TSA befuddled by peanut butter separated oil

Man Sues TSA For $5 Million Following Peanut Butter Arrest
Excerpt:

An Arizona man who was arrested at the behest of the TSA, following a wisecrack over a jar of peanut butter is suing the federal agency for $5 million. Frank Hannibal, 50, was detained and dragged from LaGuardia Airport recently by police after a run-in with TSA agents over the jar of gourmet sandwich spread. “The liquid oil that separated from the peanut butter had them baffled,” Hannibal told the New York Daily News. Hannibal then commented to his wife and children that “They’re looking to confiscate my explosives,” as TSA agents inspected the 16-ounce jar of “Crazy Richards” chunky peanut butter. TSA screener Edwin Sanchez, overheard Hannibal’s remark, did not see the funny side, and immediately called the cops, according to the court complaint.

... Hannibal has brought a $5-million-dollar lawsuit against the TSA worker and the Port Authority officer who arrested him, all over a $7 confectionary which was returned to him upon his release from jail. “It’s a sorry state of affairs in this country when sarcasm is considered a felony,” his attorney, Alan D. Levine of Queens, noted, adding that TSA agents need to act with common sense in such situations.

Comment: Crazy Richard's website. I have air travel ahead .... not looking forward to interacting with TSA

If a boarding pass can be spoofed .... the TSA is a failure!

Smoke Screening

Excerpt:

Not until I walked with Bruce Schneier toward the mass of people unloading their laptops did it occur to me that it might not be possible for us to hang around unnoticed near Reagan National Airport’s security line. Much as upscale restaurants hang mug shots of local food writers in their kitchens, I realized, the Transportation Security Administration might post photographs of Schneier, a 48-year-old cryptographer and security technologist who is probably its most relentless critic. In addition to writing books and articles, Schneier has a popular blog; a recent search for “TSA” in its archives elicited about 2,000 results, the vast majority of which refer to some aspect of the agency that he finds to be ineffective, invasive, incompetent, inexcusably costly, or all four.

As we came by the checkpoint line, Schneier described one of these aspects: the ease with which people can pass through airport security with fake boarding passes. First, scan an old boarding pass, he said—more loudly than necessary, it seemed to me. Alter it with Photoshop, then print the result with a laser printer. In his hand was an example, complete with the little squiggle the T.S.A. agent had drawn on it to indicate that it had been checked. “Feeling safer?” he asked.

...

“The only useful airport security measures since 9/11,” he says, “were locking and reinforcing the cockpit doors, so terrorists can’t break in, positive baggage matching”—ensuring that people can’t put luggage on planes, and then not board them —“and teaching the passengers to fight back. The rest is security theater.”

Comment: And it can! "security theater" indeed!

TSA: Miss December

Comment: From Facebook friend

Peggy Noonan: "Everyone's got an Inner Duke, even grandma"

The Special Assistant for Reality - Obama needs to hear a voice from outside the presidential bubble

Excerpt (John Wayne going through TSA checkpoint):

John Wayne removes his boots and hat and puts his six-shooter on the belt, he gets through the scanner, and now he's standing there and sees what's being done to other people. A TSA guy is walking toward him, snapping his rubber gloves. Guy gets up close to Wayne, starts feeling his waist and hips. Wayne says, "Touch the jewels, Pilgrim, and I'll knock you into tomorrow."

Comment: Noonan suggests that Janet Napolitano be fired!

SAR [Special Assistant for Reality ]: Well, every businessman in America already thinks you've been grabbing his gonads. You'll continue that general symbolism.

President: Janet Napolitano won't like it. Drudge is always after her. He'll get all "Big Sis Bows Now." She might quit.

SAR: Oh God, yes. A twofer!

President: I'd look like I got rolled.

SAR: Then look strong. Fire her. She's been a disaster from day one. Now she's the face of the debacle.

President: Won't they think I'm weak?

SAR: No. They'll think you returned to Earth. They'll think ground control broke through to Major Tom. They'll think you took a step outside the bubble.

Comment: Love the David Bowie reference: Major Tom

The TSA: "the last straw for many travelers"

For Air Travelers, Small Affronts Start to Add Up

Excerpt:

The airlines have already taken away the free meals and the pillows. They have been charging for checked bags and extra legroom and raising fares whenever they can get away with it. They have cut back capacity so steeply that planes are nearly always filled to the brim.

