Idiot and TSA is Redundant

I read an article (linked via title bar) by Mike M. Ahlers on the CNN site this morning where a “Wisconsin man who wrote “Kip Hawley is an Idiot” on a plastic bag containing toiletries said he was detained at an airport security checkpoint for about 25 minutes before authorities concluded the statement was not a threat.”

“Ryan Bird, 31, said he wrote the comment about Hawley -- head of the Transportation Security Administration -- as a political statement. He said he feels the TSA is imposing unreasonable rules on passengers while ignoring bigger threats.

{. . . }

“My level of frustration with the TSA and their idiotic policies has grown over 2 ½ years," he said. "I'm frustrated that poorly trained TSA people can pull random passengers out of line and pat them down like common criminals. The average traveler has no recourse."

Everyone pay attention because I’m only going to say this a few times today; the folks at TSA are idiots, to include Kip Hawley. It’s not their fault, it’s a requirement, call it “job description” from the bureaucracy which is Washington. These folks “allegedly” (that was fun) learned how to perform security checks by watching a cake walk at some elementary school Fall Carnival. They saw the children marching in circles around a row of chairs while the music played. Then one chair was removed, the music stopped and one child was randomly removed from the game. Notes were taken as it was determined that nobody’s rights had been violated, those remaining in the game continued to march to the music and the ACLU didn’t threaten litigation.

Back in Washington the notes were handed off to a committee and key issues observed. Was that child, the one without a chair, a threat to the rest of those marching aimlessly around in circles; no, that’s just the way the game has always been played. Did the teacher in charge of the game get sued for discrimination, no; in fact everyone was all smiles, well, almost everyone. The same holds true to passenger searches at the airport; are the passengers, the ones who are singled out threats to the other passengers or did some idiot simply turn off the music?

Here’s a list of known threats:

“My name is Atta and you’re all going to die!”

“I’m Ted Kennedy and I’m your voice in Washington.”, ditto for Harry Reid, Hillary Clinton, Chuck Schu…., hell, just put (D) on a name and they're a threat.

“I’m John McCain”, that should be enough to scare anyone; forget that he’s a front runner for the presidency in 2008, party affiliation to be determined later.

Possibly the most frightening of all, “I’m Victoria Osteen and I’d like to fly to . . . (fill in the blank)”.

Okay, you can turn the elevator music back on, get the line moving; “Hey you, yea you, the nearly Caucasian looking fellow wearing the table cloth on his head and reading the Koran, stop lighting your shoe laces, this is a non smoking flight.”

I’ve posted on this topic before:

http://tfsternsrantings.blogspot.com/2005/02/this-isnt-droid-youre-looking-for.html


http://tfsternsrantings.blogspot.com/2005/02/this-isnt-droid-youre-looking-for_14.html

I’ve linked with TMH Bacon Bits for the “OTB Splatfest”, or Open Line Friday as I like to call it. http://www.tmhbaconbits.net/2006/09/29/bbop-132/