Police, TSA and other "Authorities"

[Backstop]

Still, some children may be required to randomly undergo these checks. “There will always be some unpredictability built into the system,” Napolitano said.

The rules may very well have changed.

But I don't see where the practical application has.

[Phil Fiord]

The piece I read about recently that the person who drafted the plans for TSA is completely against how it has turned out was interesting reading.

http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=46114

TSA Creator Says Dismantle, Privatize the Agencyby Audrey Hudson (more by this author) Posted 09/12/2011 ET They’ve been accused of rampant thievery, spending billions of dollars like drunken sailors, groping children and little old ladies, and making everyone take off their shoes. But the real job of the tens of thousands of screeners at the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) is to protect Americans from a terrorist attack. Yet a decade after the TSA was created following the September 11 attacks, the author of the legislation that established the massive agency grades its performance at “D-.” “The whole program has been hijacked by bureaucrats,” said Rep. John Mica (R. -Fla.), chairman of the House Transportation Committee. “It mushroomed into an army,” Mica said. “It’s gone from a couple-billion-dollar enterprise to close to $9 billion.” As for keeping the American public safe, Mica says, “They’ve failed to actually detect any threat in 10 years.” “Everything they have done has been reactive. They take shoes off because of [shoe-bomber] Richard Reid, passengers are patted down because of the diaper bomber, and you can’t pack liquids because the British uncovered a plot using liquids,” Mica said. “It’s an agency that is always one step out of step,” Mica said. It cost $1 billion just to train workers, which now number more than 62,000, and “they actually trained more workers than they have on the job,” Mica said. “The whole thing is a complete fiasco,” Mica said. In a wide-ranging interview with HUMAN EVENTS just days before the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, Mica said screeners should be privatized and the agency dismantled. Instead, the agency should number no more than 5,000, and carry out his original intent, which was to monitor terrorist threats and collect intelligence. The fledgling agency was quickly engulfed in its first scandal in 2002 as it rushed to hire 30,000 screeners, and the $104 million awarded to the company to contract workers quickly escalated to more than $740 million. Federal investigators tracked those cost overruns to recruiting sessions held at swank hotels and resorts in St. Croix, the Virgin Islands, Florida and the Wyndham Peaks Resort and Golden Door Spa in Telluride, Colo. Charges in the hundreds of thousands of dollars were made for cash withdrawals, valet parking and beverages, plus a $5.4 million salary for one executive for nine months of work. Other over-the-top expenditures included nearly $2,000 for 20 gallons of Starbucks Coffee, $8,000 for elevator operators at a Manhattan hotel, and $1,500 to rent more than a dozen extension cords for the Colorado recruiting fair. The agency inadvertently caused security gaps by failing for years to keep track of lost uniforms and passes that lead to restricted areas of airports. Screeners have also been accused of committing crimes, from smuggling drugs to stealing valuables from passengers' luggage. In 2004, several screeners were arrested and charged with stealing jewelry, computers and cameras, cash, credit cards and other valuables. One of their more notable victims was actress Shirley McClain, who was robbed of jewelry and crystals. One of the screeners confessed that he was trying to steal enough to sell the items and buy a big-screen television. In 2006, screeners at Los Angeles and Chicago O'Hare airports failed to find more than 60% of fake explosives during checkpoint security tests. The sometimes rudder-less agency has gone through five administrators in the past decade, and it took longer than a year for President Obama to put his one man in place. Mica’s bill also blocked collective bargaining rights for screeners, but the Obama administration managed to reverse that provision. Asked whether the agency should be privatized, Mica answered with a qualified yes. “They need to get out of the screening business and back into security. Most of the screening they do should be abandoned,” Mica said. "I just don’t have a lot of faith at this point,” Mica said. Allowing airports to privatize screening was a key element of Mica’s legislation and a report released by the committee in June determined that privatizing those efforts would result in a 40% savings for taxpayers. “We have thousands of workers trying to do their job. My concern is the bureaucracy we built,” Mica said. “We are one of the only countries still using this model of security," Mica said, "other than Bulgaria, Romania, Poland, and I think, Libya." Audrey Hudson, an award-winning investigative journalist, is a Congressional Correspondent for HUMAN EVENTS. A native of Kentucky, Mrs. Hudson has worked inside the Beltway for nearly two decades -- on Capitol Hill as a Senate and House spokeswoman, and most recently at The Washington Times covering Congress, Homeland Security, and the Supreme Court. Follow Audrey on Twitter and Facebook.

[Backstop]

This sums it up nicely: “The whole thing is a complete fiasco,” Mica said.

[vector7]

Check Out Texas’ New Grenade Launcher-Equipped Police Drone in Action

• Posted on November 1, 2011 at 1:10pm by Buck Sexton

• Comments (51)

For the first time in the history of Texas, a local law enforcement agency will have a high tech drone with grenade-launching capabilities, night vision and infrared imaging at its disposal.



Last week the Blaze told you about the second drone heading to patrol the Texas border in support of federal operations. This time, though, a drone will be in the hands of local law enforcement. The Montgomery Sheriff’s office will have full operational control over its own Shadowhawk drone, marking a first for the Lone Star state.

The price tag on this little aerial beast? $250,000, much of it paid for by the department of Homeland Security. The operating cost of the drone is approximately only 11% of that required for a helicopter crew. In addition, it can be airborne in minutes, and only takes five minutes to completely refuel.


