The TSA Tea Party

Yet again, those in power have misread and underestimated the will of the American people. Last November’s election results shattered the grinning assurances of politicians who supposed voters were unserious in their objections to government over-reach in matters of economics, regulation and health. Now, in the face of mounting protest against the excesses of TSA officers at America’s airports, those responsible for the policy of continued sexual violation of travelers maintain that they are winning the argument. They are wrong, and they will lose.

One hesitates to equate the grassroots and growing opposition to TSA’s practices of perversion with the Tea Party movement that propelled GOP gains in the 2010 elections, since the latter largely represents a right-of-centre worldview, while the airport uproar encompasses people of all political and ideological persuasions.

This is fitting, as the current TSA situation is a bi-partisan disgrace – including the lucrative compensation received by Bush-era Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff for selling Rapiscan backscatter x-ray machines to his former department for use at airports, as well as the eagerness of Chertoff’s Democratic successor, Janet Napolitano, to implement and expand this disgusting program.

Indeed, at a recent Washington, DC, conference hosted by the Electronic Privacy Information Center (epic.org), which is suing to halt the use of full-body x-ray scans by the TSA, speakers represented every conceivable background and affiliation – Congressmen and staffers from both parties, lawyers, municipal officials, pilots, students, security experts, libertarians, liberals – even Ralph Nader, for good measure. Assessing the TSA’s enhanced screening techniques from all sides – efficacy, cost, safety, constitutionality and on – this group of people who had probably never found themselves in one room and on the same side (TSA officials declined invitations to attend) demolished any and all rationale for a technology that has been abandoned by other countries for its obscenity and ineffectiveness.

But despite the diversity of its participants, the populist nature of this protest feels familiar. Government officials chug along as though all will be well once folks settle down, even as opposition websites, Facebook groups and on-line networks boast memberships in the tens of thousands, and rising. Americans of all types are sharing their stories of mistreatment at the hands (and eyes) of TSA officers, and pooling ideas to bring this shameful episode to an end.

In response, government spokespeople continue to proffer the same assurances about privacy and necessity and the “next generation” of security tools, assuming Americans simply need time to adjust to the system. The most egregious such comment comes from Napolitano herself, in reference to the “enhanced pat-down” techniques that permit TSA officers to put their hands in travelers’ most intimate areas: “It’s something new. Most Americans are not used to a real law enforcement pat-down like that.”

This is true, since most Americans do not find themselves arrested or in jail. How could we claim to have a free country if innocent citizens were to become “used to a real law enforcement pat-down”? Unlike many, I do not consider Napolitano to be a scheming abettor of some sinister New World Order. Rather – and I sincerely do not mean to be glib – I assess her to be so cosmically stupid and barren of understanding as to the nature of this nation or her job that she simply does not recognize the absurdity of such a remark.

TSA Administrator John Pistole, on the other hand, appears to be a very different sort. In a recorded message, played in loops at American airports, authoritarian menace drips from his voice as he speaks of, “your options as a passenger” under his regime. He does not say as much, but your “options” are to be photographed nude, groped, or both, at the whim of a TSA worker, under threat of arrest and prosecution if you refuse to comply.

As columnist Chris Selley observed in a different context, there are some police officers who are incapable of dealing with a citizen who knows his rights. A 26-year FBI veteran before being tapped by President Obama for his TSA post, Pistole seems like such an officer.

Pistole’s recording concludes by thanking the flying public for its cooperation in the security effort as, “We all work together.” We are not working together, John. You and I are not on the same side. You want to violate and take naked pictures of my countrymen and loved ones; I want to prevent that. Neither your mission nor mine has the first thing to do with terrorism, but at least I admit it.

It bears mentioning that, even if done precisely as advertised, TSA’s system is still an abomination. A government agent is still seeing your naked image and/or physically violating you, without cause, explanation, escape or recourse. The dynamic between uniformed officials and citizens is appalling. I have routinely witnessed travelers at Washington, DC’s Reagan-National Airport crammed three or four at a time into a tiny glass cage, locked at one end and guarded by a uniformed officer at the other, and held there until TSA personnel are good and ready to release and grope them one by one.

