The TSA (and other experiments in evil)

TRANSCRIPT AND MP3: https://www.corbettreport.com/tsa 

In 1961, a psychologist conducted an experiment demonstrating how ordinary men and women could be induced to inflict torture on complete strangers merely because an authority figure had ordered them to do so. In 2001, the United States government formed the Transportation Security Administration to subject hundreds of millions of air travelers to increasingly humiliating and invasive searches and pat downs.

These two phenomena are not as disconnected as they may seem. Join us today on The Corbett Report as we explore The TSA (and other experiments in evil).

#Pedogate: Human trafficking and pedophilia a silent epidemic, cops and politicians involved

Brently Kopopolous
Sott.net

While stories like the FBI investigating President Trump's 'Russian connections,' the London Car/Knife Attack, and the flop that was the GOP's new healthcare plan dominate the headlines, there were a number of stories that just fell through the cracks.... into the basement, where they were murdered, chopped up, burnt, and the remains buried by Hillary's goons.

Jennifer Williamson posted a short video that went viral of her son, Aaron, getting a thorough pat-down all because he has Sensory Processing Disorder and she requested an alternate screening procedure. They were held for over an hour, missed their flight, and then Aaron was given a ridiculously intense groping by a creepy TSA agent. Here's the video: [...]



Most, if not all, of the comments on the original video condemn this weird standard procedure. As of this writing, the video has been viewed ~5.6 million times and has about 58,000 comments and almost 100,000 shares. Seems like a lot of folks have a problem with this. Does TSA care? Not really.

What could this young kid, wearing naught but a t-shirt and shorts, be carrying on his person that might present a threat on an airplane? Clearly, there's no way he could have a gun or an explosive. Why the ridiculously extreme pat-down? Further, when you consider that he has a disability which is known to cause bizarre reactions to sensory input, why on earth would you go ahead and give the kid an extreme rub-down?

Then I recalled this article from earlier in March, TSA Introducing New, More Invasive Pat-Down Method, which details the new "comprehensive" pat-down procedures:

The agency is now proactively warning airport officials that people might find these new patdowns odd, notifying employees of "more rigorous" searches that "will be more thorough and may involve an officer making more intimate contact than before."

"Due to this change, TSA asked FSDs [field security directors] to contact airport law enforcement and brief them on the procedures in case they are notified that a passenger believes a [TSA employee] has subjected them to an abnormal screening practice," ACI wrote.

Catch that? They're warning the cops that people may approach them with allegations of sexual assault. The new practice is so intrusive, flyers are apt to think their screener is doing something wrong. Looking at the above example, that seems self-evident.

On the topic of sexual assault, over 2-dozen black and latina teens in Washington, DC, have gone missing all within the last few weeks. But nary a mention of this from the lamestream media. This story-gone-viral began with a tweet by @BlackMarvelGirl and the internet really stood up and took notice. As of this writing it has ~176,000 retweets and ~41,000 likes. 

Read more

Police State Roundup: Cops assault, rape, and shoot civilians - lie about it - and get away with it

Brently Kopopolous
Sott.net

Shocking and horrific stories from around the USA this week as the police everywhere are becoming unhinged and violent. The above photograph comes from Memphis, TN, where 19-year-old Hannah Cohen was attempting to travel home through the airport when she was violently attacked by TSA and airport police. Hannah was returning home after successfully completely treatment for a brain tumor from St Jude's Hospital. After setting off a metal detector, she was pulled aside for further screening, which is where things went downhill. Being blind in one eye, partially deaf and somewhat paralyzed, Hannah was confused and scared as she had no idea what was happening to her. When her mother tried to explain, common sense was left by the wayside as protocol indicated Hannah was 'dangerous.'

Resisting their attempts at manhandling, Hannah was thrust to the ground when she hit her head. The above picture is the result. She was then arrested and spent a night in jail before being released without charges. This entire scene could have been avoided with just a little discretion and two-drops of common sense, but apparently that's not something Memphis TSA and airport police are trained in.

In Los Angeles, CA, it's potentially dangerous to visit the county fair. Christian Aguilar was beaten and tased after local police there arrested his parents and then attacked him for filming the arrest. Another man who recorded the incident was also arrested for filming, and that video is available here:  

Read more

TSA Long Lines Part Of Scheme to Move Americans to Mandatory “Biometic Background Pre-Check System”?

