Unhypnotized

Truth feeder
Everything you need to know about the security takeover and why airport oppression is already being rolled out on the streets

081110top3.jpg


Paul Joseph Watson & Alex Jones
Prison Planet.com
Monday, November 8, 2010

TSA abuse in airports is completely out of control with more and more cases of security workers groping women, fondling children, abusing naked body scanners, and interrogating passengers emerging every week, and yet the government’s answer to the epidemic of oppression is to hand TSA thugs more power with which to harass American citizens.

The story of Infowars employee Michelle, who along with her child was sexually assaulted by TSA staff after refusing to go through a naked body scanner, has gone viral on the Internet after it was picked up by the Drudge Report, a website leading the charge in the backlash against airport oppression at the hands of the TSA that has now led to the world’s largest pilot’s association boycotting the use of naked body scanners.

Michelle’s traumatic experience represents just the tip of the iceberg.

The launch of naked body scanners, which were hastily installed in the wake of the Christmas Day bombing attempt despite the fact that they would not have stopped the attack, has only worsened the levels of abuse dished out to passengers.

The body scanners were vigorously promoted by people like former Homeland Security chief Michael Chertoff and others who stood to reap a financial windfall from their implementation, despite the fact that scientists at Columbia University and the Inter-Agency Committee on Radiation Safety, along with other scientific bodies, have all warned that the devices increase the risk of developing cancer.

Stories about TSA officials abusing the use of the scanners have become commonplace.

44-year-old Rolando Negrin beat his supervisor with a police baton after he had cracked jokes about Negrin’s small manhood when he walked through a naked scanner as part of a training exercise at Miami International Airport. The story underscored the fact that authorities had been lying all along about the claim that the scanners did not show sensitive details of genitalia.

The aggressive campaign on behalf of governments and the media to sell the public on invasive body scanners has been accompanied by the reassurance that the devices do not show details of genitals, an obvious attempt to counter the fact that the machines represent a virtual strip search as well as violating laws against child pornography.

Despite assurances from the TSA that the scanners do not show the shape of genitalia, sample images from their own website clearly display the outline of the penis. In addition, after nearly a year of authorities lying in claiming that the technology used in airports did not allow the naked images to be saved or transmitted, it emerged that police agencies, including the U.S. Marshals Service, who were using the same systems, were storing naked body scanner images. The TSA’s own documents also confirmed that the machines must “allow exporting of image data in real time” and provide a mechanism for “high-speed transfer of image data over the network.”

Indian film star Shahrukh Khan told a BBC talk show that naked images of his body from the scanner were printed out and circulated by airport staff at Heathrow in London. Heathrow denied the claim but Khan himself never retracted the story, and had no apparent motive for making it up.

Heathrow authorities were unable to deny a later example of the scanners being abused, when it emerged that a Heathrow worker had perved over a naked image of a female colleague after she passed through one of the devices, before commenting, “I love those gigantic tits”.

Jo Margetson, 29, reported John Laker, 25, to the police after she had entered the x-ray machine by mistake and Laker took the image before making lewd comments.

Airport security staff workers are among the least trustworthy people to operate these machines. These individuals are routinely caught abusing their authority for their own ego trip or sexual perversion.

As the video below illustrates, the fact that naked body scanner machines in the U.S. are manned by TSA thugs who are routinely caught abusing their power in treating the public like prison inmates only heightens the danger posed by the use of the new devices.

The systems are being manned by people like a TSA agent who flipped out and began screaming, “I am god, I’m in charge,” shortly after he got off duty at LAX earlier this year.

With innumerable reports over the past ten years of TSA agents completely abusing their authority and going on petty power trips with little other motivation than to humiliate and degrade old people, pregnant women, and the physically disabled, while proclaiming themselves to be “Gods,” the fact that these people are now feeling up our children is revolting.

Indeed, we’ve spoken to airport workers who were asked by their employers if they support the naked body scanners. Workers who indicate that they oppose the scanners have quickly been demoted or even fired. The TSA is now openly pursuing a policy of hiring thugs who enjoy using the scanners to fulfil their sick sexual kicks or little-Hitler mentality.

We need to halt the epidemic of TSA abuse not only because it interferes with our freedom of mobility but because everything being rolled out in the airports is eventually designed to hit the streets.

Today the airports and tomorrow the world – sniffer dogs, checkpoints and pat downs are now taking place at bus depots. Americans are being radiated by scanners at vehicle checkpoints. Mobile body scanners are set to be used on crowds at public events.

We have documented numerous examples over the years of TSA workers abusing their power and behaving like thugs.

At the start of the year we highlighted the case of war reporter Michael Yon, who was interrogated without reason by TSA goons who demanded he give them his private email passwords. We also wrote about another case where Steve Bierfeldt, a Ron Paul Campaign For Liberty treasurer, was hounded and harassed by TSA agents for the crime of carrying cash and Ron Paul campaign material.

Incidents of TSA agents behaving like secret political police and embarking on petty power trips to harass innocent people have exploded way out of control and it has to stop now. Even overlooking the primary issues of gross violations of rights and privacy, the fact is that a large number of people have simply refused to travel to America anymore because entering the country is like trying to get into the old East Germany. This is killing the tourism industry and costing hundreds of millions of dollars each year.

A 2006 investigation by the Discover America Partnership found that tourism to America had sunk due to “a climate of fear and frustration that is turning away foreign business and leisure travelers from visiting the United States and damaging America’s image abroad.”

No less than a third of tourists vowed never to return to America after experiencing the treatment of Homeland Security officials at ports of entry. By early 2007, the U.S. had lost around 60 million visitors as a result of the stifling and intrusive security measures implemented since 9/11, which were proven to be completely flawed in light of the underwear bomber incident on Christmas Day.

America has not only lost its crown as a beacon of freedom and hospitality, turning instead into a feared police state shunned by tourists, but it has also sacrificed almost a third of its tourist industry as a result of TSA and Homeland Security thugs being given the power to treat everyone who enters the country as a potential terrorist who is guilty until proven innocent.

In the meantime, a cadre of minimum wage goons are being trained to run nationwide checkpoints. The Stanford prison experiment taught us that people will obey orders no matter who brutal and inhumane, to the point of torture and even death. A whole legion of such individuals has been turned loose on the American people and soon they will hit the streets.

The national security police state has been advancing for years but now that the true takeover of American society is in full swing, Americans are finally beginning to understand that everything supposedly aimed at terrorists is in fact directed towards them.

If Americans continue to blithely accept their abuse at the hands of TSA thugs, it sends a clear message to the authorities that they are quite prepared to suffer any indignity whatsoever, which will inevitably lead to a feeding frenzy unless Americans begin to stand up for themselves against airport oppression in greater numbers.

*********************

Paul Joseph Watson is the editor and writer for Prison Planet.com. He is the author of Order Out Of Chaos. Watson is also a fill-in host for The Alex Jones Show. Watson has been interviewed by many publications and radio shows, including Vanity Fair and Coast to Coast AM, America’s most listened to late night talk show.


Source...
 

Unhypnotized

Truth feeder
TSA Gives Figurative Middle Finger To Airport Molestation Complaints

Glib response does nothing to address concerns vehemently voiced by numerous prominent travel and pilots associations

Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet.com
Tuesday, November 9, 2010

The TSA has reacted to the burgeoning backlash against airport oppression with a glib response that does nothing to address the multitude of complaints put forward by some of the most prominent travel and pilots associations in the world.

As the New York Times reports today, no less than four major travel organizations have strongly criticized the TSA in recent weeks over increasingly stifling airport security measures that do little to assure safety yet are causing many people to refuse to travel to the United States, costing the industry millions of dollars a year.

“In recent weeks, representatives from the International Air Transport Association, the U.S. Travel Association, the Allied Pilots Association and British Airways have criticized the T.S.A., saying it adds intrusive and time-consuming layers of scrutiny at airport checkpoints, without effectively addressing legitimate security concerns,” states the report.

The U.S. Travel Association is warning that onerous and “absurd” security procedures, which are only getting worse with the TSA’s recent move to institute outright groping of passengers that would be considered sexual assault in any other context, are discouraging people from air travel.

