Saturday, December 22, 2007

Study Shows TSA "Security" Measures Don't Improve Airport Security

This was up in The Muck on TPMuckraker today:
A Harvard School of Public Health research team believes that there is no evidence to prove that routine (Ed. note: Routine since 9/11)( airport security measures make air travel any safer. The study was especially critical of searches of shoes. Asked the researchers: "Can you hide anything in your shoes that you cannot hide in your underwear?" (Reuters)
This confirms my long and firmly held suspicion that the imposition of "routine"--draconian, intrusive, abusive--'security' measures by Govt. thugs in airports were directed far more at cowing and bullying the travelling public than at 'security.' These things are not only the province of the airline passenger, either: it occurs in all transport hubs, really; there's a TSA office in your local interstate bus depot, too, with all the authority the pigs at the airports wield. They wear guns.)

As one (or both) of those incredibly perspicacious Canadian Naomis--Klein/Wolf--points out, authoritarian regimes predictably and regularly seize upon emotion-laden crises to ram through oppressive/repressive/suppressive measures that wouldn't--couldn't--pass without the crisis to camouflage the true intents and consequences of the objectionable measures... The only 'security' they guarantee is that of the regime, its satraps, luminaries, and functionaries...

I am not the only one I know who has remarked after a necessary trip, there is something in the blankly, stupidly, antagonistic, malicious stance and demeanor of the uniformed TSA "agents" as they grope and poke at the passengers that betrays the intimidation factor that underwrites and rationalizes the entire enterprise. This is part and parcel with the metastacising fascism, hardening citizens to the inevitable increases in "security' interference in our lives.

As for the underpants, don't give the sadistic morons any MORE ideas as to where they might poke their brutish paws...

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