Sunday, November 21, 2010

TSA

I'd post a link, but there are too many already--you'll see if you haven't already, about the new security measures being forced upon ordinary travelers. I don't know which airports around the country have installed these measures, but they include an x-ray machine that allows an agent to see your naked body. If you don't like that, you can "opt out," and receive an invasive and uncomfortable pat-down--the kind you see police officers give criminals on TV.

This cannot be the best way to promote security and safety. If you think that invading my privacy or molesting my body increases your security, then you must think that I'm a terrorist. And I'm not. (DUH!)

With all of the ways the government keeps tabs on us (ever try to get out of paying taxes?), don't they have a way of identifying those who might pose a risk--say, those with criminal backgrounds, previous arrests, anyone who has spent a significant amount if time in a nation that sponsors terrorists? How about, when you buy a ticket and show up at the airport, they check to see if your identity matches the one you supplied when you bought the ticket. How about--if someone buys a ticket with my husband's credit card, and doesn't look like my husband--they stop that person from boarding! (A couple of years ago, someone took a trip to Jordan and Egypt on Dave's credit card. I'm appalled that neither the credit card company nor the TSA noticed anything amiss.)

Instead, you and I, our grandparents, parents and children are violated in the name of security. It's madness.

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