TSA's Obscene Security Procedures

It's been in the news the past few days that the TSA is adding a body scanner that basically shows the person without clothes. Airline passengers who don't want to be scanned in that way have to be groped. Kids aren't exempt from the scanning or the groping.

The level of paranoia was already ridiculous a few years ago - now it's beyond belief.

Doesn't the Department of Homeland Security know that there are hundreds of thousands of other targets that terrorists could attack?  Doesn't the DHS know that in other countries terrorists also blow up busses, night clubs, hotels, and government offices? Doesn't the DHS know that most Americans aren't out to get us? Doesn't the DHS know that states like California actually made it ILLEGAL for a landlord to demand verification of citizenship or legal alien status from tenants?

Real security experts agree that what the DHS is doing isn't really security, it's a facade of security. Someone coined the term "security theater" and I think that aptly describes what is going on. I don't feel any safer on an airplane now than I did the day after 9/11 or the day before 9/11.  So from now on I'm going to refer to the DHS as the DHS(Theater) or DHS(T).

Even if terrorists are plotting to hijack another airplane, I prefer to have armed guards on each flight than to be photographed nude or groped, since, of course, I'm not a terrorist.  

And by the way, those body scans ARE photographs. The image isn't "saved" or "printed" but it's still a photograph by definition. And since the person being photographed appears without clothes, they are nude photographs.

The terrorists are winning because, in a sort of blind collaboration with our own idiot politicians, they caused us to STAY in Afghanistan and to STAY in Iraq long past achieving our objectives in those places.  Because of the terrorists we created a Department of Homeland Security, even though we already have a Department of Defense, and we are allowing this new DHS(T) to actually terrorize Americans. A DHS(T) spokesperson is always saying "the threat is real" and so on. And we keep stripping off more clothes and getting groped in more places at airports.

I've been planning a family vacation to Hawaii in 2012 with my wife. When I heard about these new rules I talked to her and we agreed that instead of flying to Hawaii, we will take a cruise ship. We will drive 6 to 8 hours from our home to a port and then take a ship to Hawaii so we can avoid being violated at the airport. We will pay more for that vacation to avoid being violated at the airport.

And if we want to take another vacation to South America, or Europe, then we'll take a train to Canada or Mexico and then fly from there.

I think that a good defense should start with kicking out people we know aren't allowed to be here. Then it should continue with barring any rich Arabs from sending their kids here to college, and not sending any more aid to countries we know harbor our enemies.  Everyone should be aware of their surroundings and everyone should watch for suspicious individuals. Citizens should be allowed to carry weapons onto the airplanes with a special "airborne weapon license" that can be issued after some mandatory safety training and a fee. The more we know, and the more capable we are, the safer we are. When we abrogate our basic personal responsibility for our own safety, when we suspect everyone equally, when we allow the government to violate us so, we become sheep. When enough of us have become sheep it will be hard to convince the masses that we should go back to being people again.

We should REQUIRE landlords - anyone who leases or subleases a home - in every state to check the citizenship or legal immigrant status of their tenants. We should REQUIRE home sellers to check the citizenship or legal immigrant status of their buyers. And really that responsibility will fall on the licensed real estate agent, the bank loan officer, and the county clerk who records the transfer. Each one must check in case the others were taken out of the loop for some reason.  I know that even if we required that there would be a number of landlords or sellers/agents/bankers who don't check. But that will still make it easier for the INS to find the illegal residents.

We should REQUIRE law enforcement to immediately detain and deport any person who is proven to be here illegally.  We can offer a work program where anyone who wants to immigrate to the country can serve the country in some way - building roads and bridges, landscaping, or any other feasible job - while learning English and the American culture. After a certain amount of work, and after passing an English reading and conversation test, and after passing a written citizenship test, the immigrant would then be granted citizenship and could stay here freely.

We should REQUIRE all boys and girls of at least 18 years of age who have either finished high school or dropped out to serve the country in some way. Mix everyone up and give them different jobs so they meet other Americans from the rest of the country and they can work together and do something good as equals without segregation of any kind.

We should REQUIRE all high school students to be educated about government services available to them and about the importance of informed voting and where they can address their grievances and who they can turn to when they have problems.

We should REQUIRE transparency in all levels of government to eliminate corruption and rebuild trust with all Americans.

These steps would drastically reduce the chance that any American would become a terrorist. And that leaves only foreign terrorists as the ones to photograph nude and grope. And we can do away with the DHS(T), completely disband that organization, and let the Department of Defense perform its work of defending the constitution.