont as Ralph Shnelvar, the chair of the Boulder County Libertarian Party. Shnelvar’s wife had called 911 after a domestic violence incident in the home and said that he was suicidal and had access to firearms. The report prompted a large police response. Longmont police and SWAT officers tried to speak with Shnelvar outside the home through a public address system, but Shnelvar would not leave the residence. Two police robots were sent inside the home and found Shnelvar, 68, dead. The coroner’s office has finished the autopsy and is investigating the cause and manner of his death. Shnelvar was the only person in the home at the time of the incident. https://www.denverpost.com/2019/02/13/boulder-county-libertarian-found-dead- longmont-standoff/ All of which begs the question: Since it continues to accomplishes nothing, then….then, why in heaven's name do you continue to put yourself through it?
Shall I post the numerous instances of Republicans who have committed suicide? No doubt that list would be magnitudes larger than any dirt you can dig up on libertarians. All of which begs the question: Since it continues to accomplishes nothing... So you say. Liberty is not a priority for fed.gov worshipers like you, is it? I can only begin to vaguely imagine the devastating strong impact that the chronic stress of being a libertarian and especially being the chair of a county Libertarian Party has on mental health and suicidal thinking. You have no frikkin' idea what caused this man to tragically take his own life - this was just another excuse for you to wantonly bash libertarians. Same shit - different day.
Government is in the last resort the employment of armed men, of policemen, gendarmes, soldiers, prison guards, and hangmen. Tragic? Ain’t nothin’ tragic about suicide, dumb shit. It’s the epitome of idiocy and selfishness. It’s how the weakest part of the herd is thinned. If you are so weak, you can’t even keep from sucking on a gun barrel... then you need to die.
I'm the infidel... Allah warned you about. كافر المسلح
Spoken like a true sociopath. If you are so weak, you can’t even keep from sucking on a gun barrel... then you need to die. Your apparent lack of compassion and empathy for other human beings is reprehensible. Seems to be a trait shared by most cops.
Government is in the last resort the employment of armed men, of policemen, gendarmes, soldiers, prison guards, and hangmen. And I have no frikkin’ idea what caused this man to ever become a libertarian. Although I strongly suspect ignorance and malice aforethought. Be mindful that my judgment calls are definitely a natural instinct conditioned by the myriad of spastic actions you libertarians forever undertake which easily give reason to see your misgivings and shortcomings.
Yet you blame his libertarianism for his suicide. Your ignorance knows no bounds.
Government is in the last resort the employment of armed men, of policemen, gendarmes, soldiers, prison guards, and hangmen. Yet you blame his libertarianism for his suicide. It was the headline of the article that called ATTENTION to the fact that he was a libertarian. In case you missed it, I shall refresh your memory:
No one brought up libertarians until you posted your thinly veiled hit piece. You can't even address the topic of the article - your hatred for anything associated with liberty is well known around these parts. You're a one-trick pony, an unimaginative and frankly tiresome shill.
Government is in the last resort the employment of armed men, of policemen, gendarmes, soldiers, prison guards, and hangmen. LOL …
The headline should read:
Gavin demands groping this airline passenger! Desperately trying to convince someone that he's not a pervert.
And it’s your inability to keep your over sensitivity from creating government ENABLEMENT and non self sufficiency, snowflake. A drug users addiction is solely on the drug user. Asshole.
I'm the infidel... Allah warned you about. كافر المسلح
Now under new management, President Donald J. Trump
#2. To: hondo68 (#0)
TSA screeners were said to have been assaulted 34 times last year.
#3. To: GrandIsland, hondo68 (#1)
I personally like it when they weed out the terrorists, Paultards and drug traffickers from smelling up the plane I’m on. lol
The essential feature of government is the enforcement of its decrees by beating, killing, and imprisoning.
Those who are asking for more government interference are asking ultimately for more compulsion and less freedom.
#4. To: GrandIsland (#1)
#5. To: Deckard (#3)
you get a boner when you see TSA goons molesting children, the elderly and decorated military veterans.
#6. To: A K A Stone (#4)
#7. To: GrandIsland, Gatlin, Canary Cult (#1)
I’ve flown hundreds of times since the inception of TSA. Never a problem. I personally like it
#8. To: hondo68 (#7)
Sure, Gatlin's Canaries all love it when guys grab their junk.