Now, just in time for the Thanksgiving holiday — traditionally the busiest time of the year — the Transportation Security Administration has imposed tough new security measures.

And that may have been the last straw for many travelers.

Judy Dugan, the research director at Consumer Watchdog, an advocacy group, argues that the anger that has welled up against the new security procedures is an expression of travelers’ overall attitude toward air travel.

...

And don’t expect any change for the better anytime soon. While many travelers may complain about their travel experience, the industry for the first time in years has found a way back to profitability by holding the line on the number of flights they offer.

United States airlines scheduled 526,000 flights in September, according to the Air Consumer Travel Report, down from more than 600,000 in September 2007. And each flight is now fuller. Load factors, which measure how many seats are filled by paying customers, have risen above 80 percent on average at most airlines and will probably be 90 percent or more over the holidays. Only a few years ago, airlines were achieving load factors of 70 percent.

Just between Chicago O’Hare International Airport and LaGuardia Airport in New York, American Airlines and United Airlines scheduled 1,400 fewer flights in the first nine months of this year compared with the same period three years ago, a drop of 17 percent.

Fees are also piling up. Bag fees, for instance, brought in $1.7 billion in extra revenue in the first half of the year. In many cases, passengers are paying for services that were once free. Changing a ticket on US Airways, for instance, now costs $150 to $250; sending an unaccompanied minor on a Delta Air Lines flight, $100. Pet charge on Southwest, $75; an alcoholic drink on United, as much as $9.

“Air travel used to be glamorous and exciting — and now, it’s just a pain,” said Mary C. Gilly, a professor of marketing at the University of California, Irvine. “Airlines have become very cost-oriented as opposed to service-oriented. They are catering to their investors, not their customers.”

More problems may be on the horizon, some experts say. New federal rules have pretty much abolished instances of planes sitting on the tarmac for more than three hours. But the rule, which went into effect in May, may have had the unintended effect of forcing more flights to be canceled, some airline experts say.

Comment: See Dan Phillips post: TSA's grope-'n'-porn: your experiences, plans, proposals?

Gloria Allred: I seriously pity this woman!

Gloria Allred On TSA Pat-Down: "I Liked It"

Excerpt:

it was a first time anybody touched them in a long time

Comment:  Speechless! Wiki: Gloria Allred

Contacting my Senators and Congressman

Dear __________,

Please fix this T.S.A. mess. I had my own groping experience at the Charlotte airport (business trip back to MSP)

I detail this experience in a blog post here:

http://coldfusion-guy.blogspot.com/2010/11/airport-security-follies.html

There's got to be a better way to do this.

If the pilots can skip the groping experience with 2 forms of ID why not ordinary Americans with a D/L and a passport.

Millions if not billions are being wasted on this needless and ineffective TSA program

Thank you

Comment: Sent via contact form to:

Senator Al Franken


Senator Amy Klobuchar


Congressman Eric Paulsen

Why can't they make this work for the average American

TSA: Pilots to be exempt from some airport checks

Excerpt:

The Transportation Security Administration has agreed to allow airline pilots to skip security scanning and pat-downs, pilot organizations said Friday.

Pilots traveling in uniform on airline business will be allowed to pass security by presenting two photo IDs, one from their company and one from the government, to be checked against a secure flight crew database, officials at the pilot groups said.

Comment: I'm thinking photo ID and a passport.

TSA or Nazi?

Comment: When it is hard to tell the difference, one wonders!

TSA is no more about airline security than ObamaCare was about affordable health care

Why Air Security is the Issue

Excerpt:

I submit that if we don't beat back the TSA's assault on innocent travelers, we might lose our nation for good. Or perhaps it would mean we have already lost it.

The reality is that the TSA is no more about airline security than ObamaCare was about affordable health care. Both the organization and the bill are about the dehumanization -- and control -- of theoretically free Americans. Thus, it is critical that Americans win push back efforts against both, because if we lose on these two fronts, we have effectively lost most of our freedom.

