The Academy Award-nominated filmmaker Laura Poitras discusses how she has been repeatedly detained and questioned by federal agents whenever she enters the United States. Poitras said the interrogations began after she began working on her documentary, “My Country, My Country,” about post-invasion Iraq. Her most recent film, “The Oath,” was about Yemen and Guantánamo and follows the lives of two past associates of Osama bin Laden. She estimates she has been detained approximately 40 times and has had her laptop, cell phone and personal belongings repeatedly searched. Tonight she is leading a surveillance teach-in at the Whitney Museum in New York City with our other guests, computer security researcher and government target Jacob Appelbaum and National Security Agency whistleblower William Binney. Poiras is currently at work on a film about post-9/11 America.
Fed up with the treatment he receives from the TSA in Portland, John Brennan stripped nude at the security checkpoint in protest.
“I’m just traveling for business,” Brennan said. “My body shouldn’t be illegal.”
TSA agents and police said they asked Brennan numerous times to put his clothes back on, but he refused, according to a spokesman.
“They wanted me to put my clothes on. Feeling I was within my rights as an Oregon citizen, I refused,” he said.
“As an Oregon resident, I know my nakedness is a protected speech,” Brennan said. “And I knew it would get their attention.”
Prior to stripping off his clothes, Brennan said he walked through a metal detector and was patted down. Security workers then put the gloves used to pat him down through a machine, he said.
“I actually had to ask what was going on. I was not informed what was going on. When I did ask, they said ‘You tested positive for nitrates,’” Brennan said.
This is what happens when people who fly frequently have been harassed over and over by the TSA with violations of their civil liberties.
A similar incident happened recently in Denver. In Denver, however, it was a woman who stripped naked and she was not arrested.
The move to monitor and curtail crime on buses and trains is just one component of a much larger initiative called BusSafe – a national pilot program created by a peer advisory group of mass transit police chiefs and security directors, and one which METRO’s Police Department is adopting to enhance safety on the system.
It should be noted that Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee is the one who introduced the BUS SAFE legislation into the House of Representatives and is on the House Homeland Security Committee. It’s just a coincidence that her home city is being used as a testing area for this project.
MPD, Houston Police Department officers and Harris County Precinct 7 Deputy Constables will take part in a synchronized, counter-terrorism exercise on Friday, April 13, focusing on bus routes, bus stops and shelters, and Transit Centers in high traffic areas. The participating agencies will: ride buses, perform random bag checks, and conduct K-9 sweeps, as well as place uniformed and plainclothes officers at Transit Centers and rail platforms to detect, prevent and address latent criminal activity or behavior.
Performing random bag checks is a violation of the fourth amendment. With a city as large as Houston, you cannot simply tell people they must walk if they don’t like the violation of their rights. Citizens in Houston need to stand up to this encroachment on civil liberties.
While local law enforcement agencies focus on overall safety measures noted above, representatives with the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) will also be on hand, lending their counter-terrorism expertise and support during the exercise.
“We have one of the safest transit systems in the world in Houston,” said METRO Police Chief Victor Rodriguez. “One way we are able to keep it that way is through the use of deterrents such as uniformed and plainclothes officers patrolling our system and aggressively addressing suspicious and criminal activity.”
If their transit system is one of the safest in the world, why do they need the TSA on hand? If using uniformed and plainclothes officers have made the bus system one of the safest in the world, then why do they need TSA representatives there?
Houston Free Thinker, Phillip Levine was present at the press conference at the Wheeler Station off 4500 Main and witnessed DHS, and Metro Police question passengers who were exiting buses about their destinations and their reasons for riding the bus. “When I arrived at Wheeler I got off the stage and instantly noticed the massive police presence. The police presence consisted of DHS, metro police, HPD, TSA, and Harris county police officers. They were going on to buses searching and stopping people for questions. Apparently Shelia jackson Lee was there pushing for more security like what I was viewing. I asked the TSA agent if there was gonna be a bigger presence of metro or TSA. He said both,” Levine said in an email.
After seeing the exponential increase in police presence everywhere, it’s getting more and more difficult to defend the idea that the United States is not turning into a police state.
Among the things Hawley says need to be changed is the removal of banned items.
1. No more banned items: Aside from obvious weapons capable of fast, multiple killings—such as guns, toxins and explosive devices—it is time to end the TSA’s use of well-trained security officers as kindergarten teachers to millions of passengers a day. The list of banned items has created an “Easter-egg hunt” mentality at the TSA. Worse, banning certain items gives terrorists a complete list of what not to use in their next attack. Lighters are banned? The next attack will use an electric trigger.
2. Allow all liquids: Simple checkpoint signage, a small software update and some traffic management are all that stand between you and bringing all your liquids on every U.S. flight. Really.
3. Give TSA officers more flexibility and rewards for initiative, and hold them accountable: No security agency on earth has the experience and pattern-recognition skills of TSA officers. We need to leverage that ability. TSA officers should have more discretion to interact with passengers and to work in looser teams throughout airports. And TSA’s leaders must be prepared to support initiative even when officers make mistakes. Currently, independence on the ground is more likely to lead to discipline than reward.
4. Eliminate baggage fees: Much of the pain at TSA checkpoints these days can be attributed to passengers overstuffing their carry-on luggage to avoid baggage fees. The airlines had their reasons for implementing these fees, but the result has been a checkpoint nightmare. Airlines might increase ticket prices slightly to compensate for the lost revenue, but the main impact would be that checkpoint screening for everybody will be faster and safer.
5. Randomize security: Predictability is deadly. Banned-item lists, rigid protocols—if terrorists know what to expect at the airport, they have a greater chance of evading our system.
In America, any successful attack—no matter how small—is likely to lead to a series of public recriminations and witch hunts. But security is a series of trade-offs. We’ve made it through the 10 years after 9/11 without another attack, something that was not a given. But no security system can be maintained over the long term without public support and cooperation. If Americans are ready to embrace risk, it is time to strike a new balance.
Yes, Americans have wanted to embrace the risk for years. It’s those in charge who don’t want them to have the ability to take those risks. It comes back, once again, to the government attempting to tell its citizens what’s best for them instead of the citizens being allowed to make those decisions on their own.
Though the Wall Street Journal article is a long read, it’s worth it to understand that even those who are/were in charge think the TSA is a joke. The system is broken indeed.
