Wednesday, November 10, 2010

TSA Resistance Taking Off: Are the Elitist Airlines Worried, Yet?

This entire nonsense about harassing airline passengers with cancer causing naked body scans and groping pat downs started as a result of airlines attempting to prevent ticket buyers from selling their tickets to others if they couldn't fly themselves. Newspaper classifieds pre-9-11 were filled with ticket sellers selling tickets at huge discounts. Sharp entrepreneurs even figured out how to get the cheapest tickets, bought them in bulk and sold them to savvy buyers. It was really the only way to fly and it didn't matter what name was on the ticket. No airline ever checked the names on tickets against the person travelling on the ticket

The airlines didn't like this type of ticket use, but didn't have the balls to check ID's against tickets, which would have pissed customers off. But once 9-11 hit, the elitist airlines (especially the bastards at United Airlines) got behind the mandatory government check of ID's to boost ticket sales fight terrorism. Naturally, a bureaucracy exploded around this ID check scam. The bureaucracy has now grown to the point of the naked body scan nonsense, which has now resulted in blowback against the airlines, as the resistance is promoting the end to air travel. Web sites have been launched.

Kathryn Muratore has launched an anti-TSA web site, She writes:
Kevin McElroy writes to tell me that he and his wife are canceling their flight from Vermont to Philly for Christmas in favor of driving. He promises to send me any correspondence, and also forwarded his brief note to Senator Leahy. This prompted me to compile a list of letters and responses on my new anti-TSA website.


Don’t fly, tell them why (and CC me)! Letters to the travel/tourist industry are preferred, but choice responses from the tax eaters will be worth a few laughs, so you can keep me in the loop on that correspondence too. Also, let me know what letters are out there that I’ve missed.

(For those of you on the edge of your seats, US Air’s response to my first letter crossed paths with my second. It was a terrible response and I’ll be letting them know what I think of it shortly, but you can read it for yourself.)
And Stephanie Murphy reports that James Babb and George Donnelly have organized wewontfly.com!

43 comments:

  1. See, this is why I read EPJ. You are the only person I've seen offering the theory about preventing ticket resale. Of course, I only read you and Paul Krugman.

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  2. As every supposed "threat" turns out to be allowed on the planes intentionally (you try boarding a plane like the "bomber" they wave in front of everyone without a passport, see how it works out), the TSA farce was never going to catch anyone anyways. It was sure a great way to create more "do-nothing" jobs that don't create anything but unnecessary expenses, though. Oh, and apparently sexual predators, too. After all, isn't having huge masses of perverts and predators a sign of moral "rightness," just like loving war while not fighting it?

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  3. People have to understand...Business controls Government...not the other way round! If we all stop flying, the airlines (a business/industry) will force the government to change it's ways so passengers feel like passengers and not terrorists!

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  4. @ Survival Time -

    "if we all stop flying"

    yeah, right...

    hat's off to you for being concerned/outraged, but at least make a proposed solution realistic.

    Otherwise, you just sound like another knucklehead

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  5. If most people stopped flying for one week that would make these bastards take notice.

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  6. Driving is a nice (substitute) alternative to getting groped. The countryside is beautiful too...

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  7. Thank you for explaining how TSA fits in perfectly with the airlines' desire to prevent ticket resales. Your article is the first time I've seen that pointed out. And ID checking (which stops private ticket resales) has made a huge difference in the "quality of life" for air travelers -- it used to be easy to change plans, after having bought a ticket -- you could just sell the ticket to someone else and buy a new one. But not anymore! A change of plans means loss of ticket money (which in turn is one big dis-incentive to making any fuss at all about TSA outrages at the security checkpoints -- if you step out of line, you lose your flight and have to pay a penalty to get a new ticket.

    But in my opinion all TSA abusiveness is deliberate (at the managerial level and above) -- it's intended to train the public to be perfectly submissive to humiliation dished out by the government and its police force(s). If a cop (sorry, peace officer) tells you to stand in a certain position you better just do it! Etc., etc.

