Category: U.S. government behaving badly

The continuing flight saga: I get goosed AGAIN

February 21, 2016 • 9:30 am

Once again the TSA (Transportation Security Agency) can’t keep its hands of my tuchus.  Going through the see-you-naked machine, having carefully removed everything from my pockets, the detector image nevertheless showed a small yellow patch on my right hand and a very large yellow patch on my right buttock. And you know what that means. The TSA agent asked if I had a wallet in my back pocket, and I did not.

I didn’t even listen after that; I just nodded as the guy went through the can-I-grope-your-buttocks-with-the-back-of-my-hand litany. I was soundly goosed, had my hands swabbed and tested with the Sniffer Machine, and then proceeded onward.

What is WRONG with these machines? I had nothing in my pockets and yet my buttock was still flagged in yellow. I have no metal implants in my rump, nor anything else to set off the machine. Yet in planned tests, agents regularly get dangerous stuff past the machines and agents. (Read this site for a lot of posts about the abysmal failures of the TSA.)

Perhaps I’ve just been flagged in the “AB” class (Attractive Buttocks). Regardless, this has happened to me the last three or four times I’ve flown—except out of Heathrow. If this happened in the workplace, it would count as sexual harassment.

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We’ll see if Canada treats me any better!

The TSA gooses me again!

February 6, 2016 • 2:54 pm

Not only is my plane two hours late, so I have to cool my heels for four hours in the desolate International Terminal of O’Hare, but, though clean as a whistle, I was grabbed by TSA after the Full Body Scan and given the Goosing Treatment. That meant a preliminary explanation by the agent about how he was going to palpate my buttocks with the back of his hands, and then the full Buttock Groping and the up-and-down-the-leg treatment as well. This time it was even more embarrassing than my previous goosing incidents (I declined the search in a private room). And, of course, they found nothing: I had neither a wallet nor anything else in my pockets.

Oh, and they decided to swab my hands, too.

I have no metal implants or anything else suspicious. Why you do this to me, TSA?

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I got both!

TSA body scanners abysmal failures at detecting contraband

December 26, 2015 • 9:45 am

Just yesterday the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) put in place a regulation that even air passengers who opt for a pat-down security check could be required to go through the See-You-Naked Machines (SYNMs), euphemistically known as full-body scanners. (Full disclosure: they no longer see an image of your naked body.) Right now 2% of passengers opt for the pat-down as an alternative to going through the machines but now they may require the Official Peeping. Apparently this rule is in place because full-body pat-downs miss some things that the machines can detect, but I’m invariably groped (sometimes intrusively) after going through a SYNM, and they’ve never detected anything.

But do those machines really work?

No. They should, for they cost $150,000 each, and the bill so far is over $120 million dollars for the units in place.

As Politico reported, their failure rate is abysmal:

A recent security audit found that TSA had failed to find fake explosives and weapons in 96 percent of covert tests. And members of Congress familiar with the classified details say the body scanners are to blame for much of the problem.

Rep. Bennie Thompson of Mississippi, the top Democrat on the House Homeland Security Committee, said that while the TSA has spent a fortune on new equipment, he is “troubled about their capability to detect and prevent dangerous materials from passing through security checkpoints.”

Johnson said that while bomb detection is obviously a complex undertaking, “these things weren’t even catching metal.”

House committee Chairman Mike McCaul (R-Texas) confirmed that L-3’s body scanners were the technology fingered in the audit and said that “the technology failure was a big part of the problem.” The chairman — a former federal prosecutor who spends much of his time thumbing through secret documents in the windowless bowels of the Capitol — added that the manufacturer guarantees an accuracy far below 100 percent.

. . . Anthony Roman, a pilot and security expert who also designs management software, said probably only a small percentage of the body imaging machines’ failure rate can be chocked up to the technology itself. The rest is likely because of the TSA’s “low-paid, under-motivated, not incredibly well-trained personnel,” he said.