Comment: The whole point of these measures is to make it progressively more and more difficult for the average person to travel...All that is except the 0.1%...

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Marc Slavo
SHTF

In a very classic sense, it is a strategy for acquiring more power.

Problem. Reaction. Solution.

Though the TSA has never been effective at catching or reducing terrorism, it has become very good at inconveniencing Americans.

Rifling through their things, herding them through x-ray machines reminiscent of Nazi policies, forcing people to withstand increasingly long lines, with many people even losing out on flights. All in the name of security.

After wait times across the country have made headlines and left airport travelers stranded and fed up, Homeland Security chief Jeh Johnson, whose agency overseas the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), is calling for a solution based in… what else… greater security.

Secretary Johnson is using the 2016 travel crisis to push for more sign-ups in its Pre-Check program, in which applicants undergo a rigorous background check and pay an $85 fee for speedy TSA screenings. Johnson dubbed it “the E-ZPass of airports.”

Read more 

Pentagon War Plans in 2001: Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, & Iran

Comment: Just in case we forget the reasons for the current chaos...

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Police State USA

U.S. General Wesley Clark (ret.) revealed that he was informed, in the days following 9/11/2001, that the Department of Defense was planning wars with Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan,  Iran.

Clark was regarded as an esteemed commander during his service from 1966 to 2000, and obtained the rank of 4-star general. He discussed the matter in an interview with Amy Goodman of Democracy Now on March 2, 2007.

Here is the transcript of Gen. Clark’s account:

CLARK: About 10 days after 9/11, I went to the Pentagon, and I saw [Defense] Secretary [Donald] Rumsfeld and Deputy Secretary [Paul] Wolfowitz. I went downstairs to say hello to some of the people on the joint staff that used to work for me.

One of the generals called me in and said, “Sir, you gotta come in and talk to me.” I said, “Sir, you’re too busy.” And he said, “No, no! We’ve made the decision — we’re going to war with Iraq!” This is on or about the 28th of September. I said, “We’re going to war with Iraq? Why!?” He said, “I don’t know!” He said, “I guess they don’t know what else to do.” So I said, “Did they find some information connecting Saddam to al Qaeda?” He said, “No, no, there’s nothing new that way. They just made the decision to go to war with Iraq.” He said, “I guess its like we don’t know what to do about terrorists, but we’ve got a good military and we can take down governments.”

So I came back to see him a few weeks later, and by that time, we were bombing in Afghanistan. And I said, “Are we still going to war with Iraq?” And he said, “Oh, its worse than that.” He said– he reached over on his desk and he picked up a piece of paper, and he said, “I just got this from upstairs,” meaning the Secretary of Defense’s office. And he said, “This is a memo that describes how we’re going to take out seven countries in five years. Starting with Iraq, and then Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, and finishing off Iran.”

What can be made of this?

One explanation, as some suggest, is that it is not unexpected for the Pentagon to maintain ongoing contingency plans; keeping ready to pursue various far-fetched wars at all times. But even if that much is true, why would this seven-country invasion plan be put into official memos in the weeks following the 9/11/2001 attack? Those countries had nothing to do with the hijackings — yet American generals were being briefed about serious plans to attack. Why?

The proposed plan obviously did not pan out exactly as written, but it may have very well given us a look at the agenda of some very bloodthirsty policy-makers, as they tried to exploit the anguish felt following the collapse of the Twin Towers.

Disturbingly, we cannot even be sure that “the plan” is not still being pursued. The Pentagon has maintained a steady course of aggressive foreign interventionism throughout both the Bush and Obama administrations. As we have witnessed, much of what General Clark revealed has ultimately moved forward, albeit with a modified timeline.

Iraq’s government was toppled by the U.S. during the bloody full-scale invasion in 2003. U.S. commandos have been operating clandestinely in Sudan since at least 2005. The U.S. has been operating Somalia since 2007, clandestinely and through missile strikes. Libya’s government was toppled with the help of U.S. missile support in 2009. The U.S. began its bombing campaign in Syria in 2014. Iran’s fate remains yet to be determined, but was a frequent target of pro-war rhetoric in the ’12 election cycle.

If one subscribes to the idea that it is the U.S. military’s proper role (and the U.S. taxpayers’ economic burden) to clean up every undemocratic cesspool on the planet, then this brand of foreign policy might make sense or seem appealing. But even if that much is accepted, one must acknowledge that the leaders and policymakers clamoring for war are the same folks who gave us the Patriot Act, the NDAA, the ACA, the TSA, mass domestic spying, giant bailouts, exponential debt growth, and so many other harmful policies.

