Tag Archives: TSA / CBP

TSA: Thou Shalt Acquiesce

open quoteAs a 40-year student of bureaucracy, beginning with Ludwig von Mises’s great little book, Bureaucracy (1944), I have come to recognize a series of near laws governing bureaucracy. This one is, as far as I can see, unbreakable, comparable to the law of gravity.

Some bureaucrat will enforce a written rule in such a way as to make the rule and the bureaucracy seem either ridiculous, tyrannical, or both.

There is no way to write the rules so that some bonehead in the system will not find a way to become a thorn in someone’s side – a thorn that cries out for removal.

There are corollaries to this iron law of bureaucracy.

1. The bureaucrat in question will not back down unless forced to from above.
2. His superiors will regard any public resistance to the interpretation as an attack on the bureaucracy’s legitimate turf.
3. The bureaucracy’s senior spokesman will defend the policy as both legitimate and necessary.
4. Politicians will be pressured by voters to have the policy changed.
5. The bureaucracy will tell the politicians that disaster will follow any such modification of the policy.
6. The public will finally get used to it.
7. The politicians will switch to some other national crisis.
8. The internal manual will then be rewritten by the senior bureaucrats to make the goof-ball application mandatory.
9. Senior management will increase the budget so as to enforce the new policy.
10. Politicians will acquiesce to this increased budget.

This leads me to North’s law of bureaucratic expansion:

Any outrageous interpretation of a bureaucratic rule, if widely resisted by the public, will lead to an increased appropriation for the bureaucracy within two fiscal years.

There is an exception.

If the enforcement of the interpretation requires major expenditures for new equipment, the process will take only one fiscal year.

. . . .

On the other hand, it is in the self-interest of their supervisor. Now we come to another law of bureaucracy, an extension of Parkinson’s famous law: “Work expands so as to fill the time allotted for its completion.” Professor Parkinson had another law, less known but more rigorous: promotions take place when a bureaucrat increases the number of employees subordinate to him. Parkinson worked out the numbers in the 1950s. It was no joke. There is a large body of academic articles devoted to this rule. Here is a recent example.

The supervisors want these scanners. They want employees with their sanitary gloves. These people must be trained to do these jobs. They must be moved out of the line. This means the supervisor will be able to call for additional staff. His budget will rise.

. . . .

I rue the day when a terrorist on a plane blows it up by inserting a powerful explosive into a large orifice.

Talk about bin Laden winning the war! If the see-through scanners are there to detect explosive underwear, think of the anal bomb’s impact on airport security procedures.

“No,” you think to yourself. “It could not go that far.” You are ignoring Law #1:

Some bureaucrat will enforce a written rule in such a way as to make the rule and the bureaucracy seem either ridiculous, tyrannical, or both.

. . . .

The scanners have pushed a vocal minority of the public over the line. “This goes too far!” Yet, on the face of it, the procedure seems harmless. No, there will not be any explosives discovered. But there is no big risk to the traveller, other than missing a flight. That threat will pressure travellers to get into line early. That will demonstrate the power of the TSA. That is good from the point of view of TSA’s senior officials. It means that they can ask for a larger appropriation next fiscal year. “We are experiencing long lines and delays. We need more personnel.”

The public is under assault by every conceivable government agency. This is so common that the public no longer senses it. Hardly anyone knows that the “Federal Register” publishes 70,000 pages of regulations each year: fine print, three columns. These rules are rarely rescinded, only added to.

. . . .

CONCLUSION

Increasing Federal debt allows the public to avoid the pain of paying for the safety nets and subsidies. But increasing bureaucracy is an annoyance that confronts us daily. Voters do not understand the capital markets. They do understand pat-downs.

The government is vulnerable, because it cannot pass a law against bureaucratic rule #1. It cannot stop some bureaucrat from enforcing the letter of some regulation. The list of regulations grows by 70,000 pages per year. It is cumulative.

We should enjoy what is happening to the TSA. We should send along videos to those we interact with. We must use the tools at our disposal to remind people that the government is intrusive, the government is stupid, and the government does not back down.

When the day of fiscal reckoning arrives, and there is no way to get the money for another bailout except from the Federal Reserve System, we will have an opportunity to remind the people around us: “We told you so.” More to the point: “We told you why.”