    Now the TSA would be a total, vile outrage even if the official 9/11 story were true.

    But TSA is all the MORE a vile outrage in that the whole pretext for TSA (the 9/11 story) is uttely false to start with.

    Due to the internet, it's now an open secret that 9/11 was not done by Muslims at all, and that it was done by Israelis working hand-in-hand with Americans. As more and more people realize that that is the factual truth that we are dealing with here, they will also start to see that TSA outrages are zionist-initiated, and zionist-managed on the ground day after day.

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  8. Hit them where it's hurt!! In they pocket!
    Don't fly & don't give the scums your money!
    Let them go broke! Screw all of them.
    If no one fly, the scumbags at the airport check-out will be on the street without a job! They deserve nothing less!

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  9. It is time to have a 'stop flying day'. Do not plan a flight on a particular day...possibly Jan.
    1st, 2011...anyway....stop flying and subjecting yourself to these police state tactics. Chertoff is selling these scanners after releasing the perpetrators of 911 (see 'five dancing Israeli's). The real terrorists are working within our government. We must stop participating in this insanity. It is against everything we believe in. A/E 911 truth

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  10. Finally, the American spirit is beginning to awaken to the truth. Most importantly to viable solutions. Thats right; don't fly and let the airlines know why you refuse to fly. Their bottom line will dictate change for the better.

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  11. You could always take the train--LOTS of leg room, take as much baggage as you want, and no TSA. It is much slower, of course, but since the rail right of ways were cut long ago, they often go through really beautiful scenery--ain't nothing beautiful on an interstate highway.

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  12. We won't fly anymore. We haven't been on a plane for seven years. We didn't even like the way it was before the porno scanners and the groping.

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  13. the next time the CIA puts a drugged-up patsy on an airplane to light his genitals on fire they will want selective body cavity searches.

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  14. My wife and I will no longer be flying.

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  15. I love that American's are standing up on this, may the trend increase.

    These sick dogs preying upon American citizens who are perverse and who reveal themselves more and more to be filled with rank and file of a criminal element, must be held in contempt and despised, resisted by American's who love their 4th Amendment and realize the greatest terror we face is from a corrupt government from within---the same government that put the "Underwear Bomber" on his plane, skipping check points and not even showing a passport. Yep, another "staged" fraud used, in that case, to unroll these machines upon the public.

    America is not through. There are American's who are/will stand up and get hot and angry at this fraudulent facade of "terror fighting" and "security" by the Vipers in Government and their banking backers who laugh at all the power and control the are gaining. But they shall go to defeat after they overstep their bounds too far and lose credibility. That is happening now.

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  16. I quit flying. Saw the naked body scanners at O' hare. My lane was down ( I prayed hard for this and God answered me) and I was spared the opt out BS.

    As a company executive, I used to fly constantly. I'm now selling my stock and do not plan to ever fly again.

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  17. I don't care for those who say "I'm not flying anymore." Well, congratulations, you just surrendered your right of movement. Great. Now you're stuck with $3.00 a gallon gas and screaming kids for 10 hours on a mindless, dangerous highway. Do you feel free yet? Morons...

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  18. Everyone should "opt-out" and it would slow them down to the point of making it impossible to get anyone to a plane on time. Policies would then have to change. Unused, dusty, rusty old naked body scanners would sit in the corners of every airport until they eventually get the point. Come on people - I've opted out every time, so I'm doing my part. Let's unite on this issue and slay the beast. Don't fly unless you have to. Opt out if they select you. The message will be loud and clear to the airlines & that will force a change in this obscene policy.

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  19. I don't believe the ticket sale scenario but it is very true that the arrogant airines only understand a brick in the face.
    The TSA screening is merely a conditioning drill for whats to come...and it ain't pretty.
    Stay alert, stay active.