The Shadowhawk drone is built by Vanguard Defense Industries. At 29 pounds and a length of 72 inches, its much smaller than the Predator and Reaper drones associated with military operations abroad, and can only fly for three hours at a time within a 25 mile radius.

But as a law enforcement tool, the Shadowhawk can easily operate in civilian airspace and maneuver in tight urban environments. It is fully controlled by remote operator, which puts no law enforcement personnel at risk. Within its stated parameters, it appears it will be a highly effective crime-fighting tool.

Below is a video overview of the Shadowhawk, courtesy of KRIV-TV:

Crime-Fighting Drone Fitted with Grenade Launcher: MyFoxHOUSTON.com

Right now Texas law enforcement authorities say its primary mission is assisting in “missing person” cases. While the Shadowhawk could certainly find a missing hiker or stranded motorist faster than a squad car, soon its mission set will also include a wide array of policing activities. As stated on the Vanguard website, the Shadowhawk can maintain continuous surveillance of a subject:

“at 700 feet without being heard or seen unlike full sized aircraft. Imagine the advantage provided to an entry team in the following scenarios; high risk warrant, hostage rescue, domestic violence.”

Most interesting of all are the grenade launcher and other projectile modifications for the Shadowhawk. Generally speaking, police drones have not been equipped with guns or launchers. Shadowhawk variants, however, include 40 mm grenade launchers and other lethal small arms payloads. These are set up for military application only, but the Shadowhawk’s grenade launch capability could be used for the deployment of CS gas canisters and other non-lethal ordnance during a crow control or raid scenario.

If the Shadowhawk proves itself during law enforcement missions, it could only be a matter of time before a lethal payload is introduced for drone use on U.S. soil. Police drone operators back in the station could then be making life or death decisions with the click of a button.

Here is a promotional video from Vanguard intended to show the Shadowhawk in action:

[Backstop]

Her and her mother need to shut up, get in line, and follow orders.

It's for their own good.

[Backstop]

More Gate Raping By The TSA.

This shit needs to stop!

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/nati...ticle-1.986198

85-year-old woman may sue TSA after being strip searched at JFK Airport
'I really look like a terrorist,' 110-pound Long Island grandmother says
BY Nicholas Hirshon
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

Friday, December 2 2011, 9:36 PM


Caption: Lenore Zimmerman, 85, shows injury she says came during strip search by security at JFK Airport.

An 85-year-old Long Island grandmother says she plans to sue the TSA after a humiliating strip search on Tuesday by agents at JFK Airport.

Lenore Zimmerman, who lives in Long Beach, says she was on her way to a 1 p.m. flight to Fort Lauderdale when security whisked her to a private room and took off her clothes.

“I walk with a walker — I really look like a terrorist,” she said sarcastically. “I’m tiny. I weigh 110 pounds, 107 without clothes, and I was strip-searched.”

TSA spokeswoman Lisa Farbstein said a review of closed circuit TV footage from the airport shows “proper procedures were followed.”

But Zimmerman, whose hunched back puts her at 4-foot-11, said her ordeal began after her son, Bruce, drove her to the JetBlue terminal for the Florida flight. She lives in warm Coconut Creek during the winter.

She checked her bags, waited for a wheelchair and parted ways with her doting son — her only immediate relative.

When Zimmerman reached a security checkpoint, she asked if she could forgo the advanced image technology screening equipment, fearing it might interfere with her defibrillator.

She said she normally gets patted down. But this time, she says that two female agents escorted her to a private room and began to remove her clothes.

“I was outraged,” said Zimmerman, a retired receptionist.

As she tried to lift a lightweight walker off her lap, she says, the metal bars banged against her leg and blood trickled from a gash.

“My sock was soaked with blood,” she said. “I was bleeding like a pig.”

She says the TSA agents showed no sympathy, instead pulling down her pants and asking her to raise her arms.

“Why are you doing this?” she said she asked the agents, who did not respond.

The TSA claims the footage does not show any sign of the injury.

“Our screening procedures are conducted in a manner designed to treat all passengers with dignity, respect and courtesy,” Farbstein said.

Zimmerman says a medic arrived to treat her injury. The process took so long that she missed her 1 p.m. flight and had to catch a later one.

Her son said he was shocked when his mom called around 9 p.m. that night and described what happened.

“She was put through a hell of a day,” he said.

Zimmerman, who takes blood thinners, later had a tetanus shot for fear of infection from the walker wound.

Bruce Zimmerman, 53, said he can’t understand why the agents targeted his mom.

“She looks like a sweet, little old lady,” he said. “She’s not a disruptive person or uncooperative.”

[Phil Fiord]

I have not flown since 2003. I have no plans on doing so any time soon. I used to fly a lot.

[Backstop]

2001 for me.

Yeah, I've earned a few free flights in my day.

And I remember way back in the day when you didn't have to turn those free tickets in to the mil.

[Phil Fiord]

One thing I am seriously pondering is flight school to fly myself.

[vector7]

Companion Thread:

• Four Members Of Georgia ‘Fringe Militia Group’ Arrested

Well it's not like the Administration hasn't been aggressively profiling for "White Al Qaeda"...

