An Open Letter To Republicans In Congress: Put An End To Strip And Grope Airport Searches

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An Open Letter To Republicans In Congress: Put An End To Strip And Grope Airport Searches

Written By : John Hawkins

We have a system for detecting terrorists. You have a system for annoying people. — Attributed to ex-El Al security chief Dan Issacharoff

Conservatives are committed to bettering the lives of the American people, but too often, we don’t start the process by asking, “What problems do people have today and how can we use conservative principles to solve them?” There’s a lot to be said for working on big problems and abstract issues, but sometimes, dealing with the comparatively small issues can have an outsized impact.

One of those small issues where we could make a real difference is with the strip and grope searches that are becoming the new normal in the airports. Here’s Scott Ott talking about what’s going on:

Without regard for threat potential, airline passengers of all ages can now be forced to make the choice between baring their nakedness before a federal agent, or getting a full-body fingertip groping by another federal agent. The advanced imaging technology (AIT) scanners — AKA strip-search machines — now stand watch in more than 65 airports nationwide, with their numbers set to grow by more than 40 percent at year’s end, thanks to your federal stimulus dollars.

The procedure is so humiliating and so invasive that even flight crews are rebelling. The 11,000-member American Pilots’ Association just received a letter from its leader decrying the humiliation, radiation danger, and ineffectiveness at deterring terrorism of this strip-and-grope regimen.

…(Michael) Roberts notes the progression of this liberty-leeching invasion:

After the shoe-bomber attempt, we had to remove our shoes. After the underpants bomber, we had to be electronically strip searched and groped.

What will happen, he asks, after the first time a terrorist smuggles a bomb on a plane inside his rectum or in a breast implant?

There was a time, not too long ago, when that would have been a comedian’s witty one-liner. Now, it sounds more like the future rushing upon us.

You shouldn’t have to be viewed naked or violated by government goons just to be able to get on an airplane. It’s disgusting, it’s dehumanizing, and it’s a violation of people’s privacy.

Yet we’re given a false choice: Either we do this or we put everyone at risk because of terrorism. This is simply not true.

Israel’s El Al is universally recognized as having the best airport security in the world — and they don’t have security guards pulling pretty women out of line so they can look at them naked in body scanners. They also don’t feel up women and run their hands over children’s crotches for security purposes.

So what do they do? Here’s “Isaac Yeffet, the former head of security for El Al” to explain it,

It’s mandatory that every passenger — I don’t care his religion or whatever he is — every passenger has to be interviewed by security people who are qualified and well-trained, and are being tested all year long. I trained my guys and educated them, that every flight, for them, is the first flight.

…We are constantly in touch with the Israeli intelligence to find out if there are any suspicious passengers among hundreds of passengers coming to take the flight.

…During the year, we did thousands of tests of our security guys around the world. It cost money, but once you save lives, it’s worth all the money that the government gave us to have the right security system.

I used to send a male or female that we trusted. We used to give them tickets and send them to an airport to take a flight to Tel Aviv. We concealed whatever we could in their luggage. Everything was fake, and we wanted to find out if the security people would stop this passenger or not.

If there was any failure, the security people immediately were fired, and we called in all the security people to tell people why they failed, what happened step by step. I wanted everyone to learn from any failure. And if they were very successful, I wanted everyone to know why.

…I want to interview you. It won’t take too long if you’re bona fide. We never had a delay.

…I have heard so many times El Al is a small airline. We in America are big air carriers. Number one, we have over 400 airports around the country, why hasn’t anyone from this government asked himself, let’s take one airport out of 400 airports and try to implement El Al’s system because their system proved they’re the best of the best.

For the last 40 years, El Al did not have a single tragedy. And they came to attack us and to blow up our aircraft, but we knew how to stop them on the ground. So let’s try to implement the system at one airport in the country and then come to a conclusion…

It’s been said that El Al is a small airline and this won’t work for big American airlines. To me, that sounds like nothing more than a lame excuse. In other words, we’d rather take the assembly line approach with high tech equipment and low skill security guards rather than focus on training and worry that the ACLU will raise hell when someone isn’t allowed to fly.

