PHOTOS, PAGE 1

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

The TSA showed off new scanners today (2.1.11) which do not show a naked image of the person being scanned, but instead a gray image which, if anything is detected as being hidden, would also have a red dot at the location of the hidden object. Here is the immediate reaction of the TerryReport:

This still does not answer the question of how the machines work and whether they emit radiation. Also, there can be no guarantee in terms of radiation that the machine is set up and operating properly on the day you are told to go through it. The TSA wants to use these machines for C.Y.A. (you know what that stands for), not because they are effective in finding terrorists. They have to use them a lot to justify the massive investment. Instead, such machines should be used only a very little, kept off to the side for special times when there is some STRONG indication that the person might be hiding a bomb. Otherwise, forget about it.

The problem with all of this techno junk is that once it is in place, no one can stop it and then the TSA is off trying to come up with another "fix" to a problem that mutates and changes faster than they can keep up. As things stand now, we are creating a domestic spy agency through other actions of the Homeland Security Admin. and marrying it with the ability to stop anyone at an airport in the name of limiting foreign based terrorism. This is a cascading disaster. Our freedoms are being eroded in small bits.

There is no end to this. It just goes on and on forever, like a cancer that doesn't kill but still does great harm.

Here is a question to consider: when would it ever be consider appropriate to back down from such intrusive measures? In a generation or two, when there is no one left with strong memories of 9-11, 2001? You can never fully justify stepping back because, security "experts" will tell you, there is always a risk. Once you have introduced a security procedure, it more or less becomes permanent because the person who says to back down would be immediately blamed if there were an attack afterward.

The TSA is a massive waste of taxpayer money and John Pistole is this administration's "Brownie" for his adamant and down right mean defense of the scanners last November. To my mind, instead of a public servant, he spoke like a tired cop trying to get teenagers to leave a drunken party. We are not children.

Pistole's worst offense, and it was a big one, was to announce that traveling is a privilege, not a right. This is, ah, somewhat in disagreement with our Constitution and many court rulings. If we don’t have the right to move about the country freely and without undue harassment, we are back in the old Soviet Union where the government told you where you could go and where you could live. Here, the government is the subject of the people, not the other way around. I would hope he would study that fact and remember it as he goes about his unfortunate business. He’s too busy trying to be a tough cop on the beat instead.

Doug Terry 2.1.11

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