Americans’ patriotism and support of democracy have long been exploited by leaders with a far less altruistic foreign policy agenda. The country is not being kept in a state of perpetual conflict because it is good for the USA, good for the world, or destined to promote freedom.

Could it be that the purpose of pursuing war is to be at war? War is the perfect tool to centralize and expand government, degrade civilian liberties, suppress dissenting voices, maintain high levels of state secrecy, unaccountably disperse large sums of taxpayer money, militarize law enforcement, spy on the people, among other things. As Randolph Bourne famously wrote, “War is the health of the state.”

{ Support Police State USA }

Ex-TSA agent confirms your worst fears about airport security - they’re laughing at us

Mail online

A former TSA officer has confirmed many of the worst suspicions about airport security screeners: they stop passengers for having an attitude, they confiscate snow globes from children and nail clippers from pilots, they profile passengers based on their nationality.

And yes, they do see travelers naked in the X-ray photos.

In a confessional piece for Politico, former TSA agent-turned-writer Jason Harrington spills the secrets on the ways that the security workers pass the time during their long shifts.

‘I confiscated jars of homemade apple butter on the pretense that they could pose threats to national security. I was even required to confiscate nail clippers from airline pilots—the implied logic being that pilots could use the nail clippers to hijack the very planes they were flying,’ he wrote.

One of the most coveted rotations while he worked at Chicago’s O’Hare airport while Harrington worked there from 2007 through 2013 was the secretive Image Operator room where guards took turns sitting in the windowless room- that also lacked security cameras- viewing the pictures of passengers that the x-ray machines took.

‘Many of the images we gawked at were of overweight people, their every fold and dimple on full awful display. Piercings of every kind were visible. Women who’d had mastectomies were easy to discern—their chests showed up on our screens as dull, pixelated regions. Hernias appeared as bulging, blistery growths in the crotch area,’ he wrote in the Politico article.

‘All the old, crass stereotypes about race and genitalia size thrived on our secure government radio channels.’

Read more
 

TSA releases cartoon animation to introduce kids to warrantless checkpoints

Comment: More social engineering for kids and Police State acclimatization for parents...

Gee, thanks Mr. friendly TSA guy! (Mom why does he have his hand down my trousers?)

If you believe this kind of pathetic cartoon reality these guys seem to inhabit then there's a Master List of TSA Crimes and Abuses  created by TSA News that should offer the needed cold shower of objectivity.

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Transcript:
SFX: Airplane
SON: Hey Dad, why do we have to stop here? I just wanna get on the plane...
DAD: Well, we have to stop-screen-go (Stop = Beep. Screen = Boooooooop. Go = Ding!) before we get on the plane. This is a security checkpoint and those people work for TSA.
SON: Oh...it looks kinda scary. I don't think Molly will like it..
DAD: Nah, it's not scary. TSA officers are here to keep us secure. So don't worry, just remember stop-screen-go.
SON: Stop-screen-go? What does that mean?
DAD: Just watch... first, we stop here and hand our travel documents to the officer. She screens it...
TSA Officer: Thank you.
DAD: ...and then we go.
SON: Wow, that was easy. What's next?
DAD: We stop!
MOLLY: (laughing)
DAD: Then we put our stuff in the bins and the machine screens it. Then we go.
SON: Do I need to take off my shoes, too?
DAD: Nope. Kids under 12 don't have to. But
your game system and Molly's bear need to take a ride.
MOLLY: Bye-bye, bear! Bye-bye!
SON: Do we get our toys back?
DAD: Yep. You just need to walk through that rectangle first. It's a metal detector.
SON: Do we have to stop-screen-go here, too?
DAD: Yep, you got it!
SON: Stop.
SON: Screeeeeeennnnnnn and...
SON: ...GO! (makes jet sound)
SON: But wait...(makes brake sound). Mom, what's he doing with Molly's bottle?
MOM: Oh, it's stop-screen-go for baby bottles, too. But don't worry, she'll get her milk back....
TSA Officer: Here you go...
SON: Are we all done?
DAD: Yep!
SON: That wasn't scary. It's just stop-screen-go!
DAD: Yeah... that's what it takes to get ready for takeoff.
MOM: Thank you TSA!
TSA Officer: You're welcome. Have a great trip!
MOLLY: Bye-bye!
SFX: Airplane flying

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See also: El Paso Strip Search Results In Suit From New Mexico Woman After Vaginal, Anal Exams
 

Over 700,000 People On US Watch List: And Once You Get On, There’s No Way Off

 

  A US Transportation Security Administration (TSA) agent checks

the identification and boarding pass of a passenger as she passes through security in the

terminal at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport in Arlington, Virginia 

(AFP Photo / Saul Loeb)

RT

The names of nearly three-quarters of a million individuals have been secretly added to watch lists administered by the United States government, but federal officials are adamant about keeping information about these rosters under wraps.

