Feeling the heat from the public backlash against the embarrassingly invasive search on June 18, 2011 of a 95-year-old leukemia patient who has to wear a diaper and can barely get around without a wheelchair, the Transportation Security Administration is now attempting to spin the story by saying they never ordered the leukemia patient to remove her diaper.
The official statement from the TSA is, "We have reviewed the circumstances involving this screening and determined that our officers acted professionally, according to proper procedure and did not require this passenger to remove an adult diaper."
While that statement may be technically accurate, it is deliberately misleading. The TSA may have not actually demanded the woman remove the diaper, but Jean Weber, the daughter of the woman, said the TSA agents made it clear the woman was not getting on the plane unless they were able to inspect the diaper (or perhaps have it discarded). Jean Weber decided to remove the diaper.
This is all semantics. The old woman was trying to get on a flight. The TSA would not let her get on the flight until someone removed the diaper. There is not much of a difference here. The TSA can say, "Take off that diaper or else you are not getting on your flight."
Alternatively, the TSA can say, "You are not getting on your flight with that diaper."
There is a difference in those two positions, but the effect is essentially the same. This poor old woman was going to have to take off her diaper or miss her flight.
This is how the TSA operates. The TSA knows they have a tremendous advantage over you at the airport, because they have the power to make you miss the flight for which you paid hundreds of dollars and cause an extraordinary amount of inconvenience as you attempt to arrive in time to make connecting flights, check into hotels, pick up rental cars, etc. The TSA knows they have the ability to dramatically inconvenience you and effectively take away your right to travel freely about the country by air, and they will hold it over your head to get you to comply with all of their disgusting invasions of your privacy.
The TSA can say, "Let us squeeze your testicles and let us rub our hands around your anus, or we will not let you on your flight."
Alternatively, the TSA can say, "You cannot get on that flight unless you voluntarily let us squeeze your testicles and rub our hands around your anus."
The nuances of the differing statements do not really matter much. Essentially, the TSA wants to molest you, and they are going to use the ability to restrict your right to travel to make that happen.
The most ridiculous aspect of this whole adult diaper situation is how we are now engaged in a big public discussion over whether the old woman's diaper was removed by order or voluntarily as a condition of boarding a flight. The real problem here is the federal government is now in our pants. One of the last free places we had in this country was our pants, and now the government feels the need to look around in there too. When the federal government is looking around in the pants and up the dresses of innocent citizens, things have gone terribly wrong.
By the way, if you are taking solace in thinking, if the government is in your pants, at least there is nowhere else for them to invade, do not be so sure. Terrorist, Abdullah Hassan al-Asiri, has already successfully detonated a bomb concealed in his rectum. Do not be so sure the federal government will not want to peek in there someday too. Sure, it sounds like a crazy thought now, but ten years ago, did you ever imagine the federal government would be touching your genitals and taking naked images of you at the airport? You never thought that would happen, but it has been going on the entire time you have been reading this article. We should be absolutely ashamed of ourselves for letting the terrorists win like this. We have played right into their hands by choosing to live in a constant state of fear where privacy, dignity, and freedom mean nothing.
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