Folks are finding the reality at airports is nothing like the anodyne assurances they have received from government officials and sympathetic media outlets. As the EPIC legal team noted in its January 6 brief, “Public opposition has correlated with the actual experience of those who undergo the TSA’s new screening procedure.”

A recent Zogby poll found that 61% of Americans oppose the TSA’s new methods, and this number has nowhere to go but up. As more and more Americans discover the depravity of TSA’s system for themselves, watching their children be photographed naked or their spouses touched in obscene ways by government agents, the only remaining supporters of this regime will be those who are empowered by and exempt from it, such as Napolitano and Obama, along with those pitiful stragglers whose public personae consist of being loudly wrong about almost everything (Gloria Allred, call your office).

As security expert Bruce Schneier stated at the EPIC conference, “Terrorism cannot end our way of life – only our response to it can.” In this way, the TSA has succeeded where al-Qaeda failed. Since 9/11, Americans have defied fear and embraced freedom, choosing to fly despite the remote danger of airline terrorism. Now they are demurring, as they are faced with the very real possibility that they or those they love will be violated by agents of their own government. This cannot be our way. As Schneier observes, “If we are indomitable, the terrorists lose, even if their attack succeeds.”

With that sentiment in mind, I have hope. This will end, because it has to end. In recent years, we have seen the American people, including many who had not previously raised their voices in the public square, come together to make a difference. Now, on this issue, we are doing so again. I am confident we will prevail.

theo@theocaldwell.com

Theo Caldwell is the author of Finn the half-Great.

"While I breathe, I hope."

Willis S. McLeese
1913-2011

Power, Freedom and Christmas

"And it came to pass in those days, that there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus, that all the world should be taxed.”

So begins and ends the role of the most powerful person on the planet in the greatest story ever told. Taken from the Gospel of Luke, these words set the context in which Jesus Christ came to be born in Bethlehem: An important man had a grand idea.

As Rome’s first emperor, Caesar Augustus ruled supreme. Across the globe, his name was known and his word was obeyed. Yet at Christmas, as people celebrate the seminal union of creation and Creator, he rates only passing mention. Joseph and Mary, traveling to the City of David in accordance with Augustus’ orders, took refuge in a rude shelter so she could give birth to her child. As “all the world” moved to comply with an emperor’s proclamation, who would have imagined the destiny of humankind was laying in a manger?

This is one of the many welcome messages of Christmas: Man is not in control. Our ambitions do not rule the universe – and what an encouraging thought that is. God’s ways are not our ways, and though this sometimes brings suffering, as prayers seem unanswered and we struggle through the agony of a broken world, it also brings hope. Look at the world of men and wonder who would want them to have the final word. Many things that matter most to us – power, prestige, wealth and renown – do not reckon in God’s estimation. Even if, like Augustus, we achieve the pinnacle in each of these, we can still be confounded and forgotten.

The story of Christmas reminds us where true power dwells. It is in love, and humility, and evinced through God’s use of the weak to shame the strong. That means every one of us has a chance, and it means we all matter.

Each of us comes to Christmas – and every day of the year – with hopes and fears, clinging with joy or pain to those things we think are important. To be sure, some of these are important to God, as well. We may sense when our desires match those of the divine, as we are designed to appreciate the power of gentleness, the feeling of selfless love, and the warmth of a servant’s heart. But there are other concerns we carry around, priorities of men but pittances to God, and Christmas gives us a chance to set them down. Saint Paul offers simple counsel and encouragement to do just that: “Test everything. Hold on to the good.”

There is liberation to be had by admitting we are not in command. As we recognize the limits of human power, we concede that our understanding of God is inchoate. This frees us from prejudices and serves to reinforce the Christmas message. For example, those of us who believe in the divinity of Jesus and the salvation obtained through his birth, death and resurrection must recognize that our appreciation of these events is incomplete. Indeed, the Gospels themselves give varying descriptions of Christ’s nativity and life, reminding us that we are reading the Word of God, rendered by imperfect people.