A report by the New York Times’ Susan Stellin published over the weekend attempted to shine much-deserved light on an otherwise largely unexposed program of federal watch lists, but details about these directories — including the names of individuals on them and what they did to get there — remain as elusive as ever.

More than 12 years after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, federal agencies continue to keep lists on hand containing names of individuals of interest: people who often end up un-cleared to enter or exit the US due to an array of activity that could be considered suspicious or terrorist-related to government officials.

In 2008, the American Civil Liberties Union claimed that an Inspector General of the Department of Justice report found at least 700,000 individual names on the database maintained by the Terrorist Screening Center, the Federal Bureau of Investigation sub-office tasked with overseeing the “single database of identifying information about those known or reasonably suspected of being involved in terrorist activity.” Five years later, that number of suspicious persons is reportedly close to what it was at the time. Half-a-decade down the road, however, Americans and foreign nationals who end up on the government’s radar are offered little chance to find out how they ended there, or even file an appeal.

According to some, that’s just the start of what’s wrong with these lists.

“If you’ve done the paperwork correctly, then you can effectively enter someone onto the watch list,” SUNY Buffalo Law School associate professor Anya Bernstein told Stellin for this weekend’s report. What’s more, though, according to Bernstein, is that “There’s no indication that agencies undertake any kind of regular retrospective review to assess how good they are at predicting the conduct they’re targeting,” suggesting that anyone can be targeted and added to such a list with little oversight to protect them.

“When you have a huge list of people who are likely to commit terrorist acts, it’s easy to think that terrorism is a really big problem and we should be devoting a lot of resources to fighting it,” Bernstein added. With almost no transparency and outrages aplenty, though, she argues that the government’s watch lists are largely flawed and can erroneously ruin an innocent person’s life.

Such is the case with Rahinah Ibrahim, 48-year-old a former Standard University doctoral student who was expected to be in federal court in San Francisco, California Monday morning for the latest hearing in a case that stems from an incident in 2005 that ended with her learning she had been added to a terrorist watch list. Ibrahim was attempting to board a Hawaii-bound plane from San Francisco International Airport in traditional Muslim garb when she was taken into custody and told she had landed herself on a terrorist watch list. Nearly a decade later Ibrahim continues to disavow any connections with terrorism, but the issues surrounding the watch list program has made it seemingly impossible to find out what she did, let alone have her name removed from the list.

“We’ve tried to get discovery into whether our client has been surveilled and have been shut down on that,” Elizabeth Pipkin, a lawyer representing Ms. Ibrahim, added to the Times. “They won’t answer that question for us.”

“She doesn’t want this to happen to other people — to be wrongfully included on these lists that haunt them for years and years,” Pipkin said recently to Northern California’s Mercury News.

“No one knows how the targets get on the lists,” she said. “The government has never contested this case on the merits. We don’t think they have a defense.”

But with Monday’s hearing coming nearly a decade after Ibrahim first found herself in trouble, the likelihood of any reform coming soon to the watch list system seems slim-to-none. ACLU lawyer Hina Shamsi even told the Times that the system keeping the watch lists in tact seems to be more flawed than the one guarding over terrorist suspects held at America’s military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

“People who are accused of being enemy combatants at Guantánamo have the ability to challenge their detention, however imperfect that now is,” Shamsi told Stellin. “It makes no sense that people who have not actually been accused of any wrongdoing can’t challenge.”

A Terrorist Screening Center official reached for comment by the Times claimed that fewer than one percent of those listed on such rosters are US citizens or legal permanent residents, but as Stellin points out, “there is no way to confirm that number.”

New Detention Pods Being Installed In Airports, Thanks To The TSA

Ben Swann
Kristen Tate

Get ready to jump through yet another ”security” hoop next time you travel by plane.
The TSA is now installing exit “detention pods” at major airports that will temporarily “jail” passengers before they are allowed to leave terminals.