#9. To: GrandIsland (#5)
(Edited)
Title: The TSA's Secret Watchlist for Travelers Who Don't Kowtow
From the Future of Freedom Foundation website:
Source: The Future of Freedom Foundation The mission of Future of Freedom Foundation is to advance liberty by providing an uncompromising moral, philosophical, and economic case for the libertarian philosophy. As the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution reflect, people have the natural and God-given rights to live their lives any way they choose, so long as their conduct is peaceful.
GrandIsland to Deckard: Why is it, they don’t ever “molest” me or a single fucking person I know.. If “molestations” are an epidemic? Can you come up with a logical reason for that?
I can’t step in and give you a “logical reason for that” but I can give you some logical reasons you should always remember to “consider the source” when trying to come up with a logical reason for anything. First, it provides a framework to help decipher if you trust and value the opinion of the person who is delivering the criticism.
I’d like at this point to share a great quote on criticism. It is called The Man in the Arena: “It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again; because there is not effort without error and shortcomings; but who does actually strive to do the deed; who knows the great enthusiasm, the great devotion, who spends himself in a worthy cause, who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement and who at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly. So that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.” ~ Theodore Roosevelt
Finally, I’d also like to share this synopsis on: TSA’s Guidelines for Amputees and Prosthetics.
#10. To: Gatlin (#9)
(Edited)
The essential feature of government is the enforcement of its decrees by beating, killing, and imprisoning.
Those who are asking for more government interference are asking ultimately for more compulsion and less freedom.
#11. To: Deckard (#10)
(Edited)
Boulder County Libertarian Party chair found dead in Longmont home after standoff with SWAT officers.
Now the question with a preface setting forth its purpose and scope: I can only begin to vaguely imagine the devastating strong impact that the chronic stress of being a libertarian and especially being the chair of a county Libertarian Party has on mental health and suicidal thinking. The stress characterized as the physiological demand you libertarians place on the body when you adapt, cope or adjust to normal day to day situations must be truly astounding.
I’ll drop back in at some future date in hope of reading your responsively comprehensive answer to explain the abusive appeals, misguided efforts and seemingly out-of-body influences that control your fanatical daily libertarian life.
#12. To: Gatlin (#11)
The Boulder County Coroner’s Office has identified the man who was found dead Tuesday in a house on Chestnut Drive in Longmont as Ralph Shnelvar, the chair of the Boulder County Libertarian Party.
The essential feature of government is the enforcement of its decrees by beating, killing, and imprisoning.
Those who are asking for more government interference are asking ultimately for more compulsion and less freedom.
#13. To: Deckard (#12)
tragically
#14. To: GrandIsland (#13)
Tragic? Ain’t nothin’ tragic about suicide, dumb shit. If you are so weak, you can’t even keep from sucking on a gun barrel... then you need to die.
The essential feature of government is the enforcement of its decrees by beating, killing, and imprisoning.
Those who are asking for more government interference are asking ultimately for more compulsion and less freedom.
#15. To: Deckard (#12)
(Edited)
You have no frikkin' idea what caused this man to tragically take his own life -
That’s true. - this was just another excuse for you to wantonly bash libertarians.
Nah, I never need an excuse to justifiably bash libertarians. Same shit - different day.
Same libertarian shit – different stupidity.
#16. To: Gatlin (#15)
And I have no frikkin’ idea what caused this man to ever become a libertarian.
The essential feature of government is the enforcement of its decrees by beating, killing, and imprisoning.
Those who are asking for more government interference are asking ultimately for more compulsion and less freedom.
#17. To: Deckard (#16)
And I have no frikkin’ idea what caused this man to ever become a libertarian.
Ahem … Boulder County Libertarian Party chair found dead in Longmont home after standoff with SWAT officers.
You say: Your ignorance knows no bounds.
I say: The ignorance to commit suicide should have bounds as should also the ignorance to be a libertarian.
#18. To: Gatlin (#17)
It was the headline of the article that called ATTENTION to the fact that he was a libertarian.
The essential feature of government is the enforcement of its decrees by beating, killing, and imprisoning.
Those who are asking for more government interference are asking ultimately for more compulsion and less freedom.
#19. To: Deckard (#18)
You’re [….] an unimaginative and frankly tiresome shill.
Yet you DWELL on my EVERY word.
#20. To: Deckard (#18)
You can't even address the topic of the article –
I see no reason to address an allegation. The alleged TSA's Secret Watchlist for Travelers Who Don't Kowtow
#21. To: Gatlin, Libertarian Groper, Canary perv (#20)
(Edited)
#22. To: Deckard (#14)
(Edited)
Your apparent lack of compassion and empathy for other human beings is reprehensible
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