Rule #1 can be stopped in only one way: to cut off the funding. That can be done in two ways: (1) outright government bankruptcy; (2) inflation.

Either way, we told them so.close quote (Read more from lewrockwell.com)

TSA Gropes Ron Paul

open quoteRecently, Ron Paul had to go through his first invasive pat-down at the airport; his knee replacements bar him from the gulagoscan. This is one of the most well-mannered men I know, but after four very hard jabs to his genitals, he asked the blue-gloved TSA agent: “How can you live with yourself, feeling up strange men all day long?”

“I love my job,” sneered the goon.close quote

(Read more from lewrockwell.com)

Naked Body Scanner Manufacturer’s CEO Obama’s Guest on Trip to India

open quoteOSI Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ: OSIS), a vertically-integrated provider of specialized electronic products for critical applications in the Security and Healthcare industries, today announced that Deepak Chopra, Chairman and CEO, was selected to accompany US President, Barack Obama, to Mumbai and attended the US India Business Entrepreneurship meeting, which was held by the US India Business Council (US IBC).close quote (Read more from dailypaul.com)

Obama: TSA pat-downs frustrating but necessary

open quotePresident Barack Obama on Saturday acknowledged some travelers’ “frustrations” with having to go through full-body pat-downs and scans at airports, but he said the enhanced security measures are necessary to keep America safe. close quote (Read more from msnbc.msn.com)

Yes we can!

See also:
– As if subjecting millions of Americans to X-rated x-ray scans and public groping sessions weren’t bad enough, the agency now threatens $11,000 in fines against anyone refusing to submit to humiliation at the airport.

– TSA agents forcibly separate mother from child

– TSA confiscates nails clippers from soldiers armed with carbines & machine guns.

– Subways and trains are next! Protecting riders on mass-transit systems from terrorist attacks will be as high a priority as ensuring safe air travel, the new head of the Transportation Security Administration promises.

– TSA pat-down leaves traveler covered in urine

Ron Paul to TSA: Enough is Enough

open quoteMr. Speaker, today I introduce legislation to protect Americans from physical and emotional abuse by federal Transportation Security Administration employees conducting screenings at the nation’s airports. We have seen the videos of terrified children being grabbed and probed by airport screeners. We have read the stories of Americans being subjected to humiliating body imaging machines and/or forced to have the most intimate parts of their bodies poked and fondled. We do not know the potentially harmful effects of the radiation emitted by the new millimeter wave machines.

In one recent well-publicized case, a TSA official is recorded during an attempted body search saying, “By buying your ticket you gave up a lot of rights.” I strongly disagree and am sure I am not alone in believing that we Americans should never give up our rights in order to travel. As our Declaration of Independence states, our rights are inalienable. This TSA version of our rights looks more like the “rights” granted in the old Soviet Constitutions, where freedoms were granted to Soviet citizens — right up to the moment the state decided to remove those freedoms.close quote (Read more from paul.house.gov)

Porno Scanners Are for Humiliation and Control

open quoteone other reason for the naked photo machines: ex-officials like Michael Chertoff and Rudy Giuliani make millions selling them to the TSA.close quote

open quoteMany airports still only have one scanner per terminal, so it is quite easy to make sure you get in one of the screening lines that only directs the cattle through metal detectors. Today, I did just that, scooting over to a different screening line at Charlotte Douglas International. A young gentleman ahead of me, who was traveling with a violin, also tried the same tactic. A blue-shirt called him out of the line and tried directing him to the backscatter xray machine, at which point he “opted out.” The blue-shirt made the typical fuss explaining to the man that his choice would mean that he would be subject to a pat down and would likely be delayed. He stood his ground.

As I approached him as I was headed for the metal detector, I congratulated the violinist for standing his ground. This apparently irked the bureaucrat in blue, and she directed me to the porno scanner line myself. Apparently my comment to the violinist showed disrespect for the security apparatus, an offense that the blue-shirt could not abide. She attempted to exert control and make an example of me for speaking up. Of course, I opted out as well, and she launched into her spiel.

