John Pistole Ignored DHS Advice to Warn about Gate Rape
Apparently, John Pistole not only promised to Congress–but failed to deliver–public education about why gate rape was necessary. But he ignored advice from DHS to provide a public explanation in advance, too.
In an hour-long discussion with reporters, Pistole said media officials at the Department of Homeland Security had urged him to “get out ahead” of the potential controversy by formally announcing plans for enhanced body searches and the use of new x-ray and radio-wave imaging devices at 70 airports beginning in November.
But doing so would have provided a “roadmap or blueprint for terrorists” to avoid detection by using other airports where the new technology wasn’t in place, Pistole said.
As you can see, he’s belatedly trying to do that education now.
Aside from being too little too late, consider what this says about Pistole’s relationship with the citizens who employ him. Regardless of his “risk based” assessment that he had to keep secrets from the terrorists, don’t Americans have the right to know what will happen to them at the airport?
Prediction: Pistole will be thrown under a bus, resign, and slink off into obscurity. ObamaLLP will indicate it’s all his fault, counting on voters short memories to forget that he was a strong supporter of the backscatter/grope policies. The backscatter machines/grope will be informally limited to Scary Brown People and the average citizen will not care anymore.
Boxturtle (And we’ll buy more backscatter machines)
How clever. If you have questions, you can ask a TSA supervisor or contact them via the web. However, that does not mean you will get an answer.
In fact, none of my questions have been answered. When I spoke with a TSA supervisor on the phone, she plead total ignorance of the super-duper new pat-downs. She suggested I email. I did. I got what appeared to be an automated response with no answers whatsoever.
Why does John Pistole still have a job?
He’s had a calling, so listening is not included.
John S. Pistole graduated from Anderson University, “Academic and Christian Discovery”, and Indiana University School of Law – Indianapolis.
from a 2005 Anderson University piece by David Harness:
http://www.anderson.edu/signatures/fall05/article.html
Great, another religious warrior.
He must be a Bush appointee. There are so many holdovers from the last administration that Obama’s is Republican in drag (in more ways than one)
Folks, it is no longer viable to blame anything on “holdovers”. Everything going on is by now either the result of action or inaction by the Obama Administration. Like it or not, the gig is theirs at this point.
One other thing, it wasn’t just that he didn’t warn. The TSA refused to answer when directly asked. When the TSA expanded their “test program” of enhanced pat-downs to all US airports at the end of October, a reporter from the Boston Herald asked them when this would go into effect and they refused to answer.
This is consistent with their behavior when I tried to ask them last winter about which airports used the pornoscanners. They refused to tell me. The only way I found out was calling individual airports and asking. Customer service reps who work for the airports were happy to tell me and I made my travel arrangements accordingly.
Every time we stress the American psyche, the less safe we feel and the more prone we are to overreact. Today, the L.A. Times & Associated Press are reporting that al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula is using small and cheap attacks on U.S. targets in order to leverage “the security phobia that is sweeping America”.
On the other side, I can’t help but think that program won’t result in a loss of privacy. Remember back in 1995, SCOTUS came down with the Communal Shower Decision (Vernonia School District v. Acton). Scalia wrote the majority opinion that says that since athletes tend to be naked in communal showers, they have given up the right to privacy in the form of unreasonable search. So, since you are essentially naked either by x-ray or by fondle, you have no reasonable right to privacy.
Regardless of the motivation, we are in for more of the same…or at least until we say no loudly enough.
Additional, negative, unintended consequence: fewer people flying and, therefore, more people driving this holiday season and, therefore, more people dying on the way to grandma’s.
Silver lining: if they keep this up, there might finally be enough demand for high-speed rail in the US that our transportation system enters the 21st century.
One statistician has noted that the chances of getting fatal skin cancer from one of these X-ray machines is equivalent to the chance of being harmed by a terrorist, one in thirty million. Much less than the chance of being harmed by a politician, I might add.
Ben Franklin — “The man who trades freedom for security does not deserve nor will he ever receive either.”
Didn’t you know? Papa knows best. Now just be quiet while I grope your private parts…. /s
Geez, that feels bad even as snark. I’m surprised Napolitano let this one slip by. Shows she’s been captured by the Beltway Bonker Borg.
Bob in AZ
prolly didn’t think anyone would notice. shocking really that he doesn’t think expectations-setting is not an important aspect of risk-management in a project roll-out. points to a lack of experience or implicit authoritarianism.
and as Patrick Smith of “Ask the Pilot” at Salon reiterates:
and as the failed shoe bomber resulted in every man woman and child having to remove their shoes, the failed toner cartridge bombs have resulted in every single toner cartridge being examined in cargo on every single flight…right?
right.
Thank you
Two words that explain why those exceptions are exactly why this is but one act in the kabuki theater that is America
19842010:Carnival Booth
I wrote a blog on a ruling by the 9th Circuit a few years ago that challenged the absurdity of the no-fly list
Here’s part of my intro
and manys @ 19: searching the latimes editorial website i see there is something called “blowback” that allows a reader to submit a longer piece in reply to an Editorial. i clicked on the archive and the first essay up is from Patrick Smith responding to the idiot scanner editorial: The TSA’s unsustainable air security strategy
he concludes:
Cool, thanks for the Blowback tip! I recently realized that the question I’m asking myself the most is, “Is this really the best we can do?” I should probably call my Pelosi today and ask the same question.
