Biohazard material and weapons…. think of the 9/11 you could mastermind with THAT!

That sounds a little less ridiculous. Of course, it’s still pretty ridiculous that she was subject to the pat-down in the first place, but we all already knew that the TSA was ridiculous.

Remember this guy — winner of the Congressional Medal of Honor, ex governor of SD, and they they thought the medal was some kind of ninja throwing thing …

It’s a very unlikely scenario. If the TSA’s competence level is such that they can’t even stop knives from getting through the X-ray machines, I’m sure that any true terrorist could find a much easier vector for their mayhem than strapping explosives to an emotionally distraught elderly person. If terrorists want to strike, they’ll exploit another hole in the current system or simply move to the next weak link in the safety chain, such as the safety check line itself.

your point is taken, but real point is not the technicalities of a 911-style attack.

If we’re stripping the diapers off of 95 year-olds, or anybody for that matter, I would say that the technicalities are of utmost importance. Our information, our risk assessments and our responses need to be as precise as possible. The absence of precision about ‘the technicalities’ is why we now suffer Paranoid Security Theater when we travel.

“TSA has reviewed the incident and determined that officers followed proper current screening procedures”

When will the TSA stop being a bureaucracy addicted to security theater and allow for intelligent and intuitive security screening?

I believe this will only happen after there are congressional hearings and the matter is forced upon them.

So that our government no longer violates the rights of anyone, let alone our elders who deserve far more respect, I am perfectly willing to accept a higher rate of terrorist attacks on our soil. Even if I, my family and my friends end up killed by one of these attacks. Freedom is far more important than safety, and you do have to be willing to give up some (or even a lot) of your safety for freedom.

Is everyone else willing to give up some of their safety? Especially this bullshit illusion of safety the government sells these days? There’s a lot of talk of “smarter” ways to be safe but at a certain point we have to realize that freedom isn’t free, to use that tired cliche. The only way to have a perfectly safe society is authoritarianism, but I’d rather have freedom.

Who’s with me?

Since searching them solves no security issues…

There has always been corruption in government, but what’s different now is that we have ordinary citizens acting as police officers, treating fellow citizens worse than dogs. Isn’t this what we proclaimed such disdain about communism just a few decades ago? Ratting each other out, saying “well, it’s him or me.” Becoming desensitized to the whole affair. “It’s just a job, nothing personal.” Orwell with a huge I Told You So look on his face. This incident doesn’t seem much better to me than the women protesters given “virginity tests” in Egypt. They are both acts designed to strip all sense of dignity from a person.

And these people working TSA jobs because they couldn’t find other work; well, unfortunately Congress and Presidents made sure of that by incentivizing corporations to outsource manufacturing jobs, and at the same time setting up giant government bureaucracies to employ what’s left of the middle class to spy on and harass each other.

I think if the Founding Fathers saw what has happened to the country they instituted and codified, I think they would be horrified. I’m sure my ancestors who died in that revolution would be asking my generation, “what physical or symbolic blood have you shed in the face of tyranny? Look what you’ve squandered!” The country we have now is much worse than the monarchy they revolted against.