posted 11-25-2010 05:20 PM                    

quote:

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Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano hinted this week that the body scanners and "enhanced" pat-downs that have caused a ruckus at airports across the country could be coming to a train station, port or subway near you.

In an interview on "Charlie Rose" that aired Monday, Napolitano said terrorists will continue to seek vulnerabilities in the nation's transportation systems.

"I think the tighter we get on aviation, we have to also be thinking now about going on to mass transit or to trains or maritime," she said. "So what do we need to be doing to strengthen our protections there?"

Napolitano's comments came as outrage grows over what some call intrusive X-ray scans and pat-downs that the Transportation Security Administration has used to screen airline passengers.

The full-body scanners show a person's contours on a computer in a private room removed from security checkpoints. But critics say they amount to virtual strip searches. Some have complained that the new enhanced pat-downs are humiliating and intrusive, too.

TSA officials say the procedures are necessary to ward off terror attacks like the attempted bombing of a Detroit-bound plane last Christmas, allegedly by a Nigerian man who stashed explosives in his underwear.

And the procedures may be on the rise. Sen. Joe Lieberman, I-Conn., chairman of the Senate Homeland Security Committee, authored a bill in September that would allow testing of body scanners at certain federal buildings.

Despite attempts online to organize Thanksgiving travelers for a protest dubbed "National Opt-Out Day" on one of the busiest days of the year, very few passengers opted out of the full-body scans.

Napolitano has defended the screening procedures and criticized the protests.

"I really want to say, look, let's be realistic and use our common sense," she said last week, explaining that the screening technology has been in development since before the failed Christmas Day bombing attack last year.

"This is not about the government itself," she said. "We all have a role to play in security."

"And so I really regret some groups saying, 'Well, we don't want to be a part of that,'" she added. "I regret it because it's not what we're all about. What we're all about is shared responsibility."

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quote:

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“There are two aspects of terrorism. One aspect of terrorism is to kill you. The other aspect of terrorism is to create a disruption of your lifestyle through fear and intimidation," he tells the newspaper. "So they have still won, even though the underwear bomber was not successful in killing us. They have still won." West favors profiling likely terrorists at airports instead.

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posted 11-25-2010 07:37 PM                       

quote: Tony Bandiera Jr

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If any agent EVER did what they did to that little girl to any of my kids they would have a serious problem on their hands.

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posted 11-25-2010 08:31 PM                    

quote: Mike Blakesley

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I do agree they shouldn't have to "enhanced screen" kids, but what happens when some dork puts a bomb in a muslim kid's butt? You know they're probably going to try that sometime.

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That's more of the core problem than I think people realize. TSA has shown that they will put on a show to make people THINK they are somehow safer, when in reality they just go through their routine and wait for the next person to smuggle a bomb or something through in a different manner than before, then change their practices to prevent that from happening again.

The rectum is about the only place they aren't checking anymore, so it goes without saying that WILL be how the next bomb gets through. Once that happens, everyone will have to endure a TSA goon's finger up their hole for "national safety".