A Follow-up to Dakinikat’s Latest Post on the TSA Controversy

This morning, Hillary Clinton weighed in on the enhanced searches being used by the TSA during her appearances on the morning political shows.

CBS’ Bob Schieffer asked Clinton Sunday if she would submit to a pat-down by a Transportation Security Administration (TSA) agent.

“Not if I could avoid it,” she replied. “No. I mean who would?”

On Meet the Press, she told David Gregory:

“I think everyone, including our security experts, are looking for ways to diminish the impact on the traveling public,” Clinton told NBC’s David Gregory.

“I mean obviously the vast, vast majority of people getting on these planes are law abiding citizens who are just trying to get from one place to another. But let’s not kid ourselves. The terrorists are adaptable,” she continued.

“Striking the right balance is what this is about. And I am absolutely confident that our security experts are gonna keep trying to get it better and less intrusive and more precise,” Clinton said.

Now let’s compare that with President Obama’s statement about the naked scanning machines and abusive TSA procedures, beginning with one of his patented self-referential remarks. Because everything is always about him, of course.

Responding to a request for his opinion on the matter from NBC’s Chuck Todd, President Obama opened with a confession: “I don’t go through security checks to get on planes these days, so I haven’t personally experienced some of the procedures put in place by TSA.” He then proceeded to defend this measure which he will never experience– one which everyone from Geraldo Rivera to Anderson Cooper seem taken aback by:

“I will also say that in the aftermath of the Christmas Day bombing, our TSA personnel are properly under enormous pressure to make sure that you don’t have somebody slipping on a plane with some sort of explosive device on their persons. And since the explosive device that was on Mr. Abdulmutallab was not detected by ordinary metal detectors, it has meant that the TSA has tried to adapt to make sure that passengers on planes on safe. Now, that’s a tough situation. One of the most frustrating aspects of this fight against terrorism is that it has created a whole security apparatus around us that causes huge inconvenience for all of us.”

Which statement is the least obnoxious? Perhaps Obama should just defer all questions to Clinton from now on.

Here’s an interesting reaction to Obama’s remarks from Huffpo:

“What I don’t like about Obama’s statement is the sense that there’s nothing to be done about the violation of civil liberties. It is as if the TSA is not accountable to anyone, which can’t be accurate. Who oversees TSA and who is responsible for setting these policies? Who are these people accountable to–Dick Cheney?”

I totally agree with that commenter!

Now check this out: Body scanner CEO accompanied Obama to India

The CEO of one of the two companies licensed to sell full body scanners to the TSA accompanied President Barack Obama to India earlier this month, a clear sign of the deep ties between Washington politicians and the companies pushing to have body scanners installed at all US airports.

Deepak Chopra, chairman and CEO of OSI Systems and no relation to the New Age spiritualist, was one of a number of CEOs who traveled with the president on his three-day trip to India, which focused primarily on expanding business ties between the US and the emerging Asian power….

That a manufacturer of body scanners accompanied the US president on a foreign trip shows the extent of the ties between the industry and the US government. With anger growing at the intrusive news screening procedures, many observers have focused attention on Michael Chertoff, the former Homeland Security secretary whose consultancy, the Chertoff Group, counts OSI as a client….

“Mr. Chertoff should not be allowed to abuse the trust the public has placed in him as a former public servant to privately gain from the sale of full-body scanners under the pretense that the scanners would have detected ‘[the alleged Christmas Day bomber’s] explosive,” Kate Hanni, founder of FlyersRights.org, told the Washington Post.

If that doesn’t make your blood boil over the way innocent Americans are being treated in U.S. airports, what would? This is all about money for corporations, not about protecting Americans from terrorism.

We are now experiencing exactly what James Ridgeway predicted earlier this year:

…airport security has always been compromised by corporate interests.When it comes to high-tech screening methods, the TSA has a dismal record of enriching private corporations with failed technologies, and there are signs that the latest miracle device may just bring more of the same.

Ridgeway calls the naked body scanners a “scam.”

Known by their opponents as “digital strip search” machines, the full-body scanners use one of two technologies—millimeter wave sensors or backscatter x-rays—to see through clothing, producing ghostly images of naked passengers. Yet critics say that these, too, are highly fallible, and are incapable of revealing explosives hidden in body cavities—an age-old method for smuggling contraband. If that’s the case, a terrorist could hide the entire bomb works within his or her body, and breeze through the virtual strip search undetected. Yesterday, the London Independent reported on “authoritative claims that officials at the [UK] Department for Transport and the Home Office have already tested the scanners and were not persuaded that they would work comprehensively against terrorist threats to aviation.” A British defense-research firm reportedly found the machines unreliable in detecting “low-density” materials like plastics, chemicals, and liquids—precisely what the underwear bomber had stuffed in his briefs.

Ridgeway lists a number of powerful Washington insiders who are profiting from the Naked body imaging scam. So what if a terrorist gets through the scan with explosives hidden in a body orifice? There are even more invasive machines available.

there’s always the next generation of security equipment: the Body Orifice Security Scanner, or BOSS chair. This contraption, which has an uncomfortable resemblance to an electric chair, is used in prisons, mostly in the UK, for tracing cell phones, shivs, and other dangerous contraband that’s been swallowed or inserted into body cavities by inmates. So far, it only detects metal, but you never know.

And of course there is always the humiliating “enhanced pat-down” process for anyone who doesn’t want to appear naked to a bunch of TSA thugs.

If you are still unconvinced that the government isn’t really protecting us with their police-state tactics, consider this:

The recent public ire toward the TSA’s new pat-down and body imaging screening methods is likely to cause more people to drive automobiles and forego airline travel, say two transportation economists who have studied the issue.

As the nation readies for one of the busiest traveling holidays, Steven Horwitz, a professor of economics at St. Lawrence University, told The Hill that the probable spike in road travel, caused by adverse feelings towards the Transportation Security Administration’s (TSA) new screening procedures, could also lead to more car-related deaths.

“Driving is much more dangerous than flying, as you are far more likely to be killed in an automobile accident mile-for-mile than you are in an airplane,” said Horwitz. “The result will be that the new TSA procedures will kill more Americans on the highway.”

Clifford Winston, a senior fellow of economic studies at the Brookings Institute, stopped short of saying that more people could die as a result of the TSA policies, but said that the airline industry will definitely see a decline in passengers if the public’s contempt for the pat-downs and advanced-imaging technology systems continues.

It’s time to get serious about stopping terrorist attacks by using a method that actually works, instead of just focusing on further lining the the pockets of rich corporations and their CEOs.

President Obama needs to understand that he works for us. We shouldn’t have to serve as experimental subjects for his rich friends’ latest police state technological projects. We should have the right as American citizens to travel freely in our own country.

If President Obama continues to insist that we be seen naked or be groped by his TSA thugs in order to fly, then he should have to go through one of the scanning machines himself followed by an “enhanced pat-down.” And the entire humiliating process should be shown on national TV for all of us to see.