Whether you like the El Al approach or not, the system that’s being put into place now is ridiculous and un-American. We’ve had people complain endlessly because they’re afraid the government might look at the library books they’ve checked out, but now they’re supposed to be okay with airport security looking at them naked and feeling up their wives and daughters? This has got to change and Republican politicians should be willing to step up and say so.

Anonymous

I remember back in 2002-2003 when all of this began to take shape. It was pretty obvious then that the entire system was going to be an assembly line, check off the boxes approach. You could begin to tell when they announced the entire system was going to be union. You could confirm it when you began to see ads about how to get those airport security jobs. Half of these people couldn’t get a job on their local police force. The entire system has less to do with protecting air travellers than it does with perpetuating itself as a system.
Want to see the future of U.S. medicine under Obamacare? Try passing through airport security.

JTaylor37

STOP YER WHINING! ITS BETTER TO HAVE MORE SECURITY THAN LESS!
JTaylor37

STOP YER WHINING! ITS BETTER TO HAVE MORE SECURITY THAN LESS!

Anonymous

Well, then I suggest you check yourself into the federal supermax facility in Colorado. After all, it’s better to have more security than less.

StanW

Everything the TSA does is an afterthought. Once the terrorists have tried something, the TSA goes into it’s monkey-mimic act. Just the other day, the TSA has added printer cartridges to their banned items list. Great job guys, only a few weeks too late.

And as far as this not working for big airlines, this is the same excuse the Liberals use for illegal aliens. We can’t get them ALL out of the country, so we should not even try.

The El Al solution will never be implemented here because it involves (1) Profiling and (2) The firing of incompetants. Neither of these sensible precautions will be allowed by Liberals. Better we all die horribly at the hands of terrorist than a person be offended or some government lackey lose their job!

JTaylor37

ARE YOU THIS STUPID???? WE NEED MORE SECURITY NOT LESS DUMBASS!

StanW

Listen carefully, we need security that works. We do not need TSA on a power trip, covering for their own incompetance by violating travelers.

Why is that so hard to understand.

http://conservativebootcamp.com Martin Hale

If ever a situation was crying out for some good old fashioned civil disobedience, this naked scanner/pat down nonsense is it. I encourage everyone to “opt out”. Gum up the works as much as you can. Impose an overwhelming and impossible work load onto the TSA. Lodge your protest about having your person and your private space invaded. If half of the passengers at any airport forced the TSA to go through their shouting “We have an opt out!” routine several thousand times a day, administratively, I’m pretty sure that even they’d figure out that they’re not going to win this one and relent. May I suggest that we have the biggest travel day of the year upcoming in a couple of weeks, and that would be an excellent date to conduct such a protest.

Even better, don’t fly if you don’t have to. If the airlines were to see their revenues take it in the shorts over this issue, they’d be all over Ms. Napolitano like white on rice to figure out another way to accomplish the security thing. And the El Al example cited above proves one thing – there is another way to successfully accomplish security.

The one thing the Israelis have absolutely right in their process is that they engage in behavioural assessment of potential passengers. Critics would call it profiling, but it’s not. The the Israeli security agents are looking for behavioural cues, not whether someone is from a particular ethnic group or religion. The ‘profile’ they’re looking for is behavioural.

From what friends have told me, the security process in Israel starts out in the parking lots and is conducted at several stages as the passengers make their way to their plane. It involves a lot of asking questions. It involves a lot of observation of how people react and respond.

