DeePee: I view TSA as a gigantic social experiment, designed to determine just how much B.S. normal law-abiding people will tolerate. The inconsistencies are absurd. Departing Spokane this week, I was told everything had to come out of the pockets, even my passport and ticket. (Pretty hard to show them your ID and ticket when they’re in a bucket.) Then boarding in SLC yesterday, going through the routine divestiture of jewelry, the TSA chap said, ‘You can leave your ring on; the equipment’s not that sensitive.’ On one plus side, the TSA personnel are generally more civil than they were, say, 5 years ago. But it’s still an annoyance and certainly instills no sense of confidence in the government’s ability to do anything intelligently.

Question: Have you had a bad encounter with TSA security in the last year?

Fed up with what he views as crappy treatment from the TSA, the owner of a restaurant near Seattle-Tacoma International Airport has decided to put all TSA agents on his No-Eat List. “We have posted signs on our doors basically saying that they aren't allowed to come into our business,” one employee tells travel journalist Christopher Elliott. “We have the right to refuse service to anyone.” She says that whenever a TSA agent attempts to dine at the restaurant, “we turn our backs and completely ignore them, and tell them to leave… Their kind aren't welcomed in our establishment”/Chris Morran, The Consumerist. More here. (AP file photo for illustrative purposes)

Question: How would you describe your treatment at the hands of airport security?

An Alaska state lawmaker is making her way back to the state Capitol after refusing a pat-down search at a Seattle airport, a spokeswoman said. Rep. Sharon Cissna underwent a body scan as she was preparing to leave Seattle-Tacoma International Airport Sunday and was then required to undergo the pat-down by Transportation Safety Administration officials, said Michelle Scannell, her chief of staff. Scannell said the TSA called for the pat-down because the scan showed Cissna had had a mastectomy. The TSA, on its website, says security officers “will need to see and touch your prosthetic device, cast or support brace as part of the screening process”/Becky Bohrer, Seattle Times. More here.

Question: What do you make of Rep. Cissna's decision to take a boat to Alaska rather than allow a TSA security worker to touch her prosthetic breast?

I was almost disappointed while boarding a plane the other day that nobody wanted to search my body in exquisite detail.  I entered the airport terminal patriotically ready for whatever the security forces had in store for me - even if that meant using a level of electronic scrutiny that reveals the absence of weapons on my peaceful person, albeit at a cost of exposing the saggy old man beneath my youthful duds. I went into that experience ready to put my best face forward, not to mention other parts, trying to look as attractive as I possibly could for my sake and for the sake of the poor inspector. He must stand there all day looking at constant anatomical imperfection with a device that peers through clothing/Bill Hall, Lewiston Tribune. More here.

Question: How have your close encounters with airport security been since the TSA ramped-up the visual & touchy-feely inspections?

Santa Claus is screened by TSA agents before entering a secure area of the Akron Canton Airport Wednesday in Green, Ohio. You write the cutline. (AP Photo/The Repository, Scott Heckel)

Top Cutlines:

• 1. Things got ugly when an overly-agressive TSA agent jingled Santa’s bells — Cindy.
• 2. Concerned that Santa’s beard contained banned items while trying to determine his real name, the TSA agent is confused when no alarms sounded: “Hmm, his face doesn’t ring a bell” — JohnA.
• 3. Santa appears concerned after checking his list—twice— and realizing that these two are are the “naughty” list — Phaedrus.
• HM: Kootenai Conservative
  

• Monday Poll: 67 of 102 respondents (65.69%) preferred to go through see-all screenings at airport security to enhanced patdowns (24 of 102, 10.78%). 11 respondents were undecided.
• Today’s Poll: Do you consider funding for clean-water monitoring by Otter administration to be a luxury or necessity?

