TSA Courts Next Generation Of Groping Victims With Cartoons And Coloring Pages

from the the-more-you're-told... dept

Tue, Dec 24th 2013 5:43am — Tim Cushing

Just in time for peak holiday travel, the TSA is shifting its marketing strategy in hopes of prepping children for their guest roles in its security theater. Police State USA reports the official YouTube presence of the TSA has just uploaded a cartoon (titled banally enough "TSA Kids Animation") that aims to answer all those questions kids will be asking during their initial trip through security, including, "Do I have to take off my shoes?" and "Why does the TSA need Mom's breast milk?"

What it won't allow them (or their legal guardians) to do is comment on the video or give it a thumbs up/thumbs down rating. The TSA PR staff has helpfully disabled all indicators of displeasure.

This video is just part of rich multimedia experience which continues at the TSA website under the heading "TSA Kids." Additional "fun" can be had here, including such interactive features as "printing out a page full of scanning equipment to color," "printing out a full page knockoff TSA agent badge" and "squinting at a set of TSA K9 'officer' (the dogs, not the humans) collectors cards."

A "Parents Page" offers talking points for parental units to uncritically disseminate to their little traveling companions. The page reassures parents that no part of the process should involve separating them from their children. It then points out that parents will need to be separated from their children.

Children who can walk without assistance should walk through the metal detector separately from their parent or guardian.

Should the independent youngster set off the alarm, the TSA will try its hardest not to grope the youth until the offending item(s) is found.

If they alarm, TSA has procedures in place that have reduced, but will not eliminate, the need for pat downs to resolve the alarm, including multiple passes through screening technologies and other procedures.

This is Blogger Bob's out. No one can promise your child won't receive a security groping, but the TSA will do everything it can to ~~ensure you miss your flight~~ avoid utilizing the all-too-popular Swimsuit Area Patdown.

The TSA does seem to have improved its procedures for dealing with children with medical issues and disabilities. It appears all the negative press over the past decade has finally provoked a much-needed reassessment of its policies. TSA agents cannot remove children from their mobility devices (that's left to the guardian) and at no time will the child be separated from the parent. Parents with affected children can also request a private screening.

The TSA is trying to alleviate some of the fear these new flyers will experience when confronted with the excesses of airport security for the first time. The ultimate goal, of course, is to normalize its tactics. For kids, the way airport security is now is the ways it has always been. A new generation of travelers will adopt these standards as the new baseline, making it that much easier for the agency to deploy additional intrusions and stipulations in the future. It's not exactly brainwashing, but it's not exactly harmless, either. The smiling animal faces and the beep-boop noises of "Stop-Screen-Go!" sanitize another set of instructions handed down by a government that is mainly interested in the marketing of fear. It's the next generation's "Duck and Cover." Or "See Something Say Something." It's the evisceration of civil liberties under the cover of "safety."

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Filed Under: children, propaganda, tsa

44 Comments

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xenomancer (profile), 24 Dec 2013 @ 5:08am

(ಠ_ಠ)
You gotta love how they allow comments and ratings on the latest propaganda videos... oh, wait, what's this? They've blocked ratings and comments? How fucking typical.
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TSA bear, 24 Dec 2013 @ 6:06am

Ok send the next kid back here.

...

TOO OLD
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Anonymous Coward, 24 Dec 2013 @ 6:10am

Re: (ಠ_ಠ)
given the average YouTube commenter I don't blame them for disabling the comments.

"fucking asslicking dick tits."

There, I poured all the essence of the comments that video would have into just one comment. enjoy.
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out_of_the_blue, 24 Dec 2013 @ 6:14am

Police states learned marketing: leave the velvet glove on more.
The velvet glove on iron fist is old metaphor, in case you haven't run across it.

Anyway, this is not your grandfather's crude overt police state: totalitarians learn too. It's cheaper and easier in the long run to soothe you with phrases like "Don't Be Evil" while building a surveillance system for your everyday activities beyond anything the Stasi had. They spy on your email with your supposed agreement. They trick you with bright multi-colored logo: who's cynical enough to be suspicious of it? With the hook of a commercial front providing actually useful services, a worldwide SPY AGENCY lulls most to sleep. But as this shows, if coaxing doesn't work, they'll still pull out the machine guns.
The freedoms you take for granted today were death penalty treason in 1776. Don't let the Inherited Rich restore feudalism. Pull them down with high taxes on unearned income -- and ZERO taxes on wages, they HATE that!

02:14:39[c-197-3]
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Anonymous Coward, 24 Dec 2013 @ 6:17am

Re: Re: (ಠ_ಠ)
Can't say they do not deserve such comments.
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Anonymous Coward, 24 Dec 2013 @ 6:21am

Is paedo required for all TSA employees or just the ones wearing the latex gloves?
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Anonymous Coward, 24 Dec 2013 @ 6:24am

Compare to Antebellum Days
This harkens back to the prejudice in the South before the War.

