With little fanfare, the TSA has expanded to sporting events, music festivals, rodeos, weighstations
“The T.S.A., huh,” said Donald Neubauer of Greenville, Ohio, as he walked past the squad. “I thought they were just at the airports.”
With little fanfare, the agency best known for airport screenings has vastly expanded its reach to sporting events, music festivals, rodeos, highway weigh stations and train terminals. Not everyone is happy.
T.S.A. and local law enforcement officials say the teams are a critical component of the nation’s counterterrorism efforts, but some members of Congress, auditors at the Department of Homeland Security and civil liberties groups are sounding alarms. The teams are also raising hackles among passengers who call them unnecessary and intrusive.
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They even admit that this is mostly Security Theater. And that sounds so sweetly benign, doesn't it? But the effect of this isn't, in the end, to make little old ladies feel safer by confiscating the 8oz bottle of Geritol in their handbags. It's to train citizens to submit to authorities without probable cause. That's exactly what's happened in airports, after all. Americans are so docile about it that people in other countries are astonished to see us taking off our shoes and otherwise disrobing at airport security without even being told. (They don't have to.)
If what you desire is to make the Bill of Rights an anachronism, this is the sort of thing that works over time to make people wonder why they ever cared that they had any privacy or right to demand that authorities have good reason to stop and search them. Arguments against it already have the tone of something from another era
http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2013/08/vipr-is-pits-teaching-us-to-reflexively.html
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Getting the citizenry to quietly accept the war on drugs, too. They like to use vehicles, just like dictators:
some kind of ball is being transported.
What on Earth do sporting events, music festivals, rodeos and the like have to do with transportation? Except maybe New York Jets games. 
These kids didn't harm anyone.
These kids aren't a threat to anyone.
The danger is from the TSA employees.
What I said is what I said. Click the link, read the article. It talks about how children are indoctrinated to be bombers, and they are easily molded to do as they are told and obey parents or other authorities. That's why children get searched--that was the post I was responding to, replete with photos.
I also pointed out that we do not "profile" people. I didn't endorse profiling, I simply stated a fact. Other countries DO profile, and they do it con brio. I'll bet some kids get searched more as a consequence, and other kids don't get searched at all.
If you aren't an adult, as I assume everyone participating here is, then bow out of the conversation.
Your last paragraph is quite rich.
Side with those of us fighting for our freedoms and liberties and not those like Gen Clapper and Gen Alexander that want us to live in an authoritarian state. You have to choose.
Let me paraphrase what you basically said:
"You're either with us or agin' us."
That sounds familiar to me--I didn't like it back then, either.
I think this issue--the utility of the TSA not just in specific circumstances, but as a whole-- deserves a complete and open review, robust discussion, recommendations to improve the program or, alternatively, find other methodologies to make travel safer-- not declarations of fealty to a ginned up "cause" based on the fact that you don't like this guy or that one.
That said, my comments were about TSA searching little kids, and they WERE quite straightforward.
Have a good one....
A class war, you say? The Lords versus the Serfs? The Rich vs. The Poor? Not sure where you're going there, and what "class" has to do with TSA searches--unless they fondle you more gently if you're holding a first class ticket?
And what astoundingly unmitigated NERVE you have, making your pompous declaration as to where I stand, finding me wanting without any evidence, and convicting me without a trial.
Aren't you the efficient judge, jury and executioner!
And you've got the brass to call ME "authoritarian?"
I think you are unclear as to the meaning of the term!
I gotta save this post of yours, it's too rich!
84. We are in a class war. And I dont care if you like it or not, you will have to choose sides.
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Looks like you choose the side of the authoritarian state that searches children and grannie in wheel chairs. Funny you call me paranoid when you think we need the TSA searching everyone, everyday, everywhere. Are we in that much danger. How paranoid do you have to be to give Booz-Allen 50 billion dollars to spy on us?? You choose Gen Clapper and GEn Alexander over sen Wyden, Grayson, and Valerie Plame.
Whether you want to admit it, you've chosen sides.
I do hope you're all right, though, because that's some of the most disordered logic I've ever seen come out of you. I said none of those things, I hold none of your accusatory views, FWIW, and anyone reading what I said in this thread knows that. Except you, apparently.
Surprising, certainly, even as it's humorous....
It's been sooooo effective.
