Whoa there NY Cowboy
>The way to avoid this type of search is to not fly on planes.....it's not a constitutional issue, it's a choice of travel.
What keeps this logic from being extended to searching anyone who enters the mall, the grocery store, the bank, walks on the public sidewalk, or drives on the public highway? You made a choice to be there, and anyone might be a terrorist.
Flying seems so far to have had the highest risk of terrorism, but I fail to see any fundamental difference between choosing to fly and choosing to go into a place of business. We need some logic or rules to prevent the creeping of the boundaries.
Whoa there NY Cowboy
sicillian, Any nation whose people would allow such searches is doomed to enjoy the continued growth of the level of control imposed by the police state they live in. Some have had little choice in the matter, but for a people to embrace such a thing when they have a choice is very sad. In the end that choice will destroy the chance of ever obtaining the security that they seek.
jud
I heard something like that a while back...I just don't understand- why aren't people more pissed off? (or should I say, why aren't more people more pissed off?)
At the risk of turning this thread political 😉 ,
This is where Texan Ron Paul could make a difference- Defending our liberties.
Whoa there NY Cowboy
"anyone who enters the mall, the grocery store, the bank," has entered private property, and does so with leave from the owner.
A private property owner can dictate what can be said or done on his property......"freedom of speech" applies to the government, not to private parties. "Congress shall make no law......"
Most malls have prohibitions upon solicitations, posters, etc., that would otherwise be infringements on free speech back out on the sidewalk.
Again, nothing prevents any citizen from telling the TSA inspector, "I don't want you to search me"; just be aware that he's not going to let you get on the plane.
> What if the entire TSA program was suspended tomorrow, and air travel went back to what it was on September 10, 2001? How many would be willing to fly under those conditions?
This question assumes the only choices are "what it was on September 10, 2001" or having you butthole probed.
Clearly, 9/11 might well have been prevented if inter-agency communication between those responsible for airline security had been better on 9/10. There are ways to make airline travel more secure without making granny remove her diaper.
Whoa there NY Cowboy
> You want to fly on my plane, you have to submit to a search.........otherwise, use a different mode of travel.
>
> The way to avoid this type of search is to not fly on planes.....it's not a constitutional issue, it's a choice of travel.
Well... Your right and your wrong. Airports are not (strictly speaking) federal owned or operated and airlines themselves are not responsible for the "security" measures implemented in county, and city airports. In fact, aside from federal aviation guidelines and the measures of federal air Marshalls, airlines have absolutely no connection to the TSA and therefore are not the ones who are instructing the public to cooperate with TSA or saying "You want to fly on my plane, you have to submit to a search...".
It is the municipalities, counties and states who are willingly allowing the TSA to invade their jurisdictional responsibilities to provide airport security. In addition, they are allowing the TSA to take over security detail for one reason and one reason only, Money. The dollars being pumped into the airports operating budgets through the TSA and Homeland Security has allowed the airports to stay out of the red, even though overall air travel has diminished significantly and so many other municipal and county departments have struggled with budget deficits and outright closures. The TSA and their naked body scanners would not be as attractive if they didn't come with a giant slush fund to the other governmental entities that operate the airport. The threat from the federal government of a shutdown of air travel from airports unwilling to implement the TSA is just that... a threat.
The proof of that notion is that there are still many airports whose passenger security is still provided by private and municipal security companies and departments and who aren't using naked body scanners and full-body pat downs as deterrents for those who refuse subjugation to the naked body scanners.
In addition, private plane passengers and owners are not subject to TSA security detail and completely bypass all of the TSA security implements on all their flights out of private airports and specifically designated public airports. It can't be plainer to see than in this last example.
AS3
The potential list of ways to get us is unlimited
This morning a spray plane was supposedly spraying a nearby large pasture to kill off any small tree sprouts. The plane flew directly over my house numerous times while turning around. It could have dumped hundreds of gallons of whatever it happened to have in its tanks directly on me, my family and my possessions. It could have flown over a city of 100,000 population and dropped a load of extremely lethal chemicals in a few minutes.
We cannot eliminate all threats at all times.
Is That A Joke?
What is your point?
AS3
Oh... O.K. I Get It
Espousing truth is akin to believing in speculative conspiracy.
AS3
Whoa there NY Cowboy
Of course, Adam, you have hit upon the root of the matter...............MONEY.
