Tag Archives: DHS

Old Men and the TSA, volume 2

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We left LA last Wednesday morning; I think I mentioned previously that the TSA managed to push my buttons on our departure from El Lay.

This time, lines were short, there was signage advising us that our shoes, even plastic Crocs, must make the journey through the X-ray machine. We were greeted by someone who ran our driver’s licenses under some type of ultraviolet device, squinted to read the names on boarding passes and licenses, and dutifully put the Official Seal of the Ministry of Homeland SecurityTM prominently on each boarding pass. Off, then, to the Xray devices, and the Alien Probe Line. Grumbling only a bit as my Crocs went into the plastic tub to be screened, I noticed that each plastic tub had ads on them. Ads. From zappos.com, in this case. The TSA’s way of recouping a few of the bazillions of taxpayer dollars that fuel their wastage and inefficiency, I guess.

After the tubs were safely on the conveyor to be xrayed, the TSA professional advised us to have our boarding passes available for Metal Detector Guy, as we passed through those devices. I had mine, my little bride’s was in her purse, heading to the xray machine. I told Metal Detector Guy that my wife’s boarding pass was in her purse, and that I’d retrieve it, and bring it to him. Fine, says MDG. So I go through the metal detector, see my wife’s purse coming out the xray machine, pick it up, and head towards MDG to show him the proper papers. It could be, that the Official Seal of the Ministry of Homeland SecurityTM had faded on our 10-yard journey through the metal detector, and by gum, we can’t be too safe. At this time, another fine TSA specimen, the Plastic Tub Replacement Lady, came barrelling up from behind me pushing a cart load of plastic tubs, narrowly missing running me over, snatched my wife’s purse from my hand, and attempted to stuff it back into the xray machine. I told her I was taking the purse to MDG; she was hearing none of that. At about this time, the following dialogue ensued:

  • MDG: “You were supposed to bring the purse to me.”
  • Me: “I was bringing the purse to you, when Endora here cut me off and took the purse.”
  • MDG: “You weren’t following directions.”
  • Me: “Like hell”
  • MDG: “You didn’t do what I said.”

By this time, PTRL had somehow gotten the purse to MDG, and all was well. I shouted back an endearment to MDG as we made our way to our gate.

I realize this little incident is a minor pothole compared to the huge sinkholes of TSA excesses, bungling, and idiocy. My point here is, that I don’t understand why the American public puts up with such horseshit from those whose salaries we pay. For fundamentally nothing.

I’d propose that the First Tuesday of every month be TSA Appreciation Day, wherein each person who travels on that day wear plastic Crocs, refuse to put them in the tub, and tell MDG to piss off. Then, the TSA would need a Removing Croc from Agent’s Ass Guy(RCAAG). Not the drama of the Boston Tea Party, perhaps, but something that nonetheless should happen.

-k-

The No-Fly Streak is About Over

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I’m proud that, for 3 years or more, I’ve been able to avoid the cluster-eff that air travel in America has become. I don’t fear crashing planes, terrorists on planes, or anything remotely similar. I don’t fear, but resent with every fiber in my body, the feeble ministrations of the TSA and the entire Department of Homeland Security, in their “mission” to Keep us Safe.

I shake my head in bafflement at people who put up with the TSA idiocy, and then shed their shoes, belts, and all but disrobe to get on an overcrowded plane staffed by surly airline personnel, and then say “It’s inconvenient, but if it makes it safer, it’s worth it.” Right on the inconvenience, wrong on the making us safer part. The TSA screening points are staffed in the main by poorly managed, ill-trained people who are on the government teat, and serve only to provide some uniform-clad illusion of safety.

The DHS in general has turned into nothing less than yet another domestic spy agency, gathering, mining, and storing data on innocent American citizens, all in the name of “security”.

Guess what, you nitwits? I’m not afraid; I was not afraid on 9/11, I’m not afraid now, and all your meaningless color-coded horseshit advisories are just that: futile gestures by an inept bureaucracy struggling to justify its existence. You serve only to instill and reinforce fear, uncertainty, and doubt in the populace, egged on by cowardly legislators and the nationwide network of the lapdog press. In so doing, you are pissing away untold tax dollars for zero returns. You care not about anything, save next year’s appropriation, which do-nothing legislators are all too willing, due to their cowardice and sound-bite cravings, to provide. Appropriate, rinse, repeat. That’s the drill. And Beltway Bandit contractors gather greedily around the trough, all too willing to buy, sell and trade whatever ineffable swill is in vogue on any given day.

In spite of that, we want to see our grandchildren. So, in 10 days or so, we fly. Not willingly, but we fly. The drive is just too long for the time we have for this trip.

