Fuck this; I’m going to walk everywhere.

This is getting ridiculous. There’s already no fucking way I’m flying anywhere and letting someone either check out my little daughter naked or feel her up — which is to say nothing about getting my own crotch fondled. I mean, picture it. You apply to be a TSA officer.  You get to check out naked people all day, on a computer that you supposedly can’t save images from and take home for your wankbank. Supposedly. You can’t take a picture of the screen with your CRACKberry, either (oh, the puns), right?  No, of course not.  Because jobs where privacy is an issue never attract perverts, right?  And the government is so great at weeding out people from such “high security” jobs, right?  I mean, we never had a cokehead for a President, right?

From The Hill:

The next step in tightened security could be on U.S. public transportation, trains and boats.

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano says terrorists will continue to look for U.S. vulnerabilities, making tighter security standards necessary.

“[Terrorists] are going to continue to probe the system and try to find a way through,” Napolitano said in an interview that aired Monday night on “Charlie Rose.”

“I think the tighter we get on aviation, we have to also be thinking now about going on to mass transit or to trains or maritime. So, what do we need to be doing to strengthen our protections there?”

Also:

Note how quickly preventing a possible terrorist attack expands to include catching illegal immigrants, and preventing drug and what sounds like “cash smuggling.”….It’s not difficult to envision the day where anyone wishing to take mass transportation in this country will have to first submit to a government checkpoint, show ID, and answer questions about any excess cash, prescription medication, or any other items in his possession the government deems suspicious. If and when that happens, freedom of movement will essentially be dead. But it won’t happen overnight. It’ll happen incrementally. And each increment will, when taken in isolation, appear to some to be perfectly reasonable.

I got so paranoid over the weekend, that I used cash at two National Park Service giftshops. Big Bro doesn’t need to know which pencils I bought, etc.  It’s 2010; I never use cash.

And I finally came out to my father what my wife and I have discussed in increasingly serious tones: if the Teaparty takes over the Presidency in 2012, we’re fucking out of here.  There’s probably already a list (or series of  lists) we’re on at the FBI because we have doctorates in humanities.  Shit, they probably know about this blog and my real name.  If those crazies take over, educated “liberals” (and I don’t self-apply that label) will be at the top of the list of people to watch, if not harass or imprison.

It sounds less crazy with a history lesson, before anyone pulls out their prescription pads.  (I will stop talking about this now.)

In America, Superbowl watches YOU!

pabst_1_0209
Holy shit, now all football fans are suspects:

Authorities at Super Bowl XLIII will be looking for more than just drunken fans. They’ll be watching spectators’ body language, facial expressions and demeanor to find suspicious people.

For the first time Sunday, federal behavior-detection officers will team with local police to use a controversial technique on people heading to a major event, the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) says. The officers usually work in airports.

Behavior observation aims to find people in crowds acting unusually. A flagged person gets a casual interview from an officer who determines if he or she should be formally questioned or arrested.

How the hell are you supposed to tell when someone’s mad that Big Ben got sacked and when the bomb strapped under their puffy coat is itching them?  The ACLU thinks that

TSA should stay in the airports and let stadium security and local police do their job and monitor the crowd as they always have. Real life is not like a spy thriller where operatives with amazing intuitions are always able to magically pick out the people with something to hide. This is likely to slide into a thinly veiled version of racial profiling. (emphasis added)

I mean, I’m all for safety and what-not.  Who isn’t?  This isn’t safety, though.  In the real world — where security resources are always limited — wasting time, money and energy on things that probably won’t work makes little sense.  One could argue that this year’s game is the testing ground for this invasive new “method”.  That’s even less sensible.  Assuming that someone’s gonna try and bomb the Superbowl, I’d prefer to see a tested method, rather than this bullshit.

What’s going to happen next year, they’ll watch everyone at home to see how they react to the game or their wired cooler of Pabst*?

Read more (via Blog of Rights).

[*I'm not knocking Pabst.  I love Pabst, seriously.]