After all, the fund to reimburse the 9-11 victims was instituted by Congress and paid for by all of us taxpayers for what?....to keep the airlines from being inundated with lawsuits regarding inadequate security at the airports on the day in question.
In fact, there is still one case left, that of Mark Bavis, the L.A. Kings scout who died on United Airlines flight 175 from Logan Airport in Boston.
Most families have settled out of court using either the congressional fund (where the average award was about $2 million ) or by settling wrongful-death suits.
The Bavis family’s is the last 9/11 suit still open. A hearing in the case is slated for this week in a Manhattan federal court.
Meanwhile, an entire cottage industry has been created, involving security personnel, credentialing firms, bio-metric identification procedures, x-ray and other scanning machines, and all manner of other ancillary businesses. For example, just try walking onto the WTC site as a daily worker.......you need a SWAC (Secure Worker Access Consortium) card, which costs hundreds of dollars with a security check involved, plus a site pass, plus you have to have an eye scan.
Finally, it has always been my opinion that when the terrorists come again, it won't be the same way the came last time......there's always another set of plans being formulated.
Whoa there NY Cowboy
> In addition, private plane passengers and owners are not subject to TSA security detail and completely bypass all of the TSA security implements on all their flights out of private airports and specifically designated public airports.
Keep in mind that much of this security is not related to saving lives, but saving property. Small planes don't do nearly as much damage as large jet liners, so the security around small airports is much less stringent. (Remember the guy who flew a small plane into the IRS offices a few months ago?)
After all, in our local tunnels, they ban large trucks, but not cars, yet a car can carry a bomb just as easily as a truck, just not as large. They are not as worried about a smaller loss of life as they are of the damage to the tunnel and disruption of commerce.
Whoa there NY Cowboy
The only way to deal with a terrorist is to kill them and any survivors need to be terrorized. So far the American people have not been willing to do that. Go in and get them all and to heck with collateral damage or deaths. In the long run, even though it sounds harsh, it is not, in fact that way is the more humanitarian way of solving the problem because it results in less overall damage and far fewer deaths than the prolonged methods we now use because of misguided public opinion. Trying to be the good guys only prolongs the killing and destroys more than quick decisive action would ever do and we never win it anyway, it makes us look weak which encourages more and prolonged terrorist activities, we give up and crawl home making the sacrifices of out troops a total waste. If all knew we would always react with quick and complete deadly force when attacked, there would be fewer attacks.
jud
SC
I do not know how long they have "banned" trucks in the tunnels, but I do know it has been at least 47 years, probably quite a bit more. Bombs had nothing to do with it. Clearance(size) was the reason.
Well Crud Jud
I guess you really don't know what you are talking about when it comes to combat operations in the mid-east theatre and the War on Terror.
There are millions of civilian deaths at the behest of military operations comprising the entirety of the War on Terror, but I guess those deaths don't count towards your "kill them all and let God sort them out" mentality, but they should.
Did you know that the civilian casualty ratio or the civilian casualty to combatant casualty ratio is 9:1! That means nine civilian deaths to every combatant death in Iraq and Afghanistan.
I'd say millions of Central and Middle East Asian civilians, enemy combatants and soldiers dead to our initial 3,000 (911) and subsequent five thousand more military deaths is enough to say we have reaped our revenge, wouldn't you?
AS3
SC
Stephen.......the security program I'm speaking about has absolutely NOTHING to do with size or height restrictions.
I am not talking about oversize vehicles.......rather box trucks, panel vans, panel trucks, step vans, UPS/FedEX-type trucks, two axles, etc., etc., anything between 10,0000 and 33,000 pounds, most of which are well below the height clearance limits in the tunnels in and around NYC.
SC
I was talking Semi's. The sizes you mentioned are just runts of the litter.
Well Crud Jud
Looks like you did not read what I wrote or maybe you chose to ignore it. Being a RVN vet I know the difference between decisive action and political interference which always kills more over time. I also remember the footage of our proud getaway from the embassy building and leaving those who were counting on us to their fate. We had that war won in 68 after the Tet Offensive, politics turned that victory around and prolonged the war for years, killing many more that would have lived if we had kept to the job at hand. Going to fight, then fight and be quick and dirty about it that gets it over quickly, fewer die.
jud
SC
Just an opinion. I would defund the whole airport security program and pretty much make the airports wide open. Not enough time to go into why, but the current system is pretty much useless and at the same time, expensive, time consuming, and morally offensive from a sexual exploitation point of view. Anyone else in any other situation would be arrested for what they do.
