Why the TSA Searches Grandmothers and Toddlers

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"So let me tell you, Jesse Ventura, how I feel about having strangers grope my crotch.I say it's fine" Spoken like a true sheep. He says it's OK to search grandmothers because they might have been duped into carrying something. I would argue that the questioning would cover that possibility. But the idea that they were duped into carrying it such that only a strip search or crotch grab would reveal is assinine.

Spod of NE 5:43PM March 31, 2012

Mr. DAVIS, let me assure you your views are in the minority.
The situation you described is a 1-in-a-million TV-Drama scenario. They happen with such infrequency that to impose upon us all the humiliating and dehumanizing experience that is a TSA checkpoint is by far overkill. It is not a "measured response." It is one-size-fits-all harassment.
People like you are proof that the terrorists really have won. Post-9/11 Americans seem to lack the "stiff upper lip" that the Brits relied on during the Blitzkrieg (not that the Brits and their Big Brother CCTV system are anything to envy...). That is why we passed the PATRIOT act without reading it.
To change our ways, to sacrifice our freedom, our dignity... is to let the terrorists win. To continue with our day, as if nothing happened, with our heads held high, is to take the higher path. To change our way of life out of fear sows seeds of distrust, exactly what those who hate us want.
Enjoy your groping. For all I know, its probably the only play you get, you sad, un-American sap.

Brody Hurst of CA 4:56PM March 31, 2012

"So let me tell you, Jesse Ventura, how I feel about having strangers grope my crotch. I say it's fine if..."
It all depends on what or whether you have something there to be groped. There is usually a directly inverse proportion between the two.
The primary goal of terrorism was never to kill - that's what real armies do. Their goal is simply to terrorize and your your groveling to this silly security theater is proof positive that the terrorists have succeeded.
Real security is what the Israelis do, but we obviously don't have what it takes for that. If we did, we wouldn't need to grope and humiliate toddlers and seniors and we wouldn't have whining like this. But we would still have security, a real one.

Rufus of CA 11:48AM March 31, 2012

"So let me tell you, Jesse Ventura, how I feel about having strangers grope my crotch. I say it's fine if it will lessen the chance that my wife, my children, and I will be blown into the ether at 35,000 feet."
Good for you, then - feel free to stand alone in that mentality while the rest of us take steps to reclaim our freedom (which, you may recall, was deemed more important than safety by the very people who founded this country) from the completely-inexcusable and wholly-unjustifiable policies of the TSA.
9/11 did not, does not, and will not ever justify what TSA is doing. In any regard. Safety must never be attained at a price paid in liberty - that is how freedom is murdered.

Shane Ladd of IL 10:00AM March 31, 2012

"For every blowhard trying to get Congress to undo airport security, there is a silent majority of passengers like me who want everyone to be screened."
If you thoroughly understood what, We The People, are complaining about regarding the TSA, you would understand that we do want everyone to be screened. However, we want passengers to be screened appropriately, without groping and nude pictures. Pre-9/11 screening was appropriate and that is what we need to go back to at our airports.
BTW, how much did the TSA pay you to write this drivel?

Sandra of NY 9:31AM March 31, 2012

"And TSA, take note. For every blowhard trying to get Congress to undo airport security, there is a silent majority of passengers like me who want everyone to be screened."
................................
Airport workers are not screened. Cargo is not fully screened, yet you are willing to sit above this unscreened material and have unscreened workers service the aircraft you are so willing to fly in after having your crotch felt up by a stranger.
Just this week was news of a drug ring transporting drugs between the mainland and Hawaii by unscreened people who used airport credentials to bypass security. What makes you think these same people wouldn't willingly be party to introducing an explosive device or other contraband to a flight you are on?
Your understanding of TSA screening is to put it bluntly sir, pathetic.

RB of TX 9:21AM March 31, 2012

Have not flown in over six years. Totally Screwed-up Agency reminds me too much of Soviet check points simply exerting its authority over the citizens. Sad, too many tolerate this nonsense.

Paul of GA 8:27AM March 31, 2012

Poor Mr. Davis. How do you sleep at night? Do you set your alarm system and turn on the vapor lights around your house to keep the bad guys away?
Think about the emotional harm you are doing your children with your always-present fear.
You might be fine with having a stranger grab your crotch, but what lessons are your teaching your children about the sanctity of their bodies?
You are teaching them that anyone in a uniform can come up to them and demand to be allowed to feel them up. What a wonderful example for a father to impart to his children. <rolls eyes>
Further, you wrote:
"Or consider the 85-year-old grandmother taken into a private room for a strip search, who later sarcastically said to a journalist, "I walk with a walker—I really look like a terrorist." "
You do know, don't you, that the TSA apologized for mistreating this woman and that the TSA insists that it is NOT their policy to strip search anyone?
Get your facts straight before you put pen to paper or else you end up looking just as bumbling as the TSA.

Susan of NJ 8:08AM March 31, 2012

How about citing something that happened here in the past five years, not somewhere in Europe.
This opinion is factually incorrect and a product of faulty reasoning. Virtually all of the item found by TSA in 2011 and 2012 have been identified on the x-ray belt, not by fondling children or strip searching elderly women.
TSA is merely security theater and a jobs program for unemployable misfits. After sixty billion dollars over eight years they can't cite one actual success.
In two separate GAO tests in 2011, TSA failed to detect weapons 70% of the time while 60% of the freight in the cargo-hold remains unscreened.
They confiscate items their website says are allowed but four of their screeners were caught smuggling drugs, which could have as easily been explosives, through security.
There have been 12 TSA screeners arrested this year including four this week. 72 TSA screeners were arrested in 2011 for crimes, including eleven sex crimes involving children. TSA can’t prevent crime within their ranks but want us to trust them with airport security.
This agency is a national disgrace and complete failure. The lack of responsible management enables many abuses, crimes and failures to continue to occur. TSA is too broken to be reformed and must be replaced with something that actually works.

Fisher1949 of MD 6:57AM March 31, 2012