It would be much better, if we lived closer. We’d drive then. We’re working on it.

-k-
[stags]Politics,Life,DHS[/stags]
[tags]DHS,TSA,Security[/tags]

Bedtime for Gonzo

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In the best news the Bill of Rights has had in a while, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales resigned today. He is at least guilty of being an incompetent and ineffective manager.

When CNN first broke the story, their “informed sources” mentioned DHS Secretary Michael “Gut Feeling” Chertoff, another major league Administration lickspittle, as a replacement. This rumor seems to have cooled; I hope that indicates that he won’t be nominated for the next AG.

I never thought I’d say it, but Gonzo made John “I Lost an Election to a Dead Guy” Ashcroft look like an absolute beacon of freedom and justice.  I just hope that whoever the next AG is, we won’t be sitting around pining for the “Gonzalez Era.” Don’t laugh; it could happen.

-k-

Soap Opera in Real Life

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And the story of sad sack Andrew Speaker continues to unfold. The poor mope has known about his tuberculosis since the first of the year, but he’s engaged to be married, and heads off to Greece 1 on his honeymoon or whatever.

On the way, we’ve seen DHS/TSA/Customs doing what they do best: pissing away taxpayer dollars, claiming that their screening process keeps us safe, when they can’t even stop one mope, with a presumably valid passport, who is flagged as not suitable to travel. Damn, I wonder.

And then, his daddy-in-law turns out to be a CDC microbiologist specializing in of all things TB.

Tearful apologies from Andy, and Diane Sawyer there to document the whole cluster eff for us.

In the unlikely event I ever fly again, what are the gel and liquid rules for carry-ons?

Man, this is gonna be a “news” story for a while. 2

-k-

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1 SWMBO and I went to Kansas City

2 How ’bout the rack on his missus. eh? At least in the photos I saw.

Stop with the Rosarita Refries, Already

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In what can only be described as an embarrassment to the passenger, and as a source of potential new threats to the TSA, an American Airlines jet was forced to land in Nashville, because of an episode of “passenger flatulence”.

According to the article:

An American Airlines flight was forced to make an emergency landing Monday morning after a passenger lit a match to disguise the scent of flatulence, authorities said.

In the never-ending struggle to keep the skies safe, the DHS announced that in addition to gathering your SSN, Driver’s License Number, DOB, credit card data, mortgage payment, and names of your firstborn, they will now be asking what you had for lunch, prior to your boarding the aircraft.

What a country.

-k-

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Lots of Good Reasons to Drive

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Via Homeland Stupidity, many reasons to avoid TSA ineptitude at airports around the country.

Pies are common fodder during Thanksgiving; however, travellers who had the misfortune to go through Cleveland were met with:

Thousands of Americans this holiday season are going to go without Grandmother’s homemade pie, because the Transportation Security Administration has apparently banned pies from aircraft. “In the last two days, we have taken a dozen baked pies,” Rick DeChant, TSA assistant federal security director at Cleveland Hopkins International Airport, told the Cleveland Plain Dealer. But the pies didn’t get thrown out like all the other potentially explosive liquids seized at the checkpoint. Instead, the potentially explosive pies were fed to soldiers waiting for connecting flights in the USO lounge.

Cleveland was presumably the only airport so afflicted.

There are plenty of good links in the referenced article; read the whole thing. Pay special attention to the DHS alert warnings and what they mean for the rest of us.

Now, I’ll offer a solution to this mess: stop flying. The TSA operates on the whims of individual, untrained, government-bureaucrat wannabes, with security of the airline system not even a by-product. The TSA has done nothing in its 5+ years of existence, there is no review of its processes, if there are in fact any processes to be reviewed, and the cost to the taxpayers is astronomical. So: stop flying.

If enough people stop flying, the market will move the airlines to get the message, and pressure will hopefully be brought to bear against this inane security theater.

There may even be a little “No Fly Zone” banner flying from this blog in the near future.

-k-

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Am I missing Something Again?

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US Immigration and Customs Enforcement(ICE) has a Most Wanted Aliens list. How very FBI-ish. According to the website

ICE Most Wanted Criminal Aliens

The ICE Most Wanted Criminal Aliens list, first unveiled on May 14, 2003, features foreign nationals from around the globe who have been convicted of committing serious crimes in the United States and served their time. Each of these criminal aliens have been issued orders of removal, commonly referred to as deportation orders, but have eluded law enforcement, thereby posing a continuing threat to public safety.

Call me a simpleton, but what’s wrong with someone from ICE meeting them outside the gates of the Big House upon their release, and sending them back to the Motherland? Oh yeah, we couldn’t have a list that way.

-k-

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