TSA pat downs on children: the madness has to stop
 

Is there anyone, anywhere who thinks that patting down children is a reasonable way of combatting terrorism?


Not even children can escape our government's new philosophy that you are a terrorist threat until shown otherwise. As stupid and incompetent those in government may be, they can not possibly think children pose a threat to our safety. So all this makes me wonder what the real motivation is behind treating people like cattle.

Drug Search.

Not Terror

Speaking as a UK Citizen, the TSA is nothing to do with 'our government' and last time I flew from the UK - a few months ago - I failed to see any child be searched in this manner.

Search everyone, pat everyone down. I have no problem with it and it makes me feel safer. If terrorists and drug smugglers were more moralistic about using children, maybe it wouldn't have to happen. If you want to talk about people taking things too far... Last time I flew into JFK I was kept at Immigration for THREE HOURS by a tight-lipped, humourless adroid who, like most Americans, has probably never travelled further than one State away from his home. Despite being a frequent traveller to the USA, I was detained because I had an arabic stamp in my passport.

I think I should have phrased it our governments' and not our government's. I mean the UK and the USA government. The UK doesn't have TSA but they do increasingly share the philosophy that you are a potential terrorist until shown otherwise. It's a disturbing trend.

It may be a disturbing trend in the UK, not in the UK. We have a lot of history with terrorism.

If it improves security and deters cowardly terrorists from using women and children as human bombs, what on earth is the problem?

It is incredibly naive and unrealistic to expect terrorists to "play nice" and I, for one, would feel a hell of a lot safer knowing that EVERYONE, irrespective of age or gender, is subjected to exactly the same security checks.

Its not so much using them as human bombs, its more because terrorists/drug pushers and smugglers often use 'innocents' as mules. A favourite trick In N. Ireland was to move weapons and ordnance in pushchairs and prams, it was for a while a very effective tactic.

The down side was it created bad feeling when searching prams for weapons on a regular basis. But hey ho such is life eh? Those with nothing to hide have nothing to fear and should be prepared to put up with the inconvenience. The measures are put in place for everyones safety/well being.

I see no problem with it at all :/

Drugs, bombs, weapons whatever - Search EVERYONE - you know it makes sense.

When push comes to shove......if people are so objectionable to it - they completely misunderstand the genuinely valid reasons for it. Such measures aren't put into place for the sheer hell of it, wherever such practises are in force. It's life in the modern world.

It wouldn't suprise me if some drug addicted parents would try to smuggle things in with their kids.

This risks getting off topic but if drugs were legalized you wouldn't have to worry about children being used to smuggle them. Police (at least in theory) don't randomly stop people while driving their cars and search them for drugs. Why then while flying airplanes?

Yes and going by the same logic if murder rape and arson were legalised we could cut the amount of money spent of prisons right down. Hey if we legalised terrorism as well no one would need to have their liberty infringed by a search eh?

Murder, rape, and arson involve hurting someone else, Einstein. The act of consuming drugs is only supposedly hurting yourself. This comparison is not a valid one.

Oh I am sorry I didnt realise the TSA carried these searches out to stop people consuming drugs, I thought it was more for smuggling etc.

After all, all drugs are safe, have never ever been implicated in gang wars, there is no record that pushers of some addictive substances deliberately target school children and give them free samples till a dependance is forrmed is there? Drugs have never been the cause of crimes like burglary, muggings or shoplifting. No one has ever been killed because of drugs either. Silly me.

Indeed. As long as there are half wits that take drugs to produce for themselves a fraudualant personality along with the dangers to health and society then frisking all has to be the way of life.

Better still if any terrorist or drug smuggler is found then immediate execution should take place...Drug takers should be birched till their flesh drops off......

Wow, nice attempt at sarcasm. If it was legal to consume drugs, no one would smuggle them, much less use children to carry them. The Libertarian reasoning on this issue is correct: the people who support the current drug laws are actually the greatest defender of those nefarious drug dealers (discussed in the following video).

Oh, god, a Libertarian. lmao.

Pot, Kettle, Black as far as your 'Wow,nice attempt at sarcasm', comment goes. :whistle:

And for the record: Arson doesn't primarily involve hurting people, so to use your own words, 'the comparison isn't valid'. ;)

If you got your house burned down, I'd say it hurt you financially at least. And btw, my attempt at sarcasm was a little better than his(?). :)

I've kind of lost the run of this thread of the conversation, but I think the legalisation of drugs is a simplistic solution to a complicated problem. We should rather address what it is that makes our reality so truly awful for so many people that they chose to abdicate consciousness.

rofl @ the video title. Groping? Really?

If the best you can muster is farfetched sexual comparisons then there really isn't a problem with the procedure.

Well.... me being the organised and responsible adult I am - I have a little something known as buildings and contents insurance. I'd actually be better off if my house was razed given the my policy terms & coverage vs what the house cost me.

As I say, it's not a valid comparison in respect of patting down / searching children.

Actually, he's right and it's not just libertarians that think this way. It's only once you look at politicians, journalists and agenda-driven think tanks that a sensible, non-hysterical attitude to drugs becomes the policy that dare not speak its name.