The TSA

That's the Touching and Stealing Administration

From JFK, LaGuardia, and Newark to Chicago O'Hare, down to Atlanta, and out to Los Angeles.  The TSA asks you to show up two hours early for domestic flights and three hours early for internationals...then makes you stand in line for four hours. Meanwhile San Francisco and Kansas City don't seem to be having any of the problems found elsewhere primarily since they have privatized security services.  The NY and NJ Port Authority and Atlanta's Hartsfield-Jackson are threatening to kick the government to the curb do to their inadequacy caused by gross incompetency.

Passengers stranded at O'Hare
NY-NJ threatens to fire TSA 
Long Lines in Atlanta

Remember when flying was an enjoyable experience?  Me? I won't fly anymore unless forced to by work. How about you?
 

The Thanksgiving TSA Opt-Out Week!

By Hugh Farnham

It's that time of the year again.  Dragging your roll-around through terminals, the lines, the bad airline food and... getting a nude-ray photo of your body courtesy of the Federal Government. 

 

Most citizens don't know it is their right to "opt out" of going through the millimeter ray scanner.

 

These nude-ray scanners have a very salty past and there are many reasons to say "No":  

 

-   Potentially these scanners, especially the X-Ray backscatter units, could contribute to a higher risk of cancer

 

-  Having the Federal Government take a naked photo of you is a gross violation of your 4th Amendment rights (and no, I don't believe the machines immediately erase the photos)

 

-  The procurement of these machines is a scandal in itself, with Chertoff, the former head of DHS, working as a lobbyist to get these funded

 

- The TSA is more about getting compliance and submission than actually finding terrorists.  After billions spent, how many real rabid terrorists have they found?  0.

As you go through the security screening line, if you are told to go through the scanner simply say "I exercise my right to Opt Out".  The TSA screener is then bound to honor your request and you will be sent through secondary screening.  Without the X-Rays.

In 2010, when the Opt Out Week first started, the TSA shut down the scanner machines rather than face confrontation over the use of them.  We will see what they do this year.  Please share your experiences here at Western Hero.

Travel safe and happy holidays to all our readers of Western Hero!

Government: No Common Sense & No Compassion

¡Adelante Comandante!

"We can't go back to the same policies that got us into this mess. We've got to move forward," -- President Obama

Amen to that! President Obama is right: We can’t go back to his old, failed way of doing things. Government must stop backstopping crony crapitalists that take our money and blow it. GM still owes us tens of billions and will never pay it back, Solyndra and all those green companies and battery makers going belly-up, all at taxpayer expense, banks writing bad loans because the government promised to underwrite them...

State-sponsored crony crapitalism has failed. Time to try free-market capitalism, and it starts with government getting the hell out of the marketplace.  Picking winners and losers with our tax dollars is a thinly disguised reward for the politically well-connected.

Capitalism made us prosperous, not government. Yes, government provided the infrastructure and the legal framework necessary for free markets to flourish, and we need government for that. But government has not made one poor person rich. Government programs are a palliative at best; a disincentive at worst.

"Standard Procedures"

A TSA victim, describing that agency bravely stamping out a terror threat from her 4 year old granddaughter, summed it up perfectly:

"There was no common sense and there was no compassion" (TSA Defends Patdown of 4-Year-Old)

That describes government: No compassion and no common sense. It is a machine; a clanking soulless beast with claws and hooks where it’s hands should be, and wrecking balls for feet, smashing all in its path. Government statements after the latest rape and grope outrage stating that the incident was reviewed and the agents were following “standard procedure” only indicts our government further.  I'll leave aside the obvious comparisons to Lt Calley and "just following orders."

"Standard Procedure" is stupid procedure and it's legal cover for unthinking government slugs to practice all manner of predations upon us.

H/T: Obama’s New Economy is the Problem

Brotherhood of the Traveling (and burning) Pants, Part II

What a difference a year makes

Since the "underwear bomber" (or should I say the TSA useful idiot?) tried to roast his huevos rancheros, we've seen the most outrageous infringements of the 4th Amendment ever upon American Citizens. Nude ray scanners. Breasts exposed and fondled in public to laughing TSA thugs. Genitals fondled and women even claiming to have been penetrated. A former Governor suing due to the same.




Not one terrorist arrested in all this time by the TSA - yet more than a few American Citizens blacklisted and/or arrested for standing up for their rights.

Raison d'etre? The damned underwear bomber!

Well, it turns out that two attorneys were on the same flight as this "bomber" - and they firmly believe that the U.S. Government allowed this scum on the plane with the faux bomb. A must see:




YouTube: Kurt Haskell's Damning Testimony

First off, they mention a well-dressed individual in Amsterdam helping the bomber on the flight - without a passport - and this individual was an American. The explosive was most likely a road flare ground up and inserted into the Nigerian's underwear.

Have we forgotten about the suspicious passenger who filmed throughout the entire flight - that stood and continued to film when the flames errupted? Where is that film? In the age of YouTube you would imagine it would be uploaded in a New York Minute. Unless it was taken by some federal operative or confiscated by one.

Follow the Money

In the months following the attempted bombing, lucrative x-ray imagers were installed throughout the United States - hawked by none other than former DHS chief Michael Chertoff. This stinks to high heaven - these tyrants not only strip us of our privacy in the name of a fake terror event, but funnel the Treasury into their own pockets at the same time!

This is what I wrote last year:

I'm completely skeptical about this being a credible terrorist effort. Either the Nigerian was incompetent (quite possible) or something else is afoot...

What can you do?

Have your Representative or Senator pressure the Homeland Security Appropriations Subcommittee to drastically reduce funding for this illegal and unconstitutional agency.

I've been in government acquisitions for some time. In that time I've learned that the lifeblood of a bureaucracy is not red, it is green. That green is your hard-earned tax dollars. If you want to threaten a soviet-style federal department, you must go after it's blood source.

Delicious Resistance

The ironic thing about this post is that I'm publishing it within TSA's secure zone within a major airport. In this day and age of tyranny and terror, one must grab his small joys while he can.

- Hugh Farnham

Editors note:  Apologies to Hugh, Shane and Jersey.  This was posted for about an hour Friday.  I mistakenly thought this was an accidental repost and pulled it down.  Hugh's been traveling and I've been working long hours and we didn't communicate.  Anyway, here it is again, featured on a Sunday.  Enjoy!  --  Silverfiddle