The TSA of course is promising to do better, including adding software “patches” to help detect contraband, but even if the failure rate goes down to 50%, one out of two people smuggling weapons or explosives onto planes will still get through.

I tend to show respect to government officials (after all, they’re representing all of us), but the TSA is an exception. Its behavior is a comedy of errors, it’s reactive rather than proactive, and my experiences with its employees have been dire. They’re rude, loud, and seem to revel in throwing their weight around and humiliating travelers. In all my interactions with them—and I travel a lot—I’ve met exactly two who I thought were trying to be nice and pleasant.

 

The TSA: Security theater?

October 9, 2015 • 8:30 am

The premise of this video, from the show “Adam ruins everything” is that the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) is worthless for two reasons: it hasn’t yet stopped any terrorist attacks by discovering weapons or explosives, and, by making public its methods and what has been confiscated, simply encourages terrorists to come up with new methods.

I agree that the TSA’s procedures are inefficient and intrusive, and I’ve objected several times to being groped in my nether parts. And of course there are other ways to improve security, including beefing up the presence of armed air marshals on flights.

But consider this: if you think the TSA is pure “security theater”, do you think we should do away with screening entirely, as was the case 15 years ago? If we did that, the terrorists wouldn’t need to come up with new methods; they’d simply carry on their guns and bombs. And air marshals aren’t very effective against bombs. Perhaps the TSA hasn’t stopped a terrorist incident already in play, but surely it’s prevented some from being conceived. Imagine what would happen if there were no screening!

Saying that the TSA is useless because it hasn’t stopped terrorism is like saying that the police are useless because we still have crime. Perhaps there are some readers who think that we should dispense with screening entirely, and deep-six this “security theater.” If so, weigh in below and justify your ideas.

h/t: Kieran

9 members of Doctors Without Borders killed, dozens of others wounded as “collateral damage” in US airstrike in Afghanistan

October 3, 2015 • 10:00 am

The American government is culpable for every innocent civilian (euphemistically described as “collateral damage”) killed accidentally in airstrikes or dronestrikes in the Middle East. Every such person killed has others who love them, and values their life as much as any other human, and in that sense each person is intrinsically valuable. But those who devote their efforts to saving the lives of others have a special value, for the deaths of such workers implicitly entail the deaths of others—what might be called “second-order collateral damage.”

And so so, once again, the U.S. has slaughtered a bunch of innocent civilians, this time including nine members of Doctors Without Borders (or MSF, for Médecins Sans Frontières) ,an organization near and dear to my heart, as its members help the suffering in time of disaster regardless of the victims’ ethnicity, religion, or “side” in a war. (It’s our Official Website Charity™).

As reported by CNN, in an airstrike Saturday morning on a hospital in the Afghan city of Kunduz, U.S. planes killed not only the nine MSF workers, but also injured 24 other members of the group along with at least 13 other people. (I’ve heard no reports yet of the deaths of patients.)

The worst part is that MSF gave the U.S. the GPS coordinates of the hospital as early as Thursday to prevent something like this, for the Taliban was fighting in the area. But there’s more: CNN reports (see the video at the link) that the strikes appear to have been deliberately aimed at the hospital.

Now that must have been a mistake, for there’s no reason why the U.S. would target an MSF hospital, especially because of the public-relations disaster that would ensue. It’s also a violation of the Geneva Convention, and serves no military purpose. But you can’t undo the deaths caused by that mistake.

Here’s the statement from MSF:

MSF condemns in the strongest possible terms the horrific bombing of its hospital in Kunduz full of staff and patients. MSF wishes to clarify that all parties to the conflict, including in Kabul and Washington, were clearly informed of the precise location (GPS Coordinates) of the MSF facilities – hospital, guest-house, office and an outreach stabilization unit in Chardara (to the north-west of Kunduz). As MSF does in all conflict contexts, these precise locations were communicated to all parties on multiple occasions over the past months, including most recently on 29 September.