I do have a question though. Are the TSA patting down Muslim women in burquas when they refuse to be seen naked in the scanner? Has anyone heard anything about that situation? I can’t imagine that CAIR wouldn’t have threatened a lawsuit if a Muslim woman had been groped.

~~~~~~~~~~~

Final thought: I think most people, with a little thought, can see where this whole deal is headed:

A guy uses a box cutter to hijack a plane; we all have to empty our pockets, take off our glasses, belts, watches, etc, and can’t travel with nailclippers.

A guy wears exploding shoes; we all have to take off our shoes and shuffle through security barefoot.

A guy carries chemicals for a bomb on board in bottles; we can’t travel with toiletries anymore.

A guy wears exploding panties; we all have to stand virtually naked or have our privates poked and prodded.

Next up?

Isn’t it obvious?

A man or woman carries explosives on board in those ready-made orifices nature provides; guess what’s coming next, folks?

StanW

I can tell you exactly what will be next, Martin:

It will be a busy holiday weekend with packed airports. A man/woman will park their car and enter the airport with a carry-on bag. While standing in line for security, surrounded by hundreds of travelers and dozens of security agents, that person will announce “Allah Akbar” and detonate the schrapnel explosive thay have in their bag, killing nearly everyone there.

And the TSA will say “Hey, at least we didn’t offend them!”

http://conservativebootcamp.com Martin Hale

I saw a blurb at Drudge just after I posted my original comment that indicated that CAIR is telling Muslim women to resist both the scanners and the pat downs. Well, it had to happen some day – there’s finally something I agree with CAIR about, though not for any of the same reasons.

Anyway, you could be right about a lobby explosion. From the fact that the recent toner cartridge bombs were set to detonate while the planes were in the air, however, I think al-Qaeda is really fixated on the “showiness” of a mid-air explosion. Hence the “bum bomb” idea.

StanW

The terrorists are trying the system, looking for weaknesses. The situation from Yemen is a good example. They were not trying to get the fake bombs through; they were looking at how far they got through the process before they were discovered.

And as far as CAIR goes, forget them. They want American’s strip searched at the gates, while they breeze through carring God-Knows-What.

President Friedman

“Even better, don’t fly if you don’t have to.”

I won’t take my family on vacations that require plane trips anymore, because if my wife (who is hotter than a ten dollar pistol) got called out of the line for a pat down by some douchebag I know it would not end well for me… and if my daughter got called out of line for the same reason, it would not end well for them.

If we are going north, east, or west, we drive… if we are going south (anywhere in Texas) we take the Amtrack and then rent a car. For all its other faults, there is no security check and I even get to carry my pocket knife in my pocket on Amtrack… and sleeping on a train trip is about the best sleep I’ve gotten since I was a kid sprawled out in the back of the station wagon.

gfchicago

I won’t take my family on vacations that require plane trips anymore, because if my wife (who is hotter than a ten dollar pistol)

That reminds me of the time back in mid September 2002, when my sister-in-law passed away, it was a very early morning flight, and I had put my hair up in a baseball cap, because it was so early. The security person told me I had to take it off. Up ahead of us was an I think an Indian Seik (S/P?), and he was not made to take it off in order to get through security. Needless to say I went a little ballistic and said something about it, the whole time my husband was telling me to be quite. Well that led to us getting our luggage searched because of me and my big mouth (it didn’t help that it was 5:00 a.m.). I was really annoyed that I had to take off my baseball cap, when there was no way I could have hid anything under that, but the turban the Indian guy had on, well he could have hid a hell of a lot more than I could have in headgear. I do understand your wifes revulsion to the personal strip searches as it were. That’s why we will not be traveling by air until something changes.

Kingfisher

With all this talk about TSA security (or the lack thereof) there is an obvious question that has not yet been answered. There are stores in areas of every major airport after you are cleared by TSA, just what security process exists to clear all that merchandise?

