Did TSA Reduce Full-Body Scanner Use on Opt-Out Day?

If you were watching the news on November 24, 2010 and anxiously awaiting the sight of long lines at the airport security checkpoints and heated confrontations between angry travelers and TSA screeners, you were disappointed. What is normally a very busy and hectic travel day was actually quite calm. In fact, the day was eerily calm.

Most of the footage from the airports showed short lines and pleasant travelers. This is just not a normal atmosphere at an airport on the day before Thanksgiving. Considering it was National Opt-Out Day, this was down right bizarre.

If you noticed, there was very little footage of people undergoing full-body scans or pat-downs on November 24. The news stations showed some stock footage from previous days, but we saw very little, if any, footage of travelers actually being scanned or searched on November 24.

The absence of conflict means one of a few things:

1) The public's aversion to the TSA scanners and pat-downs was grossly overstated.
2) Travelers who did not want to be scanned or groped simply avoided flying all together and traveled by other means.
3) The TSA used the full-body scanners sparingly to avoid embarrassment or attention on November 24.

The first two explanations are possible, but the third explanation raises some serious concerns. If the TSA actually reduced use of the full-body scanners on a major travel day, we can assume either the TSA knows the scanners are not that important to safety or the TSA chose to put public safety in jeopardy for the sake of avoiding an uncomfortable media spectacle. Either way, this is alarming.

Since the full-body scanners must have some sort of security value, we are left to think the TSA just chose to avoid controversy on November 24 so they could go back to using the scanners at-will in the near future. Perhaps the public backlash that has been growing against the TSA has gotten them scared. It would not be surprising if the TSA has decided to back off on the scanner use for a little while until the public calms down and gets distracted by something else. Once the public outcry has died down, the TSA can go back to using the scanners as much as they want.

Regardless of what happened on November 24, the TSA needs to be clear about how they did or did not use the full-body scanners on that day. The public has a right to know if the TSA put public safety in jeopardy to avoid controversy. In the unlikely event the general public actually has very few problems with TSA scans and searches, the TSA should present travel data from November 24 and demonstrate this point with hard facts. The TSA's awkward silence on this issue is very telling.

The TSA, We Are (Down) There for You

Image by David Vincent Wolf

Here's a new slogan for the TSA.

"The TSA, We Are (Down) There for You"

TSA Employee Kidnaps Woman from Airport and Rapes Her

Transportation Security Administration employee, Randall Scott King, has been arrested on suspicion of kidnapping a woman from a MARTA parking lot at the Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport and raping her. The TSA, the same agency that wants to capture images of you virtually naked, grope your genitals, and rub their hands all over your children's bodies, hires mentally unstable and violent sex criminals. The guy who is looking at naked scans of you tomorrow morning could be kidnapping and raping you tomorrow night. How can we possibly trust the TSA?

Click here to read the full story.

Fly with Dignity

Photo by Max Trombly

Fly with Dignity is an activist group helping to protect the rights of innocent people wishing to travel without being photographed virtually naked or being groped by the TSA. Visit flywithdignity.org for more information.

John Tyner, a Pioneer Against TSA Searches

Full-Body Scan Image

John Tyner (http://johnnyedge.blogspot.com/) has written a detailed account of an encounter with the Transportation Security Administration after refusing a full-body scan and a pat-down at the San Diego Airport. This is a courageous person who is standing up for our rights. Read all about the incident at "TSA encounter at SAN".

We Won't Fly

Online group, We Won't Fly, has organized to resist the Transportation Security Administration's intrusive radiation-based full-body scans and the optional TSA pat-downs. We Won't Fly's Web site, http://wewontfly.com/, contains a lot of useful information and helpful tips about how travelers can lawfully resist and oppose these invasive measures. We Won't Fly encourages travelers to avoid flying whenever possible, refuse full-body scans, file complaints about abusive TSA pat-downs and other violations, notify hotels and airlines about changes to personal travel habits due to this out-of-control government agency.