The bombing continued for more than 30 minutes after American and Afghan military officials in Kabul and Washington were first informed. MSF urgently seeks clarity on exactly what took place and how this terrible event could have happened.

From the International Committee of the Red Cross:

Update, Saturday 3 October 2015: We condemn the shocking bombing of Médecins Sans Frontières’ hospital in ‪‎Kunduz. Under international humanitarian law, medical facilities must be respected and protected.

We call on all parties to the conflict to ensure the safety of the civilian population and to facilitate the work of those trying to provide humanitarian support to the people of Kunduz.

And the boilerplate U.S. statement of contrition, on of all places the U.S. Embassy in Afghanistan’s Facebook page:

The U.S. Embassy mourns for the individuals and families affected by the tragic incident at the Doctors without Borders hospital, and for all those suffering from the violence in Kunduz. Doctors without Borders performs heroic work throughout the world, including in Afghanistan, and our thoughts and prayers are with their team at this difficult moment. We remain deeply concerned about the ongoing violence in Kunduz and the difficult humanitarian situation faced by its residents.

Why are we still in Afghanistan, and why are we still killing innocent Afghanis and aid workers? Is the “collateral damage” justified by the “primary damage?”  I don’t think so. Perhaps our incursion into Afghanistan was justified right after 9/11, but what have we accomplished since then? Virtually nothing: the Taliban is still strong, we’ve poured endless resources into a useless war that’s now been going on for fourteen years, it is the longest war in U.S. history, and innocent people continue to die, while we prop up a corrupt government. It’s becoming the Vietnam War of our era: a conflict we cannot win and will not win.

The report by MSF is what brought this to my attention, but I don’t for a minute see their deaths as any more tragic than those of Afghanis themselves, except that MSF was saving the lives of the locals. It’s time for President Obama to stop bombing Afghanistan, get out troops out of the Middle East, and render whatever humanitarian aid we are capable of giving. Yes, we and other countries should continue to absorb genuine refugees from war and terrorism, but it’s time that we leave the region to settle its own accounts. The “collateral damage”—better called, “unavoidable killing of innocent people”—is not outweighed by any benefits that I can see.

America’s repugnant bootlicking of Saudi Arabia

September 28, 2015 • 10:30 am

According to Amnesty International, Saudi Arabia’s human-rights record is one of the most abysmal in the world. Freedom of expression and assembly are severely curtailed, there are many arbitrary arrests, with many held without being charged, those jailed are tortured and beaten, women have institutionalized second-class status, as do migrants, and there is flogging, amputation of limbs, and, of course, death sentences for “crimes” like sorcery and adultery. It’s a place of medieval barbarity.

One case that has recently come to world attention is that of the Saudi Ali Mohammed Baquir al-Nimr, now 21, who was sentenced to death by beheading for “crimes” committed when he was 17. After beheading, he’s slated to be crucified, with the headless body displayed to all on a cross. As Amnesty International reports:

In May, the SCC [Special Criminal Court in Riyadh] sentenced Ali Mohammed Baqir al-Nimr to death after convicting him on charges that included demonstrating against the government, possession of weapons and attacking the security forces. He denied the charges and told the court that he had been tortured and forced to confess in pre-trial detention. The court convicted him without investigating his torture allegations, and sentenced him to death although he was aged 17 at the time of the alleged offences.

See here for more information about the case; the “weapons” and “attack” charges are bogus.

Despite the Saudi’s dismal record, the United Nations appointed a Saudi diplomat as head of a human rights panel. It’s not clear how much power Faisal bin Hassan Trad, head of the Saudi delegation to the UN in Geneva, will have, but the UN Watch site suggests that he will certainly have more than symbolic power, as his council selects representatives to monitor human rights throughout the world.

