"Over the river and through the woods, with a 'strip search' along the way." I hadn't really been paying much attention to this story until yesterday. I don't fly much anymore, and for the most part our airport security seemed to be handled relatively well. Up until now. What I have been reading lately is horrifying on so many levels. Where to begin...?
First and foremost, wasn't it just last month that we discovered Al Qaeda performing dry runs with bomb materials in printer cartridges? Why then are we 'virtually' strip searching pregnant ladies and patting down 3 year old kids?? And why the hell aren't we addressing what the 'bad guys' seem to be planning next?? This really seems to be so straight forward. After 9-11, we virtually shut down access to successful hijackings. The 'bad guys' always look for another way to blow stuff up. We need to be doing more to protect the cargo in our planes, when OBVIOUSLY this is what these terrorists are planning. As Homer Simpson would say..."DOPE"!!
Second, what purpose does it serve to see every passenger... man, women and child... naked? I haven't read a credible argument for these machines in terms of their effectiveness in protecting the flying public. What this is ... is a grave violation of our privacy. Who wants some stranger seeing an image of their naked body! Or their minor child's body! We need to fight this gross infraction of our constitutional rights.
Oh hey... wanna opt out of the x-ray? No problem, look what we have for you.... a pat down usually reserved for criminals whose behavior has created the reasonable suspicion that they've broken the law. Groping genitalia included!
Lastly, the verdict is still out on how safe repeated exposure to this type of x-ray might be. Especially to people with certain conditions, and especially to pregnant women, the elderly, and children. This is a reckless move by Homeland Security and hopefully the uprising by the flying public and flight crews will put a halt to this......Cheers!
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I fly at least every other month and it drives me crazy when they're just about strip searching old ladies. I had an incident years ago when a TSA guy was searching me and I thought it was beginning to become obscene -- of course if I were to complain, he would have called security to escort me away as being disruptive..
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