After the shooting last Friday at LAX, the Southern Poverty Law Center posted a “Hatewatch” analysis that noted that TSA “has been subjected to criticism by far-right homophobes, among others, who have alleged that TSA agents engaging in hand searches are really sexually groping travelers.”
So squeezing boobs, butts, and balls is not “sexually groping” when federal agents do it?
Or is it only “homophobes” who object to officious strangers grappling their private parts?
Here’s a paragraph from my Washington Times piece yesterday describing the TSA’s “enhanced pat-downs”: “As USA Today noted in October 2010, ‘The new searches … require screeners to touch passengers’ breasts and genitals.’ An elementary-school teacher complained to The New York Times that she was roughly handled after the body scanner ‘detected a tissue and a hair band in her pocket.’ People who had been victims of sexual assault were especially traumatized by the new procedures.”
The elementary school teacher (Kaya McLaren of Cle Elum, Washington) who was cited in the prior graph complained to the NYTimes that “I didn’t really expect her to touch my vagina through my pants.”
Amy Alkon, a nationally syndicated advice columnist, was outraged that a TSA screener “FOUR TIMES, stuck the side of her gloved hand INTO my vagina, through my pants. Between my labia… I was shocked — utterly unprepared for how she got the side of her hand up there. It was government-sanctioned sexual assault.” As Alkon was leaving the checkpoint, she yelled at the woman “You raped me!” and took her name so she could file sexual assault charges. In a subsequent article, Alkon named the TSA agent who abused her – and was promptly threatened with a $500,000 defamation lawsuit.
The TSA has received hundreds of complaints from people of all ages and ilks complaining about being molested by TSA screeners.
It is amazing to see some liberals and leftists seek to redefine TSA groping as part of a “New Freedom.” Even worse is the habit of vilifying those who object to pointless government degradation.
Perhaps it would be more honest to simply label distrust of government as a “hate crime.”
If you really think that it’s “amazing” that Leftists (those are not “liberals”) would do this, you simply do not understand the Left.
Leftists are all about intruding into other people’s property, their wallets, and, obviously, their you-know-whats.
Where does the SPLC get most of its funding? What is its stated purpose?
Harpers’ Ken Silverstein has done excellent writing on SPLC over the past dozen years. Here’s a link to one of his blog entries on the subject: http://harpers.org/blog/2010/03/hate-immigration-and-the-southern-poverty-law-center/
The TSA agent that got killed was a behavior detection officer that apparently wasn’t too good at detecting the behavior of his killer.
Anyway, this guy apparently didn’t grope men’s genitals, he groped their innermost secret thoughts.
Now, a straight dude doesn’t have to be a homophobe to get upset about some gay guy groping around inside his head.
I also have a suggestion for the TSA. Get lesbians to grope the genitals of straight guys, but don’t tell them the TSA gropers are lesbians. I’m sure a few progressive puritan types might object and even a few Christian conservative culture warriors, but the average homophobe would probably be cool with it as long as some guy dude stays out of his mind.
That’s a great idea about TSA recruiting lesbians. I assume the US Senate would cheer the idea.
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That should be “gay dude stays out of his mind”.
Also, the SPLC works closely with the Justice Department. They often pay their
informers. Maybe the SPLC gets some tax money or special favors like access to
intel from fusion centers, etc.
I would not be surprised if they shoveled names to DOJ and DHS to add to domestic terrorist profiles – like folks who don’t like weasely lawyers who strut as saviors.
Actually, the FBI lists the SPLC along with the ADL as a hate crime resource here:
http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/investigate/civilrights/hate_crimes/hate_crimes
Well then, at least we know that they are credible.
Wait a minute. Wasn’t TSA a creation of the Bush regime? It’s kinda silly to be blaming leftists solely for it, although they certainly can be blamed for accepting it after Obama took office.
One other thing. Much of what we “know” about the tolerance of or cheering for TSA is information that comes to us from the Ministry of Propaganda. For example, all those airport interviews of travelers saying TSA is doing a good job – who did they interview, TSA employees, maybe? Did they leave out the interviews of people who hated TSA? Of course they did!
TSA was one of Bush’s gifts to America. I paid them homage in a few stories in their earlier years – including in Reason (http://reason.com/archives/2004/02/01/dominate-intimidate-control) and the New York Times (http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/18/opinion/18bovard.html or https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/rec.arts.movies.production.sound/jg2pfECoEuY).
I am puzzled by the interviews that heap praise on TSA.
On the other hand, I am also puzzled by folks who heap praise on average politicians.
Nice article, and thanks also for the link to the Silverstein article. Anyone disagreeing with SPLC’s stance on any given issue is guilty of a hate crime, according to SPLC anyway, and SPLC hates them in return. The farther afield SPLC’s positions get, the more “hate groups” they seem to be able to identify! Funny how that works…SPLC does more projecting than the National Association of Theater Owners.
Great quip on projecting. I hope you don’t get sued.
It’s not homophobic to not want to have homosexual activity in the middle of an airport. It’s not even hetrosexual, it’s this thing called “privacy” or “modesty” or just plain decency. You want group someone of your own gender in front of people? Fine there are places that cater to that taste. Others, and not just straights, would rather you kept it in your own bedroom.
It saddens me that more don’t refuse to fly. I can understand the necessity of business or family but the tiny margins of airlines should be obliterated by just the remaining folks who could choose to refuse. I’m no paragon but I do accept the duty of self defense. I will not allow either unwarranted strip searches (x-ray) nor the tactile equivalent of an “enhanced pat down”. I simply can’t put myself in a position where some drone in a blue shirt sticks his thumb in my wife’s vagina or cops a feel of my shocked and crying grand daughter. I have trained in close combat, but I know how it would end up. The Gestapo would take me out back and put a bullet in my head. ( Sorry wasn’t this in an old movie?)
The TSA isn’t theater, its isn’t just stupid, it isn’t a homosexual plot. The TSA is a crime. I will not comply.