TSA 'protects' passengers from non-threats

This write-up is sad - it is so clearly just a person posing as a 'journalist' doing anything to avoid journalism, including just re-printing TSA press releases and calling it news:

Transportation Security Agency (TSA) officials at Detroit-Wayne County Metropolitan Airport found a loaded .380 pistol in an 76 year old man's ankle holster, and they are touting the discovery as a justification of the advanced body-imaging scanners used around the country.

"TSA’s advanced imaging technology using automated target recognition (ATR) software detected [on Saturday] a hidden item on a passenger’s ankle," the agency announced yesterday. "While resolving the alarm, TSA Officers discovered a loaded .380 caliber Ruger Prescott firearm hidden in an ankle holster.  Local law enforcement responded and arrested the individual."

The discovery is "just more proof that this technology can and will find dangerous items," a TSA blogger argues, even while acknowledging that a traditional metal detector would have found the weapon just as surely. "While that's a true statement, the walk through metal detectors cannot detect non metallic items lke explosives, which are the greatest threat to aviation today."

The man has since stated that he forgot about the gun. Some might find this hard to believe, but when you think about it, there is no proof that the man had ill intentions and, furthermore, if he did, he probably wouldn't have a regular gun strapped to his ankle. Metal detectors have been in place at airports for decades and this gun couldn't have been slipped by them. So, it's really quite apparent that this man regularly straps a gun to his ankle - legally, no less - and had no intention of harming anyone on the airplane. So why exactly is it an achievement for the TSA to have figured this out? (My! What gumshoes!)

Likewise with this man who had a gun suitable for injuring small mammals (but not the incompetent police officer who shot himself in the face with it when trying to disarm it!).

These men are not terrorists - their just forgetful.

Or, there's this man, who intentionally tried to get a knife through, but apparently has no intention of hijacking a plane.

TSA caught lying (but what else is new?)

An Austin blogger sums it up:

The [senior citizen] woman arrived at airport security and informed TSA she was wearing a back brace. She was taken off to a private area to remove the back brace ... TSA’s initial response was that the brace was removed, rescreened and returned in accordance with its policies, but when it was reminded that its published policies say that medical braces will NOT be removed, it issued the statement (linked above) saying that the device was removed because “There was a bit of a miscommunication and our officers were told that the passenger was wearing a money belt.”

Here's Bill Fisher's comment on the post (but some of the others are worth clicking through to read, also):

So it takes TSA a week to come up with this lame-brained story [click through or keep reading to find out what the lie is]? It doesn’t matter whether it was a back brace, money belt or quesadillas, it doesn’t change the fact that they shouldn’t be strip searching people in the airports.

With all the lies this agency has told they should be a lot better at it by now. Not only are they lying about strip searching three women over the Thanksgiving weekend they’ve been caught in dozens of other lies over the past year.

Pistole promised to stop groping children four times this year and yet they are still doing it.
TSA said the scanners produced cartoonish images when they debuted, then Denver TSA Area director Pat Ahlstrom admitted in August when they added the privacy software that the previous images were “very graphic”.

They denied patting down the six year old girl in MSP until the video showed up on You Tube and they then claimed that the pat down that they didn’t do was done properly.

They claim to treat passengers “with dignity and respect”, then grope, strip search and harass them and repeatedly deny that these events happened, even after they are caught on video.
They claim that they never interfere with passenger’s right take photos and videos of the checkpoints while dozens of videos are posted on You Tube showing screeners interfering with recordings.

They claim they hold their “professional” workforce to the “highest standards”, while 91% have a high school diploma or less and sixty two have been arrested for crimes in the past year.
By making this announcement, they only reinforce the public perception that TSA is a stupid, deceitful and abusive agency deeply in need of an overhaul.

Re: TSA Strip Searches In 2011

2011 is not over yet, and another octagenarian has come forward with her own recent TSA strip-search story:

Ruth Sherman, an 88-year-old frequent flier with JetBlue, meantime, told the media that she was taken aside by TSA officials and asked to pull her pants down and show her colostomy bag.

And now a 66-year old woman is telling a similar story: "[Linda Kallish] had to partially remove clothing to show an official her pump implant."

Note that Ms. Sherman was scanned first, so she got a virtual strip search, then an actual strip search, while Ms. Kallish had a pat-down, then a strip search!

Just to refresh your memory...

National Review has compiled a list of "Ten TSA Outrages." (In case you've forgotten some of these.)

This time it's a 94-year old, not a 95-year old, wheelchair-bound woman

The line gets pushed further

Here's how an elderly, ill woman was treated by the TSA:

She said her mother was first pulled aside into a glass-partitioned area and patted down. Then she was taken to another room to protect her privacy during a more extensive search, Weber said.

Weber said she sat outside the room during the search.

She said security personnel then came out and told her they would need for her mother to remove her Depends diaper because it was soiled and was impeding their search.

Are you angry, yet?

H/T LewRockwell.com