Why ‘Tight Security’ Is ‘Festive’

by Becky Akers
by Becky Akers

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Right about now, the Feds are probably damning former US Secretary of Transportation Norman Mineta to hell’s hottest depths. Mineta "oversaw the creation of the Transportation Security Administration," as the lickspittles at ABC News euphemized it, by which they mean he nationalized aviation security. A hundred of the screeners Mineta foisted on the country harassed Democratic conventioneers in Denver last week, and 50 are currently hassling Republicans at St. Paul’s Xcel Energy Center – in addition to the ones molesting passengers at each city’s airports. It’s doubtful even the TSA is punishment enough for Our Rulers; still, if you want a good laugh, imagine fat, surly LaWanda and her blue gloves colliding with Cindy McCain.

We can’t blame Mineta alone for replacing FAA-controlled screeners with TSA-employed ones. His fellow Democrats in Congress and their union puppeteers had tried for years to usurp the private companies staffing checkpoints. 9/11 provided the excuse they needed. While the country reeled, these operatives unleashed an army of 50,000 potential union members on us. It’s deliciously ironic that six years after the TSA’s birth, only 4,349 screeners "have their union dues automatically deducted from their payroll," as the agency puts it.

Still, from his perch in the Cabinet, Mineta pushed as hard as anyone for the TSA. We have him to thank that screeners don’t "profile" some passengers but instead abuse all. I’m a bit fuzzy as to why mass, warrantless searching is Constitutional while searching only part of the population isn’t, but hey, I’m just a serf while Mineta won the Presidential Medal of Honor [BARF ALERT]. Our esteemed statist supposedly eschews profiling because he was imprisoned as a child in Franklin Roosevelt’s Japanese concentration camps. You might think that would decidedly and dramatically turn a man against Leviathan; instead, Mineta’s spent a lifetime working for the beast. Spawning the TSA is only one of his sins.

Which brings us to the fearful Feds and their panic lest we peons so much as question their silly, vainglorious conventions – and "question" seems to be all that anyone was planning: "Intelligence analysts … have not reported a heightened threat from Islamic extremists or domestic threats from antigovernment groups or environmental militants…, according to federal officials. ‘We just aren’t seeing a credible threat,’ said James H. Davis, the F.B.I. agent in charge of the Denver office." But "we do have quite a bit of intelligence, information on anarchist groups, on protesters who are intent on coming here to disrupt the convention with other than legal means." Because "legal means" required dissidents to obtain permits before protesting in a fenced parking lot or along designated routes at certain hours, anyone who disagrees with the Amerikan Empire and said so where he pleased, when he pleased, was breaking the law. No word on whether the conventions of 2012 will demand the criminalization of thought as well as speech.

"The wicked flee when no one pursues," so Our Rulers want protection, the real stuff and plenty of it, as they gather to wreak more evil. But after six years of pretending the TSA does more than make work for the otherwise unemployable, they’ve got to use the agency or risk charges of hypocrisy. And yet the Feds understand better than anyone that the TSA’s a sham since they conduct the tests screeners routinely fail. What to do? Well, they ordered a few dozen of the Thousands that usually Stand Around airports to stand around the conventions instead. Then they detailed the Secret Service and six other bureaucracies to protect conventioneers from…hmmm, in the absence of "credible threats," I guess they’re protecting them from screeners. Passengers should be so lucky.

None of this fazes the TSA any more than does prying a recuperating grandmother from her wheelchair so its goons can molest her. "Our officers are honored to be able to provide support to the Secret Service and stand ready to assist in any way possible," says Ken Kasprisin, "Federal Security Director" at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport. "Security is a team effort, and we're prepared to do our part." You betcha.

Picture Sam the Secret Service Man’s disgust at the TSA’s "assistance": now, in addition to his other duties, he’s got to supervise LaWanda. "Yo," he tells her, "keep your damn hands off the bigwigs. You can grope all the delegates you want, but there’ll be hell to pay I catch you feelin’ up the nominees."

Searching people at a political event is old hat for the TSA – and since screeners demonstrably can’t find weapons, we have to ask what it is they’re hunting. Wanna bet anyone carrying literature for Ron Paul or Bob Barr was deemed a threat and "detained"?

Meanwhile, despite the "Tight Security," a "Festive Atmosphere Await[s] Convention Travelers at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport," or so the Metropolitan Airports Commission claims. Jeff Hamiel, the Commission’s executive director, warns that "Travelers will notice increased police presence on and around the airport, extra K-9 teams, and new electronic screening devices that can identify anyone carrying possible explosives." Jeff doesn’t disclose that those "screening devices" strip passengers with millimeter waves: perverts leering at the gizmo’s monitor see victims in their birthday suits.

And here you thought neocons love security because they’re sissies.

September 5, 2008

Becky Akers [send her mail] writes primarily about the American Revolution.

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