Quote:

Originally Posted by vector7
White House: Terrorists Have Discussed Use of Prosthetics to Conceal Explosives

TSA Under Fire for New Security Procedures, Administrator John Pistole Says Agency May Rethink Protocols



U.S. intelligence has picked up terrorists discussing the use of prosthetic or medical devices to conceal explosives, sources tell ABC News. The revelation about the intelligence, which is not new but relevant to debate over new security measures at airports, comes as the White House today acknowledged that the implementation of the security procedures has not gone perfectly.

Americans by a 2-to-1 margin support the use of naked image full-body x-ray scanners in airport security lines, but fewer than half back aggressive new pat-down procedures, according to a new ABC News/Washington Post poll. Opposition to both rises among those who fly with any frequency.

The Transportation Security Administration has come under fire for new body scanners and what some say are highly invasive pat-downs.

Thomas Sawyer, a bladder cancer survivor, said he was humiliated after a pat-down broke his urostomy bag, leaving the 61-year-old covered in his own urine. Sawyer said he warned the TSA officials twice that the pat-down could break the seal.

Cathy Bossi, a long-time flight attendant and breast cancer survivor, said the TSA made her take off her prosthetic breast.

"She put her full hand on my breast and said, 'What is this?' I said 'It's a prosthesis because I've had a breast cancer,'" Bossi said. "And she said, 'You'll need to show me that.'"

In recent days, several passengers have come forward to tell such shocking stories about their experiences with TSA officers.

An ABC News employee said she was subject to a "demeaning" search at Newark Liberty International Airport Sunday morning.

"The woman who checked me reached her hands inside my underwear and felt her way around," she said. "It was basically worse than going to the gynecologist. It was embarrassing. It was demeaning. It was inappropriate."

The head of the Transportation Security Administration John Pistole today said that at least one airport passenger screening went too far when an officer reached inside a traveler's underwear, and said the agency is open to rethinking current protocols.

That search was against protocols and "never" should have happened, TSA administrator Pistole told "Good Morning America" today.

"There should never be a situation where that happens," Pistole said. "The security officers are there to protect the traveling public. There are specific standard operating protocols, which they are to follow."

Pistole, responding to complaints from passengers, has said the TSA would not change its pat-down procedures but today said the agency was "open" to changing security procedures.

"The bottom line is, we are always adapting and adjusting prior protocols in view of the intelligence and in view of the latest information we have on how the terrorists are trying to kill our people on planes," Pistole said. "If that means we need to adjust the procedures, then of course we're open to that."

Only a small number of travelers have been subject to pat-downs, officials say. The White House says roughly 340,000 people -- or 1 percent of all travelers -- have been subjected to more intense searches since the new TSA procedures began Nov. 1.

Pistole said the key to travel security is finding the proper balance between protecting against very real threats -- such as the failed cargo bomb plot and the current search for two suicide bombers believed to be at large in Germany -- and protecting individual privacy, something that some passengers claim invasive pat-down procedures have taken away.

A video of a father taking his young son's shirt off so he can be searched has gone viral online with nearly half a million views in three days. The TSA today released a statement saying that it was the boy's father who chose to remove his shirt "in an effort to expedite the screening" and pointed out that no complaint was filed.

Passengers aren't the only ones calling for a new look at security procedures.

TSA screeners are also fed up with the blame being leveled at them and agree that a better system is needed, according to travel blogger Steven Frischling, who spoke to 20 officers about the new procedures and pat downs.

"The frontline people have significant problems with it," he said. "They feel they are handing suggestions up the chain and they're simply not being listened to."

The screeners told Frischling about their discomfort at touching people's private parts, and getting verbally abused by some passengers.

"I was asked by some guy if I got excited touching scrotums at the airport, and if it gave me a power thrill. I felt like vomiting when he asked that," said one officer. "This is not a turnon for me to touch him -- it is in fact a huge turnoff. There is a big difference between how I pat passengers down and a molester molesting people."

The TSA has attempted to downplay the actual number of people who get pat downs, although Pistole today admitted that he'd dropped the ball when it came to informing the public on what it should expect.

"I wish I could say somebody else was responsible for that, but that was my decision, and it was a risk-based decision," Pistole said at a breakfast with reporters hosted by the Christian Science Monitor. "My concern was because we piloted the new pat downs anyway in two airports, Las Vegas and Boston, that we not publicize that because it would then provide a roadmap or a blueprint to a putative terrorist, who may say OK, I know there's 453 airports around the country."

There's also concern about possible health risks stemming from the new scanners, a fear that the White House today said is unfounded.

"The truth is, you have greater [radiation] exposure sitting in an airplane than you do going through one of those machines," White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said today.

The new scanners and pat downs were introduced Nov. 1, but their impact will be felt the most this week, the busiest travel period of the year.

'Opting Out' Protest to Cause Travel Gridlock?

Geoff Freeman with the U.S. Travel Association said the new procedures have prompted an important debate about what passengers would do for the sake of national safety.

"For the first time in a post 9/11 environment, travelers are now saying they're willing to discuss risk, they're willing to discuss tradeoffs; that's the discussion we need to have," he said.

A grassroots Internet campaign to encourage travelers to "opt out" of the full-body scans on Wednesday, the busiest travel day of the year, has officials fretting over a possible travel gridlock.

"I think there is potential there. That would be potentially complicated by a group of people protesting," Pistole said. "If there are no protests, then obviously we'll have just the normal crush of holiday travelers."