Giovanni Bisignani, chief executive of the International Air Transport Association, said that the notion of passengers as guilty until proven innocent was also a complete misnomer.

“Discouraging travelers with queues into the parking lot is not a solution,” Mr. Bisignani said during a speech last week. “And it is not acceptable to treat passengers as terrorists until they prove themselves innocent.”

As we reported yesterday, the largest independent union of airline pilots in the world is also urging its members to boycott body imaging machines currently being rolled out in airports all over the globe, citing dangers of excessive exposure to harmful levels of radiation during the screening process. The announcement by the Allied Pilots Association came after a ExpressJet Airlines, Inc pilot Michael Roberts was detained and suspended for refusing to be scanned.



Last month, British Airways Chairman Martin Broughton called for the UK to stop mimicking “completely redundant” security measures instituted by the TSA, calling for them to be immediately scrapped.

Longer waits in security queues are causing many to scale back air travel altogether. The Times cites the example of Cornell Professor Dieter Ast, who refuses to submit to naked body scanners.

“I’m not taking as many trips,” Professor Dieter said. “And my European friends are avoiding the U.S. because of the hassle.”

But it’s not just longer waiting times and enhanced groping measures that are causing the outrage, countless examples of abuse and degradation, particularly involving the elderly, the physically disabled, women and children, involving TSA thugs have prompted many potential tourists to refuse to travel to the United States.

As a result of a seemingly deliberate policy to humiliate and demean weaker members of society, US airport security, not just TSA agents but also Homeland Security goons, have attracted an odious reputation globally as something akin to the East German Stasi who controlled border security in pre-perestroika Berlin.

The TSA has responded to the controversy by offering nothing more than a terse email statement which glibly states, “T.S.A. is a counterterrorism agency whose mission is to ensure the safety of the traveling public. To that end, T.S.A. deploys the latest technologies and implements comprehensive procedures that protect passengers while facilitating travel.”

It looks like it’s going to take a raft of lawsuits and compensation claims to scale back TSA tyranny and that’s the course taken by the Electronic Privacy Information Center in its bid to prove that the naked body scanners are dangerous and completely illegal.

Until the TSA realizes that its job is to provide rational and sensible security screening to protect the American people and the vast majority of innocent travelers from the infinitesimal percentage of bad guys that try to board airplanes, and not to treat every single person as not just a terrorist, but in many cases lower than an animal in the levels of abuse metered out, the backlash against airport molestation will continue to build and it will end up costing the US government billions in lost tourism revenue as well as lawsuits against TSA thugs.

*********************

Paul Joseph Watson is the editor and writer for Prison Planet.com. He is the author of Order Out Of Chaos. Watson is also a fill-in host for The Alex Jones Show. Watson has been interviewed by many publications and radio shows, including Vanity Fair and Coast to Coast AM, America’s most listened to late night talk show.


Source...
 

Unhypnotized

Truth feeder
TSA: No Fondling, Groping Or Squeezing Is Taking Place At Airports

Agency at center of molestation controversy caught in flagrant lie in pathetic effort to counter growing resistance

101110top.jpg


Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet.com
Wednesday, November 10, 2010

Despite multiple reports of TSA agents groping, molesting and sexually assaulting passengers in a nationwide epidemic of abuse, a TSA.gov website claims that there are no instances of groping or even squeezing occurring at all, and that TSA agents are completely “professional” in their duties.

The denial appears on the blog.tsa.gov website, an official Transport Security Administration clearinghouse for news about the TSA and airport security.

After being asked the question, “Why are you posting about this and not about TSA’s ongoing sexual assault on travelers who don’t wish to be irradiated by untested machines run by poorly trained screening clerks?,” Bob the TSA blogger responds with the following.

“There is no fondling, squeezing, groping, or any sort of sexual assault taking place at airports. You have a professional workforce carrying out procedures they were trained to perform to keep aviation security safe.”

This claim is of course a flagrant lie designed to quell the massive backlash against invasive new airport security measures which is being led by numerous prominent travel and pilots associations.

New TSA “pat down” measures introduced at the end of last month for people who refuse the dangerous naked body scan involve TSA agents using the front of their hands and literally cupping and squeezing women’s breasts and men’s testicles. The video below demonstrates the procedure.

The photograph linked here also clearly shows a TSA agent fondling a women’s breasts. Another image linked here shows a TSA agent fondling an elderly woman’s breasts.

As ExpressJet Airlines pilot Michael Roberts recently told CNN, during the multiple times he was able to bypass airport security he witnessed passengers being “aggressively” groped and fondled. “They’re not just patting people’s arms and legs, they’re grabbing and groping and prodding,” said Roberts.

Writing about his own treatment, Roberts relates the story of how he was interrogated and eventually had his job placed under threat after refusing to be groped by TSA agents.

Don’t be fooled into thinking that sexual molestation of airport passengers is only a recent phenomenon. Back in 2002, we covered the story of how Nicholas Monahan’s pregnant wife lost her baby after a traumatic experience during which her breasts were fondled aggressively by TSA workers and she was made to lift her skirt in front of hundreds of other passengers. Monahan was subsequently thrown in the airport jail for complaining about the brutal treatment of his wife which left her in tears and later led to a miscarriage.



One of our own employees was also subject to sexual molestation at the hands of a male TSA worker, who groped and fondled her breasts and genitals, before attempting to do the same to her 8-year-old daughter.

The ritual abuse and humiliation of innocent passengers at the hands of TSA thugs has been going on for at least nine years. We hear stories just about every week from people who go through traumatic and degrading experiences at the hands of low grade morons in TSA uniforms.

The TSA blogger claims that the agency displays the characteristics of a “professional workforce”. If you consider screaming
as one TSA agent at LAX did earlier this year, or if you consider TSA colleagues taunting their co-worker about the size of his penis after he passed through a body scanner as “professional,” then you also probably think that discriminating against the elderly and disabled by subjecting them to intense harassment and debasement, while physically attacking women, is also perfectly reasonable.

Pulling down disabled men’s pants to reveal their underwear in public view, stripping teenage girls with prosthetic legs, and making women pull out their nipple rings with pliers is also entirely “professional” according to the TSA.

To claim that the TSA is a “professional” body could not be further from the truth. This is a cadre of mental incompetents, perverts and jackboots who get off on sexually molesting, interrogating and abusing mainly women, children and the elderly. Now that their reputation has been torn to shreds and a huge resistance is building against airport tyranny, TSA apologists are being forced to lie and spin the manifestly provable fact that travelers are now being subjected to abusive so-called “pat-down” procedures that would be considered too extreme for most prison inmates.

*********************

Paul Joseph Watson is the editor and writer for Prison Planet.com. He is the author of Order Out Of Chaos. Watson is also a fill-in host for The Alex Jones Show. Watson has been interviewed by many publications and radio shows, including Vanity Fair and Coast to Coast AM, America’s most listened to late night talk show.


Source...
 

Unhypnotized

Truth feeder
TSA accused of sexual molestation of passengers and pilots

Mike Adams
Natural News
Nov 10, 2010

When I recently wrote about opting out of the TSA’s naked body scanners and then being patted down by a TSA agent, that pat-down was conducted by the agent using the back of his hand (http://www.naturalnews.com/030100_n…). As of today, that technique is no longer in place. The TSA’s new guidelines call for agents to use their “palms and fingers” to “probe” your body for hidden weapons. This means TSA agents will now be feeling up your crotch, palming your breasts and fingering your testicles as part of their increasingly humiliating “X-rated pat down” technique.

This new “palms and fingers” pat-down technique (also known as “groping” passengers) was announced by the TSA last week alongside an ambitious new plan to roll out 1,000 new naked body scanners by 2011. Any air traveler who opts out of the naked body scanner, of course, gets groped by a TSA agent using the new “palms and fingers” pat-down technique.

The upshot is that the TSA either wants to SEE your naked body or FEEL it with their hands.