Here is how the pods work: when passengers are ready to leave a terminal, they will be forced into the pods, one at a time. Each passenger must remain in the pod until an electronic voice gives them permission to leave and the door opens.

After passing through a pod, passengers may not re-enter the terminal without going through security again.

Currently at most airports, TSA agents stand at terminal exits for safety purposes. The idea is that these new pods will replace such agents, therefore saving money and increasing security.

The pods are already being used in the Syracuse International Airport.
Syracuse Airport Commissioner Christina Callahan said, “We need to be vigilant and maintain high security protocol at all times. These portals were designed and approved by TSA which is important.”
At Callahan’s airport, the post cost $60 million to install.

While the pods will likely make some passengers feel secure, other travelers are likely to feel like they are being treated like prisoners.

InfoWar’s Paul Joseph Watson pointed out that there are already multiple TSA standards in place that make “travelers feel like they are under constant suspicion”:

“While threatening to arrest passengers who make jokes about airport security, the federal agency has also instituted a ludicrous ‘freeze’ policy whereby travelers are ordered to stand in place like statues while TSA agents resolve some unexplained security threat. Another policy that has provoked questions is the TSA’s random testing of passengers’ drinks for explosives after they have already passed through security and purchased beverages inside the secure area of the airport.”

Of course, some level of security is necessary in any international airport. However, there is a balance to be struck between making passengers safe and making them feel imprisoned or violated.

Follow Kristin on Facebook and Twitter.

TSA - 10 Years Of True Terror And Counting

 

Jeff Rense qnd Jonathan Emord discuss the total waste of the TSA charade.The TSA has just had its 10th anniversary, caught no-one, and spent billions.

Is the TSA's purpose only to humiliate?

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See also: TSA screenings aren't just for airports anymore

88 Year Old Woman Violated At Kennedy Airport

And the TSA fun and games continue...

WSVN

With age come such things as catheters, colostomy bags and adult diapers. Now add another indignity to getting old -- having to drop your pants and show these things to a complete stranger.

 

Two women in their 80s put the Transportation Security Administration on the defensive this week by going public about their embarrassment during screenings in a private room at Kennedy Airport. One claimed she was forced to lower her pants and underwear in front of an agent so that her back brace could be inspected. Another said agents made her pull down her waistband to show her colostomy bag.

While not confirming some of the details, the TSA said a preliminary review shows officers followed the agency's procedures in both cases. But experts said the potential for such searches will increase as the U.S. population ages and receives prosthetics and other medical devices, some of which cannot go through screening machines.

"You have pacemakers, you have artificial hips, you have artificial knees," said Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y., chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee. "As we get older and we keep ourselves together, it's going to take more and more surgery. There's going to be more and more medical improvements, but that can create what appears to be a security issue."

Prosthetic devices can set off metal detectors, and certain devices such as catheters and bags are visible on body scanners, making those passengers candidates for more thorough inspections. Metal detectors and wands can disrupt some devices such as implanted defibrillators, so those passengers must ask for pat-downs instead.

Ruth Sherman, 88, of Sunrise, Fla., said she was mortified when inspectors pulled her aside and asked about the bulge in her pants as she arrived for a flight to Fort Lauderdale, Fla., on Nov. 28.

"I said, `I have a bag here,"' she said on Monday, pointing to the bulge, which is bigger or smaller depending on what she eats. "They didn't understand."

She said they escorted her to another room where two female agents "made me lower my sweatpants, and I was really very humiliated." She said she stood with her arms and legs outstretched, warning the agents not to touch her colostomy bag. Touching the bag can cause pain, she said.

"It's degrading. It's like someone raped you," Sherman said. "They didn't know how to handle a human being."

Read more (video in link)

House Bill Would Criminalize Satire of TSA

Infowars

On September 22, 2011, H.R. 3011 was introduced in the House.

It is entitled the “Transportation Security Administration Authorization Act of 2011” and it contains some curious language.

