Thursday, June 23, 2011

The TSA's -- and law enforcement's -- spreading doctrine of indifference to sexual privacy

Most mindless TSA practice of all: genitally frisking persons entering the country – via air transportation – without probable cause. Courts have made it perfectly clear that requires probable cause of contraband or reasonable cause of danger when entering the country -- by ground transportation. Personal recording wherein an aware citizen compels the TSA to give in: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LkRPS0pSScQ

Most egregious all-day-every-day TSA practice: allowing openly gay male agents frisking men and boys all day. Is there an openly gay male athletic coach employed anywhere in the country who is free to wander through the school boys locker room at will? There is no way to differentiate between this practice at an airport or at a school or anywhere there is a security job. This is way more than a matter of Fourth Amendment protection of privacy; this is a matter of grave sexual intrusion.

When and where did America take leave of its senses? One place where is apparently the Castle Rock courthouse in Colorado – in the heart of the heartland. In this widely circulated story (about scanners, frisking not even commented on) a mother with two small boys receives a so-called "quick pat down" from a male court officer to discover that she has left the paper backing of a label in her left rear pocket. A story photo shows a male remote scan viewer who has what looks like a small black-and-white monitor in front of him. So much for the male x-ray strip searching the female never seeing her (how would dad feel about his wife or daughter)? http://www.ajc.com/news/nation-world/full-body-scanners-popping-752566.html

If a TSA remote viewer brought a male friend to work to look at naked images of underage girls he could be charged with some kind of indecency to a child. If anyone personally recorded a scanner image of an underage girl or boy, they could be charged with creating child pornography. I don't think I could legally email around an artist's conception of what such a scan would look like. Courts only allow female prison guards to view male prisoners naked if it happens only occasionally and accidentally. I cannot imagine any court permitting male guards to routinely view scanner images (now used exclusively for strip searches in Chicago's Cook County lockup) of female inmates, least of all a underage female inmates -- or even the other gender way around. http://www.nbcchicago.com/news/local/cook-county-jail-body-scans-85552562.html

They think nothing at all of it:
http://www.wikilaw3k.org/forum1/Law-Enforcement-Police/Can-a-male-police-officer-frisk-my-13-year-old-girl-594510.htm
If you touch my wife I should be able to get you arrested:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3NI7JEA4iK4
Leg and breast frisk 1st minute -- released 10th minute:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8RxH1CnYhd8.

While randomly clicking by a TV episode of "Cops" I accidentally caught sight of a male officer begin exactly the same back and forth sequence fingering of a female, beginning over exactly the same right shoulder of the woman that we see in the "touch my wife" video. Perhaps seeing the TV camera, and feeling a bit ridiculous – social reality, he stops as fast as he starts. Law enforcement all over America may have come to see a male frisking a woman as no different than popping open the glove compartment -- purely utilitarian outlook.

Suppose a cop pulls over a car that he knows is not really eligible for search – he's bored; come on, everybody does it – if that illegal search includes frisking a female anywhere below her belt other than ankles or includes lifting breasts with the heel of the hand – I hope we can all agree, though he is playing cop not copping a feel, that the same felony prohibition of sexual abuse has been violated as if a creep in an elevator did it. Ditto for frisking without what the courts call immediate danger.

Eighth-grade math: if 10% more LEOs died in assaults every year for not safety-groping all over the legs and under the breasts of arrested female's bodies (and they think there is no law prohibiting going much further -- just policy) before transporting them to the police station -- rear cuffed, strapped down behind a locked cage – that would be seven more to the yearly count of 70 – and seven more out of 700,000: 1 chance in 100,000 over a years time. 10% more assault deaths; one of the most dangerous aspects of police work -- transporting basically frisked, hermetically sealed females: joke.

More eighth grade math: let's perfectly accurately measure the the threat that tens of millions of underwear checks every year and hundreds of millions of x-ray strip searches (half the time opposite sex) a year supposedly protected us from. May we assume that any potential underwear bomber who has been deterred by TSA creepy peeping since 9/11 must have bombed or at least have tried to bomb something other target? Oh so simply, add up all the bombs that have gone off and all the attempts that have been caught in time since then -- and then ask the crazies involved if they were switched from the air to the ground.

Can anybody imagine any red-blooded fiend who would not derive more satisfaction from blowing a couple thousand pounds of explosive on the ground than sneaking a couple of ounces on an airplane? When they are on the ground they always -- always -- attack us on the ground.

We wouldn't force a breathalyzer into the mouths of 25 million road drivers every year (that represents about 3% of the 800 million annual airline passengers) to save 600 lives on the road every year (the passenger load of two 747s) -- we don't want to live that way. We will never know how many (hundreds?) will be killed every year -- driving instead of fully groped flying.

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