Oh The Friendly Skies!

By Semperpapa

I remember when the prospect of getting on an airplane and fly out somewhere was source of excitement. These days looks like the only people getting excitement out of getting on an airplane is Janet Napolitano.

What is happening these days is a literal revolt on the part of passengers, and even airline crews, at the actions of the TSA officers at airports check points.

Nobody in his right mind would question the necessity of security checks for those who are about to get on a flight, but the developments we are witnessing go far beyond the realm of common sense.

one of the issues is the full body scan, a technology that allows screeners to analyze a body scan of potential passengers. The images are very defined and reveling, even though anatomical details may not be as defined as the opponents of the technology purport.
Some flight crew members are opposed to the scan because of the frequency and quantity of radiation that frequent fliers may be exposed to. A valid concern I am sure.
The question I heard being raised by some was why would a pilot be searched for explosives? A pilot does not need explosives to bring down the aircraft. A valid point.

Opponents to the electronic scan also are concerned about privacy violations. The TSA officials are maintaining that the images are stored only for a short period of time and at remote locations. The problem is that hundreds of pictures taken were found to have been kept in storage, some people say illegally.
My question is, why would the image need to be saved at all? If the passenger is found to be clean, why would the scan be saved?

There is the possibility to refuse the electronic scan on the part of passengers, but the Plan B of that is to receive a fairly invasive manual search from the TSA officer.
People are not too happy about having some guy or girl, according to the passenger gender, run their hands all over the passenger's body, including an extensive pad down in the genital area.

All these "enhanced" search techniques have been introduced in response to the underwear bomber Muslim terrorist who tried to bring down a plane over Detroit last Christmas Day.

This whole issue has couple of ironic twists to it.

One major component for the need to conduct such intrusive searches on passengers is the politically correct travesty of avoidance of racial profiling.
Even though not all Muslims or Middle Easterners are terrorists, it cannot be denied that all terrorists are either Muslims, from the Middle East or both. So it would make sense that the security scrutiny would be enhanced for those who fall in that category.
Instead, there is a greater possibility that someone matching those criterias will not be scrutinized as much as the 80-year old lady from Kalamazoo, Michigan on her way to visit her children in Chicago. or the Catholic nun returning to her parish.

The second ironic aspect of the issue is the declaration from CAIR to Muslim women wearing their Islamic head garments. The Council for American-Islamic Relations is rejecting the idea that Muslim women would be subjected to manual search or the electronic scan, for that matter.
As if I could be surprised anymore by the boldness of CAIR, I find it absolutely infuriating to have to hear some representative from CAIR having the courage to protest security measures implemented because members of their so-called religion decided that American people deserved to be killed. And all in the name of their religious rights!

There is some hint that Janet Napolitano may actually be considering or has decided that Muslim women may not have to be subjected to the security measures in question.
I guess Muslim women have more rights to privacy than American women, or men.

And the silence of the ACLU is deafening! I can still remember the violent accusations of civil rights violations made by the ACLU when the Patriot Act was establisjed in 2001. All the egregious violations that the Bush administration and especially Att. Gen. John Ashcroft were committing as they traced international communications between terror groups in the Middle East and the United States.
But I guess that was also just different!

I feel fortunate that I do not have any flight in my near future, as I doubt I could remain calm being faced with this issue personally. All it would buy me would be a trip to jail.

Yes. thanks to the misunderstood members of the religion of peace, the friendly skies are no more.

Just my thoughts!