TSA Chief Pistole: Maybe We Can Stop Petting Your Children

from the but-probably-not dept

Thu, Jun 23rd 2011 11:40am — Timothy Geigner

There are things in this life that are difficult to figure out. Quantum Physics, for instance, just ain't easy. Hell, I'm 29 years old and I still don't don't understand the very basics of neuro-regenerative surgery. So perhaps we should all take a moment to stand up and applaud TSA boss John Pistole for deciphering the it's-probably-not-okay-to-touch-our-children code.

At a recent meeting of the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee, Pistole relented:

"We have changed the policy to say that there'll be repeated efforts made to resolve that without a pat-down."

This was in response to outrage over a YouTube video in which a six year old girl gets groped by a TSA employee, including having the inside of the waist of her pants checked (video embedded below). As he was specifically discussing airport gropings at this meeting, it's as yet unclear if this policy change will also apply to the TSA Flashmob Security Theatre Troupe that they have roaming around other transportation hubs throughout the country. Besides which, it's hardly a firm admission that strangers sticking their fingers down our children's pants may not be the best of ideas. In fact, at the same meeting, Pistole went on to say:

"Unfortunately, we know that terrorists around the world have used children as suicide bombers."

This is the kind of thing that drives me crazy. What we have is a few rather isolated incidents of bad things happening on the other side of the world and we somehow go from that to what can only be described as overreactionist policies on our side of the ocean. Have terrorists ever used a baseball bat to commit their crimes? Probably. There goes the national past time. I'm pretty sure they've used cell phones too. How could we possibly allow these combination sexting/bomb-making devices to enter an airplane? It's said that bin Laden had a stash of porn at his Pakistani safehouse. Why haven't we arrested Jenna Jameson yet?

Senator Rand Paul appears to think the threat posed by American child-terrorist wunderwaffe is overblown as well:

"This isn't to say we don't believe in safety procedures," Paul said. "But I think I feel less safe when we're doing these invasive exams on a 6-year-old. It makes me think that you're clueless, that you think she's going to attack our country, and that you're not doing your research on the people who would attack our country."

Indeed. Why are we spending time converting our airports into Mr. Rogers' land of Make Believe, where children are a threat and the good guys are the ones twisting our naughty bits? And, perhaps as infuriating, why are we paying for it?

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Filed Under: children, john pistole, rand paul, security theater, tsa

41 Comments

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Donnicton, 23 Jun 2011 @ 11:49am

Jihadists have also tried to surgically implant bombs inside of dogs and rig them to explode while they're being shipped overseas.

The dogs of course inevitably died of complications before that could happen, but that obviously means we should start slicing open granny's labradoodle to make sure they don't have any bombs in them. It's for the safety of the passengers.
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- Dark Helmet (profile), 23 Jun 2011 @ 11:54am
  
  Re:
  I'm glad others are trying to inject humor into this as well, because when I see video of a little 6 year old girl getting her waistband rubbed by a grown woman in a position of legal authority, my eyes roll back in my head, I begin gnashing my teeth, and I usually wake up an hour later having found that I'd been randomly punching things the entire time....
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  - Anonymous Coward, 23 Jun 2011 @ 12:00pm
    
    Re: Re:
    your sure thats what you were doing...
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    - Dark Helmet (profile), 23 Jun 2011 @ 12:13pm
      
      Re: Re: Re:
      Oh, who can tell anymore. Perhaps I'm strapped to a bed in an asylum and this is all a bad dream....
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      - Jay (profile), 23 Jun 2011 @ 12:26pm
        
        Re: Re: Re: Re:
        The thought that there are actually people in authority that believe this is right "for the good of society" is more disturbing than any asylum.
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        Dark Helmet (profile), 23 Jun 2011 @ 12:35pm
        
        Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
        Honestly, I don't know how it got this far. If I were Emperor, the conversation would have gone something like this:
        
        DHS: So here's the plan, Emperor Helmet. We're going to start screening passengers, including children, by taking nude pics and patting down their privates--
        
        DH: No we aren't.
        
        DHS: No hold on. The reason we have to do this is because--
        
        DH: I don't care what your reasons are. We aren't doing that.
        
        DHS: But, see, there terrorists--
        
        DH: No.
        