This means that as arguments over religion and belief swirl around December 25 and persist throughout the year, we can take peace in recognizing that none of us has all the answers. Whether we are great or small, Christmas invites us to embrace the precious simplicity pronounced by the angels two millennia ago: “Glory to God in the highest, and on Earth peace, good will toward men."

theo@theocaldwell.com

Theo Caldwell is the author of Finn the half-Great.

The TSA Singers

Good Lord, they’re singing.

This column has been sharply critical of the TSA and its invasive screening procedures for American air passengers. Monitoring the TSA’s public responses to concerns raised by people across the country, one notices an unsettling selectiveness. In a chipper, useless hybrid of corporate communications and government-speak, the TSA responds to those matters it thinks it can manage, ignoring the major problems with its new system.

In case you’ve missed the last couple of months, the TSA has been ramping up its regime of full-body, naked scans of air travelers, complemented by intense pat-downs that amount to government-sanctioned sexual assault. Reports of abuse have been rampant, including the grotesque targeting of female travelers by male TSA officers, and questions about privacy, power, and how these procedures can possibly jibe with Americans’ Constitutional rights.

It was rightly to be hoped that as we move into the Christmas travel season, and as opposition to their vulgar policies grows, the TSA would remedy – or at least acknowledge – these glaring flaws.

Instead, we find they are singing Christmas carols. Yes, the TSA has returned to the headlines as a choir of its officers sings to travelers at Los Angeles International Airport.

TSA supervisor and tenor Ernie Perez says he hopes to put a “positive face” on airport security, adding, “We’ve been taking a lot of heat for what we do.”

If I may be of some help here, Ernie, that’s because what you do is really, really wrong. This Christmastime, millions of Americans who want to be reunited with their families will be forced to run a groin-grabbing gauntlet erected by you and your colleagues. Your “positive face” doesn’t enter into it.

How many Americans have seen their holiday cheer darkened by anxiety, knowing that they, or their loved ones, will be subject to government-ordered nude photos and/or physical violation by TSA officers before their reunion can take place?

Perhaps the TSA singers hope to alleviate some of that anxiety by belting out a few holiday favorites, but here’s an even better move: Stop taking naked pictures of people and grabbing their intimate regions. It’s not much of a Norman Rockwell Christmas, but these are the times in which we live.

If, as the TSA insists, their officers are Americans like anyone else, understanding the concerns of the flying public, maybe they should stop singing and start protesting this twisted system. Why have we not seen that? Are TSA spokespeople so thoroughly committed to defending the indefensible, and are their ogling officers enjoying their new powers too much?

Perhaps, as their bizarrely cheerful public pronouncements suggest, the TSA folks actually feel they are winning this debate. But I doubt it. As employees, whether they work in communications or at airport gates, they must know that what they are doing is dead wrong, and a disgraceful violation of people’s dignity.

At least one TSA officer has had the sand to speak out and say as much. “I truly feel that it is morally and ethically wrong to do it,” an agent in Pittsburgh told CBS. “This does not make flying safer. It’s just taking away American citizens’ rights.” He noted that those who are most often singled out for extra scrutiny are seniors, lamenting, “Just the looks on their faces, some of them, the fear.”

So again, why has the TSA not made changes? Do they suppose this controversy will simply blow over? Again, I am doubtful.

An issue on which Charles Krauthammer, the ACLU, Ann Coulter, David Corn, Kathleen Parker, Jeff Jacoby and Alan Colmes all agree is one that has legs. Simply put, the TSA cannot win this fight with the American people and their Constitution.

In defense of their new rules, the TSA continues to wheel out a dopey, months-old poll, taken before Americans realized the detail of the naked scans, the vulgarity of the new pat-down procedures, or the capricious power of airport officers, showing widespread support for “full-body x-rays,” presented as a binary choice with “ethnic profiling.” But as the country’s mood shifts, and anger mounts, the TSA keeps humming along, calling us “customers” and acting as though we’re all on the same side.

The TSA is losing in the court of public opinion and, one can reasonably hope, they will lose some or all of the legal challenges being brought against them.

One of the many things we Americans do well is sue each other. It would be optimal for our national security officials to recognize the error of their ways on their own but, if a court order is what’s required to stop this madness, so be it.