I’ll go with door number two
And about the genesis for having to make a choice on whether to be felt up, or go through the porno-scan. Who is the crotch bomber really? And what’s the rest of the story? And why hasn’t the
stenographersmedia done any actual investigating of this?I’m still waiting for these ten questions to be asked and answered. And why did the U.S government ignore all the numerous red flags before he even got on his flight? And what is the real story on how Yemen allegedly became the new center of terror in the world?
You’re so silly, expecting real As to real Qs. That U.S. of A. disappeared a long time ago.
Why don’t they just hire professional porn actors/actresses to do the pat downs? The complaints would stop at once and you wouldn’t even need to provide ’em uniforms.
Boxturtle (It might help keep the videos off of Youtube, as I’m sure the pro’s would demand royalities)
Because they are already union members*,whereas TSA members are currently in the process of voting in a union for their activities?
SAG members, not to be confused with sagging members…s/
Coming soon to your neighborhood (or already there).
Scanner Vans Allow Drive-By Snooping
Andy Greenberg
Forbes Magazine dated September 27, 2010
Privacy-conscious travelers may cringe to think of the full-body scanners finding their way into dozens of airport checkpoints around the country. Most likely aren’t aware that the same technology, capable of seeing through walls and clothes, has also been rolling out on U.S. streets.
American Science & Engineering, a company based in Billerica, Mass., has sold U.S. and foreign government agencies more than 500 backscatter X-ray scanners mounted in vans . . mobile versions of the same full-body scanning technique that has tested Americans’ tolerance for intrusion as it’s been deployed in airports around the country. . . .at $850,000 apiece.
http://www.forbes.com/forbes/2010/0927/technology-x-rays-homeland-security-aclu-drive-by-snooping.html
Is it just me,or does McChrystal and Pistole have more in common than just physical resemblances?
The Chrystal Pistoles?
Hey America! Now boarding #000 so we can see your nude body and treat you like a felon while we charge you out the whazoo for the trouble of flying with us! Never mind you are a customer. Never mind the fact that you proably financed this holiday an will paying for it over the next twelve months! Never mnd the fact that the asshole sitting next to you proably has swine flu!
Who cares about what the TSA does? I ain’t going to subject myself to that crap. Waiting around for a flight for 7 or 8 hours while they make your life an absolute hell. Why are people even flying? If people want to be treated like felons in a prison just to board a plane let em do it. Why make it head line news? I say if you fly you get what you deserve!
“I say if you fly you get what you deserve!” Thanks a lot, pal. We here in Paradise, a.k.a. Hawaii, have no choice.
It’s the invasion of the body
snatchersscanners.Dr. Miles J. Bennell: They’re here already! You’re next! You’re next, You’re next…!
OT:
For those who missed it the first time around:
Bob in AZ
More comedy: LA Times, “Shut Up and Be Scanned.”
omg, my blood pressure. when i’ve calmed down sufficiently my home town paper will be getting quite the LTE.
arrrrgh.
That was their stupid editorial. They’re actually getting the message, I think, since they’ve probably gotten a truckload of letters and e-mails calling them out for it.
Okay, so now the “Terrorists” know where the scanners are and that groping is optional and they’re smart enough to take a Piper Cub why not go all in – everyairport everywhere – or all out. I’ll save Pistole and TSA from doing the heavy searching by linking to this short list of over a thousand they can use: http://www.globalair.com/airport/state.aspx
Of course I just let the secret out to everyterrorist everywhere, my bad.
We are led by idiots.
How the hell are the “terrists” going to know which airports don’t have it yet when the American people don’t know?
Uh, Mr. Pistole. You may wish to wipe that brown spot off your chin. You have dribble on it from the spewed shit.
No, apparently we do not have that right.
Another edition of simple answers to non-complex questions.
Pistole’s gotta go, all his statements that “I’m not changing the policy” show him to have a fundamental misconception of his role as a political appointee charged with implementing, not MAKING, policy.
But doing so would have provided a “roadmap or blueprint for terrorists” to avoid detection by using other airports where the new technology wasn’t in place, Pistole said.
Spoken like a true bureaucratic idiot. Real security experts must be flat on their backs right now writhing with uncontrollable laughter.
I’ve heard that the “security” theater facsism complex is very big on institutionalized inconsistency of these sorts of processes. (Outsmart them terraists, heh!) Of course their real purpose is to drive the populace insane. We’re all Gitmo lab rats to these people anymore.
PS a note to the techies behind the scenes
I don’t know what the deal is with the ads (a whole lotta new tracking software?) but whatever they’re doing is reallllly slowwwwwing down my computer. I’m clicking between one FDL page to another and it’s freezing my computer for 30 or 40 seconds or longer
I know it’s not anything you’re doing (thanks for all you do) but whatever it is the ad people are doing is not good
Anyone else disturbed by how many friends, family, colleagues are “just shut up and go through the scanner or don’t fly. If you’re that sensitive, maybe you should just give up air travel. I am happy to do anything to guarantee I don’t get blown to bits.” And my favorite of all is ” if you’re dead you don’t have any rights.” Some of these people are lawyers, who are so willing to give up their and everyone else’s 4th amendment rights. What has happened to America that people think they can give up not only their own privacy but everyone else’s and say you’re a fool to want your privacy? Thank goodness for these posts at FDL or I might feel like I’m alone feeling this way.
Pistole is going to take on a whole new meaning …
We tend to lose sight of the motive, stated at the time; to use the embarrassment of an “aggressive” pat down to humiliate passengers into consenting to the nudiscan.
When did the government get the right to humiliate us into submission?
Prediction. Pistole will slink off to watch those illicit videos of honest citizens just trying to fly to Skokie.