Two thirds of the way through the ponderous bill, in Sec. 295, we find the following:

Whoever, except with the written permission of the Assistant Secretary for Transportation Security (or the Director of the Federal Air Marshal Service for issues involving the Federal Air Marshal Service), knowingly uses the words ‘Transportation Security Administration’, ‘United States Transportation Security Administration’, ‘Federal Air Marshal Service’, ‘United States Federal Air Marshal Service’, ‘Federal Air Marshals’, the initials ‘T.S.A.’, ‘F.A.M.S.’, ‘F.A.M.’, or any colorable imitation of such words or initials, or the likeness of a Transportation Security Administration or Federal Air Marshal Service badge, logo, or insignia on any item of apparel, in connection with any advertisement, circular, book, pamphlet, software, or other publication, or with any play, motion picture, broadcast, telecast, or other production, in a matter that is reasonably calculated to convey the impression that the wearer of the item of apparel is acting pursuant to the legal authority of the Transportation Security Administration or Federal Air Marshal Service, or to convey the impression that such advertisement, circular, book, pamphlet, software, or other publication, or such play, motion picture, broadcast, telecast, or other production, is approved, endorsed, or authorized by the Transportation Security Administration or Federal Air Marshal Service .(Emphasis added.)

In other words, if you print a t-shirt or produce a publication with a TSA logo, the government may soon be able to arrest and prosecute you.

The language states that it would be illegal to “convey the impression” that you are representing the TSA, but this interpretation would likely be left to federal prosecutors.

In the past, satire was protected under the First Amendment, but it may soon be illegal to poke fun at the TSA or use its logo or even utter its name. Notice there is no exception in the above language for parody.

Political satire is as old as the Greeks and the Bible. But it may now become a punishable crime if this legislation is enacted.

The TSA and the Justice Department are obviously serious about making sure we don’t criticize their Gestapo operation. Since they began irradiating citizens with naked body scanners and shoving their hands down the pants of old ladies and grade school kids, public outrage has reached a crescendo.

Judge allows flier to sue two TSA screeners

msnbc

A federal judge in Richmond ruled Tuesday that a lawsuit could move forward against two airport security screeners who had a college student arrested after he stripped to a pair of running shorts to protest what he felt were unconstitutionally intrusive search procedures.

The student, Aaron Tobey, had used a black marker to display a portion of the Fourth Amendment on his bare chest. It read: “The right of the people to be secure … against unreasonable searches and seizures shall not be violated.”

US District Judge Henry Hudson dismissed much of the federal lawsuit filed against various officials involved in the Dec. 30, 2010 incident at Richmond International Airport. But the judge said the portion of the suit that accuses two Transportation Safety Administration officers of violating Mr. Tobey’s free speech rights would be allowed to move forward.

The judge’s ruling opens the way for further investigation by Tobey’s lawyers into why security screeners called the police when Tobey removed most of his clothing.

The lawsuit claims that the security officials had Tobey arrested in response to his protest. Tobey’s lawyers say he has a right to peacefully object to the government’s treatment of airline passengers provided his actions are not disruptive.

The government argues that the police were called and Tobey was arrested because he failed to follow the screeners’ instructions that he proceed through the Advanced Imaging Technology screening device. The device has been controversial because it creates explicit images of the human body that amounts to a technological strip search.

Read more

More TSA pat down lunacy...

Boston Herald

Boston’s TSA screeners — part of a security force whose competency has come under fire nationwide — soon will be carrying out sophisticated behavioral inspections under a first-in-the-nation program that’s already raising concerns of racial profiling, harassment of innocent travelers and longer lines.

The training for the Israeli-style screening — a projected $1 billion national program dubbed Screening Passengers by Observation Techniques — kicks off today at Logan International Airport and will be put to use in Terminal A on Aug. 15. It requires screeners to make quick reads of whether passengers pose a danger or a terror threat based on their reactions to a set of routine questions.

But security experts wonder whether Transportation Safety Administration agents are up to the challenge after an embarrassing string of blunders — including patting down a 95-year-old grandmother in Florida and making her remove her adult diaper and frisking a 3-year-old girl who screamed “stop touching me” at a checkpoint in Tennessee. [...]

U.S. claims terrorists planned to implant bombs in passengers; will justify deep body scans

Activist Post

It was just a matter of time, and the time has clearly come. Earlier this year the internet was abuzz with controversy over the prospect of full strength deep body scanners being rolled out by the TSA to airports across America. The justification for this move was that terrorists would start hiding bombs in body cavities in order to get around the invasive grope-downs and backscatter X-Ray naked body scanners.

In Australia, legislation was presented which would allow a trial of the deep body scanners to be rolled out into various airports, supposedly to combat drug smuggling. The legislation was passed and now security personnel at Australian airports have been given the power to conduct internal body scans on passengers whom they suspect are trafficking drugs internally. All that is required is a "reasonable suspicion."