This new rule also affects pilots, by the way. And just yesterday, ABC News carried a report about a U.S. pilot who said was so upset by the enhanced pat-down technique that he called it sexual molestation and found that afterwards, he could not safely operate the airplane. (http://abcnews.go.com/Travel/major-…)

So now we have the TSA actually terrorizing pilots and turning them into angry, abused victims of sexual molestation who must then fly our airplanes. How’s that for TSA safety?

Violating the privacy rights of Americans

All this is a gross violation of Americans’ Fourth Amendment rights, of course. It’s also demeaning and (intentionally) humiliating to air travelers. In addition, the use of naked body scanners on children violates child porn laws.

The TSA, through its groping of passengers and the capturing of their naked body images, is guilty of committing numerous felony crimes. If a security guard at a grocery store, for example, groped little children with his fingers and took “naked body scanner” pictures of customers, he would be arrested as a sex crime offender. So why are we letting our own federal government commit sex crimes against us when we’d be thrown in prison for the same lewd behavior?

There are actually registered sex offenders on the books who have done far less than what the TSA is doing to air travelers right now.

The TSA, even more insidiously, doesn’t even tell passengers they have a choice to opt out of the naked body scanners. When I first wrote about it, most NaturalNews readers had no idea they could opt out. Even the opt-out process seems to be designed to bring humiliation to passengers, because once you announce you’re opting out of the naked body scanners, TSA agents yell, “Opt out! Opt out!” in order to draw attention to you. Following that, they now feel up your crotch and private parts with their fingers and palms.

The message is clear: Go through the naked body scanner or we will sexually molest you.

That’s the new TSA… always watching your back by feeling your genitals first.

Ratcheting up the police state

And it’s only getting worse. That TSA agents feel your crotch and breasts with their palms and fingers would have been unthinkable just five years ago. But this is how a police state works: They introduce one element at a time and then wait for everybody to get used to it before adding another layer of intrusion to their lives.

Today it’s a naked body scanner and an X-rated feel-up. Five years from now, it could be TSA agents stripping off your clothes in a private screening room and inserting their fingers into your anus and other areas to check for “weapons.” If the American people don’t start standing up to these illegal, intrusive and humiliating body searches, there’s no end to where the TSA could take this. Give an agency like the TSA unlimited power to bully the public, and they will inevitably keep pushing the limits until they are stopped.

None of this seems to have anything whatsoever to do with actual air travel security, by the way. It all seems focused on maximizing the humiliation of air travelers while indoctrinating people into a police state mentality (so they get used to government agents strip-searching them on demand).

This is the new Amerika. Your Constitutional rights have been thrown out the window. Any expectation that you might be treated with respect as a law-abiding citizen have been utterly abandoned. You are now treated as a slavilian (a slave / civilian), and the federal government believes it has the right to commit sex crimes against you and your children any time it wishes.

Even our airline pilots are treated as criminals and terrorized by the very agency that claims to be protecting us from terrorism! The TSA is the new Gestapo, and they will absolutely will not stop with these police state tactics until they are forced to.

It is time that We the People stood up against the TSA Gestapo and started suing their agents for sexual molestation, child pornography, kidnapping, conspiracy and violating our Fourth Amendment rights.

If you have any tips about anyone attempting to sue the TSA, please contact NaturalNews through our feedback form: http://www.naturalnews.com/feedback…

We intend to keep covering this story until this TSA tyranny is halted.


Source...
 

Unhypnotized

Truth feeder
Flight Attendants Speak Out As TSA Revolt Explodes

101110groping.jpg
*


Second pilot’s union refuses to submit to irradiating imaging machines and*”sexual molestation”

Steve Watson
Prisonplanet.com
Wednesday, Nov 10th, 2010

The revolt against invasive security procedures at airports continues to explode as flight attendants and a second pilot’s union have joined the huge chorus of complaining travelers that are faced with the choice of walking through radiation spewing naked imaging machines or having their genitals and private parts groped by TSA operatives.

“We’re getting calls daily about peoples’ experiences, our members are concerned,” Deborah Volpe, Vice President of the Association of Flight Attendants Local 66 told ABC 15 News.

The union represents over 2000 flight attendants who mostly work for US Airways, based in Tempe, Arizona.

Flight attendants are reportedly unhappy with both the naked imaging machines and the pat downs that are mandated if one “opts out” of going through the imaging machine.

The union has advised the attendants to ask that the pat-down be conducted in a private area with a witness if it is deemed necessary.

“We don’t want them in uniform going through this enhanced screening where their private areas are being touched in public,” said Volpe. “They actually make contact with the genital area.”

The new pat down procedure, which now allows TSA agents to forcefully feel around breasts and genitalia, is currently conducted in full view of queuing passengers and has been described by many, including New York Times reporter Joe Sharkey, as a form of humiliation to discourage others from refusing the full body scans.

The flight attendants union is also pushing for a crew pass system effectively preventing flight attendants and pilots from having to undergo the procedure.

Watch the ABC 15 report:

http://www.abc15.com/dpp/lifestyle/travel/flight-attendants-union-upset-over-new-pat-down-procedures

On Monday we reported that the largest independent union of airline pilots in the world, the Allied Pilots Association, is urging its members to boycott the body imaging machines over health fears and the fact that they produce crisp images of people without their clothes.

Now a second pilot’s union, the US Airline Pilots Association, has asked its members to follow the same advice.

President Mike Cleary has issued a statement that advises pilots to search for a security checkpoint that does not use the scanners. If one cannot be found, Cleary notes that pilots should opt for the pat-down by a TSA officer, with a member of the pilot’s crew witnessing.

In addition to the reasoning that “The TSA has offered no credible specifications for the radiation emitted by these machines”, Clearly also takes issue with the pat downs.

“Let’s be perfectly clear: the TSA procedures we have outlined above are blatantly unacceptable as a long-term solution.” Cleary writes.

“This situation has already produced a sexual molestation in alarmingly short order. Left unchecked, there’s simply no way to predict how far the TSA will overreach in searching and frisking pilots who are, ironically, mere minutes from being in the flight deck.” the statement continues.

The statement makes reference to a pilot who has been left “unable to function as a crew member” following the TSA molestation, describing the pilot as having “vomited in his own driveway” at the thought of going back to work.

The following ABC News video highlights these facts:

PTImbz*zZDYzODdiZDhkNTk*ZWY1YjY2NGIxM2UyMDA3M2YyZCZvZj*w.gif


“As we all know, it makes no difference what a pilot has on his or her person or in their luggage, because they have control of the aircraft throughout the entire flight. The eyewash being dribbled by the TSA in this instance is embarrassingly devoid of common sense, and we will not stand for it.” Cleary urges. The full statement can be read at the end of this article.

The union legally represents approximately 5200 US Airways pilots.

Despite the testimonies of pilots and flight attendants and multiple reports, videos and pictures of TSA agents groping, molesting and sexually assaulting passengers in a nationwide epidemic of abuse, a TSA.gov website claims that there are no instances of groping or even squeezing occurring at all, and that TSA agents are completely “professional” in their duties.

This claim is of course a flagrant lie designed to quell what has quickly become a massive backlash against the TSA.

Just as pilots and flight attendants are doing, passengers need to stand up and say no to the body scanners before they are made mandatory, as well as resisting the forceful groping techniques.

As we have previously highlighted, the procedures have nothing to do with security. According to their own designers, the scanning machines cannot even detect explosive material. Other security experts have dismissed the devices as “useless”.

The issue has gained huge public attention, prompting hundreds of mainstream reports, thanks in great part to The Drudge Report , the world’s largest news aggregator, once again linking through to Infowars and Prisonplanet articles on the great body scanner revolt.