Compare to the Code of Virginia 1849,
Title 54. Crimes and Punishments,
Chap. 192. Of offences against property.
Sec.26. Master of vessel receiving runaway slave. What evidence of offence.

If the master or skipper of any vessel knowingly receive on board any runaway slave, and permit him to remain on board without proper effort to apprehend him, he shall be confined in the penitentiary not less than two and not more than five years; and if such slave be on board such vessel after leaving port, the master or skipper shall be presumed to have knowingly received him.

.
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Anonymous Coward, 24 Dec 2013 @ 6:27am

the thing i find most obnoxious is that at this moment, various governments are using the 'protecting the children' subject as reason to block certain websites. then along comes TSA with excuses to use so as to be able to feel up a little girls groggy! how disgusting is that??
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Pseudonym, 24 Dec 2013 @ 6:34am

Re:
Doesn't the US have laws against child grooming?
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Anonymous Coward, 24 Dec 2013 @ 6:47am

Re: Compare to Antebellum Days
So not detecting a hidden stow away or hiding a stow away on purpose is the same offence. Not too dissimilar to laws of today, designed to make everyone an unlawful citizen.
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AricTheRed (profile), 24 Dec 2013 @ 6:57am

We stop and surrender our rights to the "officer"...
I like how dhs uses this video to try and legitemize the use of the term "officer" for the oathbreaking scumbag Screeners that they employ to degrade We The People. I really feel that if we all just stopped utilizing private air transport for just a week, boycott people, the tsa would quickly become a well forgotten footnote.
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Anonymous Coward, 24 Dec 2013 @ 6:59am

Isn't this how the Nazi's started.. babysteps ..
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Anonymous Coward, 24 Dec 2013 @ 7:07am

Just like the Nazi's, man! Argh!!
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avideogameplayer, 24 Dec 2013 @ 7:11am

This would be the one time DMCAing a video would be a GOOD thing...
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Me, 24 Dec 2013 @ 7:20am

They should license some Lostprophet tunes for the soundtrack.
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Anonymous Coward, 24 Dec 2013 @ 7:40am

I'd love to see some flash mobs re-enacting this commercial at the airport to see how the TSA agents react.
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Reality Check (profile), 24 Dec 2013 @ 7:46am

Re: Police states learned marketing: leave the velvet glove on more.
Um.. Did you say something that makes sense?

Must be a Christmas Miracle.
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Abar4, 24 Dec 2013 @ 7:57am

Why, just why ?
Why is the airport so obviously shaped like a phallus ?
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The Real Michael, 24 Dec 2013 @ 8:00am

All of the security theater and Constitutional violations are the end product of a false flag terrorist attack. Yeah, because some middle-east terrorists managed to exploit our air security, slammed a jumbo jet into the Pentagon while avoiding every tree and pole in the vicinity, and left molten steel burning at around 2,000 degrees underneath the WTC rubble until well into December, and managed to accomplish this with nothing more than a few flight lessons with small aircraft. How stupid must people be?
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Justin (profile), 24 Dec 2013 @ 8:10am

Did I hear that correctly?

Stop
Scream
Go insane
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Anonymous Coward, 24 Dec 2013 @ 8:12am

Re:
Alex Jones - is that you?
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Anonymous Coward, 24 Dec 2013 @ 8:39am

So....
Can we arrest them for grooming already?
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Dark Helmet (profile), 24 Dec 2013 @ 9:39am

Re:
Hahahhahahahhahahaha!

Of COURSE you're a truther too. There's zero evidence for evolution, but 9/11 was a false flag attack. Oh my lord, you are too much.
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Anonymous Coward, 24 Dec 2013 @ 9:47am

The video is even misleading...
You don't get your toys back if they look threatening kid, sorry...

That's not a metal detector you go through, it's a naked body scanner - hope you've got your underwear on today!

Ah, the baby bottle...more likely they'll just dump it out and hand it back to you.

If you're extra lucky, like my wife, you'll set off the scanner and they'll take you in the "back room" for extra service, er... patdown.
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Anonymous Coward, 24 Dec 2013 @ 9:53am

"Should the independent youngster set off the alarm, the TSA will try its hardest not to grope the youth until the offending item(s) is found. "

Is it just me or does that sound very pedophilish?
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Rapnel (profile), 24 Dec 2013 @ 10:14am

9/11
Our friends, family and loved ones died for this. FOR THIS!

The United States Government is completely out of fucking control.

Freedom is overrated when you're trying to protect your positions of power, receiving of public funds and excusing every action that subverts justice.

Oversight is a protection racket. Checks are bouncing. The scales are laden with drugs and the blindfold is for the public.

"A republic, if you can keep it." -Benjamin Franklin
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slander (profile), 24 Dec 2013 @ 11:10am

Re: Re: Police states learned marketing: leave the velvet glove on more.
Nope. Just the same ol' OOTBW's daily anti-Google rant. Nothing to see here - move along.
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out_of_the_cornhole, 24 Dec 2013 @ 11:12am

gather round little chilrens
I got a story to tell ya.