        DHS: The thing is--
        
        DH: *Hits trap door to alligator pit button*
        
        DHS: AAAAAAAaahhhhhh....!
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        Rikuo (profile), 23 Jun 2011 @ 12:44pm
        
        Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
        For some reason, when reading this, the DHS's fall to his death sounded like the game character Abe from Abe's Odyssey. Maybe that's because the two people are about equivalent in intelligence.
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        ltlw0lf (profile), 23 Jun 2011 @ 2:59pm
        
        Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
        DHS: So here's the plan, Emperor Helmet.
        
        Wasn't it "President Skroob"? Did he get replaced?
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      - CommonSense (profile), 23 Jun 2011 @ 1:29pm
        
        Re: Re: Re: Re:
        Have you checked to see if your top ever stops spinning??
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  - Anonymous Coward, 24 Jun 2011 @ 10:04am
    
    Re: Re:
    That's the same reaction I have when I read one of your articles!
    [ link to this | view in chronology ]
- Jose_X, 23 Jun 2011 @ 4:44pm
  
  Re:
  http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/09/28/eveningnews/main5347847.shtml
  September 28, 2009 9:08 PM
  Al Qaeda Bombers Learn from Drug Smugglers
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Kingster (profile), 23 Jun 2011 @ 11:59am

The TSA
FUCK EVERYTHING ABOUT THIS.

That is all.
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- Kingster (profile), 23 Jun 2011 @ 12:01pm
  
  Re: The TSA
  (meaning, by the way, fuck everything about the TSA, not them figuring out that what they are doing is stupid, albeit slowly).
  [ link to this | view in chronology ]
  - AJ, 23 Jun 2011 @ 12:21pm
    
    Re: Re: The TSA
    I'm really not sure I'm understanding your position on this issue... either your wanting to do something sexual to a government agency, or your upset that it's taken them too long to figure out that what they were doing was wrong.... am I on track here?
    [ link to this | view in chronology ]
E. Zachary Knight (profile), 23 Jun 2011 @ 12:09pm

What that really means is...
What he really meant by this comment:

"We have changed the policy to say that there'll be repeated efforts made to resolve that without a pat-down."

Is that the TSA is going to continually pester the parents to force the child through the Nudo-scope. If the parents continually decline, they will eventually be forced to grope the child because the parents do not want naked pictures of their kids being taken.

Their policies are not changing. They are a government agency, nothing ever changes. They only get worse.

So still, the only options for parents are :1) have naked pictures of their kids taken. 2) have their child molested by an "authority figure" 3) be fined by the TSA and put on the no fly list.

Some choice.
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- Trails (profile), 23 Jun 2011 @ 12:17pm
  
  Re: What that really means is...
  I think you mean Nudo-radscope.
  
  Irradiate them while they're young, and the tumors are more likely to metastasize!!
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  - E. Zachary Knight (profile), 23 Jun 2011 @ 12:22pm
    
    Re: Re: What that really means is...
    You're right. So option 1 should read "1) Have naked pictures of their kids taken while giving them cancer"
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- Haha, 23 Jun 2011 @ 12:35pm
  
  Re: What that really means is...
  "...nothing ever changes. They only get worse."
  
  So they don't change, but they do. Got it, thanks!
  
  I'm teasing of course, I got your point :D
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D. Hope-Ross (profile), 23 Jun 2011 @ 12:32pm

What's it called when a government perpetrates terrorism against its own state?

/not a joke
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- E. Zachary Knight (profile), 23 Jun 2011 @ 12:56pm
  
  Re:
  Tyranny? Dictatorship? Maybe.
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- Matt (profile), 23 Jun 2011 @ 12:56pm
  
  Re:
  "What's it called when a government perpetrates terrorism against its own state?"
  
  government
  
  /also not a joke
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- The eejit (profile), 23 Jun 2011 @ 1:58pm
  
  Re:
  Heroic? Villainous? Luthoran?
  [ link to this | view in chronology ]
- Irving, 24 Jun 2011 @ 9:16am
  
  Re:
  Business as usual?
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Altaree, 23 Jun 2011 @ 12:33pm

Not about security.
It is about covering your ass the next time congress wants your head. If you don't respond to every think tank what if scenario, it will be dug up when one the the 10 million scenarios actually happens. A lot of gov't fears the "One strike and your out" rule of employment at the upper levels.
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Thomas (profile), 23 Jun 2011 @ 12:37pm

But what about..
the child molesters who now work for TSA? What will they do? What other job can they get?
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- Greg G (profile), 23 Jun 2011 @ 1:05pm
  