Though thousands of Facebook users have said they've vowed to opt out, some say the movement may be overstated and overblown.

"The truth is, most travelers just want to get to their destination as fast as possible," said Genevieve Shaw Brown, senior editor at Travelocity.

Across the nation, there are 385 of the new, full-body scanners at airports, but there are a total of 2,100 security lanes.

That means about 80 percent of security lanes won't have the machines in place.

"Most people will go through business as usual. The metal detector that we've all become used to, taking off the shoes, pouring our liquids in to the tiny little containers, business as usual for the vast majority of people,"
Brown said.

Quote:

Originally Posted by vector7
TSA Groping Leaves Bladder Cancer Survivor Covered in Urine



A retired special education teacher on his way to a wedding in Orlando, Fla., said he was left humiliated, crying and covered with his own urine after an enhanced pat-down by TSA officers recently at Detroit Metropolitan Airport.

“I was absolutely humiliated, I couldn’t even speak,” said Thomas D. “Tom” Sawyer, 61, of Lansing, Mich.

Sawyer is a bladder cancer survivor who now wears a urostomy bag, which collects his urine from a stoma, or opening in his stomach. “I have to wear special clothes and in order to mount the bag I have to seal a wafer to my stomach and then attach the bag. If the seal is broken, urine can leak all over my body and clothes.”

On Nov. 7, Sawyer said he went through the security scanner at Detroit Metropolitan Airport. “Evidently the scanner picked up on my urostomy bag, because I was chosen for a pat-down procedure.”

Due to his medical condition, Sawyer asked to be screened in private. “One officer looked at another, rolled his eyes and said that they really didn’t have any place to take me,” said Sawyer. “After I said again that I’d like privacy, they took me to an office.”

Sawyer wears pants two sizes too large in order to accommodate the medical equipment he wears. He’d taken off his belt to go through the scanner and once in the office with security personnel, his pants fell down around his ankles. “I had to ask twice if it was OK to pull up my shorts,” said Sawyer, “And every time I tried to tell them about my medical condition, they said they didn’t need to know about that.”

84-year-old grandmother says she was strip searched at JFK



NEW YORK (AP) – An 84-year-old New York grandmother said Saturday that she was injured and humiliated when she was strip searched at an airport after she asked to be patted down instead of going through a body scanner.

Lenore Zimmerman said she was taken to a private room and made to take off her pants and other clothes after she asked to forgo the screening because she worried it would interfere with her defibrillator. She missed her flight and had to take one two-and-a-half hours later, she said.

"I'm hunched over. I'm in a wheelchair. I weigh under 110 pounds (50 kilograms) and I'm going to be 85 in February. Do I look like a terrorist?" she said from her winter home at a seniors community in Coconut Creek, Fla. "This was the worst experience."

But the Transportation Security Administration said in a statement Saturday no strip search was conducted.

"While we regret that the passenger feels she had an unpleasant screening experience, TSA does not include strip searches as part of our security protocols and one was not conducted in this case," the statement read.

Zimmerman went to Kennedy Airport for a 1 p.m. flight Tuesday to Fort Lauderdale, Fla., on JetBlue, she said. She arrived to the ticket counter around 12:20 p.m. and headed for security in a wheelchair, her small, metal walker in her lap.

She's been traveling to Florida for at least a decade and has never had a problem being patted down until now, she said. "I worry about my heart, so I don't want to go through those things," she said referring to the advanced image technology screening machines now in place at the airport.

As a result, she said she was taken into the private screening room by one agent and made to strip.

A review of closed-circuit television at the airport showed proper procedures were followed, Jonathan Allen, a TSA spokesman, said in a
statement.

"Private screening was requested by the passenger, it was granted and lasted approximately 11 minutes," the statement read. "TSA screening procedures are conducted in a manner designed to treat all passengers with dignity, respect and courtesy and that occurred in this instance."

The private screening was not recorded.

Zimmerman, who spends half the year in Long Beach, New York, said she banged her shin during the process and it bled "like a pig," partly because she is on blood-thinning medication. She said an emergency medical technician patched her up, but she was told to see a doctor when she arrived in Florida to make sure the wound didn't get infected. There are no records indicating medical attention was called on her behalf.

"I don't know what triggered this. I don't know why they singled me out," she said.

Her son Bruce Zimmerman said he'd like to see someone fired, and screeners re-trained after his mother's ordeal.

"My mother is a little old woman. She's not disruptive or uncooperative," he said Saturday. "I don't understand how this happened."

He said she's had an increasingly difficult time traveling, especially since her husband died a few years ago.

Meanwhile, Lenore Zimmerman said she was healing, planned to go to the grocery store on Saturday and take it easy. She does not plan to head back to an airport until April when she returns to New York.

"Thank goodness," she said. "It will give me some time to brace myself for the return flight."

[vector7]

TSA screenings aren't just for airports anymore

Roving security teams increasingly visit train stations, subways and other mass transit sites to deter terrorism. Critics say it's largely political theater.

A Transportation Security Administration behavior-detection officer patrols a train station in Charlotte, N.C. (Brian Bennett, Los Angeles Times / December 11, 2011)

Also


TSA Chorus (yes, you heard right) sings holiday songs at LAX


N.Y. lawmakers ask TSA for passenger advocates at airports


TSA to expand faster security check program


TSA's airport body scanners still raising health concerns

• Security Line Fast Pass CLEAR Gets Past Airport Security Faster. Learn More & Enroll Today! www.ClearMe.com/Get_Started

By Brian Bennett, Washington Bureau December 20, 2011, 5:03 p.m.

