Quotulatiousness

November 12, 2010

Former TSA agent says “Shut Up And Get In The Scanner”

Filed under: Bureaucracy, Liberty — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 16:57

A former TSA scanner talks about the uproar about the full body scanners:

As a former TSA Federal Security Officer aka “screener” I have seen some incredible stuff come through the airport. I have worked in every position over the 5 years I was there. I have screened you, your carry on luggage, your checked luggage and even cargo you may have sent someplace. I have seen tons and trust me a naked image of you is not a problem.

When I worked in the checkpoint and screened passengers and their carry-on luggage, not only could I see what you had in your carry-on bag, I could see you. I could connect the image on the screen with the passenger. If that didn’t humiliate you then this tiny little naked image shouldn’t either. The TSA officer who is looking at the image will never see you and you won’t see them. But that vibrator in your carry-on luggage that looks like it would satisfy an elephant, yeah I see that and I see you standing right in front of me. But sure be offended by the naked x-ray image a person in another room is seeing, don’t worry about the vibrator at all or the other weird and crazy crap in your bag.

[. . .]

The Invasive Pat Down [. . .] is bullshit. It is a terror tactic by TSA to get you to walk through the more thorough body scanner. I can’t defend TSA on this one. I have talked to the TSA officers and it is no more effective than the old pat down procedure. They tested it out with trainers and each other. It is purely a terror tactic by TSA. Shame on TSA and anyone who has to get one should write a complaint in afterward. You still have to get it though if you want to get on the plane. Throwing a fit will not get you out of it.

As I’ve mentioned in other posts, I’ve pretty much given up on flying except for distances that are impractical for driving. I sure haven’t missed the “joys” of airport security for the last few years.

The Two Scotts both like Minnesota over Chicago

Filed under: Football — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 12:04

After suddenly liking the Vikings’ chances last week, they both like their chances this week:

Feschuk: Okay, sports media, we get it: The Minnesota players don’t like Brad Childress. I believe we now have approximately 7,000 anonymous sources confirming this fact. Tell Morley Safer to climb on out of the Vikings’ locker-room laundry hamper with his Whisper 2000 — he’s been scooped. Let’s now move forward and focus on more salient issues such as whether Jay Cutler will prioritize his interceptions to members of the Vikings secondary based on height or alphabetical order. Pick: Minnesota.

Reid: I feel certain the Vikes will go on a wild winning streak now that it means Childress keeps his job. This reflects the “Get What I Don’t Want” principle that condemns the U.S. economy and every woman I’ve ever dated. Jay Cutler threw no interceptions against Buffalo last week. That means he’s got twice the quota to fill this week. These statistics don’t just look after themselves, you know. Pick: Minnesota.

Another G20 meeting, another blow against free speech

Filed under: Cancon, Law, Liberty — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 09:45

If you followed the progress of the last G20 meeting in Toronto, you’ll recall the street theatre it gave rise to. The politicians meeting behind barricades, barbed wire, and thousands of police and soldiers weren’t the story — the story was the protest. In turns, it was peaceful, randomly vandalistic, and then violently suppressed. I was generally against the whole thing, both the G20 itself and the protests that were generated by its presence.

Christopher Hume has been attending the Canadian Civil Liberties Association public meetings about the events of that weekend:

In anticipation of the violence that has become de rigueur at such gatherings, South Korea has mobilized 50,000 police officers and put its armed forces on the highest security alert.

Sound familiar? It should. We did exactly the same thing — and in the process revealed ourselves to be oafs. And not just oafs, but nasty oafs.

Just how nasty is being documented by the Canadian Civil Liberties Association. It’s holding public meetings this week in Toronto and Montreal to hear from victims of police violence at the G20. Their stories were at once riveting and tedious. Riveting because the pain is so obviously real; tedious because they’re all the same.

The fact is that G20 summits have no place in the city. The gatherings, which come with full imperial trappings, are a contemporary version of the Field of the Cloth of Gold. That was the legendary meeting in 1520 between King Henry VIII of England and King Francis I of France. As the name implies, it was a diplomatic extravaganza where fountains flowed with wine, where palaces were constructed — and where nothing was accomplished.

[. . .]

A city is its infrastructure. That infrastructure is what we inhabit, and what enables us to inhabit the city. But because of security concerns, G20 organizers and their uniformed henchmen feel they must shut down that infrastructure, and with it, the city.

The tales of police callousness and brutality being heard at the CCLA are a disturbing reminder of the lengths to which the state will go to ensure its safety even at the cost of ours. It’s like the old line from the Vietnam War about having to destroy a village in order to save it. In this case, Torontonians, and by extension all Canadians, had their right to security suspended so as not to compromise the participants’ security — or, more to the point perhaps, not to inconvenience these terribly important people.

Earlier posts on the G20 idiocy here.

New book for kids about to fly for the first time

Filed under: Humour, Liberty — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 09:33

Mark Frauenfelder has the book to give to your child before going to the airport:

Got to start ’em early . . . by the time they’re full-grown, they’ll accept any intrusion from government officials as a matter of course.

The original version (in French) is here.

Another call to keep the Harrier in operation

Filed under: Britain, Economics, Military — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 08:33

The Economist sums up the arguments in favour of retaining the Harrier over the RAF’s preferred Tornado:

Francis Tusa of Defence Analysis, a newsletter, reckons that retiring the much more maintenance-heavy Tornados instead of the Harriers would have saved £4 billion-5 billion, while keeping Ark Royal going would cost only about £120m a year. He adds that getting out of the strike-carrier business for ten years means that critical skills will be lost. Others, including the letter’s authors, fear that the “carrier gap” will mean Britain loses the ability to carry out autonomous expeditionary missions. Among other things, that would, they say, leave the Falkland Islands (and their valuable oilfields) vulnerable to attack.

What appears to have changed the new (and inexperienced) National Security Council’s mind at the last moment was the air force’s claim that the Tornado was more effective than the Harrier in Afghanistan. It is odd that this was regarded as a clinching argument, as there are more than enough jets in Afghanistan. It is true that in terms of range, payload, speed and its ability to hit moving targets, the Tornado wins. On the other hand, the Harrier can operate from makeshift landing sites, is more flexible and reliable and could easily be equipped with the advanced Brimstone anti-tank missiles carried by the Tornado. And for five months of the year in Afghanistan, when the weather is hot, the Tornado can only take off with a similar weapons load to the Harrier.

The RAF’s enthusiasm for the Tornado is understandable. It does not have to share it with the navy (the Harrier is operated by a Joint Strike Wing) and it needs a lot more people to operate it (saving air-force jobs). Mr Tusa suggests a sensible compromise that would still save billions of pounds: get rid of half the Tornados, keeping 60 until they are not needed in Afghanistan; retain 20 Harriers for carrier duty until their replacements arrive in 2020; and accelerate the deployment of the strike version of the Typhoon. Time for a rethink.

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