Related Reading:

TSA: No Fondling, Groping Or Squeezing Is Taking Place At Airports

TSA Responds To Airport Molestation Complaints

World’s Pilots Reject Naked Body Scanners Over Radiation Danger, Privacy Breach

TSA Groping Out Of Control

Breaking The Will Of The People: The Real Purpose Of Body Scanners

Naked Body Scanners: Monumental Cover Up Exposed

Exposed: More Lies Regarding Naked Body Scanners

Now Mobile Devices Will Scan Your Naked Body On The Streets

4th Amendment Violating Mobile X-Ray Scanners Hit The Streets

——————————————————————
US Airline Pilots Association President’s Statement in full:

Fellow Pilots,

The TSA’s rapid deployment of Advanced Imaging Technology (AIT) screening machines, followed by the new Enhanced Pat-Down procedures, have caused turmoil for airline pilots and the traveling public alike. These changes are far reaching, intrusive and have been implemented almost overnight, leaving little time for groups who are adversely affected to form a response.

On October 21, USAPA’s Security Committee issued an update on the new AIT scanners and outlined our options for dealing with the new rules. Since that time several pilots and flight attendants have encountered problems with TSOs and their implementation of the rules. One US Airways pilot, after being selected for an enhanced pat-down, experienced a frisking that has left him unable to function as a crewmember. The words this pilot used to describe the incident included “sexual molestation,” and in the aftermath of trying to recover, this pilot reported that he had literally vomited in his own driveway while contemplating going back to work and facing the possibility of a similar encounter with the TSA. This is a very serious situation, and it represents a crossroads for all U.S. airline pilots.

One of the difficulties is the TSA’s intentional random application of the rules. While it might be effective for their purposes, it wreaks havoc with our ability to inform our pilots on how to handle each and every situation.

Here is a summary of USAPA’s current position on AIT screening machines and Enhanced Pat-Down procedures:

• Pilots should NOT submit to AIT screening. The TSA has offered no credible specifications for the radiation emitted by these machines. As pilots, we are exposed to more radiation as a function of our normal duties than nearly every other category of worker in the United States. Based on currently available medical information, USAPA has determined that frequent exposure to TSA-operated scanner devices may subject pilots to significant health risks.

• Pilots should employ the following method of avoiding AIT screening:

• Make every effort to use security access lines that utilize standard magnetometer devices. If security access points with magnetometer devices are not available, or if there is a change in the device being used once in line, pilots should elect to submit to a private TSA-agent pat-down.

• When submitting to a private, enhanced pat-down procedure, pilots must be sure that a witness, preferably a crewmember, accompanies them during the pat-down.

• After being subjected to an enhanced pat-down procedure, pilots must evaluate their fitness for duty. As has been determined, there is a wide range of possibilities once you submit to a private screening, and the results can be devastating. Unacceptable as this is to all USAPA pilots, and until these invasive measures are no longer implemented on airline pilots, it is your responsibility to make sure you are emotionally fit and not stressed in any way by your close encounter with the TSA.

• Remain professional and courteous in all situations.

• Contact any member of the Security Committee if you need any assistance.

[Names redacted.]

Let’s be perfectly clear: the TSA procedures we have outlined above are blatantly unacceptable as a long-term solution. Although an immediate solution cannot be guaranteed, I can promise you that your union will not rest until all U.S. airline pilots have a way to reach their workplace … the aircraft … without submitting ourselves to the will of a TSO behind closed doors. This situation has already produced a sexual molestation in alarmingly short order. Left unchecked, there’s simply no way to predict how far the TSA will overreach in searching and frisking pilots who are, ironically, mere minutes from being in the flight deck. As we all know, it makes no difference what a pilot has on his or her person or in their luggage, because they have control of the aircraft throughout the entire flight. The eyewash being dribbled by the TSA in this instance is embarrassingly devoid of common sense, and we will not stand for it.

USAPA’s Security Committee and USAPA Legal are working diligently on several fronts to find an acceptable remedy. I directed our legal team to request of the TSA, pursuant to the Freedom of Information Act, any written materials that contain the protocol for conducting these enhanced pat-downs. Should this situation not be resolved by working with the TSA, we will take our concerns to Capitol Hill. On a parallel track, we are working with the other CAPA pilot unions to find allies in our struggle. Make no mistake; this is a fight to restore the dignity we deserve as the last line of defense against terrorists who would use airplanes as weapons of mass destruction. We are not the enemy, and we will not stand for being treated as such before each duty period. The TSA needs to recognize professional airline pilots for the security asset that we are, even as many of us serve as Federal Flight Deck Officers. There are a number of access mechanisms available as a remedy, including CrewPass and biometric identification. These solutions will allow the TSA to capitalize on airline pilots as security assets.

This letter is meant to provide you with important interim guidance as we seek long-term solutions. Please stay up to date on this critical affront to our profession. Documentation will be a critical element to this battle. Therefore, should you have any difficulties traversing security, please outline the incident with as much detail as possible, including TSO names and badge numbers, and send it immediately to Security@usairlinepilots.org. I urge each of you to continue to maintain your ultimate professionalism in the face of these attacks on our profession. As you maintain your composure, your union will fight unequivocally with all of our resources and allies to right this wrong.

Sincerely,

Captain Mike Cleary
President

——————————————————————

Steve Watson is the London based writer and editor at Alex Jones’ Infowars.net, and regular contributor to Prisonplanet.com. He has a Masters Degree in International Relations from the School of Politics at The University of Nottingham in England.

Source...
 

Unhypnotized

Truth feeder
Meg McLain Singled out by the TSA, Cuffed to a Chair, Her Ticket Ripped up

Youtube
Nov 10, 2010

The TSA chose Meg McLain for special screening. They wanted her to go through the new porno-scanners. When she opted out, TSA agents raised an enormous ruckus. When she asked some question about what they planned to do to her, they flipped out. TSA agents yelled at her, handcuffed her to a chair, ripped up her ticket, called in 12 local Miami cops and finally escorted her out of the airport. Listen to her story as she told it on radio show Free Talk Live last night. Things are truly getting scary. http://wewontfly.com/question-tsa-risk http://FreeTalkLive.com

Source...
 

Unhypnotized

Truth feeder
TSA Gives Rapists And Illegals The Green Light While Groping Children

While sexually molesting children in the name of security, agency hires pedophiles and allows illegal immigrants to fly planes and access secure areas of airports

Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet.com
Wednesday, November 10, 2010

While the TSA hires rapists to grope and fondle little girls, women, and the physically disabled in the name of security, it gives the green light to illegal aliens to fly planes and work at US airports, emphasizing once again that invasive “pat down” procedures have nothing to do with terrorism and everything to do with treating the American people with less respect than farmyard animals.

As USA Today reported, despite the TSA’s outright lie that the new measures do not constitute groping or even squeezing, “The searches require screeners to touch passengers’ breasts and genitals.”

And just to make you more comfortable with the idea of low grade morons who could barely get toilet cleaning jobs touching up your wife or daughter, it now emerges that the TSA’s background check for their own employees is somewhat less stringent than the harassment travelers are faced with every time they go through airport security.

As AirSafe News reports, “The current system of background checks may have allowed those convicted of rape and other sexually based offenses to join TSA.”

Indeed, back in March it emerged that TSA worker Sean Shanahan, who was employed at Boston Logan International Airport to pat down passengers, had been charged with multiple child sex crimes targeting an underage girl.

Given the fact that the TSA’s new policy allows workers to fondle breasts and genitals, expect a flood of sex perverts and rapists to eagerly sign up.

But it gets worse – not only is the TSA employing pedophiles to grope your kids, the agency is giving the green light to illegal aliens to work in airport cargo security and also to fly planes.

The same background check that allowed rapists to slip through the net also enabled illegal immigrants from Central America and Mexico to work in security at Stewart International Airport, a 2,400-acre facility located about 60 miles north of New York City.

Noting that the fiasco was “par for the course for the TSA,” Judicial Watch reported that “The illegal aliens all had security badges approved by the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), the agency created after the 2001 terrorist attacks mainly to protect airlines. The TSA’s national background check failed to detect the fake Social Security numbers and other bogus documents provided by the illegal immigrants to obtain clearance.”

Just this week Judicial Watch also reported on how the TSA approved flight training for illegal aliens.