  Re: But what about..
  Carnies
  Birthday Party Clowns
  US Senators with cell phones
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  - mattarse (profile), 24 Jun 2011 @ 1:49am
    
    Re: Re: But what about..
    The catholic church is still hiring.
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PrometheeFeu (profile), 23 Jun 2011 @ 1:50pm

I used to help teach a self-defense course for kids which had a "reacting to inappropriate sexual touching by adults" segment. It involved starting out by trying to vocally deter your assailant while calling for help. Then, the children were taught to go for the assailant's groin or face and try to run away. (Obviously the idea was more to hope to startle the attacker into backing off just long enough for the kid to run for help.) For many of the kids, this largely served to reassure parents as the kids were too timid to be likely to act. (And let's face it, before the TSA turned pedophile, the chances of a child being sexually assaulted were minuscule) But there were a couple of the kids whose reaction I would really like to see if they were to go through TSA. I mean, what would the TSA agents do if a 6 years old was to try to gouge out their eyes during the pat down? On second thought, maybe I don't want to see that. The assholes would probably taser/shoot the kid.
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Anonymous Coward, 23 Jun 2011 @ 1:56pm

That is just fking patethic and incredibly SAD! What have you become USA? USA has become a sad, sad country. I'd never visit it after seeing what TSA do to people there. How can Americans accept this? Unbelievable!
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- Anonymous Coward, 23 Jun 2011 @ 3:41pm
  
  Re:
  We accept this, warrantless tapping and searches, and all the other crap Bush and Obama have perpetrated against us. The majority just don't care. They'll care when it's too late.
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Sean T Henry (profile), 23 Jun 2011 @ 2:11pm

"Have terrorists ever used a baseball bat to commit their crimes?" I believe that in there country its called a stick.

When will anyone else realize that the TSA was named by a dyslexic and is actually AST Assholes Save Terrorists.
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- Niall (profile), 24 Jun 2011 @ 3:26am
  
  Re:
  TSA = TSA Screwing Americans
  
  Repeat ad infinitum...
  
  Gotta love those recursive names!
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Nick Dynice (profile), 23 Jun 2011 @ 2:24pm

The US Intelligence Community: they can track down and kill people in foreign countries but they can't be sure you child is not a terrorist.
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Anonymous Coward, 23 Jun 2011 @ 2:38pm

Wow, Pistole is almost getting to the point where he might be able to develop empathy at some point in the future. Realizing that shoving your hand into a six-year-old girl's pants might be seen as a bad thing to do is a major step forward. Hopefully, he'll keep working hard at self-improvement, and someday he'll be able to become an actual human being. Good luck, Pistole!
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Capitalist Lion Tamer (profile), 23 Jun 2011 @ 3:30pm

We, as a nation, continue to show the terrorists exactly what sort of underhanded treatment they can expect to suffer through, should they actually attempt to board another airplane.

Take that, would-be terrorists! We're not afraid to treat an entire nation like recent parolees, each one more suspicious then the last.

This is what you'll get when you mess with us.

(That last phrase would sound triumphant normally, but under the circumstances, I can only hear Thom Yorke's voice echoing around my head, each syllable dripping with fatalistic dread and justified paranoia.)

[Oh, and by the way, great post, DH. It's nice to see you back in the mildly profane saddle, on back-to-back days even!]
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Anonymous Coward, 23 Jun 2011 @ 4:50pm

GRRR
As someone that shed blood defending this country, I'm both disgusted, and saddened by what we've become.... pathetic...
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- dwg, 24 Jun 2011 @ 10:30am
  
  Re: GRRR
  NICE. great to hear from someone who fought who knows what it is we're fighting for. you win today's prize, which, unfortunately, is not a free pass for your kids through the security line.
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Lawrence D'Oliveiro, 23 Jun 2011 @ 5:38pm

You Know What Niels Bohr Said About TSA Policy ...
... if you understand it, that means it hasn�t been explained properly.
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Anonymous Coward, 23 Jun 2011 @ 10:41pm

Who's Jenna Jameson?

(pics are much preferred) ;)
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Anonymous Coward, 25 Jun 2011 @ 3:16pm

I don't understand why people still fly. Is it really worth the trauma and indignity?
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Poogie, 26 Jun 2011 @ 2:17pm

It should be everybody rather than random. Use the idle time waiting at the airport as the time to search everybody, because random searches will not save anything.
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