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My February birthday fund-raising campaign for this website, Behind the Black, is now over. Despite a relatively weak initial three weeks, the last week was spectacular, making this campaign the second best ever.

 

Thanks to every person who donated or subscribed. It continues to astonish me that people who can read my work for free like it enough to donate money voluntarily. Words cannot express my appreciation for that support, especially in these uncertain times.

 

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TSA to make pat-downs more “intimate”

Does this make you feel safer? TSA has decided to make the pat-downs they give to travelers more thorough and invasive.

Bloomberg reported that airport employees have already been notified at some locations that they need to employ a “more rigorous” and “thorough” screening. The screenings will reportedly include “more intimate contact” than before. The new measure also applies to airline pilots and flight attendants. [emphasis mine]

In other words, they are ordering their thugs at the airports to commit sexual assault each time they do a pat-down. Not only is this unconstitutional, it is downright criminal. Be prepared to hear about a a sex scandal when TSA employees abuse this power.

Genesis cover

On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.

 
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.


The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
 

"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News

9 comments

  • Edward

    From the article: “Last month, as many as 11 people reportedly walked through an open and unattended checkpoint at New York’s JFK Airport.

    This is no reason to increase the manhandling/sexual assault of passengers. This is a reason to correct the causes of open checkpoints going unattended at any airport. It is enough that we already have the porno-vision machines and the nipple squeeze pat downs, we do not need more of it to correct the TSA’s deficiencies

    Sloppy work on the TSA’s part is no reason for more invasive passenger checks or less personal privacy on the passenger’s part. It is a reason to reduce the sloppy work by the TSA agents or the sloppy procedures of the TSA organization.

  • Edward: I disagree with you, but not in the obvious direction. I think the TSA’s sloppy work as well as its abusive approach are both justifications for completely eliminating it. I say, go back to our Constitutional roots. Allow Americans to carry weapons freely, as they used to do out west, and have police officers on board riding shotgun. Not only will that prevent hijackings, it will improve the quality of life of Americans, who will no longer have to waste their time with the stupid TSA theater that accomplishes nothing.

  • Cotour

    I think a general but deep automatic security name check using the internet that indicates a passengers potential for trouble and personal agent observation, x raying baggage and letting it be known that on each flight there is an armed officer would probably be sufficient. AND I would suggest that people not travel so much using the airlines.

    When is the last time there was a “high jacking”? The 70’s? Especially with the new secure cockpit door requirements. I think there are reasonable expectations that a modern plane may be able to be remotely controlled if it is thought to be in trouble. Maybe a Boeing engineer could comment on that aspect of modern plane operation, are most modern planes able to be controlled in such a way?

    There is probably reasonable fear that a plane could be brought down by explosives, especially as this American / Radical Islam issue gets pumped with the installation of trump as the president.

  • Cotour

    “When is the last time there was a “high jacking”? The 70’s? ”

    Well maybe a bit more recent than the 70’s.

  • pzatchok

    Has the TSA EVER found a terrorist or a real bomb?

    Seriously. They have absolutely no interest to ever find a bomb. The first guy to find it is normally the guy who gets blown up by the suicide bomber.

    Either that bomber just wants to blow up a terminal or is really dumb.
    The better terrorist checks his bomb so it gets onto the plane.
    The best terrorist just becomes a TSA agent baggage handler and loads his own bombs onto the plane.

    If you can’t be a federal agent you become a state trooper. If you can’t become a state trooper you become a local cop. If you can’t become a local cop you become a TSA agent. After that you get to be a security guard in a warehouse. But most of those guys know they are just security guards and have no real power. Unlike a TSA agent.

  • Garry

    From the article: “Last month, as many as 11 people reportedly walked through an open and unattended checkpoint at New York’s JFK Airport.”

    Whenever i go to JFK I count how many TSA agents are at Dunkin Donuts, and how many are at the checkpoint. Without exception, there are always more of them at Dunkin Donuts.

    TSA is primarily a jobs program, and should be severely scaled down or abolished.

  • Edward

    Robert Zimmerman wrote: “I think the TSA’s sloppy work as well as its abusive approach are both justifications for completely eliminating it.

    Come to think of it, eliminating the TSA certainly would reduce the sloppy work and sloppy procedures. Maybe the TSA is like Obamacare, it should be completely eliminated, not repaired or fixed.

    pzatchok wrote: “Either that bomber just wants to blow up a terminal or is really dumb.

    Attacking airport terminals is at least as old as 1985 and continues to current day attacks, but today we have huge crowds at our TSA checkpoints, making them easier — and perhaps better — targets than the airliners.

    pzatchok asked: “Has the TSA EVER found a terrorist or a real bomb?

    The TSA was a law when the shoe bomber tried to blow up a flight, but the law was only a month old, and so the TSA was not yet in place. It was in place when the underwear bomber got passed it and onto a plane. The track record is now terrorists: 1; TSA: 0; passengers: 1 (stopped the underwear bomber). If we go farther back, American passengers score more but so do the terrorists, but airport security continues to be off the scoreboard.

  • D.K. Williams

    Can I request an intimate pat-down by a female TSA agent? Just curious.

  • Mitch S.

    Let’s remember that before 9/11 security was handled by private contractors.
    Democrats took advantage of 9/11 to create a new pool of Fed (public union protected) employees, ignoring the fact that it was the Feds that did not provide the security contractors with lists that could have stopped some of the 9/11 plotters and the Feds created the security guidelines that allowed razors and other blades on board.

    Now all the security agencies are under the umbrella of DHS, dedicated to the prime directives of CYA and protect the bureaucracy.
    If airport security was still done by private firms, Congress would have the FBI etc breathing down their necks.

    BTW I know a guy who used to work for TSA. He confirmed all your fears.

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