But back to the TSA choir. If you want to give a gift to the American people, you can stop grabbing their groins and photographing them nude. This Christmas, TSA, just do the right thing.

theo@theocaldwell.com

Theo Caldwell is the author of Finn the half-Great.

If You See Something, Say Something

“If you see something, say something," our national security officials are fond of telling us. Indeed, the idea that ordinary citizens should be vigilant in spotting suspicious behavior was broadly encouraged long before this handy slogan was popularized. In the days after 9/11, as the anthrax scare ramped up, President George W. Bush was pressed by reporters as to just what sort of things folks should be looking for. The exhausted commander in chief replied, in a wordier iteration of the current motto, "If you find a person that you've never seen before getting in a crop duster that doesn't belong to you – report it.”

To be sure, civilians have been an important line of defense in the War on Terror since the brave passengers of Flight 93 took control of their aircraft, up through the citizen-led thwartings of attempted shoe-bomber Richard Reid and would-be underwear-exploder Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab. With these examples in mind, we can agree that any villain attempting to blow up a plane or train or shopping mall using identifiable methods will come in for an intergalactic beat-down from all decent persons within reach.

But what if the danger you see is something different and coming from an unexpected source? More pointedly, what if the threat you spot originates from the government itself? What to say then, and to whom do you say it?

One disgraceful example continues to stand out. To wit, there is no more egregious and obscene internal threat to our way of life than the TSA’s continued sexual violation of American travelers, in the form of full-body, naked scanners and invasive hand searches at the nation’s airports. Ostensibly in the name of stopping terrorism, our government is stripping us bare.

In response to mounting citizen protest, we hear, “Flying is a privilege, not a right.” What catchy nonsense. The government is not in place to dispense privileges, nor does it give us our rights. Moreover, on a practical level, the very idea that citizens of such a vast and various country as ours, who need to travel for work, family, and myriad other reasons, should simply stop flying because of repulsive rules established by government officials is bollocks on stilts.

But let’s revisit that concept of rights. The US Constitution was written by Americans, for Americans. The same is true of its first ten Amendments, which we call the Bill of Rights. Of particular relevance is the Fourth Amendment, which protects Americans from "unreasonable searches."

One wearies of those who insist we cannot understand the Constitution’s plain meaning without comprehension of case law, precedent, and a Yale-educated interlocutor to walk us through the document’s “living” nature. As we peruse the brilliant yet simple words of James Madison, they ask, “Who’re you gonna believe – a bunch of lawyers or your lying eyes?”

Simply put, if taking naked pictures of innocent travelers isn’t "unreasonable search," I should like to know what bloody well is.

And so we find ourselves at loggerheads with our own government, personified by Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano and TSA Chief John Pistole. As these two insist on expanding this odious regime, one wonders if they have considered how it will end. Two possible scenarios come to mind:

In the first, Americans become inured to these searches, accepting personal violations as the price of peace. I picture Pistole and his staff, huddled in his secure, undisclosed office, sipping Champ-Ale and congratulating themselves on weathering a media storm, coming through it to find a docile populace, arms raised in surrender, naked in the scanning gaze of government.

In the second, the scanners go away. Decades from now, we see them and their images flash by in retrospectives of “the year that was,” a quick reminder of a time we allowed our leaders to go too far.

I believe and hope the latter scenario will prevail.

Again – “If you see something, say something.” I see something, alright. I see a government that sees too much. I see federal officials contravening the supreme law of this land and robbing citizens of their dignity. I see you, Secretary Napolitano and Mr. Pistole, and I'm saying something. I say it to those whose consent your government requires – the American people. I say do not let this stand, and don’t become used to this.

I have written a great deal about these searches because I truly believe we are at a turning point for America. I’ve stated that a nation that will not tell airport apparatchiks to keep their claws out of their crotch cannot vanquish al-Qaeda. But it’s more than that.

It is anathema to a free country that a leering government officer can point to your wife or daughter and force her to hold still for a naked photo. Yes, we have to defeat Islamist terrorists who wish to destroy us, but we will have nothing left to defend if we surrender our liberty.

Stay outraged, America, and stay free.


theo@theocaldwell.com

Theo Caldwell is the author of Finn the half-Great.