Reporting from Charlotte, N.C.—

Rick Vetter was rushing to board the Amtrak train in Charlotte, N.C., on a recent Sunday afternoon when a canine officer suddenly blocked the way.

Three federal air marshals in bulletproof vests and two officers trained to spot suspicious behavior watched closely as Seiko, a German shepherd, nosed Vetter's trousers for chemical traces of a bomb. Radiation detectors carried by the marshals scanned the 57-year-old lawyer for concealed nuclear materials.

When Seiko indicated a scent, his handler, Julian Swaringen, asked Vetter whether he had pets at home in Garner, N.C. Two mutts, Vetter replied. "You can go ahead," Swaringen said.

The Transportation Security Administration isn't just in airports anymore. TSA teams are increasingly conducting searches and screenings at train stations, subways, ferry terminals and other mass transit locations around the country.

"We are not the Airport Security Administration," said Ray Dineen, the air marshal in charge of the TSA office in Charlotte. "We take that transportation part seriously."

The TSA's 25 "viper" teams — for Visible Intermodal Prevention and Response — have run more than 9,300 unannounced checkpoints and other search operations in the last year. Department of Homeland Security officials have asked Congress for funding to add 12 more teams next year.

According to budget documents, the department spent $110 million in fiscal 2011 for "surface transportation security," including the TSA's viper program, and is asking for an additional $24 million next year. That compares with more than $5 billion for aviation security.

TSA officials say they have no proof that the roving viper teams have foiled any terrorist plots or thwarted any major threat to public safety. But they argue that the random nature of the searches and the presence of armed officers serve as a deterrent and bolster public confidence.

"We have to keep them [terrorists] on edge," said Frank Cilluffo, director of the Homeland Security Policy Institute at George Washington University in Washington. "We're not going to have a permanent presence everywhere."

U.S. officials note that digital files recovered from Osama bin Laden's compound in Pakistan after he was killed by U.S. Navy SEALs in May included evidence that the Al Qaeda leader had considered an attack on U.S. railways in February 2010. Over the last decade, deadly bombings have hit subways or trains in Moscow; Mumbai, India; Madrid; and London.

But critics say that without a clear threat, the TSA checkpoints are merely political theater. Privacy advocates worry that the agency is stretching legal limits on the government's right to search U.S. citizens without probable cause — and with no proof that the scattershot checkpoints help prevent attacks.

"It's a great way to make the public think you are doing something," said Fred H. Cate, a professor at the Indiana University Maurer School of Law, who writes on privacy and security. "It's a little like saying, 'If we start throwing things up in the air, will they hit terrorists?' ''

Such criticism is nothing new to the TSA.

The agency came under fresh fire this month when three elderly women with medical devices complained that TSA agents had strip-searched them in separate incidents at John F. Kennedy International Airport. Lenore Zimmerman, 84, said she was ordered to pull down her pants after she refused to pass through a full body scanner because she was afraid the machine would interfere with her heart defibrillator.

TSA officials denied the women were strip-searched, but they announced plans to create a toll-free telephone number for passengers with medical conditions who require assistance in airport screening lines. TSA officials said they also are considering a proposal by Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) to designate a passengers advocate at every airport.

The TSA's viper program hasn't drawn that kind of attention, although it is increasingly active.

In Tennessee in October, a viper team used radiation monitors and explosive-trace detectors to help state police inspect trucks at highway weigh stations throughout the state. Last month in Orlando, Fla., a team set up metal detectors at a Greyhound bus station and tested passengers' bags for explosive residue.

In the Carolinas this year, TSA teams have checked people at the gangplanks of cruise ships, the entrance to NASCAR races, and at ferry terminals taking tourists to the Outer Banks.

At the Charlotte train station on Dec. 11, Seiko, the bomb-sniffing dog, snuffled down a line of about 100 passengers waiting to board an eastbound train. Many were heading home after watching the Charlotte Panthers NFL team lose to the Atlanta Falcons after holding a 16-point lead.

No one seemed especially perturbed by the TSA team.

"It's probably overkill," said Karen Stone, 26, after a behavior-detection officer asked her about the Panthers game and her trip home to Raleigh.

"It's cool," said Marcus Baldwin, 21, who was heading home to Mebane, near Burlington, where he waits tables to help pay for computer technology classes. "They're doing what our tax money is paying them to do."

"I'm mostly curious," said Barbara Spencer, 75, who was heading home to Chapel Hill after watching her grandson perform in a Christmas play. She asked the officers whether a terrorist threat had required the extra security. No, they replied.

Vetter, the lawyer, had attended the game with his son, Noah. They jogged for the train after Seiko had finished his sniff, but Vetter had bigger worries on his mind. "The Panthers blew it," he said.

[Phil Fiord]

http://www.dailycommercial.com/News/...y/010412shield

So, TSA had a FPS team do a training exercise in Florida...

Training excercise startles locals



Published: Wednesday, January 04, 2012

LEESBURG
MILLARD K. IVES | Staff Writer
millardives@dailycommercial.com



It may have looked like they were ready for war or some deranged person looking for his late Social Security benefits.



