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More extensive TSA searches in Sea-Tac Airport rattle some travelers
OK, let's get this straight...
Some TSA goon (who didn't even identify herself) went around the terminal building to search the bags of someone waiting around, with absolutely no reason of suspicion?
Wow, really? Let's see...
Air travelers kept in perpetual state of irrational fear of an extremely rare possibility?
Check.
A government agency that exists solely to serve its own ends of inflated and undeserved power over travelers?
Check.
Maybe the US, as a whole, isn't a police state (at least not yet), but at the airport? By your own definition, Ms. Memarsadeghi, the nation's airports are absolutely in a state of police rule.
Continued...
As she waited for her flight from Seattle-Tacoma International Airport to Medford, Ore., last month, Linda Morrison noticed something unusual in the waiting area.
"A lady in a TSA uniform came over, put on her rubber gloves and went up and down the rows of seats, choosing bags to go through," said Morrison, a retired corporate recruiter who lives in Seattle. "She didn't identify herself, didn't give a reason for the search. She seemed to be targeting larger carry-on bags."
Morrison was stunned. She expected to be screened at the designated checkpoint area, or maybe at the gate, where the Transportation Security Administration sometimes randomly checks passengers as they board. This was different. "To me, it just felt like an illegal search performed by a police state," she said.
OK, let's get this straight...
Some TSA goon (who didn't even identify herself) went around the terminal building to search the bags of someone waiting around, with absolutely no reason of suspicion?
So, basically, you've just admitted that the checkpoint before the gate doesn't work. Nice going.There's that phrase again: police state. It's being thrown about a lot more since November's pat-down/opt-out fiasco, as public anger over the TSA's new security measures remains high. Which makes the question of whether we're traveling in a police state, or something like it, worth taking seriously.
At least one other reader also reported the roaming searches described by Morrison, also in Seattle. Christine Porter says she witnessed an identical procedure on two separate occasions. "TSA now randomly appears at boarding gates to check boarding passes and IDs as well as potentially hand-search carry-on luggage," she said. "It's irritating."
Is the TSA testing a more aggressive screening procedure in Seattle? I asked the agency.
"TSA officers at airports nationwide routinely screen passengers at the gate area using a variety of methods, including physically searching bags and using explosives detection technology," said agency spokesman Greg Soule. "This additional layer of security is part of our unpredictable approach to keep passengers safe and reduce the risk of dangerous items being carried on planes."
As is often the case with TSA's answers, I can't tell whether that's a yes or a no.
I put the police-state question to an expert on repressive regimes. "It's absurd to liken the annoyances brought on by airport security to life under a police state," Washington, D.C.-based human rights activist Mariam Memarsadeghi said. "A police state is defined by perpetual fear ? fear of a state apparatus that is incessantly watching over the actions of people for the sole purpose of maintaining its power over them."
Wow, really? Let's see...
Air travelers kept in perpetual state of irrational fear of an extremely rare possibility?
Check.
A government agency that exists solely to serve its own ends of inflated and undeserved power over travelers?
Check.
Maybe the US, as a whole, isn't a police state (at least not yet), but at the airport? By your own definition, Ms. Memarsadeghi, the nation's airports are absolutely in a state of police rule.
WRONG. The much bigger threat is, in fact, the government. I am in much greater fear of being sexually-assaulted by a government agent than I am of some extremest actually managing to get on a plane and cause a problem. Seriously, if someone has managed to actually get to the airport, they've already gotten too far anyway.The threat American air travelers face is from not the government but international terrorist networks, Memarsadeghi said.
Continued...
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