Janet Napolitano's Appalling Judgment

When she ascended to her position as Secretary of Homeland Security, Janet Napolitano let it be known that the “War on Terror” was over. Instead, she decreed, America would conduct an “Overseas Contingency Operation,” in order to avert “man-caused disasters,” of the type we experienced on 9/11.

Ah yes, “man-caused disasters.” One is struck by the passive sense of the phrase, as though folks may have set out with the best of intentions, but things went awry. By that definition, what else might qualify as “man-caused disasters”? The Titanic? The Hindenburg? “Showgirls”?

As to just who might be responsible for such future “disasters,” Napolitano opined that “rightwing extremists,” including returning military veterans, were cause for concern.

Such a peculiar world view would be troubling in any Cabinet official, especially one charged with keeping the nation safe. But Napolitano’s notoriously poor judgment has been reinforced for all of us in recent days, as she continues to insist that in order to wage the homeland portion of our “Contingency Operation” and prevent “man-caused disaster” in the skies, TSA officers must take naked pictures and grab the groins of American air travelers.

Much has been made of whether these measures are a trial run for some Big Sister society, and Napolitano has asserted that the use of nude, full-body scanners should be expanded from airports to shopping malls, sporting events, and the like. But I am doubtful a larger agenda is in play for the same reason I understand this is a bad system. That is, conspiracies rarely happen because so few people are competent.

Even so, freedom can be crushed without coordinated effort. What’s more, if you lead people into temptation, they will follow.

We hear reports from all over the country, and those of us who travel have seen it: young women lined up at airports, having been selected by male TSA officers to go through full-body x-ray scanners. The TSA continues with its silly-bears about images being viewed in separate rooms and not being stored, but they are unable to address the probability that their men in uniform relish sending nude female photos to one another, and they miss the salient point: It is disgraceful and dangerous for a government to give male officers such sexual dominance over women.

Look, you don’t have to be B.F. Skinner to figure this one out: A mostly male force, empowered to take naked pictures of the females under their authority, will do so.

But back to Napolitano, and her fear about “rightwing” bringers of “disaster.” Suppose some conservative-minded fellow, perhaps with a military background, saves up to take his wife and daughter on a trip. And let us suppose that, as the family goes through security, male TSA officers take a liking to the women and, with the glances and gestures we are coming to recognize at our airports, single them out for naked scrutiny. Finally – and to be clear as a millimeter-wave scan, I am not calling for or condoning such action – let us suppose the pater familias takes umbrage with the officers and a violent incident ensues. Will Napolitano have been proven correct?

There is resonance to John Tyner’s now-famous phrase, “Don’t touch my junk.” But ogle my wife or touch my child, and the conversation takes on a whole new tone. Why are we creating this problem for ourselves?

Oh, right – in the name of security. This is the claim, even as the Government Accountability Office has repeatedly informed Congress that naked scanners would not have caught the so-called “Underwear Bomber,” Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab – who in any case, boarded his plane in Amsterdam, and about whom the State Department had received prior warning from his own father.

So again, why is this system in place? Well, if you thought Islamist terror acts could be stopped by calling them, “man-caused disasters,” you might also be persuaded that nude photos of every American flier are worthwhile.

Napolitano is not a thorough person – aside from her inspection preferences for innocent civilians, of course. She railed against the recent Arizona immigration law, calling it “bad law enforcement,” until she was compelled to admit before a Senate hearing that she had not even read the 12-page bill – and this was after she had seen her Cabinet colleague, Attorney General Eric Holder, similarly humiliated in front of a Congressional committee by confessing he had not read the law either, even as he was threatening to sue over it. Whatever you think of the Arizona legislation, consider the intellectual laziness evinced by this behavior.

Simply put, if you want to create and defend a system that compels Americans to be routinely and obscenely violated, you had better be someone who has the faith of the nation and a record of stellar judgment. Janet Napolitano is no such person.

theo@theocaldwell.com

Theo Caldwell is the author of Finn the half-Great.