“At a flight school in Stow, a rural community about 25 miles west of Boston, more than 30 illegal aliens were cleared by the TSA to train as pilots. This week three of them said they came to the U.S. from Brazil legally but their visas expired, just like several of the 9/11 hijackers. Each man provided official TSA documents approving pilot lessons through the agency’s alien flight student program. The Brazilians assure the agency never asked them about their immigration status.”

The TSA’s claim that it is sexually molesting Americans in the name of security is proven completely fraudulent given the fact that the agency concurrently opens the door for illegal aliens to access sensitive areas of airports while training them how to fly airliners.

As a result of its newly introduced policies that are tantamount to sexual molestation, the TSA has a public relations nightmare on its hands, with multiple prominent travel and pilot associations leading the backlash against invasive “pat down” measures as well as dangerous radiation body scanners.

Two more bodies came out just today to join forces with the growing resistance against airport oppression, with the Association of Flight Attendants and US Airline Pilots Association now becoming part of the boycott against naked body scanners.

The TSA faces insurmountable opposition and must immediately reconsider and drastically scale back its draconian checkpoint measures. The fact that the agency gives the green light to illegal aliens to fly planes while insisting it must grope little girls and physically disabled people in the name of security underscores the fact that the primary purpose of the procedure has nothing to do with stopping terrorists and is designed to humiliate and degrade innocent Americans and train them to accept tyranny.

As case after case of TSA abuse emerges following the Drudge Report’s prominent focus on the issue, another incident came to light where a young woman was handcuffed to a chair, yelled at and had her flight ticket ripped up by TSA thugs who then summoned 12 local Miami police, all because the woman had merely asked what the TSA were planning to do to her after she refused a naked body scan.

Watch the clip below.


*********************

Paul Joseph Watson is the editor and writer for Prison Planet.com. He is the author of Order Out Of Chaos. Watson is also a fill-in host for The Alex Jones Show. Watson has been interviewed by many publications and radio shows, including Vanity Fair and Coast to Coast AM, America’s most listened to late night talk show.


Source...
 

Unhypnotized

Truth feeder
Drudge Stirs National Debate On TSA Abuse

National body scanner opt out day organized as resistance grows

Paul Joseph Watson & Alex Jones
Prison Planet.com
Thursday, November 11, 2010

The populist Drudge Report website has stirred a national debate on TSA abuse of passengers through dangerous naked body scanners and invasive groping measures, culminating in an onslaught of resistance from numerous prominent travel and pilots associations, and leading to the organization of a national opt out day on November 24.

While the corporate media characterizes opposition to airport oppression as a disgruntled minority, Drudge has led the charge in exemplifying that the backlash is in reality part of a rapidly accelerating national outrage that now includes no less than five major travel bodies as well as a flight attendants union.

In addition, individual cases of oppression at the hands of TSA thugs are now pouring in, with Drudge ensuring they receive the attention they deserve by making airport outrage a top story on his website for days on end.

With an estimated 2 million-plus individual visitors a day and a gargantuan 500 million page views a month, it’s no surprise that Drudge’s extensive coverage of the issue has prompted a tidal wave of unions, travel associations, pilots and individuals to come out in opposition to TSA molestation.

With the Electronic Privacy Information Center already engaged in a lawsuit challenging the legality of naked body scanners, the ACLU has also opened a web page inviting members of the public to submit reports of TSA abuse in the interests of future action.

A citizens group has also organized a national body scanner opt out day set for November 24 aimed at sending a message to lawmakers demanding change.

What was a stirring undercurrent is now out in the open, with anger bubbling to the surface and prompting a massive national debate.

The rebellion is surging, not only because of the noted health dangers of body scanners, but because the TSA has proven time and time again that its justification in treating the American people with less respect than farmyard animals is completely fraudulent.

As we reported yesterday, while TSA goons grope your wife or daughter’s genitals in the name of security, they simultaneously hire rapists and give the green light for illegal aliens to work in secure airport locations and even clear them to fly planes. The TSA’s background checks for its own employees are non-existent in comparison with the harassment they dish out to innocent travelers on a daily basis.



The goal of making the pat down procedure tantamount to sexual molestation is to force people into using dangerous radiative body scanners, devices colloquially known as “Dick Measurers” amongst TSA agents.

The Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg was told by a TSA agent directly that pat downs were made increasingly invasive not for any genuine security reason, but to make the experience so uncomfortable for the traveler that they would prefer to use the body scanner, despite the fact that scientists at Columbia University and the Inter-Agency Committee on Radiation Safety, along with other scientific bodies, have all warned that the devices increase the risk of developing cancer.

I asked him if he was looking forward to conducting the full-on pat-downs. “Nobody’s going to do it,” he said, “once they find out that we’re going to do.”

In other words, people, when faced with a choice, will inevitably choose the Dick-Measuring Device over molestation? “That’s what we’re hoping for. We’re trying to get everyone into the machine.” He called over a colleague. “Tell him what you call the back-scatter,” he said. “The Dick-Measuring Device,” I said. “That’s the truth,” the other officer responded.

So while the TSA hierarchy issues glib blanket denials that they are abusing the body scanners or the pat down procedure, the very TSA goons running the program admit that they are using the devices to ogle at people’s genitalia, including women and young children.

This in turn exposes yet another TSA lie – the claim that the scanners do not show intimate details of genitalia – which the organization has ludicrously maintained from the start despite images from the TSA’s own website showing that genitalia can clearly be seen. This has also led to TSA workers and others who use the scanners sexually harassing their own colleagues, with male TSA agents abusing the devices to crack jokes about penis sizes and also ogle a female airport security worker’s breasts.

The TSA cannot ignore this backlash in the hope that it will simply go away. More and more people will refuse to travel to the United States if this situation is allowed to continue, creating a devastating economic impact on an industry that has already lost a third of its potential income since 9/11, with travelers specifically citing the behavior of TSA thugs as the main reason for them staying away.

The TSA’s excuse that the supposed terror threat provides them with carte blanche to subject travelers to any level of debasement holds no credibility whatsoever, and unless the agency reverses its patently illegal groping measures and discontinues use of body scanners on health and privacy grounds, the TSA itself could become the target of legislation to abolish it altogether, which will undoubtedly become the next lobbying position embraced by the amplifying rebellion against TSA tyranny.

*********************

Paul Joseph Watson is the editor and writer for Prison Planet.com. He is the author of Order Out Of Chaos. Watson is also a fill-in host for The Alex Jones Show. Watson has been interviewed by many publications and radio shows, including Vanity Fair and Coast to Coast AM, America’s most listened to late night talk show.


Source...
 

Unhypnotized

Truth feeder
Airborne rebellion: Group urges ‘national opt-out day’ for airport body scanners

Daniel Tencer
Raw Story
Nov 11, 2010

Pilots, flight attendants lead public opposition to intrusive new measures

TSA employee reportedly admitted pat-down involving touching of genitals meant to intimidate people into using body scanners

As public anger grows over the TSA’s body scanners and intrusive new airport pat-down procedure, a Web site is urging travelers to “opt out” from the body scanners and instead choose to have a pat-down in public view, so that everyone can “see for themselves how the government treats law-abiding citizens.”

OptOutDay.com declares November 24 to be the day when air travelers should refuse to submit to a full body scan and choose the enhanced pat-down — an option many travelers have described as little short of a molestation.

OptOutDay.com declares:

It’s the day ordinary citizens stand up for their rights, stand up for liberty, and protest the federal government’s desire to virtually strip us naked or submit to an “enhanced pat down” that touches people’s breasts and genitals. You should never have to explain to your children, “Remember that no stranger can touch or see your private area, unless it’s a government employee, then it’s OK.”

The goal of National Opt Out Day is to send a message to our lawmakers that we demand change. No naked body scanners, no government-approved groping. We have a right to privacy and buying a plane ticket should not mean that we’re guilty until proven innocent.

Full article here

Source...
 

Unhypnotized

Truth feeder
Backlash grows over TSA’s ‘naked strip searches’

Declan McCullagh
CNet
Nov 11, 2010

Two months ago, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano announced that the federal stimulus legislation would pay for the purchase of hundreds of controversial full-body scanners.