Now I realize there have been attacks on human freedoms all over our bureaucracy-infected society long before ObamaCare and Janet Incompetano's "grope and change" policies were in place. I submit, however, that if both our medical care and our mobility are controlled by the whims of government bureaucrats -- issues like toys in Happy Meals or sodium- and fat-free restaurants will be irrelevant.

Private property rights -- which are also under attack everywhere from the IRS to the EPA -- include the acquisition of financial resources. One of the great freedoms provided by those resources is the ability to move about. Those who attack one attack the other. Citizens who are self-sufficient and on the go are much harder to control than those who are not.

It is no coincidence that liberalism flourishes in the big cities, where people live in close quarters in a high-rise urban lifestyle. A nation of Seinfelds is easier to keep tabs on than a nation of Palins. As such, the Seinfelds don't even feel the morphing grip of bureaucrats because they rarely do anything or go anywhere that threatens the bureaucratic state's ability to control.

Comment: A serious read to counter the previous post

Top TSA Slogans

• Can't see London, can't see France, unless we see in your underpants.
  
• Grope discounts available.
  
• If we did our job any better we'd have to buy you dinner first.
  
• Only we know if Lady Gaga is really a lady.
  
• Don't worry, my hands are still warm from the last guy.
  
• Throw a few back at the airport Chili's and you won't even notice.
  
• We've handled more balls than Barney Frank.
  
• We are now free to move about your pants.
  
• We rub you the wrong way, so you can be on your way.
  
• It's not a grope. It's a freedom pat.
  
• When in doubt, we make you whip it out.
  
• TSA: Touchin', Squeezin', Arrestin'
  
• We handle more packages than the USPS
  

Comment: A gross invasion of privacy

Turn your head and cough

Pat-Downs at Airports Prompt Complaints

Excerpt:

Some offer graphic accounts of genital contact, others tell of agents gawking or making inappropriate comments, and many express a general sense of powerlessness and humiliation. In general passengers are saying they are surprised by the intimacy of a physical search usually reserved for police encounters.

“I didn’t really expect her to touch my vagina through my pants,” said Kaya McLaren, an elementary schoolteacher from Cle Elum, Wash., who was patted down at Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport last Saturday because the body scanner detected a tissue and a hair band in her pocket.

Comment: It's that bad! Write your Senators / Congressman

Latest Casa D' Ice sign

© Casa D' Ice

His famous outside signs

Airport Security: “don’t touch my polyps” will become the viral war-cry

TSA’s Master Plan: Secure the Planes by Eliminating the Passengers

Excerpt:

If precedent means anything the TSA will then ignore the obvious lessons – i.e. don’t let a man dressed like Lawrence of Arabia, bathed in flop-sweat and walking like he has a kielbasa up his bum, board a plane – and focus right in on mobile phones and rectums. The former will be banned from airports. No more phone calls for you. The latter, given the fact they really can’t be banned (a cause for some relief in the upper echelons of DHS), will be subject to the now-standard TSA response, further expanding the market bubble in x-ray machines and latex gloves.

As the “universal body cavity probe” takes hold, so to speak, phrases like “don’t touch my polyps” will become the viral war-cry. Janet Napolitano will issue an announcement, which by now will be a kind of fill in the blanks affair, stating that if these [enter invasive procedure here]: impromptu colonoscopies will save one life they are more than justified. She will then threaten harsh penalties for anyone who refuses to comply, without specifying what could be harsher than the thing not being complied with.

Comment: On "impromptu colonoscopies". Well if you can skip the preparation it could be advantageous!

The TSA: "like it's prom night at Molesterville High"

The Single Best Strip & Grope Suggestion EVER!

Excerpts:

Rather than copying the best security procedures in the world, the ones used by Israel's El Al, our own TSA has decided to go with a strip and grope approach. Either you get to let airport security look at you naked or they're allowed to run their hands over you like it's prom night at Molesterville High.

...

So, either airport security gets to look at you naked or they get to feel up your wife, "bad touch your child," and feel your crotch for absolutely nothing because terrorists can just walk right through the scanners with explosives. At a minimum, they should at least hire attractive members of the opposite sex to give you your screenings -- along with a little kiss first, because you should always kiss someone before you do something like that to him.

...