The Stanford Prison Experiment at America's Airports

In 1971, researchers set up a prison in the basement of Stanford University’s Psychology Department. The idea was to observe how 24 undergraduate students would behave when divided into two groups – “prisoners” and “guards” – and allowed to play out their roles over two weeks. But within 6 days, the simulation had to be stopped. Students playing “guards” became sadistic, while “prisoners” evinced severe anxiety and distress.

Scientific criticisms of the Stanford experiment notwithstanding, the elemental message lingers: It is human nature to abuse authority; and the fewer checks on that authority, the more obscene the abuse becomes.

With that in mind, let’s have a gander at America’s airports and see how the TSA’s new virtual strip-search, busy-fingered pat-down policy is going. To re-cap, government agents have been empowered to subject airline travelers to nude, full-body scans and/or highly invasive hand searches. TSA officers may choose anyone for such scrutiny, without explanation, and if the selected person attempts to avoid whatever search methods the officer decrees – even by opting not to fly – he or she will be detained, prosecuted, and subject to massive fines.

Even without the empirical evidence of eggheads from Stanford, most folks instinctively understand you cannot give people, no matter how well-adjusted, this level of unaccountable authority over others.

Take the example of former Baywatch star Donna D’Errico, who claims a male TSA officer grabbed her out of line at Los Angeles International Airport and forced her to undergo a naked scan. When the fetching Ms. D’Errico asked the officer why she was the only person chosen, he replied, “You caught my eye.” For good measure – and plausibly, to obscure his true motives – the officer also scanned Ms. D’Errico’s young son, and subjected him to an extensive pat-down. Afterward, Ms. D’Errico reports seeing the officer and a male colleague – possibly the one who was privileged to see her naked image on the scanner – smirking and watching her walk on.

Much has been made of the fact that Ms. D’Errico has appeared in Playboy, suggesting nudity ought not to trouble her. That is relevant only insofar as it seems the same assets that got her into the magazine also got her into the scanner. The point is that she was violated with no recourse, escape, or appeal.
Reached for comment, a TSA spokeswoman called the incident “funny.” Really, now? Ms. D’Errico does not find it “funny,” nor does her son, nor do millions of women and families who face the prospect of government-sanctioned sexual violation as the price of travel. Indeed, the word I have read and heard most from females anticipating a flight is, “Dread.”

Consider the case of Stacey Armato, the young mother who was shoved into a glass cage by TSA officers at Phoenix Airport for refusing to allow her breast milk to go through an x-ray machine. She was held for an hour in full view of other passengers, subjected to a thorough hand-search, and told to, “Be quiet if you know what’s good for you.”

No one thought for a second that the breast milk was a matter of national security. I admit I wasn’t there, but I’ll say it again: The breast milk was never a threat. You know it, I know it, and the TSA thugs who abused this woman knew it. But the “guards” were in control.

As the system now stands, stories like these will multiply. Unfortunately, TSA Chief John Pistole and Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano show little interest in making changes.

Some have suggested the TSA’s methods are part and parcel with the war on terror, and these are small sacrifices for civilians to make while our troops are overseas, fighting for freedom. That’s half-right – our troops are fighting to preserve a free country, not one where husbands and fathers stand helplessly aside while the government takes naked pictures of their wives and children.

Indeed, how might a soldier hunkered down in Iraq or Afghanistan feel, being told that at that very moment back home, a TSA officer was ogling his wife’s naked image, or thrusting his hands into his child’s crotch, ostensibly in the name of the freedom he signed up to defend?

Stop it. Just stop now. Call it whatever you like – a re-evaluation period, a budget cutback, a legal opinion. But turn off your naked scanners, wheel them out, and tell your officers to keep their hands in the sunlight. Learn the lesson from Stanford some 40 years ago and wrap this one up early.

Pistole and Napolitano do not appear to be listening. They imagine we will become inured to scans and gropes, and some day look back, in Virgil’s supposition, to laugh at how prudish we once were. That, I believe, is a miscalculation.

America eventually does the right thing. The scanners will disappear from our airports and the blue gloves will retreat from our inseams. I believe that because I believe in the people of this country. Stick with it, keep at it, and let’s end this together.

theo@theocaldwell.com

Theo Caldwell is the author of Finn the half-Great.