TSA trouble: It’s not over yet

The TSA body-scan/pat-down crisis isn’t over — yet.

Yes, National-Opt Out Day is history, with both sides incorrectly declaring victory. But this Sunday is just as busy as Wednesday, according to the Bureau of Transportation Statistics. (By some estimates, it is the busiest travel day of the year.)

In other words, we’re only halfway there.

With that in mind, here’s an update from the eye of the storm.

President defends pat-downs. President Obama tells ABC’s Barbara Walters tonight that the pat-downs will continue. “I understand people’s frustrations with it,” he says. “But I also know that if there was an explosion in the air that killed a couple of hundred people…and it turned out that we could have prevented it possibly…that would be something that would be pretty upsetting to most of us – including me.”

Administrator Pistole offers terrorists a roadmap. The TSA administrator, who refuses to answer questions from the blogosphere, is making himself more than available to mainstream media. Perhaps a little too available. Yesterday, he offered the terrorists a blueprint in an interview with The Christian Science Monitor. “We’re not going to get in the business of doing body cavities,” he said. Terrorists around the world are bending over as I write this.

Complaints against TSA soar. The ACLU reported this morning that it has received over 900 complaints from travelers in the United States about the TSA’s new pat-downs. “These complaints came from men, women and children who reported feeling humiliated and traumatized by these searches, and, in some cases, comparing their psychological impact to sexual assaults,” it says. You can read some of them here.

Air travelers not moving on. Public frustration with the TSA remains high, despite the holiday. One of the most complete synopses of the agency’s many misdeeds comes from Atlanta Journal-Constitution commentator Bob Barr. “Perhaps the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) recently has received reliable intelligence that al Qaeda has been busy recruiting cancer survivors as sleeper terrorists, and grade-school students travelling with their parents as suicide bombers,” he writes in his blog. There’s one notable omission, which is this unbelievable standoff between TSA and a passenger earlier this week.

But I might be moving on. These are strange times. Very strange times. The Department of Homeland Security today seized more Internet domain names with little explanation. Some of these businesses were involved in the sale of counterfeit goods, but at least one was apparently simply shut down because it linked to content the DHS found objectionable. Given that DHS considers this site a member of what it patronizingly refers to as the “alternative media” and has served me with an unsuccessful subpoena and — if this memo is to be believed — probably regards yours truly as a “domestic extremist” for simply questioning the pat-downs and full body scans, then my days may be numbered.

We have another 24 hours or so before the circus begins again. I’ll be keeping an eye on the situation, of course.

If I’m still here.

Update (9/27): I’m still here. Turns out the torrent site I mentioned in the last paragraph took itself down, not the DHS.

(Photo: Dan S house/Flickr Creative Commons)

  • Tim Castle

    Are there any statistics telling us how many actual threats that the post 9-11 increased security measures have caught? I don’t mean how many pocketknives or nail clippers they’ve collected, but how many actual active attempts to commit an act of terror has the TSA prevented by enhanced pat-downs, hand inspection of luggage, full-body scanners, shoe swabs, and the like?

    You’d think they’d say something about that if they want to keep the American public committed to increased travel security.

  • http://www.singleparenttravel.net John Frenaye

    The TSA has yet to prevent any almost act of terrorism that I know of. Richard Reid–an alert flight attendant. Underwear bomber–he got here. The recent “attempts” caught overseas.

    Kabuki Theater.

  • Joe Farrell

    @John = Kabuki Theater? That’s an insult to Kabuki actors- at least they provide a service and tell a story .. ..

  • Monica

    @Tim I was thinking something similar. I’m more interested in knowing exactly how many bombs they *have* found. From where I’m sitting, it seems many incidents are originating from international flights.

    A friend recently flew into the U.S. from Mexico. He was waived through security. No metal detectors. No one checked his bags. No one confirmed his passport/ID at the secuirty checkpoint. He said they barely looked at him.

  • frostysnowman

    Wow – the comments on the ACLU web site are frightening. And I still don’t understand why people with medical appliances and those who have metal inside them to hold them together have to automatically be patted down every time. Disgusting!

