Vulture Droppings: "Check your bag, sir?"

Vulture Droppings is a semi-regular feature of this blog. It's a kind of "Random Thoughts" post in which I try to quickly summarize a particularly large event or series of events. Think of it being sort of like what a vulture leaves behind after devouring a horse. You don't get the whole horse, just highly processed leftovers.

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Not content to merely annoy and harass, the TSSA (you can't spell Schutzstaffel without the double S) has moved on to actual assault.  Their new policy - submit to the nudie ray or get groped - has a lot of people in high dudgeon.

The Germans staged an innovative protest of the scanners -- you wanna see me naked?  I'll come to the airport naked!

Vox Day has opined.  So have Will Grigg and Ye Olde Journalist.

Now it's my turn.  This edition of Vulture Droppings is brought to you by the letter "G", as in "grope"

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"What's the big deal?", I hear some so-called "conservatives" ask.  We NEED the government to keep us safe in the airports.  Even if that WERE true (I believe wholeheartedly that it isn't), how is groping 13-year-old girls for sport keeping us safe?  Yeah, you read that right - only children over the age of 12 get groped. Bet that makes all of you fathers with hot 15-year-old daughters happy.

"You don't HAVE to get groped!  You can go through the scanner, you know!"  Yeah.  Not any better.  The scanner shows everything God gave you in graphic detail.  Think I'm kidding?  Check this out - not only can you see dude's junk, you can tell that he's not circumcised.  Again, the question to all of you fathers with hot 15-year-old daughters -- you want your little girl leered at by Tommy TSSA like she's some sort of common whore just because she's flying to see grandma?

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"But the pictures are purged after they've been viewed! The embarrassment is only temporary!"  No, no they're not - at least not all of them.  Body scan pictures are starting to crop up in various places; one courthouse in Florida (figures!) has over 35,000 saved images!  Now, fathers, ask yourself this: how would you feel about scanned images of your hot 15-year-old daughter showing up on the internet?  Are you STILL a supporter of the scanners?  I can't see how.

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TSSA, naturally, stands by the scanners and their new grope-down procedures.  They deny that any groping is going on, notwithstanding the growing number of complaints from the molested (see here, here, and here also).  Nor are they too happy with those who protest against being scanned or groped - this guy faces possible criminal charges.

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The issue is apparent. So is the solution, IMO. Abolish the TSSA. Let the airlines handle their own security. You may not feel safer, but you'll feel less violated.  And you'll get back the freedom you once had to enter an airport without being molested.

Of course, if you like that sort of thing....in which case, I say - TO THE AIRPORT WITH YOU!

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Das Überwachenden update

You know, in all of the hubbub and confusion surrounding the elections and the economic meltdown, there hasn't been a lot of news about our friends, Das Überwachenden (German for "the watchers"...but because it's German, it sounds so much darker and foreboding, so I use it as my term of choice for any and all government snooping). Well, I believe it's time for an update.

Fox News, an ardent fan of every form of Überwachendenism, enthusiastically brings us this little tidbit.

Baggage searches are SOOOOOO early-21st century. Homeland Security is now testing the next generation of security screening — a body scanner that can read your mind.

Most preventive screening looks for explosives or metals that pose a threat. But a new system called MALINTENT turns the old school approach on its head. This Orwellian-sounding machine detects the person — not the device — set to wreak havoc and terror.

MALINTENT, the brainchild of the cutting-edge Human Factors division in Homeland Security's directorate for Science and Technology, searches your body for non-verbal cues that predict whether you mean harm to your fellow passengers.

It has a series of sensors and imagers that read your body temperature, heart rate and respiration for unconscious tells invisible to the naked eye — signals terrorists and criminals may display in advance of an attack.

But this is no polygraph test. Subjects do not get hooked up or strapped down for a careful reading; those sensors do all the work without any actual physical contact. It's like an X-ray for bad intentions.

Ooh! How exciting! Big Brother gets a little closer every day.

Is it just me, or did the preceding excerpt strike you as just a WEE bit too happy-slappy, especially given the subject matter? I mean, I know Fox News is the flag-waving standard bearer for King George the Dim, but c'mon!

Speaking of the Dear Leader, it seems his naughty little regime has been up to no good.

Despite pledges by President George W. Bush and American intelligence officials to the contrary, hundreds of US citizens overseas have been eavesdropped on as they called friends and family back home, according to two former military intercept operators who worked at the giant National Security Agency (NSA) center in Fort Gordon, Georgia.

The chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Jay Rockefeller (D-WV), called the allegations "extremely disturbing" and said the committee has begun its own examination.

