PHOTOS, PAGE 1

       Editor and prime reporter is Doug Terry, a veteran television and radio reporter in   Washington, DC, (details below)

Normally, I’d rather quote Atillla the Hun more favorably than George Will. His regular duty station is defending the privileges and perks of the wealthy class and warding off any threat to their money and power. He has been on this patrol for about forty years and he doesn’t apologize or back down. He knows what he wants and he wraps it in a mush meal of famous and obscure quotations to make the average reader think he is smart and his points mean something.

Well, today, I am jumping on the Will bandwagon, or, more correctly, he is trying to jump on mine and the millions who are outraged by what our government is trying to do at airports. Here is a clip from his latest column as carried in the Washington Post:

 When TSA personnel began looking for weapons of mass destruction in Tyner's underpants, he objected to having his groin patted. A TSA functionary, determined to do his duty pitilessly - his duty is to administer the latest (but surely not the last) wrinkle in the government's ever-intensifying protection of us - said: "If you're not comfortable with that, we can escort you back out, and you don't have to fly today."

 Tyner: "I don't understand how a sexual assault can be made a condition of my flying."

 TSA: "This is not considered a sexual assault."

 Tyner: "It would be if you weren't the government. . . ."

 TSA: "Upon buying your ticket, you gave up a lot of rights."

Nothing Will writes is offered up without political motives. I could just as easily see him on the other side of the argument, saying that people who refuse naked scanning and groping are unpatriotic and inconsiderate of others. Obviously, Will thinks that the downside will be yet another problem for Obama and the Democrats. He also fails to note that the draconian measures, and powers, of the TSA were created under George W. Bush, who fanned the flames of panic that hit the nation in the aftermath of     9-11, 2001, the better to take us into two wars.

Will, like most of the media, misses a very big point: Tyner was told, after he had left the screening area, not to leave the airport. He was further told he could face a civil fine of 10,000 dollars or more if he did not submit to the screening, even though he had elected to leave the airport peacefully. In effect, the TSA is saying you are under virtual arrest when you enter the screening area. You can’t back out, even though the TSA person offered that as a option to Tyner.

This whole mess has to be clarified and, hopefully, changed through legislation. People, American citizens must have the right to refuse further screening and leave the airport. Somebody needs to wake up that his is not only an invasion of privacy, it is backed by a threat to cause great financial harm and personal embarrassment to anyone who refuses.

Doug Terry, 11.21.10

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