TSA Agent Leaves Lewd Message In Flier’s Luggage After Finding Sex Toy Paul Joseph Watson Infowars.com Monday, October 24, 2011 UPDATE: Filipovic has since told ABC News that she found the note “offensive” and has decided to file a complaint with the TSA. “I hope they do see the complaint, they’ll look into it and remind their staff that going through people’s personal belongings is a responsibility that should be treated with some modicum of professionalism,” Filipovic said. Not satisfied with fumbling through Americans’ private possessions, one TSA screener saw fit to make a humiliating joke about the contents, writing a personal message on a TSA inspection note after finding a sex toy in writer Jill Filipovic’s luggage. After arriving at her hotel, Filipovic was unpacking when she discovered her bag had been individually searched by a TSA screener who, having seen the “personal item,” saw fit to comment, writing “GET YOUR FREAK ON GIRL” on the reverse side of an inspection notice. “Total violation of privacy, wildly inappropriate and clearly not ok, but I also just died laughing in my hotel room,” wrote Filipovic. While proving themselves adept at identifying women’s vibrators, TSA screeners are notoriously less skilled at actually doing what they’re paid to do – find dangerous items.TSA screeners missed a loaded gun inside a checked bag at Los Angeles International Airport yesterday. “The .38-caliber handgun fell out of a duffel bag as a luggage ramp crew was loading it onto an Alaska Airlines flight to Portland, Ore,” 1. reports USA Today.Perhaps Filipovic should be relieved that the TSA goon didn’t just steal the item, but they only tend to do that when it’s something really valuable like a laptop, jewelry, precious metals, or cash. 67,000 passenger loss claims have been filed against the TSA since 2003, a figure the federal agency finds completely acceptable. As we reported earlier, TSA screeners are also now routinely interrogating Americans with questions about their personal income and the value of items they carry through airport security.
Mission Creep: This Tennessee Highway Is Now Patrolled by TSA Conor Friedersdorf 1. The Atlantic October 24, 2011 Most air travelers now endure naked scans or genital pat-downs by gloved agents of the government without surprise or complaint. But before invasive security became normal, there was a backlash. And at its height, Transportation Security Administration boss John Pistole said something revealing. “I see flying as a privilege that is a public safety issue. So the government has a role in providing for the public safety and we need to do everything we can in partnership with the traveling public, to inform them about what their options are,” he told reporters. “I clearly believe that passengers have a number of options as they go through screening. But the bottom line is, if someone decides they don’t want to have screening, they don’t have the right to get on the plane.” What perturbed me wasn’t his defense of mandatory security screening. It was his assertion that air travel is a special “privilege” the feds grant citizens. I felt the same uneasy twinge when Janet Napolitano, who heads the Department of Homeland Security, told USA Today that “if people want to travel by other means, they have that right.” Because where does that attitude end? Is it a “privilege” to attend the Super Bowl, where TSA agents scan the crowd for suspicious behavior? Or to ride on a Metro system, an Amtrak train, or a boat — other forms of transportation that Napolitano has mused about targeting? As Mark Browning wrote in 2010, using hyperbole and reduction ad absurdum to mock Napolitano, “The bus system could come next. Come to think of it, so could travel by automobile… Here, we find that not only are the crevices of our bodies searched, but so are the contents of our cars. If you don’t like it, don’t drive. Nowhere in that living document, the Constitution, are we assured of our right to move without hindrance from point to point by private automobile.” It's Happening: TSA on the Streets of America : video below http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UZKIfgk5oJk
In the local news report above, which my colleague James Fallows notes 1. here, a Tennessee TV news broadcast reports that TSA is already operating on highways in the state. The brilliant reasoning? “Where is a terrorist more apt to be found? Not these days on an airplane more likely on the interstate,” said Tennessee Department of Safety & Homeland Security Commissioner Bill Gibbons. Perhaps he can be forgiven for this absurd quote. After all, his job is to keep Tennessee safe from terrorists. By definition he’s guarding against a remote threat. But it ought to make us all upset that the federal government assessed its counterterrorism resources and decided that the best use of scarce funds would be random checks on vehicles on Tennessee highways.
