Oh fuck you T.S.A.

Tampa airport. 6am. Mom. Son, perhaps...11-13? Wheelchair-bound, mentally disabled to the point of random utterances, body movements, mostly unaware of what is happening around him.

Made to stand, hold the hands of a TSA agent, walk THROUGH the metal detector, held onto while Mom walked through ( she tripped it, had to go twice ). Barely able to stand there, waiting for Mom.

Oh, the clear and present danger evident in this young man. I had to force myself not to fall to my knees and kiss the ground in the middle of the metal detector in tearful gratitude for the heroic and selfless act performed by the TSA agent in making this child stand there, moaning, wanting to know where Mom was ( she was facing Mom, he was facing away from Mom ). Their service to America can not possible be overestimated.

Then he sat. Then he got patted down all over.

Because, you know, it's common knowledge that terrorists are using the severely handicapped in Tampa to attain their goals.

The entire power-charade is usually no more than tiresome and faintly embarrassing when non-Americans have to dance the little TSA dance. This was way beyond tiresome and well into YOU DISGUSTING FUCKING NON-HUMAN.

:Shake:

Cartooniverse

Well aren't we not even remotely use to security check points yet. I'm sure you and the cripple can go make out after the flight is over.

Huh. Reminds me of when I went through airport security with my wheelchair-bound friend and they not only gave her extra scrutiny but wiped her and our belongings down with some sort of plastique explosive detection...thing.

Because, you know, a young woman in a wheelchair with coke-bottle glasses and a hearing aid who can still barely hear what you're saying to her? Yeah. That woman is an obvious danger. In fact, probably her inability to hear or see well only added to it, since she wasn't able to respond to their directions easily.

It's not at all unusual for them to give a hard time to the disabled, unfortunately.

Not to excuse what Toon witnessed, because that's outrageous, but it seems like people in wheelchairs should receive extra screening. It wouldn't be all that hard to get a terrorist to sit in a wheelchair for awhile.

I have to agree with Exy on this. A wheelchair and some simple disguise and acting is a great way to hide in open view.

I seen binary explosives blow apart a building with little more than the amount used in the lead of a pencil.

There just comes a point when security/paranoia gets to a really, really stupid level. How many terror plots have been foiled by harassing people in wheelchairs? How many mad chemical geniuses have been found who were going to use eyeliner, toothpaste and deodorant to create explosives on a plane?

There are actual, sane precautions, and then there's this.

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Originally posted by hatesfreedom

I seen binary explosives blow apart a building with little more than the amount used in the lead of a pencil.

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Cite?

Interesting that your need to take a bizarre and cheap shot at myself AND that young man was much stronger than your need to compose a reply that had even the faintest basis in reality.

Assuming that this is fairly accurate description of what a binary explosive is, how big a pencil
and how tiny a hut?

Dude. Do you feel very manly and pumped because you threw out the phrase " Binary Explosive" ? Were we supposed to slump backwards in our collective chairs, slackjawed and stunned by the powerful and impressive technobabble you proffered, not daring to utter a question or challenge?

If the TSA were truly concerned about a binary explosive the size of 2 pencils, no less one, than the only TRULY safe method of allowing people in wheelchairs onto planes would be to keep an X Ray machine at every single airport and X-ray all wheelchairs, hoping to find a shadow within the tubing of the chair that indicated elements used in a binary explosive.

Is that what you were indicating? That this is what should occur? Cause, you know, otherwise why the fuck did you throw that out?

And yeah. Cite. Show me the pencil sized elements that combined created a binary explosive, show me the building.

:dub:

*fans self*

How come terrorists aren't going around blowing up more non-aeroplane things in the West?

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Originally posted by An Gadaí

How come terrorists aren't going around blowing up more non-aeroplane things in the West?

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Apparently, there are thousands of terrorists milling about, just waiting for the chance to blow up an airplane over America. They put on clever disguises, such as portraying themselves as the elderly or disabled and are capable of making bombs out of baby bottles and diet Coke.

These mad geniuses with far too much time on their hands haven't yet figured out that with such epic skills they could blow up other stuff.

I seen cripples blow up trains with baby bottles and a diet coke. I seen everything.

Quote:

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Originally posted by Cartooniverse

Dude. Do you feel very manly and pumped because you threw out the phrase " Binary Explosive" ? Were we supposed to slump backwards in our collective chairs, slackjawed and stunned by the powerful and impressive technobabble you proffered, not daring to utter a question or challenge?

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Experience suggests that this probably won't really be useful, but Toon, you were supposed to laugh.

I have seen God in the faces of small crippled children.

Go!

Quote:

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Originally posted by Cartooniverse

Tampa airport. 6am. Mom. Son, perhaps...11-13? Wheelchair-bound, mentally disabled to the point of random utterances, body movements, mostly unaware of what is happening around him.
...snip...
Cartooniverse

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I hear ya.

The last trip my mom took to visit my sister in L.A., I took her to the airport. She was 91 and damn near blind. I got a wheelchair from the airline, got a gate pass to accompany her, got her through ticketing and check-in and made all the arrangements for care on the flight and meeting her at the destination.

Then came security. Here's me, who doesn't quite look like a thug but I'm close, and here's a 91 year old blind lady in a wheelchair. Guess which one of us got wanded and searched when we went through? Yep. I know every person on that flight to L. A. felt safer knowing mom wasn't packing her gat on the plane.

We, as a nation, need to quit flying until all this stuff goes away. Buses, trains or spend a couple of days driving. Period.

I am lame and have never traveled outside this country by plane. How does American airport security hold up to the rest of the world? Are we more paranoid or less?

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Originally posted by Nrblex

I am lame and have never traveled outside this country by plane. How does American airport security hold up to the rest of the world? Are we more paranoid or less?

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I don't know about the paranoid, but I can say that our airport security apparently exists for the sole purpose of annoying the paying passengers. They don't accomplish a damn thing in terms of making us safer.

Every time I fly, they let me on the plane carrying enough weapons that, if I were so inclined, I could probably kill a half dozen people or more before being overwhelmed by a mob of passengers. The only thing that gives me any peace of mind is that if someone else decided to do that, I'd be better prepared to take them down before too many people got hurt.

I miss Q.E.D., may he rest in peace. There was a guy who really hated the T.S.A.

Quote:

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Originally posted by Clothahump

I don't know about the paranoid, but I can say that our airport security apparently exists for the sole purpose of annoying the paying passengers. They don't accomplish a damn thing in terms of making us safer.

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Too right. Airport security is a fucking joke in the USA. Since I've moved here I've done a lot of domestic flying for work. The latest was flying to Boston via Washington D.C. I had a rollaboard case, my handbag doubling up as a laptop bag and a poster tube. This was fine in Huntsville. Waiting in departures at DC, I get told that I can't take all three on the plane. My response of "this was fine in Huntsville" is met with "well this is the big city honey, but if you put the poster tube in the side of your handbag, we can pretend its two items." Um. Ooookaaay.. :roll:

And I can take laser pointers and knitting needles on a plane, but not a bottle of water I bought outside of security??

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Originally posted by Angua

And I can take laser pointers and knitting needles on a plane, but not a bottle of water I bought outside of security??

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Do you know what you can do with a laser pointer, the power pack from a laptop and a knitting needle?









Neither do I.

Quote:

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Originally posted by Glazer

Do you know what you can do with a laser pointer, the power pack from a laptop and a knitting needle?

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If you are Jeff Goldblum, you can defeat an entire alien race.

:D

Eh, he wouldn't need the laser pointer.