Re: Where I draw the line

Good article.  He lost me a bit at the end, but for the most part he nailed
it.

-----Original Message-----
From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On
Behalf Of Peter Chattaway
Sent: Thursday, November 25, 2010 11:59 PM
To: Daniel Amos off-topic listserver
Subject: [DADL-OT] Where I draw the line

http://blogs.suntimes.com/ebert/2010/11/where_i_draw_the_line.html

By Roger Ebert
on November 25, 2010 4:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (84)

It appears that not a single TSA agent has declined to perform a full-body
pat down of airline passengers. That includes patting down small children.
They're not patted down on a routine basis, but on some occasions they can
be and they are. A child under 12, sometimes way under 12, may be required
to remove outer clothing and be touched on such areas as the genitals.

Would you take this job? I don't believe I would. But it's worth reflecting
that employment as a TSA agent is a good job in these hard times of high
unemployment. The starting pay is $12.85 an hour, better than Wendy's for an
employee who needs only a high school diploma. It goes higher. The 40 hours
of training are paid for by the government. Agents are given uniforms,
badges, "a choice of health care plans," and power.

When they were first hired, the job consisted of looking at x-rays of hand
luggage, passing a wand near a passenger, and watching them walk through a
metal detector, and sometimes performing a non-intimate pat down. Now they
have to look at x-ray scans of the bodies of every passenger boarding an
airline. Those who refuse the scanners or otherwise raise questions are
given a full-body pat down. Until recently this involved using the backs of
the hands. Now it involves what can only be described as a tactful grope.

I don't want that job. I don't want to stand there and look at a man walking
toward me whose genitals I must touch, however vaguely. I don't want to see
a little boy, bawling his head off, whose parents have raised suspicions
with the TSA and who therefore must have his wee-wee area checked. I would
hate that job. It would be a torture.

Thanksgiving is the busiest time of the year for air travel. The airports
are jammed with non-frequent fliers, all in a hurry to get somewhere for the
holiday. If they miss their flight, they lose their discount fare and don't
get to see their loved ones. And I have to follow the letter of the law,
because my supervisor is watching me with an eagle eye. He's at a much
higher pay grade and his job depends on my job.

So I'm standing there, explaining to some guy why he can't be with his kid
while the terrified kid gets his groin groped. He's always told the kid if
anyone ever tries that, just call dad and he'll clock the son of a bitch.
Now the kid is flying on an airplane for the first time, and daddy has been
pulled aside by a man in a uniform, who must be a cop, and daddy and mommy
may be arrested for all he knows, and another cop-looking man is feeling
around down there, and daddy can't stop him.

They say most child abusers were abused as children. Are some of these
incidents traumatic enough for younger travelers that they could produce
similar results? We're great in this country about doing things that are
"good" for children. I had radiation beamed into my ear as a kid, to cure an
ear infection, and look at me now. A small event in childhood can have a
domino effect in your life.

So I'm this TSA agent, and what am I thinking? It's Thanksgiving. All I want
to do is finish my shift and get out of this f**king place and get home to
my family. It's winter. I need this job to put food on the table. These rich
people fly everywhere and I've hardly been on a plane, and they don't know
how good they have it. That's what I'd be thinking.

I'm almost always treated kindly by TSA agents. Let's face it. In Chicago
especially, they know who I am. Nobody any more ever says to me, "You know
who you look like?" I look like Roger Ebert, the guy with the missing jaw
and the bandages around his neck, that's who I look like. They don't give me
a pass, but they're nice. I go through the machines and get the pat down. At
Palm Springs airport not long ago, a TSA agent was eying the gauze around my
neck suspiciously. I made a mental note: Tell Chaz to bring along gauze and
tape in case the bandage is removed and has to be replaced. Because if I
look like the Phantom of the Opera now, you don't want to see me with my
bandage off.

Meanwhile Chaz and Millie. my care provider, are trying to get through
security with my medicines, my cans of liquid food, stuff like that. They
have a letter from the doctor, but usually the TSA supervisor has to be
called over. I understand that. My policy is to cooperate, because these are
not evil people and they're only trying to do their jobs. Only once have I
been called aside for a private interview. That was many years ago at London
Heathrow. Two officers materialized beside me at Passport Control and
invited me to accompany them. It turned out they thought I might be Carlos
the Jackal. In those days I guess we looked a little alike. He was heavy-set
for a jackal.

But wait a minute. How did we get into this dilemma? After 9/11 there was a
perfectly logical fear of terrorism. Security checks were ramped up. They
kept ramping. Every time there was a loophole, it was closed. An asshole
named Richard Reid put a bomb in his shoe and now we all have to take off
our shoes. An asshole named Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab put a bomb in his
underwear and now we get our netherlands plundered. Even though the scanners
cannot see items concealed in body cavities. we don't yet have to bend over
and spread our cheeks. Just two days ago John Pistole, chief of the TSA,
explained that although a bomb could perhaps be concealed in a body cavity,
it would require an exterior triggering device. Think about that and see if
you can spot the loopholes. I can.

I think on this day, for the first time in my life, I can speak for all of
America and perhaps for all of mankind, when I say that if proctological
examinations ever become part of airport security, that's where I draw the
line.

Are we doomed to submit to humiliation every time we fly? Perhaps you can
argue that the terrorists have won a victory just because of the cost and
nuisance of airport security. Not exactly. They have generated vast numbers
of jobs for security agents, and inspired millions of dollars in contracts
for scanning machines and so forth. Indeed companies have spent frtunes to
lobby for their machines to be required. One of the big supporters of
scanners is Michael Chertoff. Under his face on the news it always says,
"Former U.S. Homeland Security chief." It should say, "Board Member of
Companies Selling Scanners."

Would terrorists actually use three-year-old children to carry a bomb on an
airplane? Of course they would. They'll all go to heaven. The insane cult to
which they belong considers individual lives insignificant compared to the
Cause. This insanity is not limited to any particular cult. I'm watching the
new movie about Carlos, of all people, who was quite comfortable with firing
missiles at airplanes, as was the Red Army of Japan. In this country, some
abortion protestors think they have the right to kill doctors. On the left
there was the Unibomber and on the right the Oklahoma City bomber. There are
few things more dangerous than an idealistic fanatic.

And now we come around again to the TSA. We have created a new federal
agency with uniforms, badges, a hierarchy, and a justification for its
existence. We are stuck with it. Americans will put up with almost anything
in the name of anti-terrorism. But it turns out we draw the line at having
our genitals groped in a public place by strangers. And keep your goddamn
hands off our kids.

Once, some time ago, during another time of economic downturn, a president
named Roosevelt created a federal program called the Works Progress
Administration. It hired unemployed people to construct buildings, dams,
roads, river works, ports, bridges and schools. Is there any possibility of
a program like that today? Not a dream. That would be "socialism." You can't
have the federal government spending our tax dollars to fund public works.
But spending them to grope our genitals? Why, that's different. It's a
matter of principle.


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