Good to know the brain washing begins early.
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Anonymous Coward, 24 Dec 2013 @ 11:24am

Re: (ಠ_ಠ)
At least you can still report it for being misleading
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Anonymous Coward, 24 Dec 2013 @ 1:43pm

Re: Re: (ಠ_ಠ)
There is a select few that don't share that kind of average for some reason.

It makes me wonder why some channels attract mostly good comments and others seem to attract only the trashy ones.
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Anonymous, 24 Dec 2013 @ 2:42pm

Re: Re:
The US has laws against pretty much everything.
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Anonymous, 24 Dec 2013 @ 2:45pm

Re:
OMG, something sounds "pedophilish"! Panic! Panic! Everybody panic!
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David, 24 Dec 2013 @ 2:59pm

Re:
No, the Nazis did not start with fondling people on airports. More like the typical American police officers nowadays treat non-white citizens. That's a good start, not just a babystep. An internment camp without due process is also a solid step. Encompassing surveillance is a rather good step. Secret courts without democratic control are a large step. An entitlement act like the Patriot Act is a big step. Killing people without due process on foreign and domestic ground. Scaremongering about a world conspiracy of bad people originating from the Middle East but left without a proper home: then the Jews, now the Muslim.

And a lot of other stuff the U.S.A. is building up.

Child molesting officers are not what the Nazis were about. If you want to look for fascism in the U.S., you've got a lot better telltale signs.
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The Real Michael, 25 Dec 2013 @ 5:23am

Re: Re:
Eye-witness accounts of molten metal beneath WTC rubble. I don't care what you think, jet fuel could never melt steel.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WkO0lZ7BZJc

How blind must you be to believe that two jets can disintegrate two towers with steel frames plus pancake another and without even hitting it?

In order for evolution to even get off the ground, there would need to be first life ...and it would need to be able to procreate somehow. Just one question: how do you go from zero life to life through natural process? Maybe you can answer.
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Anonymous, 25 Dec 2013 @ 9:14am

Re: Re: Re:
And how can a plane smash into the Pentagon and then just magically disappear?
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The Real Michael, 25 Dec 2013 @ 2:45pm

Re: Re: Re: Re:
Yeah, not to mention leave a hole several feet in diameter smaller and no wing damage. Seriously, they have this super high-tech flight simulation and even professional pilots couldn't manage to do it.
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Joshua Bardwell (profile), 25 Dec 2013 @ 5:33pm

It's the next generation's "Duck and Cover." Or "See Something Say Something." It's the evisceration of civil liberties under the cover of "safety."

One of these things is not like the other. Within a certain radius of ground zero, obviously total destruction occurs. Within a wider radius, a substantial amount of damage is done from thermal flash burns and from a shock wave that follows the thermal flash by some seconds. If a nuclear attack was anticipated, "duck and cover" would protect from the thermal flash burns, since even a regular building wall would block the energy. Even if the attack was un-anticipated, getting down on the ground (vs. going to the window to see what the flash was) would protect from shrapnel and broken windows propelled by the shock wave.

Source: Wikipedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duck_and_cover
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The Groove Tiger (profile), 25 Dec 2013 @ 5:55pm

Report the video as Child abuse, add the following text:

"Child grooming comprises actions deliberately undertaken with the aim of befriending and establishing an emotional connection with a child, to lower the child's inhibitions in preparation to sexually assault the child, or to exploit the child."
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Hibby the Hoovy (profile), 25 Dec 2013 @ 9:46pm

Re: We stop and surrender our rights to the "officer"...
I've been boycotting them for 4 years straight, and by the looks of it for the rest of my life.
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Sheogorath (profile), 26 Dec 2013 @ 7:48am

What about this one?
"Why's that man putting his finger there, Mommy?"
"He's just checking that Mommy hasn't hidden anything where you poop, honey."
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Anonymous Coward, 27 Dec 2013 @ 9:16am

What REALLY happens.
The baby bottle is greater than 4 ounces, causing the entire family to be subjected to embarrassing patdowns, making the children cry and the family miss their flight, all in the name of fighting undefined people who want to hurt you.

It's stuff like this that makes me want to blow something up.
(Just kidding, NSA!)
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Annonimus, 28 Dec 2013 @ 5:47am

What they couldn't get J.I. Joe to do a PSA on TSA. Also that PSA cartoon is worse than the Captain Planet or G.I. Joe segments from before. Are PSAs becoming dumber?
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Anonymous Coward, 31 Dec 2013 @ 4:01am

Re: Re: (ಠ_ಠ)
Yes, just handwave and declare the average youtuber to be an idiot. Because you say so. Having no evidence at all to support your assertions, I should believe what you say without comment and be on my merry way.

Congratulations! You qualify to work for our government.
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Pragmatic, 3 Jan 2014 @ 7:08am

Is it bad that I've considered issuing a DMCA takedown on this vile video for censorship purposes?
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