  • marilyn

    Opposition is likely to grow as more naked body scanners are installed in airports and more passengers are faced with the unpalatable choice of radiation vs groping. Right now only 400 scanners have been installed, but another 1,800 are on the way:
    http://reason.com/blog/2010/11/24/only-400-of-2200-body-scanners
    I hope they don’t close you down, Chris. Your only crime is telling an inconvenient truth.

  • Joe Farrell

    @Monica – ah, the joys of private General Aviation . . . . we flew from near Ontario Calif to outside Phoenix AZ thanksgiving morning. We left the house at 0645am and arrived at my brother in law’s house before 930am PST. So that was 2 hours and 45 min including 2 hours in the air. No TSA, no search, no security. Why not you ask? Because I am the pilot and owner of the airplane and I personally know everyone who sets foot or places luggage in that aircraft. There is zero risk to anyone on the ground or in the airplane of anyone bringing anything they I do not consent being brought on board.

    Tomorrow – we are flying home – we’ll leave when we are ready and get home when we get there.

  • Eric

    Chris, I hope I never punch this site up and find that your URL has been seized. A few years ago I’d have called you paranoid. But after what I’ve seen the last few months, I expect the TSA and DHS have already drawn up a “hit list” of travel web-sites they don’t like, and may have already explored seizing those sites to stifle dissent.

  • Thomas

    @ Joe

    Enjoy it while you can. From what I’ve been reading, TSA wants control of the private sector as well.

  • http://nmdfreelance.com Nancy

    Like Abraham Lincoln, Obama has opted to suspend Habeas Corpus to further his agenda.

    Chris, be grateful you haven’t been sent to jail, which is what Lincoln was famous for during his reign of terror. If a journalist disagreed with him, they were simply arrested and held – no warrant, no trial – just straight to jail.

  • Carrie Charney

    If our congressmen were subjected to the sexual pleasures of the TSA’s caresses, like the people who elected them have to, I’m sure the legal rape would be stopped quickly.

    A Travelziner tells of being poked in the crotch, not once, but twice and of watching an elderly woman having to stand from her wheel chair to endure the same. She was crying and couldn’t have her daughter by her side to help her keep her balance. While on the porno/rape line, she, as well as all others on the line, could see the naked bodies on the scanner and could tell exactly whose it was. So much for anonymity.

  • Barbara

    I was planning a trip to Uruguay to visit a long time friend. That’s on hold for now. Obama just lost my vote. George Soros, an important contributor to Obama in more ways than just money, is a major investor in Advanced Imaging Technology and is profiting from the AIT machines. As usual, follow the money.

  • sallly

    Obama’s defense of pat-downs is a better defense of profiling.

  • Duke Nukem

    This is the new Amerika, komrades!!!

  • randy mcbride

    My 74-year-old dad was travelling recently and received a gestapo type interrogation in a private screening room at the hands of the TSA. His crime? $3700 in his wallet. He said that they started backpedalling when it finally occurred to them that he wasn’t a drug dealer, but by that time, he was very freaked out and furious at being made to feel that carrying cash was some sort of crime. My response is that when I am not calling airlines and airports, congressional representatives and senators, I am spending time discussing aircraft leasing arrangements with fractional jet and charter providers, all of whom are saying they are receiving much interest from frequent flyers in the wake of TSA’s butchering of civil rights. It seems we are fighting a new type of terrorist, and they are at all public airports but hoping to be soon at a bus terminal, train station, and public event near all of us. I was not policitically involved until recently, but I am going to question TSA endlessly over THEIR right to exist.

  • Mary Graham

    Again, I say, STOP FLYING

  • http://www.meetup.com/National-Boycott-of-Airline-Travel-2011/ Estelle Edwards

    ATTN: Marty Graham, Randy McBride and others on this forum:

    http://www.meetup.com/National-Boycott-of-Airline-Travel-2011/

    Tell your friends, everybody, to visit the above link. Copy it and paste it into an email. Send it to everyone you know. Have others do the same. Let’s see how empty we can make the airports by the target date next year!