TSA: Home Grown Terrorism (& Cretinism)

‘You cannot allow the security personnel to see, and show the entire world, images of naked bodies of women and men! ~Isaac Yeffet

The TSA continues to roger and radiate American fliers without let. The Transportation Security Administrator, John Pistole, has promised Americans that his department’s x-rated scan and fondle routine would continue.

At Fox News ─ where the police state perfected under the now fully rehabilitated “W” is considered a co-equal branch of government ─ some, not surprisingly, approved. Members of Fox’s Blonde Squad (Gretchen Carlson, Shannon Bream) were irate at the public’s outcry. Bill O’Reilly said he didn’t much mind the invasive protocol. Sean Hannity contended that in his experience, the TSA did a handy job. Side-kick Peter Johnson Jr. offered the “legal” opinion that molestation en masse at the airports was not in violation of the individual’s constitutional right to be free of unreasonable searches without probable cause. A legal opinion seconded by loyal statist Jeffrey Tubin of CNN, who thinks that the Fourth Amendment comes with an airport exclusionary clause.

(Tubin also predicted with certainty that the New Orleans District Court Judge Martin Feldman would leave, not lift, “the Obama administration’s six-month moratorium on deepwater drilling.” Why? Because said moratorium was so reasonable, argued Tubin, and the wide discretions granted to the president so perfectly proper. Mercifully, Judge Feldman did the opposite. You can take Tubin’s legal prognostications to the bin.)

Then there were the special interests. These groups suggested a system of sectional privileges and rights, based on professional need and proximity to power. The problem with Patrik Smith, the author of Salon’s “Ask the Pilot” column, is his belief that, “essential liberty” in this context is the preserve of “a pilot,” because of his professional position. Hence Smith’s proposal for “preferential, alternative checkpoints for pilots.”

Such cloistered concerns typified a 2,000-strong, flight attendant’s union, which has been fielding tons of complaints from its members, who were, nevertheless, none too concerned for their customers, the manhandled passengers.Special pleading was

Noelle Nikpour’s contribution to Mr. Hannity’s Great American Panel. Nikpour, a tedious Republican strategists who talks up a storm on that forum, extended her exquisite understanding of individual rights to … people like herself and her co-panelists. You know, important sorts who fly a lot; they ought to be able to acquire a permit that’ll exempt them from being screened afresh as they scurry to their important appointments.

“Don’t’ touch me; don’t touch me,” hollered a terrified, feisty small child while a manifestly malevolent stranger groped and squeezed her little limbs. The more the tiny terrorist (Mandy Simons) yelped bloody murder, the more aroused and inappropriate this TSA agent’s touching became. What did Mandy’s parents do? Mommy Dearest tried to subdue her. Big Daddy, a TV reporter from Houston, watched on, silently filming the event for a later broadcast, at which time his station sensitively concealed the identity of the assailant.

I say tag, collar, and impound the TSA attack dogs. Mandy’s daddy disagrees. His voice-over advised the TSA on how to create good-to-be-groped kids: make groping a game.

A hard day patrolling TSA-occupied turf had one hooligan from Homeland Security raising calloused hands to the heavens. The man urged WND.COM “to remind people that the policies come from Washington, [and] … President Obama. Individual agents, including Christians, are as helpless and upset as the passengers.” [Funny that, because my molester looked as satisfied as a Cheshire cat.) “Attack the system,’ the agent implored. “Out the misguided bureaucrats … but spare the Christian brothers.”

The “I was just following orders” defense was tossed-out at the Nuremberg Trials. It certainly does not pass biblical muster. A true Christian would sooner go hungry than hurt or humiliate innocent human beings for a living.

In the words of a horrified Israeli aviation security expert, speaking to a Fox News crew: “You cannot allow the security personnel to see, and show the entire world, images of naked bodies of women and men!” Amid ongoing American insanity, this laconic Israeli, Isaac Yeffet, has been making the rounds on CNN, PBS, Fox News ─ has been doing so for a decade, at least. Yeffet is a former member of the Israeli Secret Service, and was once in charge of security for El Al. Almost a year has past since Fox News probed him for his opinion about the “full body scanners.” Nearly ten years have gone by since the man testified before an equally idiotic Congress.

No other western country is a bigger target for terrorists than Israel. Yet no other nation runs a better (largely privatized), less invasive, smarter, security system, whose able agents simply talk to travelers. These profilers understand that 99.9 percent of fliers are “bona fide” (Yeffet’s favored bon mot). “Shoes aren’t removed, passengers aren’t body scanned, and there are no pat downs,” confirms the New York Times. A “hand search” is seldom conducted, and only with probable cause.

Fox News wanted tough answers; Yeffet gave them smart ones. In countless news interviews over the years, Yeffet has implied that there is no substitute for intelligence ─ intelligence as in smarts; as in that dreaded G Factor. (No, Cosmo Magazine readers, that’s not the same as the G Spot.)

In a few, well-chosen words, Yeffet has suggested that the thousands hired by the TSA are riffraff. “What we should do is to stop using a low level of people.” And, “Unqualified and untrained people, undedicated people are running the security in our country.” “We need to hire people that, at minimum, have graduated from high school; speak English, are U.S. citizens.” (PBS’s NewsHour, 2002.) “Technology can help the qualified, well-trained human-being but cannot replace him. … We must look at the qualifications of the candidate for security jobs. He must be educated. He must speak two languages.” (CNN.)

Does Pidgin English qualify as a second language?

Yeffet’s are valiant but vain efforts to warn America that homegrown retardation is by far its most pressing problem. Alas, in addition to the perverse incentives that power all state bureaucracies, in general, government departments are staffed in accordance with a spoils system based on race and gender, and not on intelligence.