I’ve read enough on LRC and elsewhere to know that above all else, we commons must be polite to our oppressors, lest they decide to subject us to greater humiliation and control. When she completed her spiel, and had me stand aside to wait for the male thug, I told her that my family came from Germany after WWII, and that they had seen similar behavior in the 1930s. A police state starts by restricting peoples’ rights to freely travel. The brown shirts in Germany may have thought they were being patriotic and protecting the homeland, too. She did not like the direction my conversation was going and asked if I wanted to tell this to her supervisor, or would I stop talking. I replied that I was just making conversation, was I not allowed to talk to her? After that she avoided eye contact with me as she turned to direct other sheeple towards their irradiation treatment.

She was much relieved when the male patter-down came to escort me to the inspection area. He asked if I wanted to be patted down in private, but I told him I preferred to have witnesses when I was subjected to a search against my will. He asked if I was rejecting the search as he reached for his walkie-talkie to call in his supervisor. I told him I needed to get to L.A., so I didn’t have any choice but to submit to his unconstitutional search. He didn’t like this, and I saw him beckon some of his comrades closer to be ready for trouble. As he proceeded to make himself familiar with my person, I asked him what I was suspected of. He said he was “protecting the flying public.” I told him that my understanding was that the constitution forbade searches of people unless they were suspected of a crime. His response was to point out a sign that said all persons are subject to search. “So the sign overrides the constitution?” I asked. He clammed up. No response to that one. . . .

I’m not sure there’s much hope for the flame of liberty in the U.S. Still, I wasn’t alone. There was the violinist.close quote (Read more from lewrockwell.com)

See Also: A security checkpoint supervisor at Newark Liberty International Airport has been charged with stealing from travelers and accepting bribes from a co-worker who allegedly stole money from passengers during screenings, prosecutors said.

Refusing to Answer Questions at Passport Control

As a follow up to this autobiographical account about a citizen exercising his right to be re-admitted into the U.S., the author posted some followup information here:

open quote1. A U.S. Citizen Cannot Be Denied Re-Entry To Her Own Country.

A federal judge in Puerto Rico – a territory sensitive to the rights and privileges of its residents’ U.S. citizenship — said it best: “The only absolute and unqualified right of citizenship is to residence within the territorial boundaries of the United States; a citizen cannot be either deported or denied reentry.” U.S. v. Valentine, 288 F. Supp. 957, 980 (D.P.R. 1968). . . .

2. (The Right To) Silence Is Golden.

This is principally about the right to silence. CBP officers are law enforcement (pictured), who can detain you, arrest you and testify against you in criminal court. You place yourself in jeopardy every time you speak to them about anything.

CBP officers are not your friends. CBP officers treat returning U.S. citizens as potential criminal defendants. You should likewise treat them as if they were corrupt cops on a power trip, targeting you to goose their arrest statistics. The best way to protect yourself against their depredations is to refuse to speak to them or to answer their questions.

3. Any Misstatement To A Federal Officer Can Result In Your Arrest.

If a federal officer claims you lied to him, you can be arrested and charged with the crime of making false statements. You do not have to make the statements under oath (which would be the different charge of perjury).

This statute – which is referred to as Section 1001 and which can be read here in all its prolix glory — is the reason why Martha Stewart has a Bureau of Prisons number.

The only way to immunize yourself against a false statements charge is to refuse to speak to federal officers.

“Wait,” you ask, “what about telling the truth?” Doesn’t work. If, in the course of your conversation, you mis-remember something or speak inarticulately, you can now be arrested. Innocent mistake? Prove it in court after being jailed, charged, tried and paying for a lawyer. . . .

4. “Business or Pleasure?” Is A Trap.

Which brings us to the reason why, contrary to the belief of many commenters, the seemingly innocuous CBP question of whether your international trip was for business or pleasure is a trap.

You say “business” (because you were at a conference) but the stamps in your passport indicate that you’re returning from a tourist destination like Bali. Now the officer can argue that you have made a false statement, have engaged in an attempt to claim improper business deductions under the Internal Revenue Code and have broken any other federal criminal law — there are more than 10,000 — which he can mold around the circumstances. . . .

5. Politeness Would Make No Difference.

Many of the commenters took issue with my rude tone toward the CBP officers. This criticism is profoundly misguided.

