Invasive policy “no better than chance” at identifying security threats
Paul Joseph Watson
Infowars.com
November 14, 2013
The TSA’s $1 billion dollar ‘chat down’ program, where TSA screeners identify suspicious people and talk to them, has been deemed a complete failure by a Government Accountability Office investigation.
According to the GAO, the Screening of Passengers by Observation Techniques program is “no better than chance” when it comes to identifying security threats, which suggests that it has been a colossal waste of time and money.
Steve Lord, the director of the investigation, said that the, “TSA has yet to empirically demonstrate the effectiveness of the program despite spending about $900 million on it since 2007.”
According to Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., the report underscored how, the “program is fundamentally flawed, cannot be proven effective and should no longer be funded with taxpayer dollars.”
A subcommittee meeting due to be held today will further explore the GAO report.
Travelers like journalist Steve Gunn, who was subjected to one of the ‘chat downs’, complained that it amounted to a pointless and invasive interrogation about his private life. When Gunn refused to tell a TSA screener why he was traveling to his destination, the TSA agent yelled “WE HAVE ANOTHER REFUSAL” and made an example out of him before swabbing his hands for explosives.
One of the primary indictors for TSA screeners to initiate the ‘chat downs’ is if a traveler displays a particular “facial expression.”
“I suppose the government figures that grumpy looking people with droopy faces are potential terrorists,” said Gunn.
While admitting that it has failed to apprehend one single terrorist, the TSA has launched a series of other ludicrous programs which seem to have little other purpose than treating innocent travelers like prisoners and humiliating the public.
While threatening to arrest passengers who make jokes about airport security, the federal agency has also instituted a ludicrous “freeze” policy whereby travelers are ordered to stand in place like statues while TSA agents resolve some unexplained security threat.
Another policy that has rendered most sane people apoplectic is the TSA’s random testing of passengers’ drinks for explosives after they have already passed through security and purchased beverages inside the secure area of the airport.
Meanwhile in a related story, another $1 billion dollar TSA boondoggle – naked body scanners – are now being bought for 10 per cent of their value by prisons across the United States.
Following the TSA’s removal of the scanners from airports, the devices are now being deemed too invasive even for prison inmates, with authorities at Barry County Jail receiving flak for using them to strip search detainees.
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Paul Joseph Watson is the editor and writer for Infowars.com and Prison Planet.com. He is the author of Order Out Of Chaos. Watson is also a host for Infowars Nightly News.
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