The U.S., especially under a Democratic President, should be a beacon in defending human rights. To be sure, Obama is trying to close the disgraceful Guantanamo detention facility, whose existence is indefensible. But we have several blind spots, and one is defending—or rather refusing to criticize—Saudi Arabia. After all, they’re our “ally” and give us lots of oil.  The wages of diplomacy, apparently, include the dissimulation demonstrated by State Department spokesman Mark C. Toner, who went through this song and dance about Saudi human rights with reporters at last Tuesday’s daily press briefing:

QUESTION: Change topic? Saudi Arabia.

MR TONER: Saudi Arabia.

QUESTION: Yesterday, Saudi Arabia was named to head the Human Rights Council, and today I think they announced they are about to behead a 21-year-old Shia activist named Muhammed al-Nimr. Are you aware of that?

MR TONER: I’m not aware of the trial that you – or the verdict – death sentence.

QUESTION: Well, apparently, he was arrested when was 17-years-old and kept in juvenile detention, then moved on. And now, he’s been scheduled to be executed.

MR TONER: Right. I mean, we’ve talked about our concerns about some of the capital punishment cases in Saudi Arabia in our Human Rights Report, but I don’t have any more to add to it.

QUESTION: So you —

QUESTION: Well, how about a reaction to them heading the council?

MR TONER: Again, I don’t have any comment, don’t have any reaction to it. I mean, frankly, it’s – we would welcome it. We’re close allies. If we —

We welcome it as close allies? Seriously?

QUESTION: Do you think that they’re an appropriate choice given – I mean, how many pages is – does Saudi Arabia get in the Human Rights Report annually?

MR TONER: I can’t give that off the top of my head, Matt.

Translation: “They’re our close allies so they can do what they want to their citizens”

QUESTION: I can’t either, but let’s just say that there’s a lot to write about Saudi Arabia and human rights in that report. I’m just wondering if you that it’s appropriate for them to have a leadership position.

MR TONER: We have a strong dialogue, obviously a partnership with Saudi Arabia that spans, obviously, many issues. We talk about human rights concerns with them. As to this leadership role, we hope that it’s an occasion for them to look at human rights around the world but also within their own borders.

Translation: “I am going to move my lips but say nothing.”

QUESTION: But you said that you welcome them in this position. Is it based on improved record? I mean, can you show or point to anything where there is a sort of stark improvement in their human rights record?

MR TONER: I mean, we have an ongoing discussion with them about all these human rights issues, like we do with every country. We make our concerns clear when we do have concerns, but that dialogue continues. But I don’t have anything to point to in terms of progress.

Translation: “Well, we’re concerned, but the Saudis don’t seem to be doing anything, so they’ll remain our friends and close allies.”

QUESTION: Would you welcome as a – would you welcome a decision to commute the sentence of this young man?

MR TONER: Again, I’m not aware of the case, so it’s hard for me to comment on it other than that we believe that any kind of verdict like that should come at the end of a legal process that is just and in accordance with international legal standards.

I’m not sure what “international legal standards” Toner’s talking about, for as far as I can see international criminal law applies only to issues like genocide and crimes against humanity. Clearly, though, the Saudi legal process, at least for Muhammed al-Nimr, is unjust. But we dare not say that.

I’m not a diplomat, so clearly there is some delicate balancing going on here that’s beyond my ken. Still, it’s disgraceful for the United States to countenance the barbarity of Saudi Arabia simply because they cooperate with us (to their advantage, of course) in the war on terrorism, and also sell us one million barrels of oil per day. What if North Korea had oil?

At the very least, Obama and the State Department should take the position that the Saudi treatment of dissent, women, and prisoners is unacceptable. We cannot at the same time excoriate ISIS for torture, murder, and beheadings while turning a blind eye to the same acts by the Saudi government.

The leader of Britain’s Labour Party, severely etiolated as it  is, has called for David Cameron to condemn the treatment of this young man. As a final irony, the UN’s Office of the Commission of Human Rights has urged Saudi Arabia to spare Al-Nimr’s life because of trial irregularities and his age at the time of the supposed crime. Can’t the U.S. do at least as much as the U.N.?