To the authoritarian mind, there are only two responses to a demand: submission or defiance, and anything less than total submission is defiance. A Lutheran grandmother from Savannah with manners from an antebellum finishing school would be hassled if she refused to answer CBP’s questions.

Answering with a tart “None of your business” underscores that I will not be pushed around and – potentially important from a criminal procedure perspective – is an unambiguous statement that I am not waiving any rights. It is a line in the linoleum.

Further, why is politeness a one-way street? Many commenters relayed stories about rude, abusive, mean and intrusive CBP officers. The entire cop ethos is based on intimidation and domination. . . .

6. There Is A Profound Difference Between A U.S. Citizen Entering a Foreign Country and a U.S. Citizen Re-Entering Her Own Country.

Multiple commenters confuse or conflate the distinction between a U.S. citizen entering a foreign country (where she can be refused entry for any reason or no reason) and a U.S. citizen returning to the U.S. (where she cannot, as noted in Item No. 1, be denied entrance). These are completely different situations with almost no overlap in terms of governing law, procedures, rights, anything.

That being said – and this is a point several commenters made – entering the U.S. is a cruder experience than entering most other countries.

7. “Just Doing My Job” Is Bunk.

Many of the commenters are obviously CBP officers or shills – the repeated references to how CBP officers are underpaid is a tell – and they chant the mantra that the officers on the desks are front-line personnel merely carrying out policy.

I will resist the temptation to pull a Godwin and will merely respond, I don’t care. When a person accepts and keeps a job which involves pressuring and tricking citizens into waiving their rights of privacy and silence (while refusing to admit that the citizens possess those rights), the person has to deal with attitude on the incredibly rare occasion when someone exercises their rights. . . .

8. The Other People In Line.

This is a bright red herring. To the extent any immigration or customs line is being slowed down by a citizen refusing to answer questions, it’s because the CBP officer refuses to accept the fact that the citizen is lawfully exercising her rights (as several commenters noted).

As a practical matter, there’s almost no hold up. When a citizen refuses to answer questions at the first CBP kiosk, she is ordered to secondary within a minute or two. The wait is less than it might be if a returning citizen submitted to questioning or had a complicated, multi-national family situation.

9. Small, Successful Battles Can Prevent Large, Losing Battles.

When it comes to rights, you don’t know in advance what battle will be important. But you do know, based on history and human nature, that a right undefended will shrivel and die. If you don’t fight for the small right, you won’t be in a position to assert the large right.

Moreover, the existence of the right of privacy is usually based on whether people have a current expectation of privacy in a certain situation. To the extent that people decline to assert their right of privacy, it slips away. Lack of vigilance by citizens begets more government power.

10. Travellers Who Have Presented Proof of U.S. Citizenship Should Not Be Detained For Refusing To Answer Questions.

That’s what this is all about. Once a traveler has provided bona fide proof of U.S. citizenship, he or she is entitled to re-enter the country. CBP should not be asking questions as a matter of course, and, if citizens assert the right to silence, CBP should not be detaining them.
close quote

Detained By The Feds For Not Answering Questions

Love it when people stick up for their rights.

open quoteI was detained last night by federal authorities at San Francisco International Airport for refusing to answer questions about why I had travelled outside the United States.

The end result is that, after waiting for about half an hour and refusing to answer further questions, I was released – because U.S. citizens who have produced proof of citizenship and a written customs declaration are not obligated to answer questions.

* * *

“Why were you in China?” asked the passport control officer, a woman with the appearance and disposition of a prison matron.

“None of your business,” I said.

Her eyes widened in disbelief.

“Excuse me?” she asked.

“I’m not going to be interrogated as a pre-condition of re-entering my own country,” I said.

This did not go over well.close quote (Read more from knifetricks.blogspot.com)

The incompetent TSA agents stricken by honey-fumes

I became aware of this story when I listened to this Tom Woods interview:

(he mentions it @ 2:50)

At the Bakersfield airport in California, TSA authorities recently shut down the entire airport after finding what they thought was a container of liquid explosives.

Luggage screeners discovered five Gatorade bottles full of an “amber” liquid. TSA agents then opened the bottles and complained they smelled “a strong chemical odor.” They then complained of nausea and were taken to the local hospital for treatment.