We’re not supposed to fight terrorists, the crew is not allowed to carry firearms and we’re not allowed to profile. For some mysterious reason, we’re supposed to apologize to the terrorists because we’re in their country while they are free to live in ours. We’re supposed to apologize to them for practicing our religion in their country while they freely practice their religion in ours. We’re supposed to apologize to them for false claims of violence against them while they openly commit violence against us, with the left’s full support.

This isn’t working and yet, our “infallible” federal government tells us that we’re supposed to accept it.
Anonymous

Stop these warrantless searches just because we bought an item (ticket).
joe2171

Last year 10.9 million passengers flew out of Tel Aviv airport…

through August this year, almost half a Billion people have flown out of US airports.

I hate to say it, but the argument for using El Al style security techniques is specious at best and, more realistically, simply ludicrous.

Propose real workable solutions that will not cost tens of billions of dollars, which hiring and traing all the El Al style security personnel would, otherwise we have to stick with what we have.

By the way, as both a former Law Enforcement Officer and Correctional Officer at a maximum security prison, I am hardly unique at the airport I work at as a Transportation Security Officer for TSA. That being the case I can also tell you that the pat downs we do are nowhere near as intrusive as the pat down I did as a police officer or as a correctional officer.

I am also a Conservative Republican, also nowhere near unique at my airport.

Anonymous

joe2171,

Missing from your discussion is one simple reality: the current system doesn’t work. There’s little evidence that the current system is particularly effective at stopping anything. There’s a huge amount of evidence that it is incredibly burdensome for passengers. You know, those people that the TSA is supposed to protect and serve? You say your background is as a former law enforcement officer and prison guard. Well, congratualations, you’re qualified. Shouldn’t that be a standard? If a pilot told you “I have a pilot’s license. And I am hardly unique in my airline.”, would you consider that an endorsement of that carrier? You say that the patdowns you administer are not as intrusive as those in your past careers. But doesn’t it occur to you that you’re not dealing with criminals, but the people who you are supposed to be working on behalf of? You say implementing best practices (El Al style security) would cost tens of billions of dollars. Is the status quo free?

joe2171

I’m qualified, really?

Well obvious as it may be to some people(not you), I was responding to the earlier post about how unqualified TSA screeners are.

try thinking about this, spikey, billdalasio, gfchicago…

If these searches had been implemented when TSA was first stood up back in 2002, do you think it would have been as controversial, or considered as invasive in the post 9/11 world?

Be honest, in the aftermath of 9/11 if these patdowns and the scanner machines would have been there from the very beginning, would there have been such an outcry?

Or, since there hasn’t been another airline attack that has originated inside the US, do you think people, like yourselves, would have grown complacent and begun to think “We don’t need this hassle” every time some new change was put into place.

Do you think that a terrorist will try to get on a plane now wearing loose clothing and a bomb in his underwear?

TSA, just like every Police Officer across the country, is a visible deterrent, while at the same time the US military and the US intelligence services work overseas and behind the scenes to keep us safe.

Anonymous

joe2171,

No offense, but you’re missing my point whether you personally are qualified is beside the point. A reasonable person would expect that everyone working for the organization would be qualified. As someone who did a round trip flight just yesterday, I can tell you it’s pretty clear to most travellers that that simply isn’t the case. Overhearing people bragging that they’ve been in the function a whole five years hardly inspires confidence.
You ask whether we would have objected to these methods just after 9/11. In fact, I recall many conservatives making precisely the same objections I am now, then. I recall many of us complaining that the organization was taking on too many qualities of a sclerotic bureaucracy, rather than an effective security organization. I recall the reference to Mr. Issacharoff’s comments being noted then.
The present system is incrdibly expensive, both in direct costs, inconvenience and intrusiveness. The sum total of what you’re telling us we get for that is a visible deterrent efffect. That’s a poor bargain where most of us are concerned. We’ve had similar success rates in preventing terrorist attacks in other venues without these costs.

gfchicago

I can also tell you that the pat downs we do are nowhere near as intrusive as the pat down I did as a police officer or as a correctional officer.

