gggrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr....
The gang of idiots at the TSA have posted a video on their "MythBusters" page to debunk rumors that a mother with a toddler was hassled in an unprofessional manner by security screeners at the Ronald Reagan National Airport. Except that the video shows an escalating law enforcement response to a report of a mother near a security checkpoint with a toddler and a sippy cup, and do watch the whole thing. (The action starts at the 53-second mark.) I especially love the cop who arrives on the bicycle, and oh my dear lord would I love to have a tape of the police radio traffic.So the problem is not that they're so toweringly fucking obtuse that they pour resources into hassling a mom who's carrying a sippy cup; the problem is that they're so toweringly fucking obtuse that they think the video of the escalating law enforcement response to a report of a mom with a sippy cup somehow makes them look something other than a brainless, soulless gang of dumbfucks.
ADDED LATER:
Detailed background about the multi-officer response to the sippy cup menace. Note that the mother was repeatedly threatened with arrest for disrespecting a police officer. Because failure to provide cringing obeisance to government authorities is now a crime, apparently.
"The sippy cup was seized by TSA."
What the fuck are we becoming?
ADDED STILL LATER:
Lord God Almighty, you have to look at the comments for this story at the Washington Post: "I am tired of people complaining about security, we are not nearly strong enough with our security, try living somewhere else in the world and see. Lastly cudos to TSA keep up the good work and add whatever form of keeping our people safe from the people trying to destroy us as a people and free society."
Add whatever form of keeping us safe...to protect free society. People unclear on the fucking concept, my god.
This comment, however, pleased me greatly: "I watched TSA's video. I watched a large man yank a sippy cup from a baby's hand. I saw a mom forced to get on her knees and wipe up an accidental spill. I saw cops harass her for not acting properly subservient to the new masters. I saw a lot of obese people in uniforms. I saw the New America."
Pretty much, yeah.
posted by Chris Bray @ 8:07 PM
5 Comments:
"The sippy cup was seized by TSA."
I'll have to watch the video later, but this sentence is one of the funniest, and most tragic, ever written in the english language. In 2007, anyway.
As one of the commenters you quoted said, there was a lot of the New America in that video. But Emmerson showe us a lot of just plain America as well. Ignore the rules, get upset when someone asks you to follow the rules, make a mess, get even more upset when someone wants you to clean up your own mess rather than just finding some poor person to do it, be rude to the employees then get mad when they are rude back, try to get around the rules by citing your own importance (or, in this case, former importance since she wasn't in the Secret Service any more), then act like the biggest victim since the Holocaust because the mean man stole your kid's sippy cup. If necessary, lie about parts of the incident and leave out others to make yourself look better.
If we assume that she may be lying and leaving out parts of the incident to make herself look better, I think we have to make the same assumption in the other direction. The video footage has no audio, so we don't know what she said about her Secret Service credentials; she may have been trying to tell the cop that, hey, be cool, I'm on the same side. Cops, confronted by cops, talk about being cops. Or she may have been nasty and shitty, sure. But I've been treated like shit by TSA screeners as often as I've been treated well; they tend to communicate with grunts and screaming. (And pointing. They love to point.)
Beyond that, this is a parent with a toddler at an airport security checkpoint. The kid is crying; two or three people are grabbing at you and shouting at you; your plane is leaving soon. At one point, the video shows the toddler wandering away in the airport, and the police officer just stands there -- focused like a laser beam on the deadly seriousness of the sippy cup menace -- while the mother has to sprint away to recover her child. For crying out loud -- who wouldn't be stressed? So she spilled a little bit of water on the floor. I suspect that Western Civilization will survive.
The "rules" have a purpose; the point of the rules isn't that they're the rules, but that they're supposed to secure airplanes against attack. That's not what happened here.
The "purpose" of the rule against liquids is to prevent terrorists from mixing non-explosive liquids to create explosives. I think it's a bad rule because it's an overly broad method of preventing a form of attack very unlikely to be successful given even moderate screening. But, if we're going to have and enforce that stupid rule, it would be even more stupid to say, "But it's OK if it's in a sippy cup or if someone has bottled water but they're really in a hurry to catch their plane". Unless you're into profiling, it makes no sense to exempt her from the rule if you're going to enforce it at all. But in this case I don't see people complaining that TSA efforts are ineffective, I see them upset that a blond mommy had to wipe up her own spill or that she (like tens of thousands of other travellers) missed a flight or that TSA employees were rude (after she repeatedly tried to just walk away from them, got upset about having to clean up after herself, and tried to pass off expired ID to bully them into letting her continue to break the rules).
Tomorrow I'll be flying across the country. I'll get thirsty because our little airport doesn't have any stores or vending machines inside the security area and I don't own a sippy cup. I'll experience a hundred other inconveniences as a result of stupid TSA rules. But if I complain, not because the rules are stupid but because I don't think I, of all people, should have to follow them, please just tell me to shut up.
The "purpose" of the rule against liquids is to prevent terrorists
Yeah. Uh huh. Sure. After all, this administration has a stellar track record when it comes to telling us the "purpose." So by all means give it the benefit of the doubt.
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