Happy Holidays from the TSA

Disabled woman beaten to bloody pulp thanks to TSA

But I'm the one who's the freak for refusing to support this insanity. Yeah, right.

From Raw Story:

Disabled woman beaten bloody by TSA agents 

after becoming confused and afraid 

at security checkpoint

(Photo of Hannah Cohen courtesy of WREG)

And the TSA incompetence beat goes on . . .

As I wrote earlier this month, TSA incompetence and stupidity -- combined with American populace passivity -- are causing thousands of people to miss their flights. The amount of time travelers are supposed to allow to get through airport security keeps ballooning -- from one hour to two hours to, now, three hours before their flights. And that's for domestic flights, mes amis, not just international ones. 

Not the TSA for once, just general moron America

Because the level of ignorance and stupidity in this country can never be overestimated, we have the latest incidence of one of America's fine upstanding citizens displaying her intellectual acumen for all to see. And supposed airline professionals going along with her. True, this didn't involve the TSA, but we can easily see how the stupidity and paranoia exhibited by that organization -- and constantly hyped by our "security" overlords -- has spread to the population at large. 

Belgium attacks: more proof that the TSA is useless

The bomb attacks in Belgium today -- three of them, two at different locations in the airport and one in the subway -- present in high relief yet more proof  of what some us have been pointing out for years: the TSA is a charade. The TSA does not and cannot and will never prevent terror attacks. All the pre-boarding bullying, harassing, scanning, and groping doesn't make a damn bit of difference, because -- duh -- people can set off bombs anywhere, not just on a plane. 

DHS/TSA blink: Real ID is a bust

As I wrote in this post on January 7, 2016, Edward Hasbrouck is a consistently reliable source of information on all things security -- and faux security. His excellent website, PapersPlease, is a breath of fresh air in the hothouse atmosphere of the travel blabbosphere. So it's no surprise that he has been predicting from the beginning that the Department of Homeland Security's attempt to impose yet more stupid regulations would fizzle. He said DHS would blink, and it has. 

TSA to force people through scanners

As many people have discovered from the latest news, the Department of Homeland Security has suddenly decreed publicly what anyone with reasonable observational skills knows they've been planning from the get-go:  that the TSA will, at whim, force passengers through the strip-search scanners.I repeat that this has been the plan from the beginning. I said so at a now-defunct group blog where I used to write called Cogitamus, long before TSA News existed. Those who made predictions to the contrary have been proven wrong. 

Another court order the TSA will ignore

Everyone keeps sending me links to this story, but I saw it when it first came out last week and decided not to write about it because it isn't news. It's the same old same old. I can't see how it means anything significant in our fight against the TSA.

John Whitehead's Rutherford Institute, which fights for civil liberties, touted the story in an email last week headlined, "Victory!" I'm on their mailing list, so I saw the message as soon as it came in. When I read the text, any initial frisson of triumph immediately fizzled. Victory? Really? 

2015 Airport Security Symposium – UPDATED

UPDATE: Open to the public, pay what you can. Doug says he realizes the $199 conference fee is out of reach for a lot of people.

Douglas Kidd of the National Association of Airline Passengers has organized this Airport Security Symposium for Tuesday, October 6, 2015, at Reagan National Airport just outside Washington, D.C. He’s lined up plenty of speakers, including Alaska state rep and TSA critic Sharon Cissna, consumer advocate and friend of the blog Charlie Leocha, one-man investigative research team Jonathan Corbett, security expert extraordinaire Bruce Schneier, and several of us who write for TSA News — Sommer Gentry, Wendy Thomson, and me. 

Please sign this fab TSA petition

Come on, folks, let's get this up to at least 150 signatures. If we do, it'll go live on the main White House petition site. It was written by our perennially creative contributor Chris Bray.

You may recall that we've tried petitions in the past, including one that went nowhere thanks in no small part to the fact that the White House's site went down for several hours and they didn't extend the petition-signing time to account for that. In other words, we got shortchanged.

Let's not let that happen again. This time, the petition is a brilliant satire of the TSA's behavior, especially the recent case of TSA supervisor Maxie Oquendo sexually assaulting a young woman at La Guardia Airport under color of authority.