Feel safer? The TSA agents are urging all drivers to “say something” if they see something suspicious, which brings us to another great quote from the piece: “If somebody sees something somewhere, we want them to be responsible citizens,” says Paul Armes, TSA Federal Security Director. “Report that and let us work it through our processes to vet the concern they had when they saw something suspicious.” Granted, if I were driving (rather than traveling by train) to Chattanooga, and I saw an 18 wheeler with a “Death to America” bumper sticker and fertilizer spilling out the back, I’d call the cops; but if there were any actual terrorists on the highways of Tennessee, wouldn’t their explosive filled truck look, from the outside, like any other truck? The last thing America needs is to let TSA and its absurd, security-theater loving bureaucrats out of the airport. Reports a local newspaper: “Larry Godwin, deputy commissioner of TDSHS, said the checks at the weigh stations were about showing the people of Tennessee the government is serious about transportation safety.” But quotes like that in fact show that they aren’t serious about transportation safety so much as the appearance of it. I’d consent to beefing up airport security even more if it meant being able to keep TSA agents inside the terminal. The notion of random searches spreading everywhere in American life, whether you’re exercising the “privilege” of going to a sporting event or driving down the highway, amounts to an unconstitutional surrender to terrorism in places where we’ve never even been hit by it.
TSA Agents Harass Man Over Silver Coins Paul Joseph Watson & Alex Jones Prison Planet.com Monday, October 24, 2011 A traveler flying into Las Vegas was questioned by the TSA about his small collection of silver coins, another example of how the federal agency is acting more like a secret police unit than an airport security outfit, routinely interrogating Americans about their financial affairs. TSA Now Searching For Silver And Gold! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ggWBEX0Fnpc Alex Jones talked to Jeff, a software engineer, after he passed through security, who told him that TSA agents had questioned him about why he was carrying silver coins and demanded to know their value. The screeners also asked if Jeff was collecting them for a hobby or an investment. Jeff explained that he was simply planning to cash in the coins and use that money on his vacation instead of dipping into his bank account. The total value of the coins was no more than $600 dollars. The delay led to TSA agents telling Jeff they couldn’t guarantee that his bags would even make it onto the plane.
This is not the first time US citizens have been harassed by TSA screeners for carrying items of any value, or refusing to answer invasive questions about their financial affairs. In 2009, Ron Paul campaign treasurer Steven Bierfeldt was detained and interrogated for nearly half an hour by TSA officials for the crime of passing a cash box through a metal detector which contained $4,700 in campaign funds. During the interrogation, Bierfeldt was threatened with arrest and bombarded with questions about his personal life and political viewpoints. “I do not believe I should give up my constitutional rights each time I choose to travel by plane. I was doing nothing illegal or suspicious, yet I was treated like a potential criminal and harassed for no reason,” said Bierfeldt. The Department of Homeland Security is training TSA agents to act like secret police, quizzing people on their financial status and political persuasions. This has nothing to do with airport security. Another example involved war reporter Michael Yon, who was handcuffed and detained after TSA officials demanded to know Yon’s personal income. “No country has ever treated me so badly,” Yon wrote in a Facebook message. “Not China. Not Vietnam. Not Afghanistan. Definitely not Singapore or India or Nepal or Germany, not Brunei, not Indonesia, or Malaysia, or Kuwait or Qatar or United Arab Emirates. No county has treated me with the disrespect can that can be expected from our border bullies.” Yon said he stood firm and refused to allow his privacy to be violated by TSA thugs because his friend had told him of how she was forced to hand over her Internet passwords and watched in horror as TSA screeners read her private emails. Eventually, Yon was released by Port Authority police because the TSA had no legitimate grounds to hold him. Given that TSA goons are now stationed at highway checkpoints in order to conduct searches of vehicles, we can expect to see many more examples of invasive interrogations where Americans are guilty until proven innocent, as the country begins more and more to resemble an authoritarian police state where citizens are constantly mandated to show their papers in order to travel anywhere. Ron Paul’s Texas Straight Talk: The Tyranny of TSA Highway Checkpoints http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mFpq6H_LZ08