TSA on the recent strip searches or whatever

Reuters has more on the recent searches of older women at JFK.

In case you missed it

... here is a summary of the three recent TSA strip-searchers of elderly grandmothers at JFK airport.

Another elderly woman was strip-searched at JFK

Ruth Sherman Of Sunrise, Florida Says She Was Strip-Searched At Kennedy Airport On Monday; Lenore Zimmerman Of Nassau County Claims The Same On Tuesday.

Sherman says week-long Thanksgiving holiday with family in New York ended with an ordeal that started when the screeners wanted to check the bulge from Sherman’s colostomy bag.

“This is private for me. It’s bad enough that I have it,” she said. “I had to pull from my sweatpants and I had to pull my underwear, my underwear down.”

“You don’t do that anybody,” she added. “I felt like I was invaded.”

I'm alert to this kind of story because I'm flying these days and I've had a minor run-in with airport security.

Does the TSA know what diabetes is?

At the Denver airport, a pregnant woman reported the TSA refused to allow her past a security checkpoint because she was carrying insulin for her diabetes and ice packs while boarding a plane.

What did airport security do with it?

The Texas State Surplus Store will sell you the stuff that airport security defines as "willfully surrendered."

ABC: A loaded Glock handgun slipped through TSA screeners. Should make you feel better.

Take a look at land of the free. But some fliers claim that the body scanners were deactivated today.

Glenn Reynolds has an article on the Popular Mechanics site about airport security.

Big Government: "The real difference between the Israeli and American approach is the target.  Israel tries to identify and stop the terrorist while the U.S. targets the bomb or other weapon. This approach does not change whether there is a left or right wing Prime Minister in power because the government realizes for Israel, the fight against terrorism is a fight for its very survival. Thus her government and citizenry have a view of preventing terrorism that is unencumbered by the political correctness which restrains efforts in the United States."

Security theater

Popular Mechanics interviews security expert Bruce Schneier: TSA scans "won't catch anybody," he says. They are not supposed to; they are merely "security theater."

NoLeftTurns ask if the TSA screening is the end of diversity?

We pass all passengers through the same, cumbersome screening because we want to pretend that all Americans are equally likely to be security threats.   In short, we do it to avoid profiling.  The effort does credit to the tolerance of American soceity.  On the other hand, tolerance is not the only good.  There are limits. 

What we are seeing now is, I suspect, a reflection of a frustration Americans have with the worship of what is called diversity run amok.  By pretending that all passengers are equally likely to represent a threat, we have stretched the myth of sameness past the breaking point.  The same is true in other cases.  For example, a landlord cannot tell someone from India whose cooking stinks up the hallway outside his door by cooking his native cuisine that he is in violation of a general policy against stinking up the hallway.  Were someone from anywhere else in the world to cook the same thing, however, the landlord could tell him to nock it off.  Similarly, were that same person from India to stink up the hallway one night by cooking Italian food, the landlord could say something. That's absurd.  Given how intrusive the screen is becoming, it's no less absurd not to profile.

Wednesday, November 24, the day before Thanksgiving and the busiest travel day of the year, is National Opt-Out Day. OK, I'm opting out.

Powerline reacts to the TSA nonsense. I believe there is a revolt developing against their so-called security.

Popular Mechanics looks at full-body scanners.

Florida Republican John Mica calls for ditching TSA and their damn scanners. This pseudo security is nonsense.

A woman is suing the federal government after TSA screeners exposed her breasts to everyone in the area.

The future of air travel: whole body imaging scanners. If terrorists can't kill us, they can for sure embarrass us.
See also here.