"We have requested all relevant information from the Bush Administration," Rockefeller said Thursday. "The Committee will take whatever action is necessary."

"These were just really everyday, average, ordinary Americans who happened to be in the Middle East, in our area of intercept and happened to be making these phone calls on satellite phones," said Adrienne Kinne, a 31-year old US Army Reserves Arab linguist assigned to a special military program at the NSA's Back Hall at Fort Gordon from November 2001 to 2003.

Kinne described the contents of the calls as "personal, private things with Americans who are not in any way, shape or form associated with anything to do with terrorism."

But King George! You promised!

Keep that in mind as King George shovels up bushels of "government involvement [in the financial industry] will be limited and temporary".

Big Brother? Fugedaboutit!

One of the things that made Stalin's little workers' paradise such as swell place to live (/sarcasm) was never knowing who might be watching you. Anyone -- your best friend, your wife, your children -- might report you to the NKVD (the People's Comissariat for Internal Affairs) for any action that might be deemed a "crime" against государство (Russian for "der Staat"). Everyone was encouraged to spy and report on everyone else. It was your patriotic duty.

Fast forward to the 21st century. Stalin and the Soviet Union are dead and gone...but the totalitarian mindset lives on in New York City.

New Yorkers can soon take a bite out of city crime by uploading video or photo evidence directly to the New York Police Department, in a move welcomed on Thursday by civil rights groups.

"We're putting that technology in place to enable us to do that," said Police Commissioner Ray Kelly, adding that the service will be available soon.

"It's a fact of life," Kelly said. "Everybody has a camera in their telephones. When people can record an event taking place that helps us during an investigation, it's helpful."

Soon citizen sleuths can transmit evidence of criminal activity directly to the police and 911...

Of course, the Fascists are selling it as a way for citizens to "stop crime", even "including evidence of police misconduct".

Let's call a spade a spade, shall we?

This is nothing by a thinly veiled attempt to get the citizenry used to ratting out their fellow man. It's 21st century Stalinism, right here in that glorious People's Republic, the USSA.

The sheeple love it.

Donna Lieberman, executive director of the New York Civil Liberties Union said, "I think...it's appropriate for the police department to invite video reports of wrong doing both by ordinary people and police officers...

Of course you do. Moron.

As more and more laws are passed that seem designed to make a criminal of everyone rather than protect the common good, this sort of "spies among us" mentality will be a most useful tool to the elite in keeping the disgruntled in line.

Parsons is arrested for thoughtcrime because of his little daughter. She listens at the keyhole, hears him saying, "down with Big Brother" in his sleep and runs to get a patrol. Parsons is actually proud of her for this; he was completely unconscious and unaware of doing anything of the kind, and thinks that it is terrible that he could have unknowingly harbored these evil thoughts. He says that when he goes up against the tribunal he plans to thank them for saving him before it was too late.

From 1984 by George Orwell

The anti-Big Brother device

xfloggingkylex sent me this little tidbit (please excuse the poor Google translation from German).

Infrared light against surveillance cameras

The URA / FILOART developed device promises to the citizens a more reliable protection against security measures of the state (and other Überwachenden). IR.ASC offers the safety and security therefore to the asymmetry of power between the individual and Überwachenden.

That word Überwachenden came up twice, untranslated, so I went out to an English-German dictionary online to see what it meant...and I can see why it didn't translate. It's meaning is entirely dependent on context. The gist of it is control, policing, surveillance, shadowing. Sound like Big Brother to you? Das Überwachenden. It sounds ominous. I like it.

Anyway (back from my ADD moment), the gist of the article is that these German brainiacs have devised an IR headset that essentially masks the wearer from the ubiquitous closed-circuit police cameras that are cropping up everywhere, particularly in Europe.

While I appreciate the spirit of those evading the ever-present gaze of Big Brother, I think a preferable solution is the old "hide in plain sight" method. But it is cool to see that there are people out there who are NOT on board with government intrusion into every aspect of our lives, always in the name of "security", or "for the children", but always bringing less freedom and more burden to the individual.

They hate us for our freedoms II

As if airports aren't enough of a nightmare, now we have Amtrak entering the world of harrassing the innocent in the name of "security".

Amtrak will start randomly screening passengers' carry-on bags this week in a new security push that includes officers with automatic weapons and bomb-sniffing dogs patrolling platforms and trains.

The initiative, to be announced by the railroad on Tuesday, is a significant shift for Amtrak. Unlike the airlines, it has had relatively little visible increase in security since the 2001 terrorist attacks, a distinction that has enabled it to attract passengers eager to avoid airport hassles.

There goes the neighborhood.

Yeah, let's sacrifice a little more liberty to the cause of 'security at any cost'. Asshats.