“Through the Recovery Act, we are able to continue our accelerated deployment of enhanced technology as part of our layered approach to security at airports nationwide,” Napolitano said at the time.

The number of scanners has roughly doubled since Napolitano’s announcement and are now found in 68 U.S. airports, and the Transportation Security Administration says the controversial devices have proven to be a success.

“We have received minimal complaints,” a TSA spokeswoman told CNET yesterday. She said that the agency, part of DHS, keeps track of air traveler complaints and has not seen a significant rise.

Read more: http://news.cnet.com/8301-31921_3-20022477-281.html#ixzz14zty3f2S

Source...
 

Unhypnotized

Truth feeder
Big Sis Forced To Respond To Nationwide Revolt Against TSA

Pilot association heads and travel industry executives to meet with Napolitano over groping outrage

121110top.jpg


Paul Joseph Watson & Alex Jones
Prison Planet.com
Friday, November 12, 2010

The federal government has been forced to respond to the accelerating backlash against new TSA measures which have outraged the nation, with TSA Administrator John Pistole and Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano set to meet today with executives from the travel industry and heads of pilot associations.

Following intense and sustained focus on the issue by the Drudge Report, Infowars and Prison Planet, Reuters reports that, “Executives from the travel industry, including online travel sites, theme parks and hotels, were set to meet Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano and Pistole on Friday to discuss their concerns that security is crimping travel.”

The feds were forced into action after five prominent pilot and travel associations, along with a flight attendants union, vowed to boycott naked body scanners as well as the new invasive pat down procedure, threatening travel chaos. The backlash has also been characterized by new cases of individuals being abused at the hands of the TSA, stories which continue to pour in on a daily basis.

In addition, the TSA is reviewing its policies towards children at security checkpoints following widespread revulsion at the fact that TSA workers, some of whom may be pedophiles given the agency’s poor standard of background checks for its own employees, are openly groping children’s genitals in airports across the country.

“We have received hundreds of e-mails and phone calls from travelers vowing to stop flying,” said Geoff Freeman, an executive vice president of the U.S. Travel Association, which set up the meeting with the Obama administration officials.

“You can’t talk on the one hand about creating jobs in this country and getting this economy back on track and on the other hand discourage millions of Americans from flying, which is the gateway to commerce,” he said.

It’s vital that those representing outraged Americans at today’s meeting with Napolitano and Pistole do not allow themselves to be placated by the rhetoric they will undoubtedly hear about the supposed terror threat making the new TSA measures a necessity.

As we have documented, the TSA’s non-existent background checks on its own employees underscore the fact that the agency couldn’t care less about security, otherwise it wouldn’t have allowed illegal aliens to work in sensitive areas of airports or have given them the green light to fly planes.

Furthermore, as the Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg revealed, TSA workers told him directly that they refer to the new body scanner devices as “dick measurers,” and that the more aggressive groping measures had nothing to do with security and were in fact instituted solely to force people to choose the scanner over the pat down.

The so-called “pat-downs,” which in reality fall not far short of sexual molestation, have nothing to do with security. They are about ritualizing the process of making Americans submit to complete degradation at the hands of authority figures, no matter what level of humiliation that process encompasses. If you allow the government to get away with groping your children’s genitals there’s no limit to the abuse they will subsequently engage in.

The Reuters article mentions the example of a father who witnessed his 8-year-old son be selected for “extra screening” by TSA thugs, who proceeded to touch the boy’s genitals.

“We spend my child’s whole life telling him that only mom, dad and a doctor can touch you in your private area, and now we have to add TSA agent and that’s just wrong,” he told Reuters. “At some point the terrorists have won.”

The fact that the TSA and Homeland Security has been forced to respond to the national outrage over groping and naked body scanners is a major victory, but we cannot rest until the groping, not just of children but all passengers, is ended and the cancer-causing body scanners are removed for good.

No terror threat, be it genuine or contrived, can justify the federal government treating American citizens with less respect than farmyard animals, and since TSA workers openly admit that the sexual molestation of travelers is about forcing them to use the scanner and has nothing to do with security, this underscores the fact that the groping procedure and the scanner are both tools of oppression that have no place in a free society.


Source...
 

Unhypnotized

Truth feeder
Missouri Man Claims “Criminal Sexual Assault” At Hands Of TSA

Andy Cerota
ABC News 13
Nov 12, 2010



“I felt violated. I felt abused,” Mr Mollman said.

The 54-year-old Missouri City man had recently undergone surgery and was on pain medication. He was headed home to Houston when a TSA officer stopped him as he was going through security at the Fort Lauderdale airport.

[...]

Mollman was patted down and taken to a body scanner, where he claims a TSA officer inappropriately touched him in what was now his third search.

“I was wearing shorts at the time – between the underwear, right on the skin, all the way around the back, all the way around my front, 360 degrees, touched inappropriately,” he said.

Mollman, who by this point is humiliated, says he was never given a reason for the invasive searches and was sent on his way.

“This was an assault. This was no different than a sexual assault,” said KTRK Legal Analyst Joel Androphy.

Thomas Mollman says he’ll never look at flying the same way again.

Full article here

Source...
 

Unhypnotized

Truth feeder
World Battles The Invasion Of The Naked Body Scanners

101110groping.jpg


Scientists, pilots, flight attendants, privacy groups, parents, Muslim groups and everyday passengers all rebelling against airport tyranny

Steve Watson
Prisonplanet.com
Friday, Nov 12th, 2010

People from all walks of life are rejecting the mass implementation of radiation spewing airport body imaging machines and fighting back against the molestation and groping that women and children are being subjected to at the hands of TSA officials.

As we have detailed throughout the week, multiple pilot’s unions are advising their members to avoid the scanners, while simultaneously denouncing the enhanced pat downs as humiliating and on a par with sexual harassment.

The pilots have been joined by flight attendants, with one union demanding that their workers not be touched in sensitive areas in full view of passengers.

Now one of the largest Muslim advice groups, The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), has issued a warning to all muslims traveling on US aircraft in response to the reports of excessive physical searches of those singled out by security agents and those who refuse to be put through the scanners.

In “special recommendations for Muslim women who wear hijab,” CAIR states:

“Before you are patted down, you should remind the TSA officer that they are only supposed to pat down the area in question, in this scenario, your head and neck. They SHOULD NOT subject you to a full-body or partial-body pat-down.”

The group also advises that passengers should ask for the procedure to be done in a private place.

Recent accounts from passengers detail the fact that the enhanced body searches are being conducted in public as a way of intimidating others from resisting the scanning machines. They also describe TSA officers in some cases literally lifting travelers from the ground from between the legs and forefully squeezing and feeling around breasts with the fingers and palms of both hands.

As reported by Reuters, parents are now demanding that the procedures be changed for children, after witnesses have described their children’s genitals being touched by men and women working for the TSA.

“I didn’t think it was going to be as horrible as he was describing,” one father noted after an agent told him what he was going to do to the child before conducting the full body search.

“At some point the terrorists have won.” the father added. The TSA says it is currently “reviewing” the procedure for children. Perhaps it should first review it’s policy on background checking its own employees, which by all accounts is woefully inadequate.

While the TSA maintains that the body scanning machines are safe, and that the option of the pat-down as an alternative will eventually be withdrawn, scientists continue to speak out over the health hazards associated with the x-ray technology.

John Sedat, a University of California at San Francisco professor of biochemistry and biophysics and member of the National Academy of Sciences tells CNet that the machines have “mutagenic effects” and will increase the risk of cancer. Sedat previously sent a letter to the White House science Czar John P. Holdren, identifying the specific risk the machines pose to children and the elderly.

The letter stated:

“it appears that real independent safety data do not exist… There has not been sufficient review of the intermediate and long-term effects of radiation exposure associated with airport scanners. There is good reason to believe that these scanners will increase the risk of cancer to children and other vulnerable populations.”

As the following CNN report highlights, the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC), a non-profit privacy advocacy group is currently embroiled in a lawsuit with the TSA over the scanners, arguing that their use is illegal in respect of the fourth amendment and the documented health risks the machines carry.

