Victor Davis Hanson: "Flying as Torture"

As the Fourth of July nears, be careful of flying.

I have wondered lately whether a weekend in Guantanamo Bay would be all that much worse than flying in the United States. Imagine if we were to treat Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in the manner we accord everyday passengers: put him in a tiny chair, with arms crammed together and tucked between the rests — with another inmate on each side. And then we bolt him down there for eight hours. He has to share his toilet with 100 others. The ceiling is about 5 feet high, the seat continually moving while he urinates. We feed him airline food, make him watch airline shorts on the video, and have him go through a TSA security routine twice a day, all the while telling him that he is scheduled to walk down the hall for his exercise at noon, while we cancel, delay, and reschedule his long anticipated walk.

I have flown a lot in the Third World — Bulgaria, Turkey, and Greece in the 1970s, and lots to and fro from places like Egypt, Libya, and Mexico. But I am not sure anymore whether American air travel is much better. I flew three round trips the last month — California to Wisconsin, California to southern Europe, and California to Washington, D.C. Almost everything that could go wrong, of course, did.

Some of you fly more than others (Old NFO, I'm looking at you), but this will strike a chord with anyone who's braved modern aviation.


h/t to R for bringing this to my attention

Alaska Bill Would Criminalize Invasive TSA Pat-Downs

From the Tenth Amendment Center, this excerpt:

A bill introduced by Alaska lawmaker and TSA grope victim Rep. Sharon Cissna would criminalize both invasive pat downs and body scans that produce naked images conducted by the federal agency, setting the stage for another states’ rights battle with the government.

When Texas lawmakers tried to pass a similar law last year, the federal government threatened to enforce a no fly zone over the Lone Star State, and the measure was eventually defeated after a lengthy legislative struggle.

Cissna was barred from flying by the TSA after an incident at SEA-TAC International Airport last year during which she refused to undergo an intrusive pat down after she had already passed through a naked body scanner. The scan results showed scars from her breast cancer surgery, prompting TSA officials to insist she undergo secondary screening.

Click the link above to read the whole article.

Local Legislator Feuds with TSA

Alaska state Rep. Chris Tuck is running TV ads telling people they can skip the new body scanners at Alaska airports and should call airport police if the Transportation Security Administration gets too frisky with the resulting pat-downs.

Of course, the TSA says he's wrong about the images being stored - and it is true that the Anchorage airport did just make a big announcement about the scanners here being the kind that just show a fuzzy outline with yellow spots appearing where there's something the scanner "sees" as non-organic.

Note, however, that they don't dispute the rest of his statement.