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Dumbo in Buffalo
Becky Akers
Lew Rockwell.com
Friday, May 23, 2008
When it comes to sheer asininity, the Transportation Security
Administration (TSA) usually beats passengers by a very long shot.
But on May 10, a woman as dimwitted as your average screener handed
the TSA an excuse to shut down Buffalo Niagara International Airport.
Look for the agency to offer this bozo a job: she’s definitely
management material.
"Described only as a woman in her late 50s," our numbskull
remains unidentified. That should protect her from angry passengers
who missed connections or had to rent hotel rooms – but
it also compels us to invent a name. "Dumbo" comes to
mind, and it isn’t a reference to her size, either. Dumbo
confused the exit from the airport’s "secure area,"
as the TSA dubs those parts under its tyranny, with the entrance
to the checkpoint. She didn’t realize that she’d bypassed
the screening scam until she reached her gate.
I don’t know about you, but at that point I’d be
thinking, Yeehaw! Score one against the police state! I’d
probably brag to all and sundry about my coup – but later.
Given the cowards, imbeciles, and snitches that currently crowd
airports, I wouldn’t breathe a word until I was safely home.
(Article continues below)
Not Dumbo. She promptly set about earning our designation by
blabbing to an employee of Jet Blue. Which is like breaking out
of prison so you can tell the first cop you see about your exploit.
Naturally, the gate attendant ratted her out to "airport
police." Dumbo "was escorted to the security checkpoint
and interviewed by the NFTA [Niagara Frontier Transportation Authority],"
according to TSA spokesgal Lara Uselding. Get this: Dumbo was
on her way to New York City. No doubt our street-savvy sharks
have had a field day with her.
Ever notice how police states need multiple goons to handle "security
breaches," even when the culprits are too stupid to breathe,
let alone cause trouble? This woman of grandmotherly age posed
so grave a threat that the NFTA thugs called their TSA counterparts
for back-up.
No real terrorists have shown up at American airports since 9/11.
That leaves the TSA with its $6 billion annual budget and a Constitution
in shreds looking a tad unjustified. And so it capitalizes on
passengers like Dumbo by implying that they belong to Al Qaeda.
Tragically, the Big Lie works: too many Americans believe that
folks who forget the penknife in their briefcase or carry 8 ounces
of Listerine instead of 3 are bad guys from whom the TSA protects
us.
But the agency forsook its MO in Dumbo’s case: "authorities
… believe the woman didn't mean to breach security and it
was an innocent mistake." What gives? Thousands of other
equally innocent "terrorists" have suffered emotionally
and financially from the TSA’s fines and threats of imprisonment.
Perhaps the agency senses a kindred moron here and is extending
professional courtesy: Dumbo "will face no charges…"
Dumbo was obviously harmless to everyone but a seatmate hoping
for intelligent conversation. And anyway, she’d confessed
her sin at the first opportunity. But those facts didn’t
keep the TSA from launching its usual "You’re-all-about-to-die!-
So -we,-Your-Benevolent-Rulers,-will -make-your-last-moments-as-frustrating,-silly,-and-uncomfortable-as-we-can"
blitzkrieg. First, "the TSA shut down the security checkpoint."
Nope, I don’t know why either – except that this is
the TSA’s standard response to every question, hiccup, glitch
or problem. Since the agency’s other response is to force
passengers who’ve already endured a search to line up for
a second one, you might think the idiots would keep all checkpoints
up and running.
Nor did closing the checkpoint end the hysteria. "The East
and West concourses were then evacuated, and" – in
another flourish of the police state, just to underscore the danger
from which it was saving everyone – "bomb dogs brought
in. While the concourses were found to be safe," –
big surprise, there – "thousands of passengers needed
to be re-screened." Oh, get off it: they didn’t "need"
to be screened the first time, let alone "re-screened."
This absurdity took 93 minutes, from the time the TSA closed
the checkpoint at 4:27 p.m. until "affected travelers were
all back on their way by 6 p.m." When will good Amerikans
like Dumbo learn that cooperating with Leviathan only brings grief
to themselves and their fellow serfs? Nevertheless, those passengers
who frantically shuffled schedules and plans can rest assured
that Our Masters had their best interests at heart: "NFTA
spokesman C. Douglas Hartmayer said NFTA police and staff did
everything they could to speed the ‘gate resterilization
process.’" Poor Doug should have quit while he was
ahead and sounding like only half a horse’s patootie; instead,
he went for broke by adding, "We made a conscious decision
to sweep the West Concourse first, so TSA could restart the screening
process and have a secure space to direct passengers." Geez,
my unconscious decisions aren’t this loony.
Doug also promised, "It's a serious breach and it's one
I know the TSA is going to…take any steps necessary to make
sure it doesn't happen again in the future." Yeah, right.
Fat chance the agency will take the most obvious step of all:
shutting down not just a checkpoint, nor a concourse, but its
whole unconstitutional self.
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