Two weeks ago, my wife flew alone out to Colorado with our two young children. Unaware that the TSA had instituted new and incredibly invasive new security procedures, my wife called me distressed after getting frisked by the TSA. Or as my wife put it, “in some cultures I would be married to my screener by now.” She was joking, but make no mistake — my wife was incredibly disturbed by how intimate a security pat down she received.

So here’s my not-so-modest proposal: If the President’s Homeland Security department is so adamant that this is the absolute best way to prevent terrorism, I think the President and his family should voluntarily submit to one of the new invasive pat down procedures. I know the Obamas don’t fly commercial at all these days, so they should probably get a pretty good idea what the rest of us are putting up with.

...

So, if other people's children have to put up with this, why shouldn't Barack Obama stand there and watch while airport security runs their hands over Sasha, Malia, and Michelle's crotches? Let the Obamas do at least that much and I still won't agree with the policy, but I will at least give Obama credit for putting his money where his mouth is on this issue.

Comment: Click above article for graphic! See Airport Security follies

The Israelis don't use airport scanners

Has Airport Security Gone Too Far?

Excerpt:

The larger question is whether the TSA's tech-centric approach to security makes any sense at all. Even the most modest of us would probably agree to a brief flash of quasi-nudity if it would really ensure a safe flight. That's not the deal the TSA is offering. Instead, the agency is asking for Rolando Negrin-style revelations in exchange for incremental, uncertain security improvements against particular kinds of concealed weapons.

It's the same kind of trade-off TSA implicitly provided when it ordered us to take off our sneakers (to stop shoe bombs) and to chuck our water bottles (to prevent liquid explosives). Security guru Bruce Schneier, a plaintiff in the scanner suit, calls this "magical thinking . . . Descend on what the terrorists happened to do last time, and we'll all be safe. As if they won't think of something else." Which, of course, they invariably do. Attackers are already starting to smuggle weapons in body cavities, going where even the most adroit body scanners do not tread. No wonder that the Israelis, known for the world's most stringent airport security, have so far passed on the scanners.

...

The TSA uses two models of body scanner. One zaps the passenger with a tiny amount of X-rays that penetrate the clothes, but stop at the skin. The other scanner uses millimeter waves—a close cousin of microwaves—to pull off the same trick. (Regarding radiation exposure, the FDA says there's "no more than a minimal risk to people being scanned.") By measuring the direction and frequency of the waves that come back, the system can tell what's beneath a traveler's garments.

Comment: I think Janet Napolitano should be fired! The TSA is a joke and a colossal waste of money!

Airport Security follies

Comments: Posting 2 articles. Both very interesting. More of my comments after both articles. (the 2nd article is absolutely astonishing! Check out the video with the link!)

Opt Out of a Body Scan? Then Brace Yourself

Excerpt:

HAVING been taught by nuns in grade school and later going through military boot camp, I have always disliked uniformed authorities shouting at me. So I was unhappy last week when some security screeners at O’Hare International Airport in Chicago started yelling.

“Opt out! We got an opt out!” one bellowed about me in a tone that people in my desert neighborhood in Tucson usually reserve for declaring, “Rattlesnake!”

Other screeners took up the “Opt out!” shout. I was marched from the metal detector lane to one of those nearby whole-body imagers, ordered to take everything out of my pockets, remove my belt and hold my possessions up high. Then I was required to stand still while I received a rough pat-down by a man whose résumé, I suspected, included experience at a state prison.

“Hold your pants up!” he ordered me.

What did I do to deserve this? Well, as I approached the checkpoints, I had two choices. One was a familiar lane with the metal detector, so I put my bag on that. To my right was a separate lane dominated with what the Transportation Security Administration initially called “whole-body imagers” but has now labeled “advanced imaging technology” units. Critics, of course, call them strip-search machines.

I don’t like these things, and not just because of privacy concerns or because of what some critics have asserted are radiation safety issues with some of the machines that use X-ray technology.

No, I don’t like the fact that I have to remove every item from every pocket, including my wallet and things as trivial as a Kleenex. You then strike a pose inside with your hands submissively held above your head, like some desperado cornered by the sheriff in a Western movie, while the see-through-clothes machine makes an image of your body.

The T.S.A.’s position is that anyone can “opt out” of a body scan for reasons of privacy or whatever, but will then be subjected to a thorough physical pat-down and careful search of belongings.

