Tag: Security Theater

Don’t Fly If You’ve Recently Had Surgery

Bad news for those of you who’ve recently had surgery and are planning on flying soon, the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) has gained a renewed interest in implanted explosive devices:

Terrorists intent on striking commercial aircraft have shown renewed interest in surgically implanting explosives or explosive components in humans to conduct attacks, a U.S. security official tells CNN.

The idea of implanting bombs has been discussed in the past, but the United States has obtained fresh intelligence about the desire of terrorists, and there is new intelligence about a possible technique that could be used, according to the official, who declined to elaborate.

The officials declined to elaborate because there full of shit by the way. What’s really ironic here is the fact that those fancy expensive naked body scanners can’t pick up implanted devices. To me that indicates once again that any security device you implement can be bypassed because humans are ingenuity creatures and will find ways around any system designed by other humans. So what will the new method of screening for implanted devices be? Who knows, the TSA certainly isn’t giving any details:

“As a precaution, passengers flying from international locations to U.S. destinations may notice additional security measures in place. These measures are designed to be unpredictable, so passengers should not expect to see the same activity at every international airport,” Kimball said.

Measures may include interaction with passengers, in addition to the use of other screening methods such as pat-downs and the use of enhanced tools and technologies, he said.

At least they’re making up excuses for their inconsistencies now. Either way they apparently are going to start doing exactly the same thing they’ve been doing, violating your civil rights to put on their security theater.

The TSA isn’t happy until you’ve been humiliated and beaten down into complete and docile obedience. Agents working for the TSA are generally people with a desire to have power over others but lack the motivation, education, or skills required to become a police officer. Instead of putting work into becoming an actual police officer TSA agents take the easy road to fulfill their authoritarian desires. They offer not security as evident by the numerous incidents of people getting onto planes with firearms, explosives, and other verboten goods.

Establishing the TSA was yet another classic example of the government doing something easy instead of fixing the problem. It’s easier to dump a shit ton of money into hiring actors and obtaining stage props for security theater than it is to secure airplanes against attack. I’m just waiting for the day when the TSA decides they’re going to randomly perform cavity searches on airline customers, or maybe some on the spot invasive surgery to check for implanted explosives.

TSA Witch Hunt

The Transpiration Security Administration (TSA) is on a witch hunt… literally:

Here’s a situation for all you aspiring managers: If you were the boss at a U.S. government agency and one of your employees complained that she was afraid of a co-worker’s religious practices, what would you do?

Would it change your decision if the religion were Wicca, and the employee feared her co-worker because she thought she might cast a spell on her?

Here’s how the Transportation Security Administration handled it:

It fired the witch.

I thought it was illegal to fire somebody in the United States because of their religious practices. Oh yeah I forgot that rule only applies to private industry, it’s OK when the government fires people based on their religion. To be fair we should probably look into what specific religious practice lead to the co-worker filing a complaint. Maybe the witch was sacrificing a small animal at the airport:

The assistant director told her he was investigating a threat of workplace violence. He said that her former mentor in on-the-job training, officer Mary Bagnoli, reported that she was afraid of Smith because she was a witch who practiced witchcraft. She accused Smith of following her on the highway one snowy evening after work and casting a spell on the heater of her car, causing it not to work.

Or the co-worker is a complete fucking idiot, that was actually my second guess. It’s nice to know the tradition of an honest to goodness witch hunt hasn’t completely died off. Thor forbid if somebody were to practice a non-mainstream religion. Oh and this line made me chuckle:

And it sheds light on work life at the TSA, where the 40,000-plus public employees who keep bad people and bad things off of airplanes have started voting this month on whether to join a union.

Name one instance where a TSA operative was able to keep a bad people or thing off of an airplane. Since the establishment of the TSA it seems to be that bad things keep getting onto airplanes. Let us not forget the shoe bomber, underwear bomber, and of course the liquid bombers. All of them managed to get past the TSA security theater without any problem.

Oh, and bonus points to MSNBC for find a way to mention unions in a story that has absolutely nothing to do with unions. Real subtle.

Security Theater at the Theater

Yo Dawg, I heard you liked security theater so we put security theater in your theater so you can watch while you watch.

It seems Broadway theaters think they’re pretty important targets of opportunity:

Additional steps are needed to prepare Broadway theaters in New York City for a potential WMD attack or other crisis, a New York state legislature subcommittee said yesterday (see GSN, Sept. 23, 2010).