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  20. Eric-Gunther;OberhauserNovember 11, 2010 at 9:37 AM

    The TSA ,like Police Departments, employ only those who have a very low
    I.Q. This is the only type of work they can do.

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  21. Another proposal....

    For those who must fly, you should opt out. Then when you get FFUd (thats Federally Felt Up), you should recite the Bill of Rights out loud where everyone around your can hear.

    This would have a two fold purpose. One, it will bug the crap out of the TSA (TitS and Ass) agents. Second, the other travelers will eventually be educated and actually learn what is contained in the Bill of Rights.

    I can image the reaction of the TitS and Ass agenency when they eventually try to silence passengers who are in the process of being FFUd - telling Americans that it is illegal to recite the Bill of Rights. That will bode well for them. :)

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  22. While the policy and its ultimate motivation are certainly correct, I know that ID checking against tickets predates 9-11, since I recall trying to substitute the photo badge of my employer during the 90s and being forced to dig out my driver's license instead. Granted, this was at the ticket counter but the policy was already in effect.

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  23. Stop government sponsored molestation!

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  24. Are they archiving the information? It's a simple question.

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  25. "Do you feel free yet? Morons..."

    You just watched your wife get a thumb up the hoo-ha, do you feel free?

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  26. I am in the airline industry, have been for 20 years. I am afraid the public is misinformed. The Gunvernment dictates the rules to the airlines, not the other way around. The airlines do not appreciate the tactics of the TSA and the constant changing of policies that we have to react to. Obviously, I HAVE to travel as part of my job, and do not want to go through one of those cancer causing scanners anymore than anyone else. Its not the airlines who want this. This is purely being driven by the TSA. Keep writing your Representatives, and keep the pressure on, but dont think the Airlines can do anything about this.

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  27. @Anonymous 10:43 AM

    Of course, the airlines don't want this BUT they did want the ID checks, which started it all!

    Blowback baby!

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  28. No, I'm not happy about having my wife groped. But I'm also not about to surrender my right to take a mode of transportation run by a private corporation that I choose to pay for my (expedited) travel. My point is that many should consider that RESTRICTION OF TRAVEL is indeed part of the agenda. By saying you're not going to fly anymore, you are EMPOWERING THAT AGENDA. No - the idea is to spread the "opt-out" message, slow down the treads of the GUN-vermin-t tank, and try to get rid of the infernal things before they become too entrenched. That's it.

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  29. It is important to note that it will take more than a boycott to stop this.

    If a boycott is big enough to hit the airlines hard in the pocketbook, they will just go to the government for a bailout. Under the recently passed financial reform legislation, Congressional approval is not required. Our government can now bail out any business - even an entire industry - on its own authority.

    Be prepared for a very big fight to rid our airports of these dangerous and unconstitutional searches conducted by our government.

    K Smith

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  30. http://wewontfly.com/opt-out-day/

    Wednesday, Nov 24, 2010 is NATIONAL OPT-OUT DAY!

    It’s the day we stand up refuse our consent to the federal government’s virtual strip search porno-scanners and enhanced patdown groping techniques. You should never have to explain to your children, “Remember: no stranger can touch or see your private area, unless it’s a government employee, then it’s OK.”

    The goal of National Opt Out Day is to force change on the TSA and get the travel industry working for us. Opting out will overwhelm the TSA rent-a-gropers and force the roll back of both the porno scanners and the enhanced groping We have a right to privacy. Buying a plane ticket does not mean that we’re guilty until proven innocent. Many people do not understand what they consent to when choosing to fly.

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  31. K Smith said:

    Be prepared for a very big fight to rid our airports of these dangerous and unconstitutional searches conducted by our government.

    As I commented over on Kathryn Muratore's Stop TSA Scanners blog, I predict that we're going to see a very nasty incident (something like a full-blown passenger riot) at a major metropolitan airport in the very near future - possibly even as soon as the Thanksgiving Holiday weekend when some TSA goonthug oversteps itself and "gropes" the wrong person in the wrong manner. It appears that FINALLY the traveling sheeple have had enough and are beginning to shed their wool and grow horns, fangs, and claws!

