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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

#81

Post by anigbrowl »

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 blog post characterizes this communication as intimidation. I don't see anything remotely intimidating about it; to me it looks like the TSA telling the other reporter that the guy has no credibility, and I think this is an entirely valid criticism of anyone who delighted to be featured on Alex Jones' show.

I have no especial objection to the original story, but it's little more than a marketing exercise: a hyperbolic headline attached to a banal observation, which shoots at a large target and unsurprisingly, hits it. When you think about it, government procuremet on this scale is almost always slow and suffers from stable-door syndrome. As I've said before, nothing is going to happen with the TSA until after the election, because the minute Obama proposes loosening security at airports he'll be accused of inviting terrorists onto planes. Have you not noticed how none the congresspeople who say they are outraged - outraged! - over the TSA's intrusive security methods have made any attempt to cut the agency's funding?

Re: TSA Pressures Mainstream Media Not To Cover Story

#82

Post by burgerbrain »

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.

Just because they are legally in the right does not mean that we cannot express our displeasure with their actions.

Re: TSA Pressures Mainstream Media Not To Cover Story

#83

Post by burgerbrain »

ramses wrote: post #20

Harassment and directly attacking Free Speech? ... but somehow I suspect that this was an employee independently acting stupid, and not an institutional policy.

Did you read the TSA's recent blog post about this? It displays exactly the same sort of attitude.

Re: TSA Pressures Mainstream Media Not To Cover Story

#84

Post by burgerbrain »

CWuestefeld wrote: post #62
ams6110 wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So it sounds like the easy solution is to do two scans. One face-on, and then they ask you to turn to the side and they do another.

Attacker then puts the smuggled payload on the inner thigh, where the leg itself blocks it from the sides.

Or inner arm for that matter.

Also, does anybody know what prevents people from simply taping a knife to the bottom of their foot, under their sock?

Re: TSA Pressures Mainstream Media Not To Cover Story

#85

Post by rhplus »

regularfry wrote: post #38
skanga wrote: post #22

This is insanity. I try to avoid flying as much as possible. However, the whole controversy also seems to lack common sense. An easy "solution" to this whole problem is to ask people to go into the machine and do a 360 degree rotation before emerging on the other side. I'll call this the "Airport Dance" :-) What? It's not like we aren't made to dance already!

The current arrangement subjects you to one short burst of radiation to take a static image, and it's enough energy to have some doctors worried. Multiply that up by however many frames you want to capture, and I don't think it would be "some doctors" any more. Besides, I've got no idea if the machines in place have microwave units that can withstand a high duty cycle like that. I wouldn't be surprised if they can't.

Does anyone have some independently verified numbers for the amount of radiation that a FBS exposes a passenger to and how it compares to the amount of radiation exposure the same passenger would get from 3 hours in a plane? The TSA claims that the latter is significantly (like 100x) greater than the former.

Re: TSA Pressures Mainstream Media Not To Cover Story

#86

Post by zotz »

"Totalitarian democracy is a term made famous by Israeli historian J. L. Talmon to refer to a system of government in which lawfully elected representatives maintain the integrity of a nation state whose citizens, while granted the right to vote, have little or no participation in the decision-making process of the government."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Totalitarian_democracy

Re: TSA Pressures Mainstream Media Not To Cover Story

#87

Post by cheald »

jawngee wrote: post #77
samstave wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

And twice as long to screen per person.

Re: TSA Pressures Mainstream Media Not To Cover Story

#88

Post by WiseWeasel »

tptacek wrote: post #75
Bud wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

There might be a suit brought on behalf of one of these reporters and/or their employer arguing that the implication of consequences from such a powerful entity without a court order constitutes illegal interference with their business, possibly entitling them to some damages, and more importantly, establishing some very important precedent which might prevent the TSA from ever attempting such a stunt in the future. I could certainly see many lawyers salivating at the prospect of winning a suit against such a well-funded target, not to mention the notoriety such a contentious issue would bring them in any event.

Re: TSA Pressures Mainstream Media Not To Cover Story

#89

Post by dlikhten »

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…

Would this be considered blackmail, if the media starts getting harassed by the TSA over covering such stories?

Re: TSA Pressures Mainstream Media Not To Cover Story

#90

Post by [deleted] »

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…

[deleted]
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