So the traveling public are to be considered criminals, when they as a majority have done nothing wrong?

I’m sorry it’s really offensive, unless you have a really good reason, and some sort of evidence, that some little old lady from Iowa with a hip replacement is going to blow up a plane.

As Stan and Martin have pointed out with all of these after the fact security procedures, it will take up a lot of time, and during that time, you could have someone blow up the airport standing in line. That is just as effective, if not more than blowing up an Airliner.
Spikey

When you have nothing to say just sprout off some numbers:
You say, 10.9 million flew out of Tel Aviv and 1/2 Bil out of the US, lets take this as an example – the numbers are wrong anyway.
The population of Israel is about 7.5 million
10.9 flights divided by 7.5 population =1.45 flights per person
The population of the USA is 307 million
500 flights divided by 307 population =1.62 flights per person
1.62-1.45=.17
So we fly .17 more times than the population of Israel

The number of flights (per person of population) is almost identical.

“I hate to say it, but the argument for using El Al style security techniques is specious at best and, more realistically, simply ludicrous.”

joe2171 I hate to say it but just tossing out numbers to disprove the feasibility of implementing El Al type security techniques is ludicrous at best, for even your manipulated numbers prove that it is nothing more than a difference in size of the 2 countries.

joe2171

Spikey, did you even think to check the numbers at all before deciding I was wrong?

Did you actually think that a mathematical comparison of population versus passenger totals was anything other than utterly ridiculous?

The population of Israel is about 7.5 million
10.9 flights divided by 7.5 population =1.45 flights per person…

Hmmm, I was not aware of the crazy restrictions they have in place about only Isreali citizens can fly out of there, and how about those crazy rules about only being able to fly 1.45 times per year, nope no weekly trips for you wacky businessman.

The population of the USA is 307 million
500 flights(500 million?) divided by 307 population =1.62 flights per person
1.62-1.45=.17
So we fly .17 more times than the population of Israel

Wow, there are so many things wrong with those numbers I can’t even begin to describe how stupid it is.

As in my earlier sarcasm about the crazy restrictions on only flying 1.45 times per year, your use of mathematical models using population versus passenger totals is so far out of the bounds of common sense it is mind boggling.

Nobody ever fly’s more than once per year, no one ever enters and then leaves the country, thus upping the totals, those damn foreigners!

Since you seem to need a little help figuring this stuff out, here is a clue, try googling “Ben Gurion International airport 2009 passenger totals”, and then click a couple of the links.

Then try googling “united states air travel passenger totals”, again click a couple links.

Really guy, this stuff isn’t hard, a little independent thought, and a little problem solving and boom, less embarassing yourself on the internet.

Cowboy Dan

For fiscal year 2008, the TSA had a budget of roughly $6.8 billion. Congress appropriated $4 billion and law mandated an additional $500 million, while fees brought in the remaining $2.3 billion.

I couldn’t find 2009 data, but it’s undoubtedly higher and may well have hit the $10 Billion mark. If it hasn’t, it will soon. Training and education won’t put any money in Chertoff’s pocket, and those so educated can take their training and experience on the hoof, so to speak, which I’m sure is not true of the Rapiscan machinery, they won’t break down for lack of maintenance, and they won’t be made obsolete by a newer technology.

I don’t think the El Al method is nearly as offensive as being groped by a TSA pervert. Not that you’re all pervs, but they ARE well represented in your ranks.

Anonymous

Anwer: the government cannot even protect their top of the line U.S.S. kitty hawk,a chinese attack sub popped up-undetected- right in the middle of their exercise, off of japan.: the government cannot stop millions of illegal aliens from tap dancing right-over our border.the government cannot put back to work tens of millions of unemployed americans.: they cannot protect the american dollar from declining.But……. they can grope 8 year old girls at the airport………………………………..
Wiff O’Grapeshot

For the past nine years whenever I was required me to present picture ID I would show them my military ID. (“I am the real homeland security. Do NOT mess with me.”)

Now that I’m retired I’m seriously considering flying in my Utilikilt. (“I flashed the TSA? They asked me to!”)
Andy

