security – a broken mold https://www.abrokenmold.net lifelog :: art, theology, tech, politics Fri, 20 Jul 2012 03:20:09 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=4.4.2 America’s KGB: Airline Security https://www.abrokenmold.net/2010/11/americas-kgb-airline-security/ Mon, 22 Nov 2010 19:11:30 +0000 https://www.abrokenmold.net/?p=994 Okay, maybe I am exaggerating. … Maybe. But I figure I might as well discuss what everyone else is talking about. After all, I’m a people pleaser. I have flown recently and, despite what you may think, it wasn’t as bad as it is for international flights. I didn’t get patted down or scanned (at least I don’t think I did) but I did get kicks and giggles from a security guard.

So I’m going up to give the gatekeeper my ticket so I can get on the plane, and this guy that had been passing out police stickers to kids comes up to me and says, “I noticed your T-shirt, I’m going to have to check your bag.” Mind you, this ominous shirt that I am wearing now is an orange college shirt from a college that does not have a violence record. Two-hundred students can hardly be considered a terrorist movement. So I try to explain that the college is actually a nice place with great drinks and pastries when he gets all big chested and tells me quite dubiously to open my bag. I do so with great haste. He then takes out this scanner that looks like a laser gun in the old TV series “Lost in Space” and sticks it in the opening. He didn’t find anything, but the passengers that I rode with looked at me funny the entire flight.

Why is it that we are guilty until proven innocent? Isn’t that supposed to be the other way around? I’ve heard horror stories from friends that just wanted to visit grandma who were strip searched and humiliated… in the USA. In the name of feeling safer, we have sacrificed our humanity. Is safety really our biggest worry? That reminds me of Dilbert and the “preventer of communications,” or some such thing. We are not allowed to profile, but we are allowed to treat all citizens as potential traitors. That is what we have fought wars over, what we hated the Russians for in the Cold War. Commies are supposed to do that, not us.

Oh well, I guess some perverts need jobs too. Not the security officers, the “scan scanners,” as I like to call them. Think about it. This is science fiction stuff we’re talking about. A scanner that can see through clothes? That doesn’t deter terrorists who hide stuff in cavities, that’s just an excuse to humiliate people. I wish I could see a benefit out of all this, or a logical reasoning somewhere, but really, all this does is makes us want to stay home. … … Wait, that’s it!

Okay, so here’s the plan. We make the people so sick of flying, that one day the only people who would dare go somewhere in a plane are the ones that are terrorists. It makes perfect sense if you don’t think about it. So terror wins in bringing about the end of free America and turning us to “safe” workers of the state. After all, we’re all in it together! Except for the politicians, they can do what they want. Safety must not be as important to them.

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