But it was only Federal Protective Service officers with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security who were conducting a random training operation early Tuesday morning when they surprisingly showed up at the Social Security Administration office in downtown Leesburg.



With their blue and white SUVs circled around the Main Street office, at least one official was posted on the door with a semiautomatic rifle, randomly checking identifications. And other officers, some with K-9s, sifted through the building.
"I thought someone was upset about not getting there check," said Laura Kelly, who took a friend to the office on Tuesday.



According to one Homeland official in the Washington, D.C. office, Operation Shield. is an effort that uses routine, unannounced visits by FPS inspectors to test the effectiveness of contract guards, or protective security officers -- "detecting the presence of unauthorized persons and potentially disruptive or dangerous activities."
Part of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, FPS is the federal law enforcement agency that provides integrated security and law enforcement services to over 9,000 federally-owned and leased buildings, facilities, properties and other assets.



Officers on the scene would not speak to the press and by noon they were gone. But Thomas Milligan, district manager for the Social Security Administration office, said while the visit came as a surprise, the office was ready. He added the officers checked videos, security measures, alarm system and more.



"It was to make sure security measures are in place and properly followed," Milligan said.

[American Patriot]

[vector7]

It's safe to scan Americans at the Airports but not illegals at the border...

Companion Posts and Threads:

• DHS Video Depicts Terrorists as White Americans
• Re: Homeland Security moves forward with 'pre-crime' detection
• Four Members Of Georgia ‘Fringe Militia Group’ Arrested
• VIPR - A Violation Of The 4th Amendment

DHS' X-ray scanners could be cancer risk to border crossers

by Declan McCullagh January 12, 2012 2:32 PM PST

Internal Homeland Security documents describing specifications for border-crossing scanners, which emit gamma or X-ray radiation to probe vehicles and their occupants, are raising new health and privacy concerns, CNET has learned.

Even though a public outcry has prompted Homeland Security to move away from adding X-ray machines to airports--it purchased 300 body scanners last year that used alternative technology instead--it appears to be embracing them at U.S.-Mexico land border crossings as an efficient way to detect drugs, currency, and explosives.


The Z Portal scanner in use at the San Ysidro, Calif., border crossing uses high energy X-ray radiation to probe the interior of vehicles. Homeland Security says it's safe for humans, but some biophysicists disagree.
(Credit: AS&E)

A 63-page set of specifications (PDF), heavily redacted, obtained by the Electronic Privacy Information Center through the Freedom of Information Act, says the scanners must "be based on X-Ray or gamma technology," which use potentially dangerous ionizing radiation at high energies, and "shall be capable of scanning cars, SUVs, motorcycles and busses."

"Society will pay a huge price in cancer because of this," John Sedat, professor of biochemistry and biophysics at the University of California at San Francisco, told CNET. Sedat has raised concerns about the health risks of X-ray scanners, and the European Commission in November prohibited their use in European airports.

The specifications do not say how Customs and Border Protection, or CBP, will notify people crossing the border about the radiation emitted by the devices, how frequently the devices will be tested to ensure they're operating properly, or whether travelers will be presented with a choice of declining the scan, which is an option at airport body scanners that use X-rays.

X-ray scanners made by American Science and Engineering are already in use at the busy San Ysidro, Calif., checkpoint. CBP, which says the level of radiation emitted falls within commonly accepted norms, is planning to announce details about the next round of scanner purchases on February 1.

Unlike, say, radio waves, ionizing radiation is dangerous because it can damage living tissue, rearrange chromosomes, and raise cancer risks.

Whether the radiation is harmful depends on the dose: ionizing radiation at very low doses is ubiquitous in the environment, including from cosmic radiation, radon, and high-altitude air travel. Pregnant women are especially sensitive to high doses of ionizing radiation.

"This seems to be a massive escalation in the use of these systems," says Peter Rez, a professor of physics at Arizona State University who has studied the way the X-ray scanners work.


This scanner uses X-rays to probe the interior of vehicles. It's called the Z Portal and is in use at the San Ysidro, Calif., border crossing. (Click for larger image)
(Credit: AS&E)

Rez says the name that Homeland Security has picked for its border scanners--"Low Energy Drive Through Portal Non-Intrusive Inspection Systems"--is highly misleading. "To call anything based on high energy X-rays 'low energy' is worse than 1984 doublespeak" because radiation emitted by the scanners "goes right through the person" sitting in a vehicle, he says. (High energy X-rays can penetrate not only human flesh, but steel plates that are multiple centimeters thick.)

For its part, Homeland Security says the dose is safe and based on commonly accepted government standards (PDF) established by the National Council on Radiation Protection and Measurement, which would permit 2,500 scans a year for each person. CBP's specifications also require the manufacturer to "perform an evaluation of the potential effect of radiation exposure on public safety on the proposed system." In addition, a CBP representative told CNET that the machines are currently only used in secondary inspections (most people go through just the primary inspection).

But Homeland Security did not respond, citing insufficient time, to a list of questions that CNET posed on Wednesday evening asking about independent testing that has been performed on the scanners that would measure the actual dose of radiation emitted. In the case of its airport scanners, Homeland Security's Transportation Security Administration initially promised to conduct such an analysis, but then backtracked, prompting criticism last fall from Sen. Susan Collins, a Maine Republican.

