Thursday 18 November 2010

NOT PJ: The Todger Screening Administration [update 2]

_BernardDarnton This week, Bernard Darnton found some nudie pics on the Internet. They're of you.

The latest weapon against airborne terrorism is nudie pictures, with backscatter x-ray machines being installed at airports across America.
    Normal x-rays machines use radiation that passes through an object and can detect dense things like guns, femurs, and the various household objects that people waddle into A&E having “accidently” sat on.   
    Backscatter x-ray machines, however, measure reflected x-rays. While fabrics appear invisible the radiation is scattered by most other things, like guns, explosives, and penises.    The Fiqh Council of North America has issued a fatwa stating that the nudie-scope is un-Islamic for its violation of modesty. Save your breath guys. Strip searches without warrants or probable cause are un-American, too, but nobody’s listening.
    Ronald Reagan once said, “The nine most terrifying words in the English language are, ‘I’m from the government and I’m here to help you.’” Those were simpler times. That statement has mutated into, “I’m from the government and I’m here to take photos of your cock.”
    All this is in response to the attempt to blow up a plane last Christmas by Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, a.k.a. “Smokin’” Umar, the underpants bomber. Abdulmutallab’s plot raised many questions, chief among them: How do you explain to the seventy-two virgins, who’ve been eagerly waiting for you their whole afterlives, that you’ve just blown your todger off?
    The second question was: What’s happened to al Qaeda? 9/11 was simple, ingenious, and devastating. The underpants plot was so bad it would’ve been rejected by ‘Allo ‘Allo.
    The third question was: What’s the dimmest knee-jerk reaction we can have to our hopeless security lapse?
After 9/11 the instant response was to ban anything sharper than an Oscar Wilde story from aircraft cabins. (In New Zealand the Aviation Security Service was formed so hastily that they forgot to check that it’s acronym wasn’t ASS.)
    After Richard Reid’s shoe bombs (again, WTF al Qaeda?) passengers had to remove their shoes at the security gate. Clearly, getting everyone to remove their pants for x-raying was too dumb even for the Department of Homeland Security so the nudie-scope it had to be.
    Passengers who don’t want to be photographed by the nudie-scope can opt out and have a good old-fashioned groping instead. As Ben Franklin once said, “Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will end up getting its bollocks gripped by the government.”
    Protesters recommend the groping because it slows down the queue to the point of impracticality and requires the government flunky to molest you face-to-face (or hand to bollock as the case may be) in the hopes that this is embarrassing for him too. November 24th has been designated National Wear A Kilt To The Airport Day.
    What Ben Franklin actually said was, “Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both.” He is backed up by Rafi Sela, former head of security at Ben Gurion airport in Tel Aviv, a man who knows about fending off murderous nutters. He says that Israel hasn’t bothered with body scanning technology because the machines are “useless.” “I can overcome the body scanners with enough explosives to bring down a Boeing 747.”
    I assume he’s talking about the old cocaine smugglers’ trick. If the machine maps the outside of a passenger’s body in exquisite detail, carry the explosives on the inside. Come on al Qaeda - let’s see how big your arsenal really is.
   The truth is that all this remove-your-laptop-battery, take-off-your-shoes, drop-your-pants nonsense, known as “security theatre,” won’t stop terrorists but it will make life unpleasant for the rest of us. You are now assumed to be a criminal the moment you walk into an American airport.
    Security expert Bruce Schneier believes that security theatre does nothing to protect us. What he claims will protect us is intelligence gathering, understanding Islamic organisations, diligent police work, and having the sort of society where people don’t want to become terrorists.
    Notwithstanding the horror and drama of 9/11, bringing down an airliner won’t destroy our way of life. A hyperbolic and misguided response to the threat just might. It’s time American air travellers told their government to stop taking liberties.

* * Read Bernard Darnton’s NOT PJ column
here every Thursday, barring drinking accidents. * *

UPDATE 1: Lindsay Perigo offers a robust critique of the elephant in the Todger Screening room: It's the Muslims, Stoopid!.”

UPDATE 2: New #TSAslogans suggested on Twitter include:

  • "Remember -- if the government doesn't squeeze your nads, then the terrorists win!"
  • Former Sen. Larry Craig defends TSA: Says he really enjoys new pat down policy.
  • Molesting. It’s Not Just for Catholic Priests.
  • Bend over and take it like a man.
  • Please place your hats, shoes, and self respect in the bins.
  • We're the people ur mother warned u about.
  • You'll need more than 3oz of personal lotion by the time we get through with you.
  • If you want to fly, you can't be shy.
  • Don't ask, don't swell.

15 comments:

Shane Pleasance said...

Magnificent, as ever.

Another way of avoiding 'retribution' is to avoid fucking with them n the first place, of course.

frank cobain said...

Another reason not to visit the USSA I guess.

Dirty Mind said...

That type of scanning will definitely exposed those males who are always horny 24hrs, embarrassing. We know that there are lots of hot looking women at a particular time in any US airport.

BTW, isn't the title of this blog post supposed to be:

"NOT PJ: The Todger Screening Administration"

and not

"NOT PC: The Todger Screening Administration"

Peter Cresswell said...

