It’s Not About Americans…
On Facebook, a favorite news source of mine to write for started a thread on TSA policies. One woman had this to say:
I absolutely don’t care. If it means the possibility of saving lives and thwarting evil, do what NEEDS TO BE DONE TO KEEP US SAFE!! Stupid, selfish Americans amaze me. IT’S NOT ABOUT YOU!!!!!!
Really now – an American policy, enacted to protect AMERICANS, isn’t about us?
Who is it about then?
I’m baffled, truly.
Welcome to the new social experiement- the one where we get pushed to see just how much crap we’re willing to take, how many freedoms we are willing to lose, all in the name of a false sense of security.
Here’s the thing. Searches are being done improperly and illegally, because the TSA staff is not properly trained. People are being humiliated; a woman forced to take out her breast prosthesis there in public, because the agent failed to offer her a private room as REQUIRED in their handbook. A man is forced to be covered in his own urine, walk through the airport, onto the plane that way because a TSA agent refused to listen to him when he told them about his ostomy bag. A child is made to undress partially in public because no less than three agents don’t know proper policy, which does NOT allow for the undressing of people, something misunderstood by more than one agent, as a woman not only had the agent conduct the search by putting hands under her skirt, but also insisted she remove her underwear – also in public.
How does humiliating and scaring people make us safer? How does this foster our sense of security?
Another woman I saw in some other article commentary said to just “tell your kids it’s a game when the TSA agent is feeling around under their clothes or making them take them off.” What? Did you just tell me that instead of telling my children that their body belongs to them and that anyone making them uncomfortable should be reported to an adult, that I should now tell them that it’s ok for any stranger to touch them in clearly unappropriate manners? The irony of this burns, as we are also hearing about legislation to help protect children from trafficking and slavery and sex crimes against them. Are these people aware that a common method for pedophiles IS to tell the child that it is a “fun game to play”?
The scanner is no better. It does NOT show any materials you may have hidden in a body cavity, it only shows what may have on your skin under your clothing. Drug smugglers who swallow balloons full of drugs can wander through with impunity, and they thank you – you got rid of the drug sniffing dogs who cost relatively little compared to a $200K piece of machinery that strips you naked with your consent. If tlhe dedicated bomber uses the built in storage units on the human body, no one will ever know, and the plane will get blown up regardless.
We are in the midst of a social experiment. Now is the time to tell our government that this kind of “security” does not make us more secure, it takes away our freedoms. It adds to the list that will only grow bigger. First it was a passport to go in and out of Canada and Mexico. Now it is exceedibly personal. I’m sorry, but only two people have permission to feel my breasts open palm to determine something about them – my husband and my doctor.
People never thought it would come to this. It has. And people have failed to remember their history – a history that was still going on in my lifetime, my parents, my grandparents. Next is the presentation of your papers in order to travel anywhere, including the next state over. And the gods help you if you don’t have a very good reason for going to that state. Wanting to see the world’s biggest ball of string or Carhenge is no longer going to be good enough. Time to remember what happened in Europe, how a country was divided by a wall and a political policy. How a world was divided by this political policy. We’re becoming a country divided on this political policy!
This country was founded on Government for the people, by the people, to provide political, religious and social freedoms. Guess what you’re telling your government by approving this policy? That you no longer like your freedoms.
Please don’t think you speak for me or even the majority of the people when you tell your government this. The people need to take their government back.
Bottom line, this IS about the American people and how much they will allow and how much fear mongering they will buy into. Welcome to the social experiment, my fellow guinea pigs.
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