In my case, I had been routinely using a normal metal detector checkpoint, when I was ordered to switch lanes and instead go to one of the new machines. I said I would prefer not to, given that my carry-on bag, laptop and shoes were already trundling along the regular machine’s conveyor belt, out of sight. That’s when the shouting started.

As of Monday afternoon, the agency had not responded to several requests for comment on this. Last week, the agency did tell me that there were 317 of the advanced imaging technology machines now in use at 65 airports around the country.

About 500 should be online by the end of the year, the agency said, and another 500 are expected to be installed next year. Ultimately, the agency plans to have the new machines replace metal detectors at all of the roughly 2,000 airport checkpoints.

Exclusive: Man in disguise boards international flight

Excerpt:

Canadian authorities are investigating an "unbelievable" incident in which a passenger boarded an Air Canada flight disguised as an elderly man, according to a confidential alert obtained by CNN.

The incident occurred on October 29 on Air Canada flight AC018 to Vancouver originating in Hong Kong. An intelligence alert from the Canada Border Services Agency describes the incident as an "unbelievable case of concealment."

"Information was received from Air Canada Corporate Security regarding a possible imposter on a flight originating from Hong Kong," the alert says. "The passenger in question was observed at the beginning of the flight to be an elderly Caucasian male who appeared to have young looking hands. During the flight the subject attended the washroom and emerged an Asian looking male that appeared to be in his early 20s."

After landing in Canada, Border Services Officers (BSOs) escorted the man off the plane where he "proceeded to make a claim for refugee protection," the alert says.

"The subject initially claimed to be in possession of one bag; however, flight crew approached the BSOs with two additional pieces of luggage which were believed to belong to the subject. One bag contained the subject's personal clothing items while the second contained a pair of gloves. The third contained a 'disguise kit' which consisted of a silicone type head and neck mask of an elderly Caucasian male, a brown leather cap, glasses and a thin brown cardigan."

The man put on the disguise for the officers who "noted he very much resembled an elderly Caucasian man, complete with mimicking the movements of an elderly person. The subject admitted at this time that he had boarded the flight with the mask on and had removed it several hours later," according to the alert.

Final comments: I had my first full body scan in Charlotte yesterday. I feel sorry for the TSA agent who had to view my picture! He probably had a vomiting fit afterward! So they take a handicapped guy who cannot walk (or barely walks) without crutches. They take my belt. Somehow my pants stayed up (thankfully for all those viewing!). I have to stand with my arms above my head. I cannot hold onto anything. I am tipping forward / backward &  left and right. Ultimately I got the hand pat down anyway. This must be a fun job. The man uses the front of his hands to run up my inner thighs all the way up! For all this indignation (multiplied by hundreds of thousands of other ordinary people, handicapped people, and grannies) some guy can put on a sophisticated rubber face and get through security! Call me crazy but I see billions wasted. At MSP I used the elevator from the concourse level down to the baggage claim level. That elevator is guarded by a TSA in a chair leaning sleepily against the wall.

Mother admits: "he may have terroristic tendencies"

Comment: Our government hard at work ... patting down 8 year olds! Read full story for the title quote in the correct context!

Meet Mikey, 8: U.S. Has Him on Watch List

Excerpt:

“Up your arms, down your arms, up your crotch — someone is patting your 8-year-old down like he’s a criminal,” Mrs. Hicks recounted. “A terrorist can blow his underwear up and they don’t catch him. But my 8-year-old can’t walk through security without being frisked.”

It is true that Mikey is not on the federal government’s “no-fly” list, which includes about 2,500 people, less than 10 percent of them from the United States. But his name appears to be among some 13,500 on the larger “selectee” list, which sets off a high level of security screening.

At some point, someone named Michael Hicks made the Department of Homeland Security suspicious, and little Mikey is still paying the price. (His father, also named Michael Hicks, was stopped for the first time on the Bahamas trip.)

Both lists are maintained by the Terrorist Screening Center, which includes the Federal Bureau of Investigation. They are given to the Transportation Security Administration, which in turn sends them to the airlines.

Full quote from Mother: "I understand the need for security, But this is ridiculous. It’s quite clear that he is 8 years old, and while he may have terroristic tendencies at home, he does not have those on a plane."