November 24 Is National Opt-Out Day for TSA Full-Body Scans

Full-Body Scan Image (Image Presumed Simulated)

Amid a growing furor over the Transportation Security Administration's intrusive full-body scans, a group is forming a national day of protest against the TSA's egregious virtual strip searches. Protest organizers are asking you to standup for your privacy on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving (November 24, 2010) by opting out the radiation-based full-body scans and demanding the pat-down instead.

If enough people opt-out of the full-body scan , the TSA will be overwhelmed and be forced to rethink this horrible invasion of privacy. You have the right to avoid the radiation and the imaging of your naked body. When asked to go through the full-body scanner, all you have to say is, "I opt out." You will then receive the pat-down. If the TSA employee does not behave himself or herself, file a complaint immediately. You have a right to this.

Go to www.optoutday.com to learn more about this national protest and learn how to get back some of your privacy.

TSA Surpasses NAMBLA As the Largest Group of Child Molesters in America

Small Child Getting TSA Pat-Down

For many years, NAMBLA (North American Man/Boy Love Association) was the largest organized group of child molesters in the country. They have now been surpassed by the Transportation Security Administration. The TSA's controversial radiation-based full-body scans have put parents in a horrible predicament. If a child is selected for a full-body scan at an airport security screening checkpoint, the parent must then choose between having his or her child exposed to the radiation of the full-body scanner or subjecting the child to groping by a TSA employee in the optional pat-down. Either way, the child gets exposed to things a child should never have to endure: radiation, exploitation, and molestation.

No matter which option the parent chooses, the TSA will commit a felony against the child. If the TSA scans your child in a full-body scan, they will be capturing an image of a child's naked body. This is child pornography. Imagine if some adult were going to a playground with one of these full-body scanning machines in a van and demanding children pose for it with their arms and legs spread so he could virtually peak under their clothes. The pervert would be arrested within an hour and spend years in prison.

If the parent wishes to not subject the child to posing for child pornography, the child may have his or her entire body touched by an absolute stranger during a pat-down. TSA employees may even touch the child's genitals. Intentionally touching a child's genitals without a specific medical reason is child molestation. Imagine if a school teacher went poking around a random child's crotch to make sure the child did not have any contraband in his or her underwear. The teacher would be fired and arrested as soon as the parents found out about it.

This is what the TSA has brought us. They take naked images of our children or fiddle with our kids' genitals. Either way, the TSA gets to engage in felonious and exploitative sexual acts with whichever children they happen to choose from the airport security screening lines. This is a child molester's dream come true. They get to pick children out of a line (like a perverse smorgasbord of innocent young flesh) and then get to either allow a complicit colleague to virtually look under the child's clothes or just feel up the kid directly. Even better, the parent gives permission and stands by helplessly while it happens. Best of all for the perverts, they get paid to do this all day and never get arrested. The TSA is paradise for anyone who likes to look at naked kids or grope them, and your tax dollars are funding the whole thing.

Are you a parent? Are you concerned that a child molester might be thrilled at the idea of having a job where an adult gets paid to look at naked images of children and/or touch children's genitals? Does it bother you that a TSA employee may be finding sexual gratification by looking at or touching your child under the guise of security?

Quote of the Day - Left or Right Boot

"When the government's boot is on your throat, whether it is a left boot or a right boot is of no consequence."

-- Gary Lloyd

Census Worker Beats and Rapes Handicapped Woman

In Indiana, a volunteer Census worker, Daniel Miller, is being accused of breaking into a house he had previously visited on his Census rounds. In the house, he allegedly raped a beat a 21-year old handicapped woman. He probably gained knowledge of the handicapped woman while he was conducting a Census interview.

This is the fault of the Census Bureau. They are collecting information not required by the US Constitution. Collecting all of this extra information creates a need for lengthy interviews and visits to the interiors of people's homes. If the Census were just asking for a simple count of people as mandated by the Constitution, these interviews could be conducted in seconds at the door of the residence, by simply asking a homeowner one question: How many people live at this residence?