Did the TSA Idle Body Scanners to Thwart Protests?

As I reported here yesterday, the TSA does admit that some "screening lanes" were closed at various airports yesterday, but says this was because airport lines were running so smoothly.

On its blog crowing about how there were no protests yesterday, the TSA (oddly, it seemed to me) felt the need to also say: "Though volume was around expected levels, our preparations for today kept wait times at such a minimum that some airports are closing screening lanes due to a lack of passenger throughput." The TSA does not address which kind of "screening lanes" were closed.

But anecdotal reports, which first surfaced on Gizmodo yesterday are accumulating to support suspicions that the TSA might have roped off body-scanners, at least at some airports, perhaps in preparations for an "opt-out" protest that in fact failed to materialize.

Meanwhile, here's a video of a female passenger being patted down yesterday at the Houston airport. This is what to expect, for those who haven't yet had the new grope.

###

By the Way, What Exactly Are We So Afraid Of?

It's hard to recognize this as the nation that won the Battle of Midway, especially now, with millions of Americans being frisked like prison perps at airports by representatives of a federal bureaucracy that thrives on its ability to constantly ratchet up the level of fear.

What, precisely, are we all supposed to be so afraid of, that we will submit to this level of indignity and invasion of fundamental privacy? How have we become such a bunch of passive patsies? Patsies not just to the rapacious gropocracy, but to the ragtag international clown brigade that profits so well from the fear-induced notion that it's a terrorist monolith.

This is the same nation that bravely pinned back the ears of the mighty Empire of Japan in its greatest stronghold, the Pacific, a mere six months after we lost our fleet and got knocked on our kiesters at Pearl Harbor?

By all stated accounts from the gropocracy, the rationale for this current toss of the public is the need to guard against the likes of the Christmas Day underpants bomber. What are we afraid of? We're afraid of some clown on a crowded airplane with some explosive powder in his shorts, is what. Remember, the last clown who tried that ended up with little more than a scorched scrotum and a thrashing by fellow-passengers.

Here's a piece that I recommend in Politico today by Jim Harper. It begins: "Today, the busiest travel day of the year, the Transportation Security Administration will introduce many Americans to a new indignity and offense to privacy. ..."

###

TSA Body-Scanners: Follow the Money

The story about Michael Chertoff's financial interests in working as a consultant for a major manufacturer during the $2.4 billion initial phase of awarding contracts for airport body-scanner machines has been around since the Washington Post first timidly wrote it, and then quickly backed off early this year. The Post news story, interestingly, was published the same say that the same newspaper published an op-ed piece by Chertoff arguing the case for the machines. A disclosure notice about Chertoff's financial interests was added to the online version later. The Post story and the op-ed piece both ran on New Year's Day, when nobody reads a newspaper.

Till recently, the media haven't paid a lot of attention to the fact that, while he was Homeland Security secretary and afterward, when he was making money from it, Chertoff energetically promoted these machines, which cost over $100,000 apiece. The TSA now has 400 deployed at 70 airports, and another 600 due on line in the next year.

Generating fear is famously and historically profitable on many levels. As always, following the money is an excellent tip for figuring out the evidently unfathomable. Here's a good summary of the Chertoff scandal in the Huffington Post today.

And here is a nice wrap-up USA Today did the other day on the whole sordid money-generating framework around this issue, including the lobbying spending by the manufacturers of these machines.

###

'Nobody Likes Violating the 4th Amendment,' But Tough

I'm always vastly amused by the way some of the media, especially the television media, blithely appropriate other people's (ahem) reporting, and pretend they discovered these things all by themselves, but hey, onward and upward.

Meanwhile, check out this astonishing statement in a TV interview on Fox with Mo McGowan, a former head of security operations at the TSA. Says McGowan of the intrusive body-groping that has everyone so anxious: "Nobody likes having the 4th Amendment violated going through a security line, but the fact of the matter is, we're going to have to do it."

[It's at about 4.30 on the video].

Yo, Mo: You know who reeeeeeallly might not "like" having the 4th Amendment violated? A federal court is who. And the lawsuits are already flying, you should excuse the term.

###

TSA: Dumb and Now Dumber at San Diego?

I'm old enough to know that Satan does not exist, but stupidity roams shrieking over the landscape with evident impunity. As Ron White says, "You can't fix stupid," I might add, nor can you exorcise it.

That said, my jaw still dropped seeing a report in the San Diego Union-Tribune newspaper this morning that the TSA official who runs the TSA's operations at San Diego International Airport has "opened an investigation" into John Tyner, the software engineer who declined to submit to a full body-patdown (including what some screener called a "groin check") and ran into a major hassle when he decided instead to chuck the flight and leave the airport last Saturday morning.

Now, I often wonder why some (most, I would say) airports have TSA staffs that are professional, courteous and well-trained, while others seem to go out of their way to employ humps. The TSA chief at any individual airport -- who reports to Washington -- is the one responsible for the performance of the TSA employees on his watch. Michael J. Aguilar, chief of the TSA office at San Diego, is such a person.

Now, anyone who listens to the full recording of Mr. Tyner's 30-minute Kafkaesque encounter knows that Tyner, while he was certainly considered a pain in the ass by the screeners who were trying to get him to accept the patdown, behaved calmly and in a civil manner. Faced with the patdown, he decided instead to cancel his trip and leave the airport.

Here's what should have been said:

TSA Agent: "OK, sir, that's your choice. Have a nice day." (sotto voce: "And don't let the door hit you in the butt on your way out of the terminal."

Instead, like the worst sort of small town cops, the TSA at San Diego kept hassling him as he tried to leave. Tyner recorded the whole thing. In the terminal, where he was escorted after the checkpoint standoff, Tyner made it clear that he had given the screeners all of his personal information, which he had, and that he did not understand why the officer now detaining him insisted on having him repeat the same information, as the officer said, "for your benefit."

Tyner: "For my benefit? I think we're done. My benefit has been achieved."

Officer: "Actually, sir, we're not, no sir. I'm trying to give you some mitigating factors in your favor."

Tyner: "Mitigating? Meaning what? ... I would like to leave --"

Officer: "I understand that--"

Tyner: "Can I leave?"

Officer: "What I'm asking you to do is cooperate with me ... You want to be non-cooperative with me as well."

Tyner: "You're preventing me from leaving the airport."

At this point, the officer informed Tyner that he was subject to a civil lawsuit, with an $11,000 fine, for ... well, for whatever.

As we all know, the Tyner story went viral online. People are flat-out furious about it, along with the other fury being directed at the TSA>

At this point, the TSA -- already being beaten like a rented mule in public opinion -- had one smart move. Address the issue: Why was Tyner detained and questioned long after he departed the checkpoint? Why was he threatened?

Instead, the TSA at San Diego doubled down on a very, very bad bet. The San Diego TSA chief, Aguilar, actually called a press conference to announce further harassment of Tyner.

Certainly, one would think, this was a matter of Aguilar cowboying it on his own.

He certainly did not clear that bone-headed move with Washington.

Did he?

###