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The TSA is once again on the minds of people around the nation because of the video of a six year old girl being given a pat down at the New Orleans airport. What is even worse, to me, are the crapdoodle responses of the TSA and its PR flaks: the security person “followed all procedures properly” and that kind of thing. To rub it in, the spokespeople confirmed that there are no limitations on pat downs for children. Nice.
Let's start with the basic facts about the TSA and the mistreatment of Americans at airports. First, an ex-police officer should not be in charge of the TSA. As a 26 year veteran of the FBI, John Pistole is schooled in dealing with narco-thieves, hit men, smugglers, spies, international terrorists and the dregs of the criminal world, so he is an ex-police officer by any other name. He is not particularly skilled in how to deal with six year old children off to visit grandmother's house. You don't train in one line of thought for your whole life and suddenly awake with new attitudes on the Monday morning you arrive to run airport security. To a man with a hammer, all the world is a nail. To a man with a gun and a badge, all the world is a potential bad guy ready to be locked up. That’s what cops, and FBI men, do: they confront, arrest and jail people without regard to strange concepts like dignity and decency.
Second, the TSA is pointed 180 degrees off the mark in dealing with the public and the offenses to rights and humanity at airports. They issued a statement about the six year old girl by saying the TSA agent had followed all the proper procedures and handled the "screening" appropriately. I was reminded of the scene in the movie The Reader in which an ex-guard during the holocaust yelled that she had done her job correctly because "We were the guards!". (This is not to compare what the TSA does to the Nazis, though it is not a big leap to link their actions to police state tactics.) I have also read the that TSA person was called by officials and congratulated on her little performance before the camera. All of this is akin to a surgeon saying he had done everything according to procedures when the patient's heart fell out and slid across the floor of the operating room. "Gosh, I don't understand what happened."
Using the police officer's mentality, all that Pistole will concede in any of these cases is that changes might be necessary and would be considered. He takes a tough cop's stance that he's got to be tough on terrorism, even though the chances of a six year old girl being a terrorist are less than 1 in 100,000,000,000,000 and, in terms of this particular six year old in the video, even less than that.
Please keep this in mind: what one sees on video or hears about because a prominent person is subjected to mistreatment is the tip of a very large iceberg. As a frequent flier with more than half a million miles on commercial aircraft, I have seen worse than this routinely. I once saw a baby in diapers being taken from its mother and patted down. This was years ago, BEFORE the whole issue of scanners and pat downs became big news. As for what happens to Mary or Joe from Toledo when they travel, nobody cares. If it happens to you or your child, all of the sudden it matters. But, that’s what PR people do: they try to put a nice polish on any piece of dirt that passes their way.
The TSA person in the video, following proper procedures, ordered the mother to step away from the child (you never know!). This, in itself, is a horrid violation of the parent's relationship with the child and the rights of both of them. There is no more higher duty for a parent than to protect their child and standing next to her would give at least small comfort to the child that she was being protected. Yet, if you "disobey" any order from the TSA, you can immediately be treated like a real criminal and faced with threats the local police. In fact, I know from experience that if you even ask a question, you can be treated in the same way. Most of the TSA people I have encountered are bossy, ready to go belligerent and act like, yeah, cops.
Instead of hypertensive, on edge, "Deputy Dog" police officers, the TSA should be conducting itself like a service agency welcoming passengers, treating them with respect and helping them on their way, all the while remaining vigilant. These draconian procedures were put in place during the national panic reaction that followed 9-11, 2001, and they have only been made worse since then. Unfortunately, with so many fish to fry, Obama and the Obamaettes have not taken control and, instead, have allowed things to get worse.
For anyone who might question the need to be critical of the TSA, please remember this: if their methods are not moderated, matters can only get even more invasive and insulting. There is no limit to the police mentality in a "crackdown" situation. New technologies are always under development by aggressive corporations scouting for profits that reflect no concern for anyone's human or Constitutional rights. Further, if anyone thinks it is bad now, what happens in the aftermath should there be even one hijacking? We would be in for years of even more heavy handed treatment that could virtually shutdown airline travel.
What is needed is a balanced, intelligent and careful approach to airport security. What we have now reflects the skill and care of a bunch of cops sitting around in a late night bull session asking themselves, "How much can we get away with putting these people through?". Everyone should realize that the TSA is there to do the best job possible in a free society, not to destroy freedom in the name of protecting it, which is the road we are on now.
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