More Government Abuse of Citizens by TSA


I spent a lot of time in airports last year. I always get wanded and have to pass through the security patdown due to a piece of jewelry that no longer comes off. It’s annoying but unless I want to cut the bracelet off, I’ll live with it.

Still, I’m not the only person who thinks the TSA and other law enforcement agencies routinely overstep their bounds simply because they can and they are taught to be intimidating. More recently this disturbing trend in law enforcement took a fascist turn in Missouri where Law Enforcement was told that militia members and domestic terrorists could be profiled by bumper stickers on their vehicles.

People who ignore or are ignorant of their Constitutional rights to things like the 1st Amendment’s Freedom of Speech and the 4th Amendment’s right “to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures” without a warrant being issued after law enforcement demonstrates probable cause and the 5th Amendment’s protection against self incrimination AND against having their effects seized without due process routinely give up their rights to the Government when they are confronted with seemingly innocuous questions like, “If you don’t have anything to hide, why won’t you ____?”

How dangerous that our Government no longer understands that “If you are going to abide by the Constitution, why would you ask such a thing?”

Think this is just an academic or rhetorical question? Think again. My friend Preston Taylor Holmes over at Six Meat Buffet has a video up of a FOX program hosted by Judge Napolitano where a young man carrying cash and Campaign for Liberty material was detained by at the St. Louis airport for 25 minutes and questioned by Law Enforcement who repeatedly asked him to surrender his Constitutional rights merely to satisfy their curiosity. The entire thing was caught on audio tape.

Welcome to America under the authority of Big Government. Kiss your rights good-bye when you leave your house in the morning. You may never see them again … I want to know what happened to the guys in the windowless room.

Blue Collar Muse


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quick point...

nricciar Friday, April 3rd at 1:09PM EST (link)

“More recently this disturbing trend in law enforcement took a fascist turn in Missouri where Law Enforcement was told that militia members and domestic terrorists could be profiled by bumper stickers on their vehicles.”

I remember back after 9/11 when the right defended picking out people wearing turbans, or having brown skin because all the 9/11 terrorist were Muslim therefore profiling is smart…. but now that they are profiling militia members you freak out?

Guess what… Muslims are not the only idiots that go around blowing stuff up… Remember Timothy McVeigh?

Now don’t get me wrong, I generally don’t approve of profiling at all… it just leads to false positives…. but the right should probably decide which side of the issue they want to be on. Either way though to only speak out about this now shows some serious hypocrisy

When the Nazis came for the communists,
I remained silent;
I was not a communist.

Then they locked up the social democrats,
I remained silent;
I was not a social democrat.

Then they came for the trade unionists,
I did not speak out;
I was not a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Jews,
I did not speak out;
I was not a Jew.

When they came for me,
there was no one left to speak out for me.

adding to my post...

nricciar Friday, April 3rd at 1:13PM EST (link)

I know its bad form to respond to your own post, but I also wanted to add, that you should know better about your 4th amendment rights…

The Patriot Act, and NSL (National Security Letters) got rid of that amendment a long time ago.

The 4th Amendment may be gone ...

Blue_Collar_Muse (Diary) Friday, April 3rd at 1:48PM EST (link)

but that doesn’t mean I have to let it pass without mourning said passing.

Nor can I let your incorrect comments pass without commenting. Your comment about the Right defending profiling is both disingenuous and misleading. You start with the general premise that the Right supported it (dubious at best) and then tried to smear me with a specific charge of objecting to this profiling but not that.

Unless you can find evidence that I did not complain about profiling suspected Muslims or that I came out in support of the practice, you yourself are engaging in the most shameless act of profiling yet seen in this thread!

Talk about your hypocrisy!

What the Right, IMHO, engaged in vis-a-vis Muslim profiling was NOT that all Muslims ought to be profiled as you charge. What the Right objected to was ridiculous and illogical accusations against unlikely terrorists.

What is the mission of TSA? Lamely put, it’s to make air traffic safe from terrorist exploitation. Searching 70 year old grandmothers and pouring out breastmilk in the name of national security while paying little or no attention to Muslims is antithetical to that mission. No 70 year old grandmothers or breast feeding moms slashed the throats of flight attendants, highjacked planes and murdered people using the planes as a weapon.

Who did? Muslims. Or are you going to deny that? Thus, when flying – IF – there is going to be profiling, it ought to be consistent with the threat being countered.

As this applies to the video above, while carrying large amounts of cash may, indeed, be an indicator of any number of things that are illegal, it is NOT something that the TSA is tasked to deal with. Carrying cash – be it $50 or $50,000 onto a plane does not make you a threat to the plane and its passengers and crew.

How is it that you don’t understand this? How is that you don’t get the difference? Perhaps because, as I mentioned, you don’t particularly hate profiling, you just like posturing about it.

**facepalm** Sometimes I just have to wonder about people …

Blue Collar Muse

Smaller Government! Lower Taxes! Stronger Defense! More Liberty! Complete Transparency!

i can admit when im wrong..

nricciar Friday, April 3rd at 2:19PM EST (link)

You are correct I should not accuse you of something I never saw you specifically do, and for that I apologize.

