The mind reels. These are the same people who are going to keep the next batch of crazies from flying airliners into buildings? 
From http://boingboing.net/
A kid who put a note telling TSA snoops to stay out of his luggage was busted on trumped-up "bomb-threat" charges for penning the following and putting it in his bag: "[Expletive] you. Stay the [expletive] out of my bag you [expletive] sucker. Have you found a [expletive] bomb yet? No, just clothes. Am I right? Yea, so [expletive] you."
Boy, good thing the eagle-eyed, sticky-fingered underwear fetishists on search-detail were on their toes, otherwise, this kid might have been able to board an airplane with a deadly sarcastic note in his checked luggage. You know, the more I think about this the worse it gets. The TSA is poor mouthing at Congress, saying that it's run out of money and can't adequately defend our skies, and yet it can spare its highly trained crack professionals to go chasing off on ridiculous power-flexing exercises like this?
And before anyone posts the inevitable, "But the kid showed poor judgment in putting that note in his luggage," comment in the Discuss link, let me point out three things:
He is a kid; kids are supposed to have poor judgment -- that's why we don't let them vote. If our national security depends on teenagers abstaining from foolishness, we are doomed.
The TSA screeners are adults. What's more, they're adults who are supposed to be professional risk-assessors. If the people who found that note couldn't evaluate its risk any better than they did at Logan airport, we are doomed.
Look me in the screen and tell me that you haven't had the exact same thought while having some blank-eyed bureaucrat rummaging through your dirty underwear. If that sentiment endangers aircrafts, we are doomed.
db
From http://boingboing.net/
A kid who put a note telling TSA snoops to stay out of his luggage was busted on trumped-up "bomb-threat" charges for penning the following and putting it in his bag: "[Expletive] you. Stay the [expletive] out of my bag you [expletive] sucker. Have you found a [expletive] bomb yet? No, just clothes. Am I right? Yea, so [expletive] you."
Boy, good thing the eagle-eyed, sticky-fingered underwear fetishists on search-detail were on their toes, otherwise, this kid might have been able to board an airplane with a deadly sarcastic note in his checked luggage. You know, the more I think about this the worse it gets. The TSA is poor mouthing at Congress, saying that it's run out of money and can't adequately defend our skies, and yet it can spare its highly trained crack professionals to go chasing off on ridiculous power-flexing exercises like this?
And before anyone posts the inevitable, "But the kid showed poor judgment in putting that note in his luggage," comment in the Discuss link, let me point out three things:
He is a kid; kids are supposed to have poor judgment -- that's why we don't let them vote. If our national security depends on teenagers abstaining from foolishness, we are doomed.
The TSA screeners are adults. What's more, they're adults who are supposed to be professional risk-assessors. If the people who found that note couldn't evaluate its risk any better than they did at Logan airport, we are doomed.
Look me in the screen and tell me that you haven't had the exact same thought while having some blank-eyed bureaucrat rummaging through your dirty underwear. If that sentiment endangers aircrafts, we are doomed.
db