Amtrak plans to roll out the new "mobile security teams" first on the Northeast Corridor between Washington and Boston, the railroad's most heavily used route, before expanding them to the rest of the country.

The teams will show up unannounced at stations and set up baggage screening areas in front of boarding gates. Officers will randomly pull people out of line and wipe their bags with a special swab that is then put through a machine that detects explosives. If the machine detects anything, officers will open the bag for visual inspection.

Anybody who is selected for screening and refuses will not be allowed to board and their ticket will be refunded.

Wow! Really? We have the right to refuse this flagrant violation of the Fourth Amendment? Sweet! Oh yeah...we WON'T BE ABLE TO TRAVEL. And this is okay with the American sheeple.

But the last line of the AP story is the one that justs melts my cold, Vulture heart.

"There is no new or different specific threat," Kummant said. "This is just the correct step to take."

And there you have it. There's no threat. There's no eminent danger. The government just deems it "the correct step to take." Well, by all means, then!

* Vulture's head explodes *

They hate us for our freedoms

Just remember these two news stories the next time our dear, addled president tries to tell us that the reason for terrorism is that "they hate us for our freedoms".

This first story presents, in a shockingly approving manor, what I consider to be a major violation of the 4th amendment.

Police officers in Daytona Beach are swabbing the mouths of persons of interests during traffic stops with special DNA kits in the hunt for an elusive serial killer, sources close to the investigation told Local 6.
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Agents are using the DNA kits to collect as much DNA as possible during traffic stops and special operations in hopes on making a match.

Local 6 showed agents stopping a person of interest from Canada, who gave his DNA to officers on the street using the DNA kit.

The DNA kits are also being used in prostitution stings in the area.

Stop me when I get to the part that bothers you. Is it that citizens are being compelled to give police officers evidence, or that citizens are being compelled to give police evidence that is not related to the offense for which they were stopped, or that the asshat reporter sees absolutely nothing wrong with these patently illegal searches? Ah, the "freedoms" we enjoy!

This story also disturbs me. It seems that flying with electronic devices has been identified as a breach of National Security if you're an Arab or South Asian.

Nabila Mango, a therapist and a U.S. citizen who has lived in the country since 1965, had just flown in from Jordan last December when, she said, she was detained at customs and her cellphone was taken from her purse. Her daughter, waiting outside San Francisco International Airport, tried repeatedly to call her during the hour and a half she was questioned. But after her phone was returned, Mango saw that records of her daughter's calls had been erased.

A few months earlier in the same airport, a tech engineer returning from a business trip to London objected when a federal agent asked him to type his password into his laptop computer. "This laptop doesn't belong to me," he remembers protesting. "It belongs to my company." Eventually, he agreed to log on and stood by as the officer copied the Web sites he had visited, said the engineer, a U.S. citizen who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of calling attention to himself.

Maria Udy, a marketing executive with a global travel management firm in Bethesda, said her company laptop was seized by a federal agent as she was flying from Dulles International Airport to London in December 2006. Udy, a British citizen, said the agent told her he had "a security concern" with her. "I was basically given the option of handing over my laptop or not getting on that flight," she said.

The seizure of electronics at U.S. borders has prompted protests from travelers who say they now weigh the risk of traveling with sensitive or personal information on their laptops, cameras or cellphones. In some cases, companies have altered their policies to require employees to safeguard corporate secrets by clearing laptop hard drives before international travel.

Today, the Electronic Frontier Foundation and Asian Law Caucus, two civil liberties groups in San Francisco, plan to file a lawsuit to force the government to disclose its policies on border searches, including which rules govern the seizing and copying of the contents of electronic devices. They also want to know the boundaries for asking travelers about their political views, religious practices and other activities potentially protected by the First Amendment. The question of whether border agents have a right to search electronic devices at all without suspicion of a crime is already under review in the federal courts.

The lawsuit was inspired by two dozen cases, 15 of which involved searches of cellphones, laptops, MP3 players and other electronics. Almost all involved travelers of Muslim, Middle Eastern or South Asian background, many of whom, including Mango and the tech engineer, said they are concerned they were singled out because of racial or religious profiling. (emphasis mine)

Can you believe this? The courts have to review whether an illegal search is okay? You can't make this stuff up!

You might argue with me for getting bent over a minority that protects terrorists being harassed by "the man". But it's the old slippery slope, my friend. How long before these Nazis decide that MY laptop is fair game? Or your phone?

Our liberties - whether immigrant citizen or free-born American - are supposed to be GUARANTEED under the Constitution. The actions of the Daytona Beach police and the TSA Nazis is simply more evidence of the way our government wipes its ass with the Constitution.