Musings —11.23.2010 11:34 PM
—The security madness spreads North
I don’t know about you, but I’ve had it with this lunacy. If you feel as I do, Transport Minister Chuck Strahl can be reached at ottawa@chuckstrahl.com and/or riding@chuckstrahl.com. Bombard him with messages.
The top autocrat at CATSA is Kevin McGarr; the chairman of the board is “D” Ian Glen. No emails, of course – you pay their salaries, but God help you if you want to contact them to complain about something. In any event, their toll-free number is 1-888-294-2202; their complaint page (for all the good it’ll do) is here. Dial and dial again.
And, if you think people are overreacting, take a look at this video, posted first by GritChik. It shows a young child, age five or six, being partially stripped and searched by the TSA, who are apparently now a source of inspiration for the morons at CATSA.
Called CATSA to ask questions about the screen process and the agent was very, VERY vague about guidelines that agents use for screenings. He seemed more concerned that I was asking questions and was asking how I got the number to CATSA. Didn’t sound too happy about me asking questions about pat downs, etc.
The general answer the CATSA agent gave me was that any additional screening, i.e. pat downs, etc was at the discretion of the CATSA agent at the security check point.
It will be interesting to see what happens tomorrow (Nov 24th) at all the US airports with the Opt-Out d
This was the case last year, if you are getting a boarding pass from an ticketing agent, ask at the counter if you or any family member has been randomly selected for secondary screening. You can ask for your child (under the age of 13) to be skipped and not to go through secondary screening.
It was actually first posted by you when you approved my comment on Saturday that had a link to the video in it. Unless, of course you’re saying that you’re Gritchik?
Didn’t see your link. What’s your point?
Fascist tendencies on the part of tiny minds surface yet again. Perhaps once the airline industry finally collapses, some common sense will return, but I doubt it.
In our Political Correct Society we cannot profile. So live with it because it is not going to dhange. Or you can do what I do. if I can not drive there I do not go.
If I were a pervert or pedophile, I would be applying to CATSA for a job-today!
The least they could do, is handle this with some dignity and respect for the passenger. Are they going to remove the shirt of an 80 year old woman in public?
When will the cavity searches begin? Will they use CATSCAN, MRI or their weasilly little, rubbered fingers?
So, we should pre-emptively complain to the “morons” at CATSA for something TSA is doing?
Sorry, missed original link (only saw the American ones). You’re right, this is bullshit.
Still think you’re painting CATSA employees with a pretty broad brush, though.
Read the Sun story; it’s front page in Toronto this morning. CATSA did that to a child. They should be ashamed of themselves – all of them.
I’m assuming you were too tired to click on the link under “here,” smart guy.
“The chaos down south is a direct result of politically correctness tranny [sic].” … really? It’s not about security and the culture of fear and paranoia? They just want to be politically correct? I thought they wanted to stop people that stuff bombs in their underwear. So you would feel safer with a ‘severe interrogation’ ? You think terrorists don’t know how to lie? Bizarre shit coming from the extreme white right: strip search the brown ones but not us who are white because we are not capable of doing harm.
Actually, Shaun, it’s about an unholy mixture of both.
Shaun – My first instinct was to ignore your more inflammatory rhetoric, but I’ll rise to the bait and answer your one key question.
Would I feel safer with a “severe interrogation” (by which I assume you mean this http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/weekend/2010/0109/1224261954843.html) rather than with a system that randomly fondles the private parts of 15 year old girls?
ABSO-FREAKING-LUTELY.
Umar Abdulmutallab (the Underwear bomber) was a young, single, Muslim male adult travelling with no luggage on a one-way ticket (and exhibiting strange behaviour at the airport prior to departure). Carly Finn was a 15 year-old Canadian girl travelling with her mother on a return trip to Toronto from Sudbury. Which one is the more likely threat? It is NOT racist to feel that Abdulmutallab should have been subject to more intense scrutiny, and to believe that groping Miss Finn because she was selected “randomly” for extra screening does nothing to protect us.
Comments like “you think terrorists don’t know how to lie” are incredibly naive. Of course terrorists will try to lie, and the key to an effective security regime is employing experts who can quickly identify people who are lying. Especially those who are planning to murder hundreds of people (let alone die themselves) within hours. We’re not dealing with James Bond villains here, most of these clowns struggle to light their underpants/shoes/whatever properly – effectively lying to security experts mere hours before blowing yourself to bits falls into a whole different pay grade.
I agree that the culture of fear and paranoia is a significant part of the problem, something that rears its ugly head well beyond terrorism and air security measures. How sad, though, that you can’t discuss alternatives to our current security situation without painting those who disagree with you as racist idiots.
The correct link is:
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/weekend/2010/0109/1224261954843.html
Whatever happened to the notion of western governments going out and “winning the war on terror”? The nonsense in the video is but an example of how we have surrendered unconditionally. I’d probably be apoplectic if they tried this on my eight year old….
The eight-year-old will likely promptly forget about it. The 15-year-old girl is another matter. Teenage girls are very self-conscious about their bodies. I have to wonder about so-called random pat-downs.
Oh it makes us safe all right. An analogy would be: You install a solid steel door with about 3 strong locks on your front door to protect you from a home invasion …and you leave the back door standing wide open. Talk about gullible people.
I do not actally have a comment so much as a question, and thought that Kinsella’s blog might be the only place online where commenters choose not to spam the place with anti-i-don’t-care-what remarks, and might actually help.
In all of the articles I have read online, it says that in Canada, full body scans or “invasive patdowns” are only used for “secondary screenings”. I took a flight to France in October, from Pearson, and after walking through metal detectors (not setting them off at all) I was told I could either enter the full body scan, or submit to a patdown. The same happened to every other person in line, though I was one of the only people who chose to opt out of the scan. As a note, my flight was direct, not laying over in the States.
I guess my question is, where is everyone getting the information that this only happens in ‘secondary’ screenings, and why are all of the newspapers agreeing with that? Maybe I just don’t understand the meaning of secondary… I suppose check-in counters could count as primary.
Shelagh – Secondary screening can be conducted for a variety of reasons. Some passengers are randomly selected for secondary screening (as was the case with Miss Finn), others because of something that has occurred during the initial screening, and others still due to outside factors. It could be that there was a concern with your specific flight or a heightened alert at the time of your flight. It could also be that the security guards’ idea of random was simply to screen everyone in a specific line. I feel ridiculous just typing that, but the inanity of the securo-crats seems to reach new heights daily!
WK,
You once proudly declared yourself a “censor”. I have a hard time reconciling Warren the censor with Warren the defender of civil liberties. I prefer the latter. But I’d prefer it consistently.
Nobody ever said I was consistent, chief. I’m me.
And now on this, as on ‘stan, ‘fraid Ignatieff’s rapidly becoming the anti-me (eneme?); where you zig, he zags.
He just came out in a scrum after QP saying he’s long since made his peace with the airport pat-downs, and that we should feel sorry for the screening staff who are doing a tough job.
F**king disgusting and shameful. I can’t believe what I’m seeing.