All of these groups and individuals will get the chance to speak as one on what has become known as ‘national opt-out day’, scheduled to take place on November 24th. This day of national protest will see thousands and thousands refuse to submit to the tyranny taking over our major airports and scheduled to be implemented on our streets if we do not resist.

OptOutDay.com declares:

It’s the day ordinary citizens stand up for their rights, stand up for liberty, and protest the federal government’s desire to virtually strip us naked or submit to an “enhanced pat down” that touches people’s breasts and genitals. You should never have to explain to your children, “Remember that no stranger can touch or see your private area, unless it’s a government employee, then it’s OK.”

The goal of National Opt Out Day is to send a message to our lawmakers that we demand change. No naked body scanners, no government-approved groping. We have a right to privacy and buying a plane ticket should not mean that we’re guilty until proven innocent.

We urge our readers to join forces with these groups and organise peaceful protests at the nearest airport to you that has implemented body scanners and enhanced TSA pat downs.

The issue has garnered such massive attention, largely due to coverage via The Drudge Report, that the federal government has been forced to respond, with TSA Administrator John Pistole and Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano set to meet today with executives from the travel industry and heads of pilot associations.

The world is watching.

——————————————————————

Steve Watson is the London based writer and editor at Alex Jones’ Infowars.net, and regular contributor to Prisonplanet.com. He has a Masters Degree in International Relations from the School of Politics at The University of Nottingham in England.

Source...
 

Unhypnotized

Truth feeder
TSA Desktop Image Makes Joke of Cavity Searching Children

Kurt Nimmo
Prison Planet.com
Friday, November 12, 2010

A Flickr photo shows a computer in a TSA airport office with a desktop image of a satirical book entitled “My First Cavity Search.” Our photo and Photoshop experts have examined the image and believe that it is real. Infowars.com is currently attempting to contact the Flickr photographer to establish if the image is real.

3304306634_0a9e51503c_z.jpg


cavitysearch.jpg


In January, the Guardian reported that experts determined that naked body scanner technology violates child protection laws which ban the creation of indecent images of children. The British Department for Transport confirmed that the “child porn” problem was among the “legal and operational issues” under discussion within the government.

Since the introduction of airport scanners, there have been countless complaints regarding privacy issues.

Earlier this year, a TSA employee in Miami was arrested after he physically assaulted a co-worker who had joked about the size of his penis.

In March, a TSA worker who conducted so-called patdowns was charged with multiple child sex crimes targeting an underage girl. “The bust outraged privacy and passenger advocates who say it justifies their fears about Logan International Airport’s full-body scanner,” the Boston Herald reported.

In September, 2007, a woman died while in custody at Phoenix’s notorious Sky Harbor Airport. Carol Ann Gotbaum had argued with TSA employees prior to her death and the official explanation was that she had strangled herself “while trying to get out of her handcuffs,” according to a report posted on the Gothamist website.

As the neocon Jeffrey Goldberg wrote in late October, the TSA considers the backscatter scanners and the “opt-out” manual search comical. Goldberg asked a TSA officer if the new Department of Homeland Security guidelines include a cavity search. “No way. You think Congress would allow that?” the TSA employee responded.

In addition, the Atlantic’s Goldberg was told by the TSA agent directly that pat downs were made increasingly invasive not for any genuine security reason, but to make the experience so uncomfortable for the traveler that they would prefer to use the body scanner, despite the fact that scientists at Columbia University and the Inter-Agency Committee on Radiation Safety, along with other scientific bodies, have all warned that the devices increase the risk of developing cancer.

Congress may be squeamish about anal cavity searches, but if the photo below is indeed real, employees at the TSA consider this most humiliating form of molestation to be a laughing matter, especially when conducted on children.

Source...
 

Unhypnotized

Truth feeder
‘Revolt Against TSA’ hits #1 on Google Trends

Aaron Dykes
Prison Planet.com
Friday, November 12, 2010

A surge in criticism by passengers, pilots and others against the Transportation Security Administration’s (TSA) increasingly violating practices, along with extensive coverage on the Drudge Report has resulted in an all-out “Revolt Against TSA.” Now, that search term has reached #1 on Google Trends in another success for Infowarriors seeking to inject serious issues into the mainstream debate.

Good job to all our supporters. Be sure to check out these links and share them with everyone you know:

Big Sis Forced To Respond To Nationwide Revolt Against TSA

DHS May Turn To Body Scanners That Store Biometrics

World Battles The Invasion Of The Naked Body Scanners

TSA Desktop Image Makes Joke of Cavity Searching Children




Source...
 

Unhypnotized

Truth feeder
DHS chief tells pilot, tourism reps scans and patdowns will continue

Janet Napolitano rebuffed industry concerns at a White House meeting today, frustrating pilot & tourism representatives worried about an economic backlash and traveler revolt

12tsapatdown.jpg


Aaron Dykes & Alex Jones
Infowars.com
November 12, 2010

In a hastily-called emergency meeting at the White House today, DHS director Janet Napolitano told representatives from the most powerful pilot’s union as well as the travel & tourism lobbies that despite the backlash of concerns about airport security, TSA’s use of invasive body scanners and humiliating patdowns, including the groping of passenger’s breasts and genitals, would continue. The frustrated executives were anything but satisfied by her statements.

Geoff Freeman, Executive Vice President for the U.S. Travel Association, walked away from the meeting stating that it was “not entirely reassuring.” With tangible irritation, he commented, “We understand the challenge DHS confronts but the question is where we draw the line.”

The ramped up security measures have set off what Freeman says are hundreds of calls from travelers threatening not to fly. A whole range of interconnected tourism industries are concerned about the detrimental effect of security on business and travel. The airlines estimate that they’ve lost $9.4 billion in revenue due to “avoided” travel. Further, a 2008 survey found that 41 million potential fliers stayed home due to concerns about a “broken” or badly impaired system.

“You can’t talk on the one hand about creating jobs in this country and getting this economy back on track and on the other hand discourage millions of Americans from flying, which is the gateway to commerce,” Freeman railed.

However, Napolitano made clear that TSA’s operations would not only continue but expand as new technology is rolled out. “Trusted Traveler” programs have been scheduled for implementation, and would utilize biometric data such as retinal scanning for identification.

Travel-related industries are particularly concerned that the onset of a ‘travel revolt’ and a flurry of news coverage about groping and molestation occurrences at check points have come right before the holidays, the heaviest travel season of the year. Citizen groups have advocated either not flying or refusing to go through the body scanners. A “National Opt Out Day” protest has been coordinated on Nov. 24, the day before Thanksgiving, traditionally the busiest single day for air travel of the entire year.

Representatives for pilot organizations were also at the meeting with Napolitano and TSA Administrator John Pistole.

John Prater, president of the Air Line Pilots Association, objected to the unnecessary scrutiny of airline pilots and flight attendants, who, unlike TSA’s own employees, have already undergone background checks and who have been cleared to enter the cockpit. Pilots have already been trusted to operate the most dangerous potential “weapon” aboard any aircraft– the plane itself. What contraband could they could possibly conceal on their person that would be of greater concern?

“Pilots are not the terrorist threat,” Prater commented. “Seeing scarce security resources being used on pilots makes absolutely no sense.”

Also challenging security policy, Capt. Mike Cleary, president of the U.S. Airline Pilots Association, wrote a letter this week advising pilots not to subject themselves to body scanners (i.e. Advanced Imaging Technology) due to health concerns about the radiation as well as concerns about the intrusiveness and behavior of TSA agents.

In truth, the security measures have not been put in place to curb terrorism—major media outlets have reported on the fact that in TSA’s nine year history, it has failed to stop even one terrorist.

Instead, the economic and privacy costs of security are shifted directly into the private security complex. Michael Chertoff authorized contracts for the body scanners and other security technology during his reign as head of Homeland Security, only to benefit directly from multi-billion dollar contracts as an industry representative and lobbyist for the body scanners after leaving the Bush Administration.


Source...
 