I’m sure the terrorists are going to spend a lot of time and effort to smuggle a nuclear or biological weapon into a Broadway theater in an attempt to kill thousands of people. That makes so much sense considering all the weapons of mass destruction we’ve been finding terrorists with as of late… wait, that hasn’t happened.

It’s Almost as if Banning Something Doesn’t Work

Ah the United Kingdom (UK), often referred to as Brady Paradise around these parts. There is all but a complete ban on firearms in portions of the UK which is claimed to be for your protection. What the UK government doesn’t seem to realize is simply making something illegal doesn’t actually prevent people from obtaining it. Case in point it seems officers are investigating firearms smuggled into their fine country:

Weapons smuggled into the UK from the US in hold luggage are being hunted by police, it has been revealed.

American Steven Greenoe, 37, is being held in the US accused of smuggling 60 guns into the UK, including Glock and Ruger 9mm pistols.

Police fear many were sold on to criminal gangs in north-west England.

It’s almost as if there is no magical force preventing the smuggling of firearms. My God it seems as though the only thing banning guns does is prevent law abiding citizens from defending themselves against criminals who obtain guns regardless of laws and regulations. The case does bring two other realizations to light though (that everybody reading this site already knew):

Writing in The Times, he said: “This makes a mockery of the stringent checks we all endure at US airports, such as removing our shoes and belts, having our toothpaste confiscated and all the other irritants.

“Steven Greenoe’s guns could just have easily been bombs.”

Holy shit it seems airport security is really just secure theater. NO WAY!

Bloody Terrorist Bird

Saudi Arabia has detained a vulture on charges of being an Israeli spy. No I’m not making this up and no it’s not an article on The Onion:

Saudi Arabian officials have “detained” a vulture on accusations of being a spy for Israel, media reports say.

The griffon vulture was carrying a GPS transmitter bearing the name of Tel Aviv University, prompting rumours it was part of a Zionist plot.

Yeah those vultures are always trying to get jobs from various intelligence agencies. In fact I hear many former CIA spooks have a hatred of birds because they claim so many jobs in the spying world preventing regular people from getting said jobs. Oh and birds spying for Israel isn’t the only crazy coming out of that region:

Last month, Egyptian officials implied the Israeli spy agency Mossad was to blame for shark attacks off its coast.

Those bastards are training sharks to kill people! And here I thought out government’s fear mongering was bad.

Criticize the TSA, Lose Your Gun

The Department of Child Molestation Transportation Security Administration (TSA) are assholes and everybody knows it. Not only do they molest you when you refuse to go through their DNA shredding scanners but they also offer no security.

Yet another pilot decided enough is enough and openly criticized the TSA and pointed out some honest issues with the department’s “security” measures. The pilot is one who actually increases security as he was permitted to carry a firearm in the cockpit of the plane. “Was” is the operative word through:

The 50-year-old pilot, who lives outside Sacramento, asked that neither he nor his airline be identified. He has worked for the airline for more than a decade and was deputized by the TSA to carry a gun in the cockpit.

He is also a helicopter test pilot in the Army Reserve and flew missions for the United Nations in Macedonia.

Three days after he posted a series of six video clips recorded with a cell phone camera at San Francisco International Airport, four federal air marshals and two sheriff’s deputies arrived at his house to confiscate his federally-issued firearm. The pilot recorded that event as well and provided all the video to News10.

And that’s not all. Not only was his federally issued firearm confiscated but so was his personal carry firearm and CCW license:

At the same time as the federal marshals took the pilot’s gun, a deputy sheriff asked him to surrender his state-issued permit to carry a concealed weapon.

A follow-up letter from the sheriff’s department said the CCW permit would be reevaluated following the outcome of the federal investigation.

Did I mention this happened in Commiefornia? Nope? Well I’m sure you derived that when you read the sheriff put the pilot’s carry permit on hold and demanded the forfeiture of his personal carry weapon. Let that be a lesson to you, when you criticize the benevolence of the government they will take your shit.

You Just Don’t Get it Do You

Wikileaks wikileaks Wikileaks… did you hear about Wikileaks? The Air Force has decided that they will prove themselves to not be hypocrites and only block Wikileaks. Now they’re blocking several publications that released information on the leaked cables:

Air Force users who try to view the websites of the New York Times, Britain’s Guardian, Spain’s El Pais, France’s Le Monde or German magazine Der Spiegel instead get a page that says, “ACCESS DENIED. Internet Usage is Logged & Monitored,” according to a screen shot reviewed by The Wall Street Journal. The notice warns that anyone who accesses unauthorized sites from military computers could be punished.

