PHOTOS, PAGE 1

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

The TerryReport is re-publishing a couple of comments from the New York Times online in regard to naked body scanners and aggressive pat downs at airports. These two are both well thought out, careful comments, in sharp contrast to an enormous number of Internet postings whch are nothing more than vile, angry attacks and rants.

My family home state of Texas has more than its share of what can only be called nut cases who have left the planet earth and are looking for a place to dock. It is great to read examples against that well known trend. The “eastern media” has often exaggerated the nature of Texas radicalism, but sometimes they’ve gotten it dead right.

Texans have a special attachment to freedom. As one who was raised half in Texas and Oklahoma and half in the east, I share that attachment. It comes, in part, from the reason that the ancestors of present day residents moved west in the first place: to achieve independence and live however they pleased.  This belief in freedom, however imperfect, serves us well at many times. Without citizen participation and action, our freedoms would evaporate like so much morning fog.

Doug Terry, 11.21.10

Walt

Corpus Christi, TX

November 19th, 2010

8:13 am

There is no government body in the United States that has the authority for virtual strip searches by technology coupled with "at will" searches where they finger and probe the genitals, breasts, and backsides of Americans on penalty of detention and large fines, except the Transportation Safety Agency. There is no government body in the United States that can detain and hold Americans simply for traveling from one place to another without warrant, without appeal to magistrates, without appeal to another impartial government body, except the TSA. There is no government agency that has no right for public hearings of due process, no right to know what the specific requirements are to be detained and charged, and no accountability for their actions by oversight, except the TSA.

Surely the TSA should be held to the highest possible standards, the greatest degree of scrutiny to assure the trust of the public, and the careful review of impartial third-parties of their claims for the forensic nature of their work.

The TSA does none of these things, and has earned the distain and disgust of the American public.

I've now witnessed several instances of wholly inappropriate searches by TSA personnel, who have been surly and even angry with passengers. The searches are clearly and obviously being used to set an example for other passengers to submit to an unproven non-peer reviewed technology or be groped.

When the searches are making women cry in fear as the searchers probe with their fingers at women's genitalia, men grunt in pain as their testicles are squeezed, and children scream in terror of being molested, the question has to be asked if the people performing the search are adequately trained. The TSA clearly has far lower standards of conduct and professionalism than the poorest small town sheriff's department, but it has carte blanche to search anyone in the most demeaning manner possible. There is no independent review of the training and qualifications allowed by TSA for the public to see and understand.

There has been no peer reviewed independent assessment of the technologies used by the TSA. All reviews and studies have been controlled by the TSA, or performed under the oversight of the TSA through contract or by sympathetic agencies that do not allow oversight by third parties.

As for the idiotic excuse that people don't have the right to travel freely in the United States, protected by the Constitution no matter where they go, consider the case where a municipality would allow their police department to strip search anyone who entered the municipal boundary on the premise that traveling through the municipality reduced their constitutional protections. Consider saying that people could always find some other road, some other avenue, some other highway rather than be strip searched at will by that municipality. After all, the municipality would avow, there's no right to go through a location where the Constitution is suspended, held aside, invalid. Simply entering the municipality would void all rights, citizens would be told, and resistance to this premise, even questioning it, would show disloyalty and weakness.

There's no special geographical boundary within the United States of America for the Constitution, no special exemption for the Bill of Rights in some town or borough, no wholesale voiding of the Fourth Amendment for a given building. These airports are within the United States, and in no way above the same requirements for judicial and public review of the conduct of government agents as any other location.

There's no magic wand to wave at the Constitution to turn it on and off like a lightbulb, no free pass for a government body to decide it applies when it's convenient, and doesn't when it's more difficult to meet. The Constitution isn't a guideline for occasional or passing interest, thrown aside like the wrapper on a cheap fast-food hamburger at a picnic.

The TSA and the larger Department of Homeland Security have to clearly follow the requirements of the United States Constitution. If they don't, everyone from the Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security down to the newest hire of TSA has violated the solemn promise that underlies the lives of every American citizen, "to support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic..."

They should be ashamed of their department, their agency, the very fact that they come to work each day performing their degrading and debasing searches of innocent Americans.

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Greg

Austin, TX, USA

November 18th, 2010

10:36 pm

I would be more amenable to submitting to the groping if I felt that Homeland Security was equally concerned with the wooded terrain near the airport.

When DHS demonstrates their vigilance in protecting the take-off zones of every major airport in the U.S. I will happily submit to my end of the bargain by allowing the humiliating invasion of privacy.

But right now, to my knowledge, there is nothing preventing a coordinated attack of dozens of shoulder-fired missiles being launched at jets taking off at every major airport in the U.S. at a predetermined moment.

The threat to our safety comes as much from outside the aircraft as within. Seal our ports and borders before you touch my junk.

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