TSA. When are they going to get a clue?

Do you remember back when, if you had to fly, it wasn't so bad? You showed up an hour before your flight, checked your bags, went through the metal detector and waited for your plane to load.

Then 9/11 happened. Understandably, the country went crazy with grief, anger and fear. We mourned our dead, raised the heroes up and decided we had to do something to make sure that kind of horror never happened again. Just over 2 months later, the Aviation and Transportation Security Act was signed into law by President George W. Bush and the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) was created.

While on the surface, it seemed to be a good idea. The only problem is that they don't actually prevent anything but the most obvious attempts to bring weapons on an airplane. The government then had another brainstorm and came up with the No Fly List. The only problem with that is that innocent Americans ended up on the list simply because they had a name that was the same or similar to one that could possibly be an alias for a terrorist. Or because they pissed off someone in a position of power in the TSA. All in all it was a little more inconvenient, but not intolerantly so. And if it gave the public an illusion of safety(and really, that's all it did), what's the harm?

Skip ahead a few years. The "Underwear Bomber" tried to smuggle a bomb onto a plane and blow it up. He was able to get on the plane without a problem and thankfully when he tried to detonate the bomb, it failed.

So because of the "Underwear Bomber" we needed to do something to prevent that from happening again. Insert "Full Body Scanners" here. Radiation and violation of our right to privacy. But it will prevent another "Underwear Bomber", right? Wrong. The very people who created and sold these horrible machines to us have said that these monstrosities would not have prevented the "Underwear Bobmer".

So what are your choices? You can either subject yourself to the radiation and humiliation of the full body scanner, or you can be groped by TSA agents. And the topper, even if you choose to go through the scanner, you can still be pulled aside for a game of touchy feely by the TSA. There seems to be no ryme or reason to how they decide who gets their special attention. You have TSA agents feeling up 80 year old grandmas and little kids.

Here is a thought for you, how about doing a little profiling? I know it's not PC to say something like that, but if we truely want to do something to make us safe, profiling is really the only way to do it. The government has profilers whos jobs it is to profile criminals. They come up with a profile off the murderer or rapist or kidnapper, etc. How about we put some of them to work comming up with a few profiles of people who would be the most likely to try and blow up an airplane and have the TSA pull those folks out of line for their special touching. That way, we can go back to metal detectors and the occational pat downs, except for the people who fit the profile. Right now, the TSA is so affraid of being acussed of profiling that the people most likely to be terrorists walk right through the check points while Grandma Peterson is being groped.

When is the government going to get a clue and stop worrying about being PC and do what they really need to do. Benjamin Franklin said it best when he said, "They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety."

What more can I say?

More importantly, what do you have to say about it?