@Dirty Mind: OOps. Right on both counts.

Andrei said...

They're feeling up kids FFS.

This is government that's out of control

Anonymous said...

But NotPC, if the TSA don't go around at best pointless and in fact harmful security theater, how will they justify their salaries? Clearly this matter is so critical that they even have to borrow money they don't have to pay for this.

What I'm wondering is, if I was a terrorist and it was too difficult to blow up a plane, I'd simply kill my targets by blowing them up at any of the tens of thousands of other possible public targets, such as malls and night clubs and trains and hotels, like they do everywhere else in the world. I mean, hands up who honestly thinks that a terrorist is going to look at airplane security and think, "hmm, well that's that I suppose, foiled by the TSA! I'd best live an honest and peaceful life instead".

This raises two questions: One, is this really making anyone safer AT ALL if it actually means terrorists will simply kill you somewhere else instead? We can't have this ridiculous security theater everywhere. Two, if there are really so many terrorists out there to justify this level of insanity, then why AREN'T other targets blowing up all over the place every other month? If there are so many terrorists out there, surely we'd be seeing mall bombings and training bombings etc. across the US all the time. Where are all these terrorists, and what the fuck are they doing all day long? The government would surely never exaggerate the threat of a negligible bogeyman in order to justify taking ever more of our money, surely not.

- DavidJ

Terry said...

Brilliant post Bernard, as always. You know certainly how to make one laugh about that which one otherwise is crying about.

Unknown said...

Hey love. You're a wonderful and witty writer. Great column. See you in the New Year for our brunch date. xxx

Anonymous said...

the sydney domestic version of these molesterers in uniform are equally as bad.
I was the only non-burkaed/ bearded up person going through in a group of about 40 people, and despite my laptop bag ebing cleared, nothing at all pinging when I went thru the metal detector, they still accosted me. I was given the pat down, the empty your bags pockets, swipe my goods with some damn trace element thing... it was degrading, especially given that the people who were walking thru at the same time as I was are the actual racial profile who do the heinous acts in the first place.
I don't know why they choose who they do for these random molestations, but it has gotten so damn annoying, that now I tell them after the event, that I pity them, but to never mind because one day they might get a promotion to enable them to do a real job, like picking up dog litter, or perhaps write a few parking tickets. But that they may need to start taking some omega 3 in order to enhance their lielihood of success.

Anonymous said...

David J.

This whole TSA approach plays, [as you outline] into the hands of the deranged. Great balls of airliner fire in the sky may have a greater appeal to the demented jihadist than an average airport explosion. But the TSA a just coagulating the traveling public into a vulnerable cluster on the queue side of their scannning stations. There they are ripe for a curbside explosive redistribution well before the TSA can get their latex gloves on the hapless traveler's wedding tackle. The Israelis avoid this 'bunching up' by profiling and narrowing suspects down to where thy can blow themselves to kingdom-come in solitude. Any sheep farmer in NZ could give yarding advice to the TSA. Better could the Israeli security services, but I don't see the corn-fed US bozos doing that any time soon.

George

Sally O'Brien said...

And yet the latest Unisys Security Index shows two thirds of Kiwi sheeple would be happy to sacrifice their privacy for increased aviation security.

http://m.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.php?c_id=1&objectid=10638219&ref=emailfriend

Libertyscott said...

I vividly recall being stripped down to my underwear at the gate at LAX before boarding a flight to AKL, all because the metal detector kept detecting the small metal button on the front of my boxer shorts. No matter that I was in full view of the 300 or so passengers boarding the flight (nothing like a caucasian NZ passport holder in business class to be a real and present threat).

It was 3 months after 9/11, but I did notice how on US domestic flights it was nowhere near that thorough - just the braindead US belief that its threats are this blanket group called "aliens", and they can't tell the difference between those from NZ vs those from Saudi!

Meanwhile one can be grateful that NZ non-jet domestic flights are spared this nonsense, despite pressure from the ASS to implement hienously expensive screening. One thing Steven Joyce got right.

Jeffrey Perren said...

American hero Captain Sully recently put it best (paraphrasing): To control terrorism, you need to control WHO gets on the plane, not WHAT.

Robert Winefield said...

Interesting viewing:

http://www.foxbusiness.com/on-air/freedom-watch/index.html#/v/4424018/rep-regrets-creating-tsa/?playlist_id=157991

The TSA law included a provision to allow private airports to opt out of TSA screening and pay for it themselves.

Apparently San Francisco AP is all private.

I foresee that the backlash will involve the TSA being kicked out of many airports. What happens next would be up to Obama. He'd probably try and make the TSA screening mandatory so that he can protect all 60,000 TSA employees that are soon to be Unionized...

Falafulu Fisi said...

To the American readers of this blog. I've just seen this youtube video clip of Alex Jones radio show, where he announced a breaking news that a deputy DA in San Francisco airport is going to investigate felony groping. He's just not warning them, but there's evidence of crimes being committed in groping.

If it's true, then this is the start of the people's revolt against such disgusting government's intrusion.