The dispute about radiation during border scans generally parallels the one about airport X-ray scanners, with Homeland Security saying they're safe, and researchers raising concerns that no independent testing has been done. A letter (PDF) that UCSF's Sedat and others sent the Department of Health and Human Services last year says that independent tests have not "been adequately performed for X-ray scanners, leaving us in a situation where a major untested technology is being used on a large segment of our population, and where any damage may not be apparent immediately, or recognized to be caused by the extra radiation exposure--an unprecedented state of affairs."

And the privacy concerns, too, are similar. Homeland Security's TSA says it "takes all measures to ensure passenger privacy" at airports. Its new "advanced imaging" millimeter wave machines at airports, which don't use ionizing radiation, do not display body outlines.

"They're potentially the same kind of images as people in airports," Ginger McCall, director of EPIC's open government program, says of the border scanners. They're also "capturing images of people essentially naked," she says.

The origin of the scanners can be traced back to a not-so-obvious source: President Obama's signature American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, better known as the stimulus bill. That awarded a $27.3 million contract to American Science and Engineering, or AS&E, to build 35 scanners, according to a description at Recovery.gov. Soon afterward, X-ray scanners appeared at the San Ysidro, Calif., checkpoint, sometimes called the world's busiest land crossing; other locations listed in the specification include El Paso, Texas, Columbus, N.M., and Nogales, Ariz.

Now Homeland Security wants more. The U.S. government convened a "pre-solicitation conference" in Washington, D.C., on November 29, 2011, according to a public procurement document. Another document says "Customs and Border Protection is very appreciative of all the responses received" and plans to publish a formal request for proposals for the next purchase on February 1.

AS&E, a publicly-traded company based in Billerica, Mass., boasts on its Web site that its Z Portal vehicle screening system can conduct "imaging from three sides simultaneously," and that "one scan is equivalent to flying one minute at altitude on an airplane."

Sedat, the biophysicist, says that the estimates of X-ray radiation dosage from AS&E and CBP are likely to be in error by several orders of magnitude because of the equipment they're using. He says: "If you have a laser pointer that you use for slides, it's a very bright beam. It's very hard to measure because it overwhelms a normal detector. You'll saturate the detector and you'll get the wrong answer. It could well come up with zero, or close to zero. And that's not right. It's not designed for handling that. The same is true for the ionization chambers they're using (as detectors)."

Rez, the physics professor, says the problem with X-ray scanners is that as the resolution increases, the corresponding dose leaps upward as well--and that AS&E's resolution has increased to approximately 5 millimeters.

Another problem, he says, is failures: because the scan is conducted by having the vehicle move, if it stops in mid-scan, the radiation concentrated on one place would be above acceptable limits. "The energies are about three times the average energy in CT," he says, meaning an X-ray computed tomography scan.

A paper that (PDF) Rez and two-co-authors published in the journal Radiation Protection Dosimetry concludes that "serious consideration should be given to the possibility of unintended and unnecessary doses to passengers due to malfunctioning equipment."

[Phil Fiord]

Just adding a whimsical thing here.

http://www.snorgtees.com/t-shirts/i-...a-tsa-screener

[American Patriot]

LMAO!

Good one!

[vector7]

Prepetorial #25: No Exit Ahead



by John Galt
January 24, 2012 17:00 ET

It has been a few years since I wrote the initial 24 part Prepetorial series and I feel like I never really finished the writings with a climatic finish. I remind everyone that the first portion in italics is a fictional account of a potential future event and how I perceive one might prepare for that situation. While the technology exists for everything described in the fictional portion below, the legal implementation indicated in the story has not happened.

Yet.

Our Ford Explorer smoothly drifted off the ramp as my wife and I approached the toll booth and inspection station. Unfortunately for us, the tone of the transponder changed from a clear, short beep to an almost annoying broken non-stop squeal as the flashing sign ahead said “White Ford SUV tag number 98V X3L Florida, pull into the inspection lane.

“Sigh, now what?” is all that I could think to myself. As I wheeled my Ford around to the inspection line, the shock hit my wife’s face and then mine in very short order. In the past when there was an issue, it was just a Florida State Patrol officer checking insurance and sometimes inspecting vehicles which appeared unsafe. The shock of the mess around the concrete barriers caused us both to gasp, but there was not much time to do more than that.

“YOU, IN THE WHITE SUV, HANDS ON THE STEERING WHEEL AND THE DASH VISIBLE AT ALL TIMES!!!!”, the voice screamed out through the bullhorn. There were two men wearing solid black uniforms pointing M-16 at us as if we were criminals. One of the men turned around as he walked around the front of our Explorer and I could see the large lettering spelling out “DHS Police” on the back of his uniform. My wife started to shake as she put her hands on the dashboard while I slowly put my other hand on the steering wheel in plain sight. An officer wearing some sort of personal armor and high tech camera gear on his helmet walked up to the driver’s side window.

“ROLL DOWN YOUR WINDOW, NOW”, he barked out. I slowly moved my left hand to the door and pressed the button to roll the window down. After it stopped its descent, I put my hand slowly back on the steering wheel, looked slowly to my left and asked him, “What can I do for you officer?”

