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TSA Pressures Mainstream Media Not To Cover Story

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Re: TSA Pressures Mainstream Media Not To Cover Story

#71

Post by CWuestefeld »

scelerat wrote: post #17
runn1ng wrote: post #13

To play devil's advocate - he clearly has an agenda and his video is more long and boring political ramblings than something really substantial.

1. Anyone who says they don't have an agenda is lying. Everyone has their reasons for doing anything and everything. 2. There is absolutely nothing wrong with having an agenda.

Adding to that:

If he makes a bundle of money in the course of defending our freedoms, then my hat is off to him. Bravo!

From an economics perspective, the fact that someone has turned a profit (in a free market) is prima facie evidence that he has delivered something of value.

Re: TSA Pressures Mainstream Media Not To Cover Story

#72

Post by rhizome »

danso wrote: post #55

Just want to point this out: "strongly caution" is what the TSA flak told the reporter (according to the reporter). That doesn't necessarily mean "don't report this or we'll send you to Gitmo". It most likely was expressed in the context of "you're going to look stupid/spread misinformation if you do." I'm not saying the TSA flak won't be vindictive if a reporter covers the story. I'm just saying, there's not an imme…

What does the TSA care about people looking stupid? Boing Boing took down their TSA post.

Re: TSA Pressures Mainstream Media Not To Cover Story

#73

Post by tptacek »

Bud wrote: post #68
tptacek wrote: post #60

They're allowed to say that. The media is allowed (encouraged; morally obliged, perhaps) to ignore them. Whether he's right or wrong (and I'm sure he's right ), the bureaucracy would prefer to continue working towards their quarterly MBOs than to address another controversy. This is a non-story.

Completely absurd. The TSA is allowed to vaguely intimidate the media? I call bullshit. I know from reading hundreds of your comments that you are a reasonable man, so please explain where you are coming from on this.

The premise of your outrage is that the TSA has some authority over the media that they are abusing. The TSA has no authority over the media. The media routinely publishes terrifyingly sensitive government secrets over the direct and strident objections of the DoJ and gets hauled into court to defend itself. That the media has a pretty excellent track record in those courts is not so much my point as that the media has so much experience building that track record that only the dumbest reporter would give half a shit whether some TSA functionary "strongly cautioned" them not to run a story.

Since this observation isn't so much "insightful" as it is "completely obvious on its face", to me, Occam's Razor suggests that what the TSA was implying was that the guy was wrong, and that his story was going to make the media look dumb.

Since I have never once seen anyone from the TSA land on the right side of an argument, from airport security to spelling and grammar, we don't have to argue about which one of us is more vehemently contemptuous of it, or, in this case, its argument.

Re: TSA Pressures Mainstream Media Not To Cover Story

#74

Post by CWuestefeld »

api wrote: post #59
mrb wrote: post #58

The government supporting the TSA, despite its People pushing against it, is a prime example of failure of democracy in the United States . The People elected a government who does not what they want! Some countries hold referendums to vote on controversial topics. It would be a great solution to hold one in the U.S. at the federal level asking a very simple question: "Should the TSA be shut down? Yes/No". Direct dem…

People need to understand this: it's all about the lobbyists, period. The TSA is nothing but a cash cow for the defense and security industries. Actual security is an irrelevant side effect.

it's all about the lobbyists, period.

Don't the politicians and bureaucrats -- the ones we're trusting to look out for our interests -- bear some responsibility?

Re: TSA Pressures Mainstream Media Not To Cover Story

#75

Post by tptacek »

Bud wrote: post #63
tylermenezes wrote: post #3

The term "security theater" has been tossed around a lot, but I think it's pretty clearly coming to that. Asking the mainstream media not to cover something like this is completely indefensible from a security standpoint - what, terrorists only learn about security flaws from TV?. It's pretty patently only about keeping their budget. Also, just going to throw this out there, but it is fairly possible that the email i…

No. It's not "coming to that". We're well past the security theater stage, and into the nightmare stage. Even hinting that any media not cover this or ANY story is so, so far beyond the purview of TSA that it is shocking (or should be shocking—it has become rather hard to be shocked by TSA) that they would even consider pulling this. The Supreme Court should slap them so hard that their acronym gets mixed up. This is…

Hinting that media cover or not cover any story is so far beyond the purview of the TSA that no competent journalist would consider taking them seriously, making this a comparatively mild nightmare.

The Supreme Court can't "slap them" for anything; someone with standing would have to bring a case, and for that case to have merit, some journalistic outlet would have had to have its discretion actually impinged by the TSA.

Re: TSA Pressures Mainstream Media Not To Cover Story

#76

Post by tomkin »

So, the US collectively pays for the TSA. The TSA takes your money, buys into the accountability of body scanners - somehow miss (then deny) the vulnerability – one a terrorist could successfully overcome - and they're asking, what? That no one know about it? Are you serious? Like the TSA is a newb database admin that accidentally dropped the users table or something? The TSA is literally fucking with your lives and you pay for it and seriously being told to shut up about it in no uncertain terms. Yikes.

What gets me is that the person who pointed out this flaw actually demonstrated it. I shutter to think what would have happened to this information had he only provided anecdotal hypothesis.

Re: TSA Pressures Mainstream Media Not To Cover Story

#77

Post by jawngee »

samstave wrote: post #51
bpd1069 wrote: post #16

Overlay a thin layer of material over the metal plate (the dark/black region in the images) that has a regular repeating pattern (think checkerboard) that shows objects suspended beyond the body's silhouette. Problem solved.

Isn't it solved by just forcing the scanee to turn to the side, scan front rear and sides? Great - now the time to get through security just went up! I mean, the TSA idiots STILL require us to remove our shoes because of some joker with a lighter attempting to burn his foot.

Twice the dose of radiation.

Re: TSA Pressures Mainstream Media Not To Cover Story

#78

Post by joshAg »

bdg wrote: post #61
tibbon wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think they are betting on security through absurdity (I initially meant to spell obscurity but this makes more sense).

They're operating on the age-old wisdom of, "If you don't know where you're going, you're never lost."

On the plus side, they're making good time.

Re: TSA Pressures Mainstream Media Not To Cover Story

#79

Post by IanDrake »

Bud wrote: post #63
tylermenezes wrote: post #3

The term "security theater" has been tossed around a lot, but I think it's pretty clearly coming to that. Asking the mainstream media not to cover something like this is completely indefensible from a security standpoint - what, terrorists only learn about security flaws from TV?. It's pretty patently only about keeping their budget. Also, just going to throw this out there, but it is fairly possible that the email i…

No. It's not "coming to that". We're well past the security theater stage, and into the nightmare stage. Even hinting that any media not cover this or ANY story is so, so far beyond the purview of TSA that it is shocking (or should be shocking—it has become rather hard to be shocked by TSA) that they would even consider pulling this. The Supreme Court should slap them so hard that their acronym gets mixed up. This is…

Change "Administration" to "Department" and I think you've got a winner.

Re: TSA Pressures Mainstream Media Not To Cover Story

#80

Post by IanDrake »

grandalf wrote: post #37

The TSA probably views its own mission as largely a propaganda mission. It's just creepy when we realize that it is trying to silence public debate. The biggest oddity to me is that it's been over 10 years and this debate hasn't actually happened in the mainstream media. I think one aspect of most orgs that have entrenched power is that they are always very deferent toward government. NPR is a great example... there…

I don't know if that's entirely true. NPR was really suspicious of the government before 2008. Then something changed.
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