Not only was my EL AL flight to and from Israel affording me the best security – security also went step in step with the BEST SERVICE and card for passengers I have ever experienced. Not only are EL Al crews looking out for the possible terrorist exhibiting tell tale behavior but they are also alert to passengers showing sign of cardiac or respiratory distress, claustrophobia or other maladies more common especially among older passengers who are Christian or Jewish making an emotionally uplifting but often physically taxing visit late in their lives to holy sites in Israel. El Al’s professionalism and treatment of its passengers with care and respect are to be commended!
Jen

I travel quite a bit…about 1x month…The airports that I frequent are very large…Denver and Houston (I leave from Albq)…I have both of my hips replaced and 2 bad knees…As a woman, I must say that I have never had a bad experience…they have always been respectful of me and my carry-ons…I am not sure that the system that is now in use should be judged by a few people who have had bad experiences…after all it is just in our own perceptions of the system. The TSA agents aren’t real government agents…they all appear to be regular people and rather un-educated…they are doing their best with the amount of people that pass through the system…Personally, I am more afraid of pedifile priests, drunk drivers, corrupt police and sheriff deputies….they have a lot of power, yet they get away with searches as well. My son-in-law to be is a commercial pilot. They stupidest thing that I have heard from him is that pilots are even checked…they really don’t need to blow up a plane..they could just drive it into the ground or a building…why would they take the chance of being detected? People are so stupid to be getting on this band wagon…they need to concentrate on real dangers ie drunk drivers…they kill more people a year than any terrorist…Pedifiles mame many children and their parents..once again, much more than terrorists…If we concentrated on bettering our own back yard, it would be a much safer place to be…let the agents do their jobs…concentrate on surmountable problems…clean up the corruption in our local, state, and federal governments…make them stop “raping” the citizens of the country for their hard earned money…This is just my opinion, yet I feel I speak for a lot of citizens…Lets get on with our lives, and quit trying to politicize every problem…this is problem that all Americans face…it seems to me that the powers that be, are just trying to get us to focus on these minimal problems, so that we don’t see that they are screwing us all…xray or not, we are all getting it in the rear end. Thank you for all of your time…jen
Jen

I travel quite a bit…about 1x month…The airports that I frequent are very large…Denver and Houston (I leave from Albq)…I have both of my hips replaced and 2 bad knees…As a woman, I must say that I have never had a bad experience…they have always been respectful of me and my carry-ons…I am not sure that the system that is now in use should be judged by a few people who have had bad experiences…after all it is just in our own perceptions of the system. The TSA agents aren’t real government agents…they all appear to be regular people and rather un-educated…they are doing their best with the amount of people that pass through the system…Personally, I am more afraid of pedifile priests, drunk drivers, corrupt police and sheriff deputies….they have a lot of power, yet they get away with searches as well. My son-in-law to be is a commercial pilot. They stupidest thing that I have heard from him is that pilots are even checked…they really don’t need to blow up a plane..they could just drive it into the ground or a building…why would they take the chance of being detected? People are so stupid to be getting on this band wagon…they need to concentrate on real dangers ie drunk drivers…they kill more people a year than any terrorist…Pedifiles mame many children and their parents..once again, much more than terrorists…If we concentrated on bettering our own back yard, it would be a much safer place to be…let the agents do their jobs…concentrate on surmountable problems…clean up the corruption in our local, state, and federal governments…make them stop “raping” the citizens of the country for their hard earned money…This is just my opinion, yet I feel I speak for a lot of citizens…Lets get on with our lives, and quit trying to politicize every problem…this is problem that all Americans face…it seems to me that the powers that be, are just trying to get us to focus on these minimal problems, so that we don’t see that they are screwing us all…xray or not, we are all getting it in the rear end. Thank you for all of your time…jen
JTaylor37

ARE YALL THIS STUPID? WE HAD A TERRORIST ATTACK AND NOW YOU WANT NO REAL AIRPORT SECURITY? WELL WHEN AMERICANS GET BLOWN UP BECAUSE YOU REPEALED THE NEW SECURITY RULES DON’T BLAME THE DEMS!

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