Come on, let's make this happen! I know most people don't give a shit about this issue in general (believe me, I know it), but you can at least have a little fun with it. Sign the petition here. And then repost, tweet, disseminate however you like far and wide.

LaGuardia TSA agent arrested for sexual assault

UPDATED BELOW. A TSA agent at LaGuardia Airport in New York has been arrested for sexually assaulting a 22-year-old woman. The only reason he was arrested was because he molested her in a bathroom. If he had followed standard operating procedure, he would've molested her at the checkpoint, where it's usually done. 

TSA: "Careful what you say. You don't like this? You respect this badge right here."

Well, well, well, shock of shocks, we have yet another of our fine, upstanding blue-shirted civil servants who don't know their own rules. Or who pretend not to. 

As we've pointed out, with evidence, dozens of times: yes, you are allowed to videotape, film, photograph, audio-record, or sketch the TSA in action, including while they're doing their "pat-downs." It says so on the TSA's own website:

TSA does not prohibit the public, passengers or press from photographing, videotaping or filming at security checkpoints, as long as the screening process is not interfered with or slowed down.

But 

Another day, another passenger screwed by the TSA

Almost every day I receive emails from people telling me about their TSA experiences. They often wonder if they could have prevented the abuse meted out to them by dressing differently, talking differently, acting differently, flying out of a different airport, you name it. As I always tell them, no. You have no power over how the TSA treats you. The TSA has absolute power. Whether a TSA agent woke up on the wrong side of the bed one morning or is simply being sadistic, it has nothing to do with you. It has everything to do with them. 

TSA snoops in passenger’s bag, finds money, calls DEA to take it

From the Washington Post comes this story of not only another instance of TSA abuse, but the TSA's bragging about said abuse.

The headline reads: "Why the TSA posted a photo of a passenger's cash-filled luggage on Twitter." And the TSA tweeter in question is none other than PR flack Lisa Farbstein, about whom we've written so many times before. From the Post: 

. . . The photo, from the Richmond airport, shows a passenger's luggage containing $75,000 in cash. Farbstein asks, "Is this how you'd transport it?" Most people would not, but there is nothing illegal about simply checking a bag containing $75,000, or carrying it with you on the plane. Passengers aren't under any obligation to report large sums of cash unless they're traveling internationally, though the TSA recommends that passengers consider asking for a private screening.

TSA Idiocy and Abuse: Too Much To Keep Track Of

Twitter is alive with testimony from people witnessing TSA idiocy and abuse. But then such tweets have been going on for years — there used to be a whole Twitter feed devoted to them, tens of thousands of them — 

Re TSA, WillCAD from FlyerTalk tells it like it is

I wish I knew this person's real name to give him credit for this comment he posted at the chat forum FlyerTalk (FT). In it, he hits every nail on the head in a discussion with another FT member about the TSA. All I know is that he goes by "WillCAD" and says he hails from Charm City. Here's his FT handle: 

Give to TSA Watch

The fundraising drive at TSA Watch has been stuck at $6,921 for weeks. The TSA is sexually assaulting people at airports in this country every day. We and many other organizations have been documenting it for years. I don't know what else people need to know in order to care.

Oh, wait a minute -- for some people, getting robbed is more serious than getting sexually assaulted. Okay, fine. The TSA is robbing people at airports in this country every day. 

Judicial Watch finally gets answers in TSA sexual assault lawsuit

Last August I wrote a post reporting that the non-profit civil liberties organization Judicial Watch was suing the TSA to gain access to documents outlining the sexual abuse of travelers at the hands of TSA workers. I said that Judicial Watch was joining a long line of of other organizations and individual people who had also tried to sue the TSA to get information, and that the TSA, predictably, had stonewalled.

Shoshana Hebshi settles lawsuit against TSA, Frontier Airlines

Shoshana Hebshi, the Ohio woman who was handcuffed, hauled off a plane at gunpoint, and strip-searched in a jail cell -- all without probable cause -- has settled her lawsuit against the TSA, Frontier Airlines, and other government agencies. 

TSA rigged system to grope men’s genitals

From KCNC, the CBS affiliate in Denver, comes this completely unsurprising "news": TSA clerks at Denver International Airport deliberately messed with the strip-search scanners to alarm on attractive male passengers so one of the blue-shirted goons could grope them.

No, Virginia, say it ain't so!