But there is still truth to my accusation in general… if we do a cursory glance through google we can find some interesting comments about profiling…

“A republican running for Rep. Mark Green’s seat, Wisconsin’s Third congressional District, told an interviewer that he thinks racial profiling of male Muslims is a ‘no nonsense’ security measure for air travel.”
http://www.nowpublic.com/candidate_on_muslim_profiling_if_he_comes_in_wearing_a_turban_and_his_name_is_mohammed_thats_a_good_start

“A congressional candidate in Florida has become the third Republican office-seeker to call for heightened screening of Muslim airline passengers since the foiling of an airline bombing plot in Britain.”
http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2006/08/21/latest-republican-campaign-issue/

but back to your post…

“What is the mission of TSA? Lamely put, it’s to make air traffic safe from terrorist exploitation. Searching 70 year old grandmothers and pouring out breastmilk in the name of national security while paying little or no attention to Muslims is antithetical to that mission. No 70 year old grandmothers or breast feeding moms slashed the throats of flight attendants, highjacked planes and murdered people using the planes as a weapon.”

Profiling makes sense when you think about it on a superficial level, but the problem is it makes people that are responsible for protecting us less capable. If they think its acceptable to profile, and do so on a regular basis what will happen is our enemy’s will get smarter about it and employee grandmother terrorist (don’t say it cant happen drug lords have been using women and children as mules for years)

As this applies to the video above, while carrying large amounts of cash may, indeed, be an indicator of any number of things that are illegal, it is NOT something that the TSA is tasked to deal with. Carrying cash – be it $50 or $50,000 onto a plane does not make you a threat to the plane and its passengers and crew.

carrying cash obviously does not make someone a threat, but like it or not our nation has laws about reporting large sums of money above a certain limit (don’t know if this is the case in that video though)

 
 
 
 

Activists have been flagged for years

Kate_Shanahan (Diary) Friday, April 3rd at 2:48PM EST (link)

In 1998, I was detained at Stapleton Airport and subjected to a complete search. Almost missed my plane. My luggage did miss it.

Just recently, I was at the Norfolk airport. It was eerily empty, no curbside checkin and no one inside. Even at the Southwest Echeckin, I was the only passenger.

Proceeding to security, I was one of three people in line. The person in front of me was a Muslim woman with a veil and long dress. I am a small. blonde middle aged grandmother. Guess who was pulled out of line for a security check.

Kate

“It is the American vice, the democratic disease which expresses its tyranny by reducing everything unique to the level of the herd.” Henry Miller

 

DHS Scanners To Secretly Search Your Body, Vehicle and Home—X-ray Deaths Next?

rwolf Tuesday, April 12th at 1:30AM EST (link)

Department Homeland Security and Police intend to use hundreds of new X-ray Back Scatter Vans and other scanners with long-distance capability to secretly scan and search lawful persons’ bodies—when driving, walking and X-ray Citizens in their homes. DHS plans to mount X-ray scanners on buildings and utility poles to monitor groups of pedestrians. Citizens that drive or walk to work or lunch in monitored areas may be radiated several times a day.

There is nothing to stop government agencies and police repeatedly targeting (persons of interest) on the street and in their homes with X-ray scans that may cause cancer or induce other medical problems—including individuals afflicted by poor health. DHS new scanning will record eye and facial features of pedestrians, so subjects can be identified for covert X-ray scanning. Consequently some Americans may be X-ray scanned every time they set foot on the street.

How could anyone prove his or her cancer was caused by repeated government X-ray scans? Can you think of one U.S. Government agency you would trust to limit the number of times and duration secret Government scanners can penetrate a person’s body with X-ray radiation, when walking, driving; inside their home? Citizens driving or walking to work, that must pass DHS X-ray scanners on buildings and utility poles, could be exposed to radiation several times a day. The press recently reported that X-ray scanners now used at airports are 10-times greater that what U.S. Government told the American People.

Currently Citizens can purchase small sensitive radiation detectors on key chains that set off different sounding alarms for each radiation level detected. Key Chain radiation detectors sell for about $160.00 and some appear capable of detecting government X-ray scanners penetrating their home, or their body when walking or vehicle when driving. It should be expected more pedestrians might start carrying radiation key chain detectors to learn if X-ray scanners on buildings and utility poles are targeting their neighborhood, the streets they drive or walk. Radiated pedestrians and drivers should protest, especially if they are being hit everyday with X-ray scanners.

The U.S. can’t become a total Police State until the 4th Amendment is either terminated or so watered down it has no legal effect. That will be the result if government / police are allowed (without probable cause or warrants) to expose the public to covert X-ray scans and scans at airports; train and bus stops and other check points.

One can’t help wonder if today’s outspoken Americans that lawfully defend the Constitution, e.g., writers and bloggers will be deemed combatants by U.S. Government; constantly stopped, searched, and questioned by TSA and police; forced to endure no warrant searches of their car, body and forced cancer causing X-ray scans. The Nazi Military and Police repeatedly searched and delayed Citizens labeled politically undesirable boarding trains and buses and driving to work to cause targeted Citizens to lose their jobs. Citizens were placed on (Nazi do not hire lists) similar to the lists U.S. Homeland Security started in 2010.
See: TSA, DHS plan massive rollout of mobile surveillance vans with long-distance X-ray capability, eye movement tracking and more at:
http://www.naturalnews.com/031603_surveillance_police_state.html#ixzz1GGDd24RG