The Air Force said it had blocked more than 25 websites that contained the documents, originally obtained by the website WikiLeaks and published starting late last month, in order to keep classified material off unclassified computer systems.

I don’t think the Air Force really gets it. Once something is online you can’t censor it, you can prevent people from seeing it by blocking a few sites, the information has spread out to more sites than you can ever hope to censor. Once information has his the Internet it’s game over as far as controlling it. The only real option available to the Air Force is the creation of a white list of sites that it’s employees can access as opposed to their current blacklist of sites you can’t access.

I Think It’s Time for a Denial of Service Attack

How’s this for creepy shit? Walmart is sucking the cock of teaming up with the Department of Homeland Security to place video displays in stores with Janet Napolitanio telling people if they see something say something. That’s right when you go to your local Walmart you’ll soon be indoctrinated by Homeland Security propaganda advising you to do something that doesn’t actually help secure anything.

Being a troublemaker and an overall anti-authoritarian man I have a proposal. I think it’s time for a denial of service attack against this new Homeland Security measure. The concept is simple. To quote Bruce Schneier, “if you ask amateurs to act as front-line security personnel, you shouldn’t be surprised when you get amateur security.” If you try to get everyday Joes to report potential terrorism you’re going to get a ton of false positives. These false positives need to be investigated by the local police departments as a cover their ass measure. If the number of calls in areas where this Homeland Security bullshit is being implemented increases dramatically it’ll become an expensive failure.

Thus the proposal is simple, if your local Walmart (or any other store) implement these monitors start calling the police about every stupid little thing you see. Every person with a camera, speaking in a foreign language, looking nervous in any way, looking suspicious in anyways, tying their shoes funny, or wearing clothing that is of a color you don’t generally like gets reported to the police. Hell I’d say report yourself as well but the police won’t actually waste any effort investigating an obviously fake call (thus you want to keep your reports semi-believable but obviously amateur). Eventually the cost of investigating all these reports will grow high enough that the local police will want to videos removed.

I did find this last line interesting:

The program has already partnered with the Mall of America, the American Hotel & Lodging Association, Amtrak, the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority, sports and general aviation industries, and other organizations across the country, DHS said.

The Mall of America is right in my backyard (on the other end of the Twin Cities). I’ll have to actually go there sometime and see if these videos are playing and if they are start making some phone calls. Lord knows I’m still pissed that the Mall of America thinks they can ban firearms on the premises even though they are a landlord (who legally can’t ban in the state of Minnesota).

Close the Washington Monument

I think Bruce Schneier just posted one of the best article’s he’s ever tossed up on his blog. The post calls for closing the Washington Monument:

Securing the Washington Monument from terrorism has turned out to be a surprisingly difficult job. The concrete fence around the building protects it from attacking vehicles, but there’s no visually appealing way to house the airport-level security mechanisms the National Park Service has decided are a must for visitors. It is considering several options, but I think we should close the monument entirely. Let it stand, empty and inaccessible, as a monument to our fears.

I think he’s dead on here. Let’s just shut down the Washington Monument and let is stand as a testament to the fact we let the terrorists win by being allowed to be terrorized in the first place. We’ve tossed away so many of our rights and liberties in the false promise of security from terrorism that there is no doubt that the 9/11 attacks were a complete success.

Our politicians will claim that America refuses to be terrorized while at the same time justifying out of control legislation such as the PATRIOT Act and actions such as allowing TSA agents to sexually molest American citizens. But the actions of our politicians are done by preying on our fear of the terrorists meaning we have been terrorized. We let fear guide our willingness to turn over power to others who promised protection from that which we feared. This is how tyranny starts ladies and gentlemen, but surrendering our rights and liberties to those who claim to offer solutions to our perceived problems.

Fly the Unfriendly Accusation Skies

There are few letters that can be put together to cause massive rage in almost every person in the United States. One of those precious few seemingly innocuous strings of letters is TSA (Transportation Security Administration). Employees of the TSA do it all, they look at naked picture of you and your children, they feel up your junk, and they plant white powder in your luggage and threaten to arrest you for cocaine possession.

Yes, they do all of this and offer no additional security to fliers. TSA offers security theater, not actual security. The real problem is you’re giving a bunch of people a badge and some authority. With certain types of people this is a very bad idea because it gives them power trips. Frankly once we have an agency so corrupt that one of their employees has decided to fuck with an airline passenger by placing a substance that looks like cocaine on their person it’s time for some dismantlement.