It may be time for the herd to speak! by Mister MandM
(libertarian)
Thursday, February 17, 2011
I just recently returned from a trip to California and must say it really is ridiculous the way passenger screenings are being handled at the airports. The whole process reminded me of an old western movie where cattle were being herded through a fenced-in pit being disinfected before being guided to slaughter. Most of the folks had the same forlorned and glazed-eye look the herd had going through the aforementioned gauntlet!
In the past I have been given the "privilege" of going through their gunpowder screener and now their new xray scanner and believe me those things are intimidating. And there really isn't much published about how safely we are being treated in the interest of safety of the once-was Republic! By and large, most of those highly trained agents seem arrogant, cold and callous to all. Another thought is that at every checkpoint I saw no logic in the way anyone was being treated and I don't feel this is by design. One would think there must be some thought to when and who would be considered for "special services"? I guess everyone is subject to further scrutiny at the discretion of whoever is on at the time.
I personally have been on a form of no-fly list since shortly after "the event" that changed the way we citizens are treated in the eyes of the security bureaucracy. For my business in the past, I was flying two to three times a month then and shortly thereafter I had been and still am, subjected to a form of special screening. I have not been able to check in for a flight or print a boarding pass from my home since. I have tried to find out why I am under this scrutiny and all I have been told is that my name pops up on this list. Now you can find hundreds of people with my same name in most major cities... I would bet there might be over a hundred thousand of us in the USA. I have tried to prove to them that I am not a threat, but to no avail. At one point I was informed that I could apply to be removed, undergo an intensive background check at my expense and then pay an agency a fee to be considered for removal. However, I don't think that is even available to me/us anymore. To me, this is profiling... and with precedent being set, why don't they eliminate all of us that have no business being subjected to this abhorrent abuse of government authority and focus on those that might?
I have heard and been told many horror stories of ordinary citizens being subjected to these inconvenient, embarrassing and sometimes frightening processes. Sanity begs the question: "how many of us really could or should be considered a threat?" I for one am tired of this behavior and show of force that borders on tyrannical imposition of authority on the rights of supposedly free people.
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