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  32. Morons? No passenger planes in the sky and the supply of fuel for passenger cars will increase thus lowering the cost of fuel. Maybe it's not so moronic. I know, it's far fetched but it's a thought.

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  33. Also see: Full-body scanners ‘useless,’ air security expert says–and expose us to excessive radiation

    http://prof77.wordpress.com/2010/04/24/full-body-scanners-useless-air-security-expert-says/

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  34. Im thinking of taking a train now. My trip would take 2 days instead of 1 but I have no security at all. Buy my ticket and find my seat. Check out Amtraks homepage

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  35. http://SueTheTSA.webs.com

    STOP WHINING AND START FIGHTING!


    Once you know there's a problem, the next step is FIX IT.

    So I'm mounting a federal lawsuit to bring this matter before the US Supreme Court!

    http://SueTheTSA.webs.com

    So unless you are part of the solution, you're part of the problem, since whining only makes it worse... but it gives some the illusion that they're DOING something about it.

    http://SueTheTSA.webs.com

    They're NOT.

    http://SueTheTSA.webs.com

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  36. I'm putting together a federal lawsuit to end Airlines treating us like freight; this will take the matter before the US Supreme Court and argue that the 4th Amendment as well as the 5th Amendement right to liberty-- since travel delayed, is travel DENIED.

    This website is at SueTheTSA.webs.com -- and it's LEGIT.

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  37. I wish it were so easy that a boycott would help. But this is not only about airports. Do you really doubt that they will be installing these scanners at train stations, government offices, court houses, political gatherings, etc. in the future? They already have those scanners in vans driving down the streets that see inside your car. They could put them at checkpoints on the highway if they choose to. This is really about stopping the dictatorship/police state that seems headed our way. How do you do that?

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  38. I havent' flown for about three years due to TSA's intrusions. I'm not a criminal and refuse to be treated like one.

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  39. They are looking at your children naked. The airline should be prosecuted for child pornography and exhibition laws for anyone under 18 who walks through this scanner. The cost of the lawyer fees and court costs alone for the number of lawsuits the people could bring against them would stop this faster than you can be thrown off a plane for saying "terrorist".

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  40. Yeah, but Random 230, you may refuse to be treated like one, but you are ACTING like one. You have restricted your own freedom of movement. You are penned in. If you live in New York and a family member dies in California, or you going to drive? You'll be about a week late for the funeral. Get it? Being restricted to only certain modes of transport means being "penned in." As in penitentiary. WAKE UP AND FIGHT! OPT-OUT, SUE, SPREAD THE WORD. It's now or never, people...

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  41. EPJ's point of view is crazy. These naked body scanners wouldn't have identified the underpants bomber, but we are all subjected to Orwellian diktats from a government in league with a private corporation [fascism] to engender the ILLUSION that you're being kept safe! Yes, that's right: ILLUSION. They aren't screening CARGO. TSA thugs get to grope your genitals and the US Marshall's Service is being investigated for saving and transmitting 35,000 of these naked body scanners. The entire system is a pathetic joke: ON YOU. Stop allowing yourselves to be treated like terrorists so you can be "kept safe" while your 4th amendment rights to UNREASONABLE search and seizure are ripped to shreds!

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  42. How about everybody goes thru security wearing a long coat with swimsuits underneath....speedo's even....with sausages tucked inside too....

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  43. Join the new Meetup group to protest the TSA and our country's slide towards totolitarianism.
    Visit the link below:

    http://www.meetup.com/National-Boycott-of-Airline-Travel-2011/

    I am calling on everyone to halt all leisurely and discretionary air travel before or by the week of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day 2011.

    http://www.meetup.com/National-Boycott-of-Airline-Travel-2011/

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