According to Reuters, “Kern County Sheriffs deputies, fire crews, FBI agents and members of a joint terrorism task force responded to the scene and spent the day questioning Ramirez before further tests showed that the liquid was honey.”

In other words, Ramirez was interrogated by the FBI for hours while being presumed to be a terrorist. . . .

And then they engage in all sorts of theater by acting like they’re experiencing nausea so that they can be carted off to the hospital and take the rest of the work day off. . . .

What the TSA hasn’t yet acknowledged is that their chemical detection tests are complete quackery.

As we’ve reported before, a bottle of Dr. Bronner’s soap will test positive for illegal narcotics. A bar of home-made chocolate got Ron and Nadine from Living Libations arrested (and their child stolen from them by authorities) and accused of trafficking illegal drugs (www.naturalnews.com/024304.html).

Honey now apparently tests positive for explosives. Is there any food or liquid substance that truly safe from being declared a bomb by incompetent TSA employees? (Read more from naturalnews.com)

TSA to download your iTunes? Government moves to expand Constitution-free zones

Federal security workers are now free to snoop through more than just your undergarments and luggage at the airport. Thanks to a recent series of federal court decisions, the digital belongings of international fliers are now open for inspection. This includes reading the saved e-mails on your laptop, scanning the address book on your iPhone or BlackBerry and closely scrutinizing your digital vacation snapshots.

Unlike the more common confiscations of dangerous Evian bottles and fingernail clippers, these searches are not being done in the name of safety. The digital seizures instead are part of a disturbing trend of federal agencies using legal gimmicks to sidestep Fourth Amendment constitutional protections. This became clear in an April 8 court ruling that found admissible the evidence obtained by officials who had peeped at a passenger’s laptop files at George Bush Intercontinental Airport in Houston. (Read more from washingtontimes.com)

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano can’t decide if the system worked

Following the failed terror attack aboard a Northwest Airlines Detroit-bound flight on Christmas day, Napolitano has changed her tune from: Once the incident occurred, the system worked, to Our system did not work in this instance. (Read more from ostroyreport.com)

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

We are in goooooood hands, people. </sarcasm>

Security Theater

Taking off your shoes at the airport. Bloated no-fly lists. Random screenings and searches. Little plastic bags full of 3-ounce liquid containers. All of these measures were reactionary responses to terrorism on airlines. None of it works.

All of this, however, is the definition of security theater:

Security theater consists of security countermeasures intended to provide the feeling of improved security while doing little or nothing to actually improve security. The term was coined by Bruce Schneier for his book Beyond Fear, but has gained currency in security circles, particularly for describing airport security measures. It is also used by some experts such as Edward Felten to describe the airport security repercussions due to the September 11 attacks. Security theater gains importance both by satisfying and exploiting the gap between perceived risk and actual risk.

Taking off your shoes at the airport does nothing to prevent terrorist attacks on airlines. The shoe-bomber plot was foiled, and that particular technique is unlikely to be tried again. Instead, we’ll get new methods, like the most recent over Christmas in Detroit, with condoms full of explosives taped to legs.

What’s next in this game of whack-a-mole? We’re already hearing of new restrictions aimed at thwarting this latest incident, which is unlikely to be repeated:

According to a statement posted Saturday morning on Air Canada’s Web site, the Transportation Security Administration will severely limit the behavior of both passengers and crew during flights in United States airspace — restricting movement in the final hour of flight. Late Saturday morning, the T.S.A. had not yet included this new information on its own Web site.

“Among other things,” the statement in Air Canada’s Web site read, “during the final hour of flight customers must remain seated, will not be allowed to access carry-on baggage, or have personal belongings or other items on their laps.”

What’s next, flying without pants? How about the logical extreme, flying naked?

Republicans (and Joe Lieberman) are already up in arms about how the “system” didn’t work and how we’ve got to launch another invasion. Of course the system didn’t work! It’s not designed to work. The airline security system is designed to give scared Americans a feeling of security, right down to National Guard troops in airports with huge machine guns that contain no bullets. Meanwhile, as Schneier and others point out, security theater has real costs. The screening technology at airports cost money. The embarrassing screening procedures take time. Garbage-in, garbage-out no-fly lists erode our civil liberties and privacy.

(Read more from seminal.firedoglake.com)