The DHS Policeman was not amused. He barked out, “DO YOU KNOW WHY YOU ARE HERE? YOU HAVE VIOLATED YOUR AREA TRANSPORTATION RESTRICTIONS FOR JULY 2014. YOU RECEIVED A NOTICE IN YOUR EMAIL AND SURFACE MAIL FROM THE DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION REGION SIXTEEN TSA ENFORCEMENT OFFICER REMINDING ALL RESIDENTS OF YOUR COUNTY THAT TRAVEL WAS RESTRICTED TO ONE HUNDRED MILES FROM YOUR RESIDENCE. YOU ARE CURRENTLY ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY-SEVEN MILES FROM YOUR HOME LOCATION. THIS IS A CLASS TWO FELONY. DO YOU UNDERSTAND THE NATURE OF THE CRIME I AM ARRESTING YOU FOR?”

After ten minutes of this jerk’s attitude, the guns being pointed at us, and the nonsense he spewed, I lost my temper. “Look you snot nosed piece of crap,” I yelled, “I never got a letter, an email, or a notice of any type. I can not help it if my mother-in-law lives so far away but you pieces of crap think that we are not going to visit family and friends. I observed the curfew restrictions, I purchased the mandatory transponder for interstate and U.S. Highway driving, I purchased the fuel monitoring tag as required by law but you expletives seem to think that we can be herded around like sheep to the slaughter to accommodate your little Nazi fantasies.” Before I could utter another word, everything went black.

When I woke up, I was in the back of a truck with one small window in the rear. My wife and I were restrained with handcuffs attached to a ring in the seat assembly between us. Still groggy, I looked over at my shrieking wife who was now crying uncontrollably and asked her what happened. “You bastard, you couldn’t shut up,” she yelled at me through the tears, “they tasered you then strip searched me. Tore our car apart then impounded it. You had to resist and smart off, didn’t you? I’ve never been so humiliated in my life. Do you know what it is like to be stripped down with six other couples in the middle of police inspection area and scanned? You’ve ruined our lives!”

Far fetched? Ask Senator Rand Paul who just had a horrifying experience at the hands of the Transportation Security Administration and their Soviet like efficiency. The fact of the matter is that the Patriot Act, and by default, the departments and extensions of the act have created the very police state that Ron Paul, the ACLU, Libertarians, and Constitutional supporters like Judge Andrew Napolitano have been warning about for years. Yet most Americans have been sufficiently conditioned to the point where their only meek response is that this is all just one big “necessary evil” to insure the safety of the public.

Really? Major Nidal Malik Hassan was able to access a point of national security interests despite the concerns of military security personnel and murder thirteen soldiers. Was he flying? No. Boarding a Greyhound bus? No. Driving down Interstate I-95? No. The government would have one believe that being exposed to dangerous levels of radiation, submitting your DNA, and exposing one’s personal history and beliefs is not just a requirement to fly or drive, but soon to hold a job, purchase goods, or have the privilege of living in the United States of America.

There are only two courses of action acceptable to endure the coming final implementation of the police state that has been constructed over the last dozen years. First, one must accept the inevitability of this event moving into the mainstream and the masses encouraging and participating without resistance to the new programs about to be implemented.

The conditioning of fliers at TSA check points is the same methodology the Fascists of Italy, Nazis in Germany, and Soviets of the USSR implemented to a lesser degree to scare citizens into compliance. Americans have become an easier mark thanks to the distractions of perceived freedom and willingness to trade liberty for security in exchange for a few technological trinkets to occupy their minds.

Second, the options are very, very limited and this understanding will help the independent minded citizen decide on the best course of action. If you live in a major city or suburb with a population in excess of 50,000 people, you have less than two years to exit, set up new roots in a smaller community, and escape the coming storm. The government has carefully executed a plan where the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has issued unfunded mandates and grants forcing transportation departments, transportation companies, and municipal governments to implement new programs to create a surveillance infrastructure. This new infrastructure allows not just local governments to have oversight and security monitoring capacities, but the State and Federal government to maintain instantaneous real time intelligence gathering on citizens and “threats.”

This leaves the willingness to sacrifice modern convenience for freedom, a harder life for a life of comfort; something ninety percent of our nation’s inhabitants would shun by choice. The Constitution is not important to them nor to your neighbors when it comes to selling you out for privileges and special considerations in the new order. As disorder expands with the social order being shattered, the masses will demand a firmer hand, just like they did in Nazi Germany, Pinochet’s Chile, and of course the disintegration of the Soviet Union.

For a better app for their iPad or iPhone, most individuals will sacrifice freedoms our forefathers fought for and took for granted. The choice facing you, the person who wishes to prepare for this soon to occur dark turn in our nation’s future, is that of those who cried as they fled the Chinese Communists in Tibet, the slaughter of the Arab Spring, or the mass murders in Southeast Asia after American politicians surrendered Vietnam to the Godless Marxists of that era:

Stay and enjoy your iLife or flee to prepare in a region with more liberty, praying we can rebuild this nation based on its origins at a future date.

[American Patriot]

Stay and enjoy your iLife or flee to prepare in a region with more liberty, praying we can rebuild this nation based on its origins at a future date.

I chose to flee... and I'll pray for you all.

[Phil Fiord]

Anyone think I am crazy having been exploring a certain South American departure?

[American Patriot]

Anyone think I am crazy having been exploring a certain South American departure?

Nope..... as long as you're careful. Beliez is good.....Lon. as u have a minimum "retirement income"...