Unhypnotized

Truth feeder
Electronic Privacy Information Center sues TSA over naked body scanner privacy violations

Mike Adams
Natural News
Nov 13, 2010

The Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) is proceeding with a lawsuit against the TSA over its use of naked body scanners. Filed in the District of Columbia Court of Appeals, EPIC’s lawsuit asks for the courts to halt the US government’s use of naked body scanners altogether.

EPIC has brought claims under the Administrative Procedure Act, the Privacy Act, the Video Voyeurism Prevention Act, the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, and the Fourth Amendment. (The TSA’s naked body scanners and aggressive pat-down techniques violate all these federal laws and Constitutional protections.)

That effort has now been joined by consumer advocate Ralph Nader, who agrees that the TSA’s use of naked body scanners must be challenged. EPIC’s lawsuit against the TSA alleges that the intrusive pat-downs are used by the TSA as a retaliatory punishment for those passengers who choose to opt out of the body scanners.

The EPIC lawsuit also submits that the capture of naked body scanner images is itself a violation of federal law. Furthermore, there is concern that once those images are captured, they could be swapped by TSA employees because the naked body scanner machines are built with image capture and storage capabilities in addition to Ethernet networking.

At the same time, the pilots union Allied Pilots Association has urged all pilots to reject the naked body scanners and request to opt out, citing health hazards from radiation exposure as well as an assault on the dignity of airline pilots.

Libertarian party endorses EPIC lawsuit against TSA

The Libertarian Party has now officially backed this lawsuit against the TSA. Libertarian Party Chair Mark Hinkle said, “The TSA should end the strip-search machine program immediately. We’ve reached a point where our government has no qualms about humiliating us. We encourage Americans to call their newly-elected members of Congress and tell them that they don’t want this expensive, worthless, intrusive, unconstitutional program.”

The Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution says…

“The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”

What part of “unreasonable searches and seizures” does the TSA not understand?

As long as these TSA violations of our Constitutional rights continue, I urge you to avoid traveling by air altogether.

Where to learn more

Read the opening brief filed in the courts by EPIC at:
http://epic.org/privacy/litigation/…

Follow the news on the EPIC lawsuit against the TSA here: http://epic.org/privacy/body_scanne…

And of course keep reading NaturalNews.com as we continue to cover this important story. Our goal is to end the use of all naked body scanners and aggressive pat-down techniques in U.S. airports.


Source...
 

Unhypnotized

Truth feeder
Big Sis Slaps Pilots, Industry Leaders In Face Over TSA Revolt

Federal government’s refusal to acknowledge nationwide outrage could set the scene for states’ rights confrontation

121110top.jpg


Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet.com
Saturday, November 13, 2010

Big Sis has slapped travel and pilots associations in the face after a meeting designed to address the burgeoning backlash surrounding naked body scanners as well as new invasive groping measures ended in nothing more than a glib Homeland Security press release that failed completely to offer any reasonable response to the national outrage against the TSA.

The DHS press release not only fails to address any of the concerns surrounding health risks posed by radiation scanners, pat downs of children that amount to sexual molestation, or the TSA’s own lackluster background checks for its employees that have allowed rapists and illegal aliens to work in airport security, it actually only reiterates that the same if not even more invasive policies will continue to be followed.

The statement encourages Americans to spy on each other under the “If You See Something, Say Something” campaign, but unfortunately for the feds, the only people saying something are the one third of tourists who have made a pretty big statement by refusing to travel to the United States as a result of the TSA’s oppressive security policies.

Even the US Army, as an occupying force in a foreign country, now refuses to make Afghan citizens submit to the same treatment Americans are subjected to by the TSA and Homeland Security.

“A US Army staff sergeant, now serving in Afghanistan, writes about the new enhanced pat-down procedure from the TSA. Summary of his very powerful message: to avoid giving gross offense to the Afghan public, and to prevent the appearance of an uncontrolled security state, the US military forbids use on Afghan civilians of the very practices the TSA is now making routine for civilian travelers at US airports,” explains the Atlantic’s James Fallows.

The federal government is attempting to diffuse the controversy by simply refusing to acknowledge its existence, and hoping prominent industry heads will simply drop the issue entirely.

Unfortunately for Big Sis, lawmakers are set to take the matter into their own hands.

“New Jersey State Legislators, including Senator Michael J. Doherty (23rd District), Senator Diane Allen (7th District), Assemblywoman Alison McHose (24th District), Assemblyman John DiMaio (23rd District), Assemblyman Erik Peterson (23rd District), Assemblywoman Valerie Vanieri Huttle (37th District) and Deborah Jacobs, Executive Director for the American Civil Liberties Union of New Jersey, will hold a press conference at the New Jersey State House on Monday, November 15, 2010, to discuss their opposition to the new Transportation Safety Administration (TSA) screening procedures at United States’ airports and the nationwide reports of passenger abuse,” reports Politicker NJ.

The TSA abuse story could spark a major states’ rights confrontation between local representatives and the federal government. If lawmakers vow to stand their ground, then the TSA could be kicked out of airports across the country.

If the feds want to avoid this fight, they need to terminate the use of dangerous body scanners with immediate effect, as well as rolling back pointless pat down groping that is designed to achieve nothing but ritual humiliation and degradation of the American people and travelers in general.

*********************

Paul Joseph Watson is the editor and writer for Prison Planet.com. He is the author of Order Out Of Chaos. Watson is also a fill-in host for The Alex Jones Show. Watson has been interviewed by many publications and radio shows, including Vanity Fair and Coast to Coast AM, America’s most listened to late night talk show.


Source...
 

Unhypnotized

Truth feeder
Airport ‘pat-downs’ cause growing passenger backlash

Derek Kravitz
Washington Post
Nov 14, 2010

Airport travelers call it groping, prodding or just plain inappropriate – a pat-down that probes places where the sun doesn’t shine. The Transportation Security Administration calls it the new reality of airport security.

Following the uncovering of a terrorist plot last month to blow up cargo planes en route to the United States, the TSA has instituted a new type of pat-down of passengers, a move that’s part of a general tightening of air security. If a full-body scanning machine shows something strange or a passenger declines to go through the machine – which is now in use in the Washington region’s three major airports – an officer will perform a more personal search.

The examinations routinely involve the touching of breasts and genitals, invasive searches designed to find weapons and suspicious items. The searches, performed by TSA security officers of the same sex as the passenger, entail a sliding hand motion on parts of the body where a lighter touch was used before, aviation security analysts say. The areas of the body that are being touched haven’t changed.

“There’s nothing punitive about it; it just makes good security sense,” the TSA said via its blog. “And the weapons and other dangerous and prohibited items we’ve found during pat-downs speak to this.”

Full article here

Source...
 

Unhypnotized

Truth feeder
Airport security: Government in our pants

Steve Chapman
Chicago Tribune
Nov 14, 2010

When it comes to protecting against terrorism, this is how things usually go: A danger presents itself; the federal government responds with new rules that erode privacy, treat innocent people as suspicious and blur the distinction between life in a free society and life in a correctional facility; and we all tamely accept the new intrusions, like sheep being shorn.

Maybe not this time.

The war on terrorism is going to get personal. Very personal. Americans have long resented the hassles that go with air travel ever since 9/11 — long security lines, limits on liquids, forced removal of footwear and so on. But if the Transportation Security Administration has its way, we will look back to 2009 as the good old days.

The agency is rolling out new full-body scanners, which eventually will replace metal detectors at all checkpoints. These machines replicate the experience of taking off your clothes, but without the fun. They enable agents to get a view of your body that leaves nothing to the imagination.

A lot of people, of course, couldn’t care less if a stranger wants to gaze upon everything God gave them. But some retain a modesty that makes them reluctant to parade naked in front of people they don’t know, even virtually. Henceforth, Jennifer Aniston is going to think twice before flying commercial.

Besides the indignity of having one’s body exposed to an airport screener, there is a danger the images will find a wider audience. The U.S. Marshals Service recently admitted saving some 35,000 images from a machine at a federal courthouse in Florida. TSA says that will never happen. Human experience says, oh, yes, it will.

Full article here

Source...
 
Top