What exactly is an indication of someone trafficking drugs internally that is reasonably suspicious enough to justify blasting them with incredibly powerful penetrating X-Rays? No one can set out some strict guidelines for this, or at least I have not been able to find such guidelines. One would assume that suspicious behavior would entail nervousness, sweating, irritability, unwillingness to cooperate with security personnel, or any manner of things that they happen to deem suspicious. 

The situation in America is not quite comparable to the situation in Australia since here in the United States the justification is not drug trafficking but an invisible, ever-present, all-powerful terrorist threat. These are the same terrorists who are being used to justify scanning pedestrians without their informed consent. These also happen to be the same terrorists we are supporting in Libya, the same terrorists who Senator John McCain has lauded as "heroes" while demanding that we provide them with "lethal aid."

According to an AFP article published today, it was revealed that the U.S. administration had issued warnings to various airlines alleging that so-called "extremist groups" were considering surgically implanting explosives. Jay Carney, the White House's spokesman, confirmed that the Department of Homeland Security and the Transportation Security Administration have been in contact with airlines regarding this issue. Unfortunately, AFP was not able to receive a comment from any airlines.

Part of the justification for these new technologies, including the much less dangerous naked body scanners, is the false flag operation carried out by a patsy popularly known as "the underwear bomber." Just like the "shoe bomber" the supposed attempted terrorist attack was a complete failure and was carried out by a young Nigerian who is the son of a rich Nigerian banker. A video was released which purportedly showed the underwear bomber with his al Qaeda compatriots in Yemen, which also helped to justify more drone attacks on alleged militants, which continue to this day.

However, this was only able to push through the implementation of the naked body scanners which do not penetrate nearly as deep into the human body as the new scanners will, as they will be able to scan internal body cavities. The hype surrounding this non-existent terrorist threat has been peddled since at least January of 2010, when an Italian minister claimed that they could be used to detect, "if a terrorist has swallowed a capsule full of explosives and could become a human bomb."  Of course the body scanners that are now in many U.S. airports cannot do this as they detect items hidden under clothing, not within the body. To see if a terrorist had "swallowed a capsule full of explosives" these new deep-body scanners would be required.

One must remember that the justification used to roll-out these scanners is completely fraudulent. The increased security measures were originally credited to the events of September 11th, 2001 in which planes were allegedly hijacked from U.S. airports. I say allegedly because nothing surrounding the official story of 9/11 is concrete other than the fact that planes hit buildings and thousands of innocent Americans lost their lives at the hands of terrorists. Who these terrorists actually were has yet to be proven.

The TSA was not monitoring these airports, in fact the Israeli-owned company ICTS International was in charge of the security for every single one of the airports from which the planes were hijacked. Is this pure coincidence? Maybe so. Is it also coincidence that they secured the airports from which the "shoe bomber" and the "underwear bomber" departed from? Well, I'm finding it a bit hard to ignore all of the coincidences here, but I am sure there are many who can dismiss this as happenstance. However, I am not willing to suspend logic, reason, and common sense to the point where I would accept such an explanation.

The facts are quite simple: there has not been a single terrorist attack post-9/11 that has not been directly tied to Anwar al-Awlaki (the "CIA lackey" as Webster Tarpley calls him) who just happened to eat lunch at the Pentagon with top brass in the months after the tragic attacks on September 11th. Is all of this coincidence too?

If you choose to dismiss all of these strange connections that question the official stories fed to us by our supposed public servants, then that is your choice. Personally, I'd rather not have my DNA destroyed by scanning machines that have been justified based on an elaborate series of lies and deception.

Madison Ruppert is the Editor and Owner-Operator of the alternative news and analysis database End The Lie and has no affiliation with any NGO, political party, economic school, or other organization/cause. If you have questions, comments, or corrections feel free to contact him at admin@EndtheLie.com

 

Why TSA, Wars, State Defined Diets, Seat-Belt Laws, the War On Drugs, Police Brutality, and Efforts to Control the Internet, Are Essential to the State

lewrockwell.com

Whenever justice is uncertain and police spying and terror are at work, human beings fall into isolation, which, of course, is the aim and purpose of the dictator state, since it is based on the greatest accumulation of depotentiated social units.

