Across the country, the debate roars on.
It’s not Team Edward vs. Team Jacob, nor is it “To McRib or not to McRib?”
It’s whether airline passengers should subject themselves to an AIT (Advanced Imaging Technology) scan, or get an equally intrusive and potentially humiliating “enhanced pat-down.”
Or, in the case of a growing number of angry travelers, neither one.
From the “touch my junk” guy to Ann Poe, a 37-year veteran of the aviation industry (and a pilot since 1981) who lost her job after refusing her umpteenth pat-down, Transportation Security Administration horror stories are popping up across the country… and so are the challenges to the TSA’s procedures.
This November 24th, the day before Thanksgiving, has been designated “National Opt-Out Day,” organized as a protest to the invasive screening process; those selected for random screenings are asked to opt out of the AIT scans and instead ask for the much slower pat-down. The hope of organizers is that air traffic will slow to a crawl on what is traditionally one of the busiest travel days of the year.
Yesterday, Ron Paul (R-TX) introduced H.R. 6416, the American Traveler Dignity Act. California is even considering legislation that would allow passengers to sue TSA screeners if they inappropriately touch passengers – screeners who are, in the vast majority of cases, merely doing what they have been trained to do.
Often overlooked in the civil rights conversation and the tsunami of junk-touching jokes, however, are undeniable facts: The TSA’s new screening procedures — a direct result of political correctness run amok — are violating the civil rights of 99% of Americans while simultaneously making the United States more vulnerable to a terrorist attack. And, frankly, it’s an easy argument to make.
First, consider that our airline security resources are finite.
Second, realize that neither the AIT scans nor the pat-downs make air passengers safer.
The bureaucracy involved in patting down Ms. Poe, a pilot who has been flying for 29 years, is absurd on its face and completely useless at its core. Why? Because if Ms. Poe wanted to destroy a plane and kill all of its passengers, she could simply FLY THE PLANE INTO A BUILDING. Or the ground. Or a mountain. Or descend so rapidly that the wings rip off.
Similarly, if a flight attendant wanted to crash the plane, it would be remarkably easy: Drop a couple of roofies into the pilot and co-pilot’s coffee, kick back, and wait for the inevitable. Poison would work, too, hidden in a 2.9 oz shampoo bottle, and even a couple of well-timed laxatives could get the pilots out of the cockpit long enough the attendant to slip inside, lock the door, and send the plane into a nosedive.
Determined terrorists can smuggle explosives in body cavities; AIT scans do not penetrate far enough to see into the body, and as far as anyone knows, the TSA has not yet gone “all the way” with its groping sessions.
Also, imagine this: A young man nervously walks into JFK Airport dragging a lone carry-on. He bypasses the ticket counter — perhaps he printed a ticket online? — and approaches the security line, full of hundreds of eager travelers: young mothers and their children, elderly couples going on second honeymoons, and maybe some Marines headed overseas to fight for our freedom.
And once he reaches the line, he pulls a detonator from his hoodie pocket, yells “Allahu Akbar,” and presses the button. Fifty pounds of jagged metal propelled by 15 pounds of plastic explosives rip through the crowd, killing hundreds instantly.
This new 9/11 scenario might not be as dramatic as the sight of the Twin Towers collapsing and the Pentagon smoldering, but it would have the same effect on the United States: Widespread panic, all flights shut down, airports taken over by the both military and law enforcement personnel, a precipitous drop in the stock market, and tens of billions of dollars spent retrofitting airports. (Which, by the way, still wouldn’t make us safe: If there were metal detectors and security screens at the entrance to the airports, there would just be a line of people standing outside in the cold waiting to get in…. at which point a young man nervously walks up to the line dragging a lone carry-on….)
Third, consider what does work. It’s something that our government so often asks Americans to do on a daily basis: Keep an eye out for suspicious activities, and report them if you see them. Our Israeli friends use this technique to extreme effectiveness. Rather than looking for a bomb or a firearm or a weapon, as our TSA screeeners are instructed, the Israelis look at the people entering their airports. Are they nervous? Shifty? Fidgety? Acting in an otherwise irregular manner? Walking strangely?
Lastly, of course, what the Israelis and otherwise sane people call “observation,” far-left wing-nuts and apologist Muslim groups like CAIR (the Council on American-Islamic Relations) call “profiling.” And profiling is wrong, they will tell you. Profiling is racist. Profiling alienates Muslims. In fact, CAIR is instructing Muslim women wearing burqas to decline all screening that occurs below the neck… and Janet Napolitano is considering granting them an exemption from screening!
(Perhaps Ms. Napolitano has never heard of the myriad female suicide bombers that have ravaged Israel over the years.)
So, instead of profiling, we apply the affirmative action/quota system to selecting who gets enhanced screening and who doesn’t. Despite the fact that just about every attempt to destroy a plane in the past 30 years has been perpetrated by a Muslim, the TSA continues to pat down crying three-year-old girls, gray-haired grandmothers, pilots, and flight attendants while refusing to look under the clothing of a Muslim woman. By doing so, the left can claim to be protecting the civil rights of Muslims… by violating the Fourth Amendment rights of everyone else, and increasing the chances that a plane will explode in mid-air.
So, to recap (in language so plain that even Janet Napolitano can undertand it):
Our security resources are finite. We waste many of them on procedures that do not make us safer in the slightest. Therefore, we have fewer resources than we normally would, meaning we are less safe than we could be. And the reason we waste our resources on these procedures is so that we can wave our hands and say, “Look at us! We respect Muslims!” and hide behind political correctness.
In other words, the feelings of Muslims are more important to the left than the lives of ordinary Americans.
