Another brilliant idea

Hire even more government workers for the airports. These ones are supposed to be "passenger advocates." Forgive me if I think this is incredibly naive.

UPDATE: Becky Akers agrees that this is a bad idea.

TSA's Propaganda Machine

A recent Bloomberg article on TSA claims that complaints are down and demonstrate that TSA is moving in the right direction. It is disgraceful that an otherwise respectable publication would publish such blatant propaganda to aid TSA in their effort to convince travelers that most people like being sexually assaulted by strangers in an airport.

In fact complaints are up. Recent data published at WSJ and recounted in an Atlanta Journal refutes these claims entirely.

According to an article in WSJ on 9/1/11, “Complaints about TSA screening filed with the agency jumped 40% this year through June, compared with the first six months of 2010. In the month of June alone, TSA logged 1,975 screening complaints, more than double the 814 received in June 2010.”

Unfortunately, WSJ did the math wrong; a rise from 814 to 1,975 is a 242% increase!

This doesn't include complaints made to ACLU, EPIC, USTA and other organizations, which totaled in excess of 4,000 complaints as of June, nor account for those who didn’t file complaints for a myriad of reasons.

Further, TSA often trashes complaints filed at the checkpoint, claim to be out of cards or intimidate passengers who request a complaint form reducing the official count on the numbers of actual complaints. No one is fooled by the statistics. No matter how many times TSA claims that people support them, the number of complaints from passengers and members of Congress recounted in media reports indicate that this agency has serious problems.

A survey by USTA published on 11/16/11 concluded; “However, frequent air travelers are less satisfied with TSA’s overall performance than non-frequent air travelers, with:

• Only 54.6 percent of frequent air travelers somewhat/very satisfied (compared to 67.8 percent of non-frequent air travelers); and

• 28 percent of frequent air travelers somewhat/very dissatisfied (compared to 10.4 percent of non-frequent air travelers).

Even these numbers indicate that among the airline industry’s most important clients and who provide the vast majority of airline revenue, nearly one third resent TSA security and less than half are “very satisfied” with TSA’s performance.

Fortunately, a Forbes editorial on Friday provided the perfect antidote for the Bloomberg propaganda statement. That article provided a more comprehensive synopsis of the current state of TSA and its abuse of passengers and wasteful bureaucracy. It offered a more sensible recommendation: “Let’s give ourselves a present on the TSA’s tenth birthday: let’s demand Congress do more than merely wring its hands over this horrific boondoggle. Abolish the TSA.”

Media outlets that pander to TSA officials do their readers a great disservice. They violate their public trust and undermine their credibility by supporting propaganda that is in direct opposition to the opinion and benefit of their public.

Administrative law: where the TSA gets its power

Becky Akers explains how administrative law has made the Constitution irrelevant:

Administrative law “allows for the creation of public regulatory agencies” — that’s “bureaucracies” to you and me — “and contains all the statutes, judicial decisions, and regulations that govern them. It is the body of law created by administrative agencies to implement their powers and duties in the form of rules, regulations, orders, and decisions,” says West’s Encyclopedia of American Law. And yes, you read that circular reasoning right. Agencies draft the laws that empower them to draft laws: They write the rules of the game they play against us.

...The TSA also demonstrates what happens when someone challenges a bureaucracy in court. The Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) filed a lawsuit to stop the TSA’s irradiating of passengers with its porno-scanners — but the bench found that forcing passengers to submit to naked examination is indeed constitutional.

If you don’t know about the Second Set of Books, that ruling is so absurd you can only assume the three justices deciding the case had savored the marijuana that barred one of them, Douglas Ginsburg, from the Supreme Court. But if you realize that virtually anything bureaucracies declare necessary to carry out their mandate from Congress is “constitutional,” you’ll understand how adults literate in English can possibly wring permission for government’s goons to ogle us from the Fourth Amendment’s clear prohibition of warrantless searches.

Akers: 'Passengers aren't free...'

Another excellent commentary from the brave Becky Akers:

Terms so antithetical one never expects to encounter them in the same article -- "common sense," "intelligence" and "Transportation Security Administration (TSA)" – have been popping up together in the corporate media the last few weeks. Its propagandists praise the TSA’s chief pervert, John Pistole, for "introduc[ing] just the slightest bit of intelligence and flexibility into his agency's system."

Several scams at the TSA inspired this allegation.... Read the rest.

Akers on SPOT

Another great column from Becky Akers titled, "Now the TSA wants to interrogate us, too."

Akers on 'chalk outlines,' then and now

Good point from Becky Akers today. She dug up TSA defenses of the naked scanners, in which they were called "chalk outlines" and compares it to the new (improved?) chalk outlines being produced by the software upgrade. To find out what else she says, click on through.

Akers is a real journalist

As Becky Akers notes, most of the media reports on belly bombs have been parroting the government propaganda. Furthermore, misinformation abounds. So Akers sets the record straight by actually researching her topic before writing.