Today I’m flying back to Boston from Dallas. As a matter of fact, as I write this I’m on the plane and we’re heading from the gate to the runway. I was surprised on my way down here how dramatic my process with the TSA wasn’t. The TSA is pretty much my nightmare of a government agency.
Today, when I went to my screening to leave Dallas, I lived my nightmare.
Anyone who isn’t a moneyed plutocrat in the very tiny ruling elite here in Boston – Marty Walsh, John Fish, Charlie Baker, and Shirley Leung, I’m looking at you – likely understands that yesterday’s announcement that Boston “won” the USOC nomination for the 2024 olympics is a Very Bad Thing. The Boston 2024 group has existed for about a year and, chaired by Fish, has been trying to essentially shame the populace into believing that if we do not do this thing, invite the world to come here for a 3 week-long party 9 years from now, we’re provincial losers and that Boston isn’t fit for the world stage.
To put it bluntly, the people at Boston2024 are liars.
Continue reading “#BlackLivesMatter & #NoBoston2024 – The intersection of money, race & power”
OK, so apparently the universe is not done sending me slightly macabre and random stories. This time, I’m OK with this. This one is almost funny.
Kelly found an article on Boston.com recently about the new application for smart phones that allows people to report a complaint if they feel they have been treated unfairly by the TSA. It was created by the Sikh Coalition, who saw the need for it probably because so many Americans, including many of those who should know better, can’t tell the difference between a Sikh and a Muslim.
Continue reading “A sign of our technological brilliance… and our general social ignorance.”
Those of you who know us know that Geoff and I HATE to fly. I’m generally not a fan of traveling, but I specifically hate to fly. It isn’t that I dislike planes or have a problem with a fear of flying or anything like that. It’s the TSA. I hate the TSA with the fiery passion of a 1,000 suns.
Continue reading “This is just precious, precious I tell you.”
The TSA, an organization rapidly on its way to becoming both a punchline and the most-hated Federal agency in the country, has committed yet another mind-bogglingly stupid act. This time, they have forced an elderly cancer patient to all sorts of humiliating search procedures, including forcing her to remove her adult diaper. How does this make anyone safer? It certainly does not make anyone’s travel experience more fun. This sort of thing is why I have decided I will not fly domestically anymore. It’s either driving or the train. And it is positively infuriating to see this sort of thing being condoned by so many people who should know better. This is security theater, in the truest sense of the term. it is an utter waste of time and resources, and it makes ordinary people mistrust the people entrusted to protect them. It does not make flying more safe, it makes airports more unbearable.
The answer is, and always has been, better intelligence. Have we made the creation of more interpreters in Arabic, Farsi, Pashtun, and other relevant languages a priority? Not really, no. In fact, until recently the policy of the government was to be more afraid of interpreters that might be gay than they were of the terrorists. And we continue to collect huge piles of raw data that sit sometimes for weeks or months with no one looking at it because there is simply too much for the overworked analysts to do. The data is useless unless someone can actually examine it. Most of the time, that sort of data can be used to show trends and patterns. It rarely if ever has everything all wrapped up in a neat little package like TV or the movies. Just grabbing all the e-mails and tapping all the cell phones the way was done with AT&T is such a colossal waste of time it makes my head hurt. It’s not like by grabbing all the Tweets in the country the government is suddenly going to find the one that says “Terrorists Abdul Johannsen and Ali Ibn Humperdink are going to bring a suitcase bomb onto U.S.A. Airways Flight 2112 on December 25th. Merry Christmas infidels!” And profiling of the most completely asinine sort has been policy, rather than behavior profiling, which is not only what is done in places like Ben Gurion airport in Israel, but is what we already do in the FBI and other crime analysis units around the country. And it works, people. IT WORKS. So stop trying to reinvent the wheel, and stop trying to insist for political expediency that the square wheel you invented really is better.
-Geoff
The Books are Taking Over... 