It's Not the Search; It's the Stupidity

As far as I'm concerned, the more frequently Senator AynRand Paul (TeaBag-Not My Kentucky) is inconvenienced and publicly humiliated, the better.

But if his whining about having his privacy invaded on his way to make a speech promoting invading women's privacy ends up forcing reforms on the catastrophic corruption clusterfuck that is the TSA, I'll be the first to thank him.

nonnymouse at Crooks and Liars:

By now, the story of Rebecca Hains's frosted cupcake confiscated by an overly zealous (or possibly just hungry) TSA Security Officer at a Las Vegas airport has gone viral, leading to a satirical song, and the sudden burst in popularity at the bakery of a "traditional style red velvet cake with Madagascar Bourbon vanilla cream cheese butter cream frosting" cupcake in a jar, now re-dubbed the National (Security) Velvet Cupcake (with the packaging redesigned to make it safe for air travel). Possibly the only dangerous thing about this cupcake is what it might do to your cholesterol levels.

The rationale - if one can use that word here without sniggering - behind the confiscation of a cupcake is the Transportation Security Administration's rule enforcing the 3-ounce limit for gels in carry-on luggage, ostensibly to prevent terrorists sneaking explosive aboard an airplane. But once we're finished with shaking our heads in disbelief and having a bit of a laugh... it might be advisable to look at this incident from a slightly more serious angle.

The Transport Security Administration was created as part of the Aviation and Transportation Security Act sponsored by Republican Congressman Don "Bridge to Nowhere" Young, signed into law barely a month after the 9/11 attacks, and transferred out of the US Department of Transportation and into the Department of Homeland Security itself in 2003. The stated mission of the Transport Security Administration is to protect 'the Nation's [sic] transportation systems to ensure freedom of movement for people and commerce.' Yet since its inception, the TSA has been the focus of one idiotic bungle after another, supposedly in the name of fighting terrorism, making freedom of movement for people and commerce far harder than it's ever been - for everyone, including politicians.

Rand Paul is hardly the first US politician to finally start objecting to the TSA's intrusive security searches, although he might be one of the most hypocritical, as he was on his way to Washington DC to speak at an anti-abortion March for Life rally. Don't anyone dare even think about touching his body, but he has no problem with government telling women what they can and cannot do with theirs. Rep Sharon Cissna (D-Alaska) endured far more than what Mr Paul suffered, after refusing an 'enhanced' full-body pat-down last year after the TSA in Seattle decided her mastectomy and gel-filled prosthetic breast insert required further investigation, the second time Ms Cissna was subjected to a pat-down. She took a ferry instead from Prince Rupert, BC to Juneau rather than fly, and had been a champion for the rights of travellers since. "The freedom of travel should never come at the price of basic human dignity and pride," she said.

(Many horrific examples)

SNIP

The TSA itself is quite aware the department and its security officers have become not only objects of ridicule, but despised and hated by the general public. A few do understand real security depends on the good will and cooperation of people being screened, and some progress is being made to counteract this 'security theater' of the absurd.

The TSA is now working to replace all 241 offensive millimeter-wave body scanning machines currently in use at 40 US airports that digitally strip search passengers with pornographic precision with stick-figure androgynous representations of a generic human body still capable of detecting guns and knives, etc., by the end of 2012. It also probably doesn't help the reputation of body scanning machines that the German government recently announced they are stopping the use of the machines due to far too many false alarms, as high as 49%, caused by nervous sweaty armpits. The machines are not only intrusive, they're practically useless.

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano has announced US passengers will soon see future travel that doesn't require removing their shoes. "We are moving towards an intelligence and risk-based approach to how we screen," she said. Great - I can stop wearing flip-flops to the airport in winter, then.

But while that's a good start, it's hardly enough. Given the TSA's incredibly poor record for its handling of searches, its notorious lapses in security, and its complete failure to catch a single terrorist, this will be an uphill, if not impossible battle to win. While I'm not quite so gung-ho about abolishing the TSA outright, perhaps the department should scrap its current rulebook and start over from scratch, hopefully with a bit more common sense and civility applied to airline travel security.