~ Carl Jung

The title of this article encompasses topics that arouse attention and criticism among persons of libertarian persuasion. The discussion of such matters usually treats each issue as though it were sui generis, independent of one another. Most of us respond as though the woman who is groped at the airport has no connection with the man who is tasered by a police officer; that the person serving time in prison for selling marijuana is unrelated to the men being held at Guantanamo. The belief that one person's maltreatment is isolated from the rest of us, is essential to the maintenance of state power.

What we have in common is the need to protect one another's inviolability from governmental force. When we understand that the woman being groped by a TSA agent stands in the same shoes as our wife, mother, or grandmother; when the man being beaten by a sadist cop is seen, by us, as our father or grandfather, we become less willing to evade the nature of the wrongdoing by invoking the coward's plea: "better him than me." The state owes its very existence to the success it has had in fostering division among us, a topic I explored in my Calculated Chaos book. Divide-and-conquer has long been the mainstay in political strategy. If blacks and whites; or Christians and Muslims; or employees and employers; or "straights" and "gays"; or men and women; or any of seemingly endless abstractions, learn to identify and separate themselves from one another, the state has established its base of power. From such mutually-exclusive categories do we draw the endless "enemies" (e.g., communists, drug-dealers, terrorists, tobacco companies) we are to fear, and against whom the state promises its protection. By becoming fearful, we become existentially disabled, and readily accept whatever safeguards the institutional fear-mongers impose, . . . all for our "benefit," of course!

Look at the title of this article: do you find any governmental program or practice therein that is not grounded in state-generated fear? Each one - and the numerous others not mentioned - presumes a threat to your well-being against which the state must take restrictive and intrusive action. Terrorists might threaten the flight you are about to take; terrorist nations might have "weapons of mass destruction" and the intention to use them against you; your children might be at risk from drug dealers or from sex perverts using the Internet; driving without a seat-belt, or eating "junk" foods might endanger you: the list goes on and on, changing as the fear-peddlers dream up another dreaded condition in life.  [....]

Homeland Security Previews Physiological Bio-Screeners Polygraph like machines to "spot terrorists" by scanning general public for anxiety

By Steve Watson  Infowars.net Friday, Sept 19, 2008

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The Department of Homeland Security has previewed new technology that they promise will help rout out terrorists and other dangerous people in public places by covertly bio-scanning subjects as they walk past sets of cameras. 

 

It may seem Orwellian, but on Thursday, the Homeland Security Department showed off an early version of physiological screeners that could spot terrorists, reports USA Today. 

According to DHS officials, the scanners work like polygraphs but without the subjects having to be wired up to them. They measure body temperature, pulse and breathing regularity. Any sudden changes recorded could indicate "the kind of anxiety exuded by a would-be terrorist or criminal." 

According to the report, the new technology will not just be limited to use in airports:

The system would be portable and fast, said project manager Robert Burns, who envisions machines that scan people as they walk into airports, train stations or arenas. Those flagged by the machines would be interviewed in front of cameras that measure minute facial movements for signs they are lying.

Law experts have charged that the technology constitutes a government enforced "medical exam" which would violate civil rights. 

There can be no doubt that this technology is part of Homeland Security's Project Hostile Intent (PHI) program, on which we reported just over one year ago.

Scientists were tasked by the DHS to develop technology by 2010 that can scan the bodily functions of citizens, without them knowing, and uncover any possible hostile intent or deception. 

The DHS revealed to The New Scientist that it wishes to develop a lie detector-type test that can be used remotely, which was described as "an advantage because it would not interfere with the flow of a crowd and it could be used without the target's knowledge."

Other technology to be used for PHI includes lasers, cameras, eye trackers, microphones and heart rate and breathing sensors. 

The new technology complements already escalating security measures in airports and train stations such as biometric body scans, lie detector tests, behavior analysis, facial analysis and spot teams to spy on passengers. 

In addition, the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) started conducting random additional at-gate screening earlier this year of airline passengers who display "involuntary physical and physiological" actions indicating stress, fear or deception. 

To anyone who remembers Poindexter's gait analysis this is pretty disturbing stuff.

We are being acclimatized to these things, first within airports and stations. Technology and measures that you don't even see used in prisons or high security facilities are being passed off as completely normal in public places. 

Furthermore, from the wording in these reports, it is clear that the intention is to roll out the exact same measures throughout public places in major cities and subject the general public to intense airport style harassment on the city streets. 

How long before we see checkpoint officials inspecting internal passports and consumers body scanned merely to enter a supermarket or a sports arena?