We’re witnessing what appears to be a twisted psychological experiment in what indignities Americans are willing to endure in the interest of airport security. … Now, those who have concerns about health risks or invasion of privacy are being subjected to a government-administered groping. The result is a steady stream of complaints from border to border of Americans who have been fondled, harassed, mocked and manhandled. Clearly, TSA is trying to use its police powers to make examples out of anyone who has the temerity to protest the body scanners. That’s bad enough for the adults; parents are now being told they have the ultimate Hobson’s choice: irradiate their kids or subject them to fondling by a stranger in a government uniform/Wayne Hoffman, Idaho Freedom Foundation. More here. (Also: Security boycott could disrupt Thanksgiving travel/AP)

• AP photo: Rocky Flats Gear’s Jeff Buske says his invention (radiation shielding underwear) uses a powdered metal that protects people’s privacy when undergoing medical or security screenings.

Question: Are you in favor of a loosely organized boycott of airport security that’s scheduled to take place in Boise & elsewhere this Thanksgiving season?

Howard Martinson: While I’m not opposed to these high energy pat downs in the name of public safety, mine was a little crazy at Miami Airport on Monday morning. Of course, my belt was removed and (Thank God!) I’ve taken off a few lbs lately, so I really need the belt to hold my pants up. So my hands are out to the side and the man is working my pants over pretty good, when…you guessed it, my pants very quickly dropped to half mast. I’m not 100% sure what happened to my unders, and probably don’t want to know. Where was an America’s Funniest Videos camera when we really needed one?

Question: Have you ever been embarrassed by a wardrobe malfunction in a public place?

This is finally IT, maybe. If we turn down being screened at airports by those new-fangled, incredibly invasive, nakey-nakey devices, then we must submit to a groping…where they fondle your bewbies and/or your junk. Submitting to a groping by somebody who’s not getting me drunk first…not gonna happen. And neither is going through a freaky skin sizzling machine. Thing is, some people (survivors of sexual assault) are getting PTSD reactions to the forced probings, because, you know, they’re FORCED PROBINGS. And some idiots out there actually have the gall to say, “Those people need to stop being so sensitive about the probings”/Cassandra, 43rd State Blues. More here.

• Get loud, people, be proud/IdaBlue
• Maybe not change the world/Fort Boise
• Why did voters stay home on Nov. 2?/Kevin Richert
• Education of Idaho Democratic Party/MountainGoat Report
• Those awful earmarks: The least of our problems/The Johnson Report
  

Michael Ramirez/Investor’s Business Daily

• Wednesday Poll: 101 of 171 respondents (59.06%) consider search by full-body scanners are today’s airports to be a violation of their 4th amendment rights that prohibit illegal searches. 67 of 171 (39.18%) are okay with the scans. 3 voters were undecided.
• Today’s Poll: Do you think marriage is obsolete?
  
  

In documents obtained by IdahoReporter.com, an official with the Idaho attorney general’s office said a bill presented by Rep. Phil Hart, R-Athol, in the 2010 legislative session would have done little to prevent use of body scanners at airports or other public buildings in the Gem State. Hart’s legislation, known as House Bill 573, aimed to prevent use of scanners – which produce an image in which a person is essentially naked – in airports or public buildings by using police powers of the state of Idaho to ban the devices.  In testimony about the bill, Hart contended that the scanners are a violation of the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and possibly dangerous to public health.  The bill passed the Idaho House on 58-9 vote, but it failed to receive a hearing in the Senate State Affairs Committee/Dustin Hurst, Idaho Reporter. More here.

Question: Is it possible that Phil Hart is right about full-body scanners at airports?

An airline passenger undergoes a full body scan at O’Hare International Airport today in Chicago. (AP Photo/Charles Rex Arbogast)

“So when someone creates a bomb he can swallow, do we get stomach-pumped at the airport? How about a suppository bomb?” — Randy Stapilus/Ridenbaugh Press Twitter account.

Joe Heller/Hellertoons

WASHINGTON – U.S. intelligence agencies had enough “bits and pieces” of information to thwart the attempted Christmas Day airplane bombing, a senior administration official said Tuesday, but they failed to properly analyze and share it.

Instead, what President Barack Obama called a potentially catastrophic “mix of human and systemic failures” allowed the 23-year-old Nigerian suspect to board a U.S.-bound airliner, allegedly with an explosive device that could have killed nearly 300 people.

“A systemic failure has occurred, and I consider that totally unacceptable,” Obama told reporters near his vacation retreat in Hawaii. Full story.

Perhaps we should stop referring to them as “intelligence agencies.” Just a thought.