I’m not sure about “no one” asking. This is only anecdotal data, but listening to various family members (from the rural USA and who are only occasional fliers) talk about security and interactions with said security, the overwhelming opinion has been, “I’m perfectly fine with taking my shoes off/getting X-rayed/getting groped so that no one blows up the plane. People who complain about it are stupid and should shut up.” I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s a fairly prevalent attitude.
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I always wondered how much it was Bush cowering in terror and how much was, “Hey, I can show everybody that I’m way tougher and smarter than my daddy and have me some serious wars against some A-rabs,” along with the bad angel and the worse angle (Rumsfeld and Cheney, order them however you like) whispering in his ear with ideas of fun, profit, and just regular-old evil.
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It’s not that Bush was a coward or anything, or at least he wasn’t afraid of terrorists. Let’s be honest, most people don’t REALLY care that much about other people they don’t know or care about. But he was a politician. And when you are a politician and 300+ million people are screaming to “do something”, then you do something. If you DIDN’T do something, and something bad happened, all the blame (warranted or not) is placed on you. The fact that it helps extend the gov power which will help you and your fellow politician is a great perk.
But even Chuck Norris, if he were a politician, would have passed the Patriot Act, and it wouldn’t have been out of fear of attack, it would have been out of fear of loosing his career in politics. Combined with the general attitude of the elite that it’s ok for them to trample your rights because they know how to take care of you, it’s the whole mess was pushed through so well and so quickly.
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Absolutely. I kept my shoes on, didn’t need to f$#k around with my liquids, or take my laptop out of my bag. Four or five questions and done.
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I disagree. A leader that slapped his balls on the table, crossed his arms, and declared America isn’t going to change shit and that anyone who wants to surrender our freedom is a traitorous coward would have been hailed as a hero. A leader with a spine could have taken that moment and jujitsu’d it in the opposite direction. Imagine the president pointing at a congressman and bellowing red faced that that congressslime is a fucking unamerican coward for even proposing an abomination like the hilariously named PATRIOT act. It would have worked.
There is nothing America wanted more than to punch someone and feel strong. A mighty “fuck you, we are better than you” was exactly what the US was screaming for. People would have gleefully redirected their rage at the cowards trying to surrender freedom, they just need someone with a bullhorn pointing out the obvious spineless villains. Just keep calling the PATRIOT act cowards, well, cowards. Say it loud, say it proud, and don’t mince words. Don’t say they are misguided or cloak it in niceties. Point to them and call them fucking un American cowards. Post 9/11, the absolute most deadly insult you could have leveled against any politician was to call them cowards.
And hey, even if I am wrong, and I don’t think I am, any freedom loving American would have happily sacrificed their political career to go down fighting for freedom and liberty. The correct answer after 9/11 was uncontained and open rage at the cowards who immediately tried to surrender their freedom. Like I said though, that would require a politician with a spine.
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“Flying is not a right…”
42 USC 40103 (a)(2): “A citizen of the United States has a public right of transit through the navigable airspace.”
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I was going to mention that I’ve see TSA at Greyhound and also AMTRAK. In TN they are also doing roving patrols and stopping random cars for inspection. Since they have no arrest authority, though, I wouldn’t stop for TSA on an Interstate, only a bona fide state police officer.
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Yeah… Try “Max Mosely Liveleak” 
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The best way to attack a message is to attack its messengers. People need to know that, like racism, if they have these idiotic beliefs they should keep them to themselves or be castigated and abused for the pieces of shit they are.
When other TSA agents see the endless abuse this guy gets, they too will think twice before publicly revealing their ignorant opinion.
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Don’t go to Texas. I had a friend put in illegal immigration detention because the stupid asshole Texas cops either can’t read a visitors visa, or pretended to miss it in order to fuck with an asian girl (while the 3 other whiteys were free to go).
That place is fucking shit, and no discussion of how awesome Austin is will ever change that. Texas should be nuked from orbit.
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Does anybody know if the Rebels in Eastern Ukraine happened to take over a Coke bottling plant, and “liberated” a few truckloads of Mentos?
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Weapons of ■■■■■ Destruction?!
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Especially if an Air Marshal has thrown them out of an airliner door.
I call on Boing Boing, and Cory Doctorow, to publish/release the name of this TSA employee, whose salary is paid by us–the public–with our tax dollars, who has been entrusted with the “protection” of said public, yet who openly displays his contempt for a key pillar of American law, that is, the Bill of Rights. To wit: “You don’t have shit for rights”. If that is not a treasonous statement, I don’t know what is.
How about it, Mr. Doctorow? The only way we’re ever going to rein in the fascistic encroachment on civil liberties that is the TSA is to name and shame them, one at a time, from Pistole on down, for their immoral, un-American, and, all too often, flat-out illegal behavior. I contribute to TSA News, a watchdog site that does just that: calls out individual TSA abuses and crimes, which are documented and which number in the multiple thousands. (To see an exhaustive compilation, click on the Master List tab at the top of the page.) But we can’t do it alone. We need all hands on deck.
It would not be wrong to name someone who has declared his contempt for the very principles of American jurisprudence. It is the right thing to do. Again, to Mr. Doctorow and anyone reading this who might know: Please tell us the name of the TSA agent who wrote “You don’t have shit for rights. If you don’t like it shut the fuck up. The Greyhound station is around somewhere”.
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AFAICT, freedom-loving Americans don’t have anything to do with politics. The politicians who say they love freedom seem to be talking about freedom for the rich to enslave the poor.
ETA: by not having anything to do with politics, I mean as elected ‘representatives’.
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Have things changed? I was led to understand that crew and passengers on private aircraft and bizjets didn’t get the TSA treatment. Yes, there are security checks, but not greatly changed from before 9/11.
I’d count that as “some kind of screening”, but not so very different from the daily checks on airport workers.
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