TSA, Bringing the Love

10/14/14. This is a four year old piece from the FG archives. I thought I'd repost it because it's just as good today as it was back then. Brian

Well today ends my disco week marathon. Thinking rockin' country week next week. So while all you people were doing useful things, like swilling beer, practicing self love, and sleeping...I was putting this gem together.

As a career cop, nothing pisses me off more than the Transportation and Safety Administration. Months after the 9/11 attacks, these termites infiltrated my ski resort home town. I tried to play nice with these guys. Let me tell you how they select the TSA hierarchy. Potential candidates for upper level jobs are asked to undergo a CAT scan. If they see any evidence of common sense as demonstrated by electrical activity in the frontal lobe- you are summarily disqualified and sent back to the post office.

One of the first acts of the TSA swarm was that they ordered us to import bomb sniffing dogs and check all of the cars in my airport parking lot or have them all towed away. I had two initial thoughts. Kicking the snot out of one of these guys was not possible- they had exercised caution by using the phone. Ok, I had three thoughts. My second thought, was since I had no bomb sniffing dogs, was to just lie and tell them that we had anyway. My third thought was just what the hell did flying planes into the WTC have to do with bombs in cars- parked in some rural airport months later?

Any common sense gets rejected and sent back to the mail room. That this bureaucracy has claimed 50,000 employees is mind boggling. However and true to form, the TSA has now completely gone full idiot. Confiscating our money to pay for this lunacy. See through clothing body scanners and grabbing folks' in private places. We didn't get here on a winning streak.

Here's a great site: http://wewontfly.com/

I clipped this piece from one of a few articles I have read. Pilots with courage, and now as it turns out, free time.

Anger over the screenings hasn't just come from passengers. Two veteran commercial airline pilots asked a federal judge this week to stop the whole-body scans and the new pat-down procedures, saying it violates their civil rights.
The pilots, Michael S. Roberts of Memphis and Ann Poe of Fort Lauderdale, Fla., have refused to participate in either screening method and, as a result, will not fly out of airports that use these methods, according to a lawsuit filed Tuesday in Washington.
Roberts is a pilot with ExpressJet Airlines and is on unpaid administrative leave because of his refusal to enter the whole-body scanners. Poe flies for Continental Airlines and will continue to take off work as long as the existing regulations are in place.
"In her eyes, the pat-down is a physical molestation and the WBI scanner is not only intrusive, degrading and potentially dangerous, but poses a real and substantial threat to medical privacy," the lawsuit states.

Unfortunately, the formation of the TSA, was a perfect example of government seizing control of a situation and exploiting us. Although late to this party, Rahm pretty much captures the essence. God help Chicago.