Why draw back amid public outrage when you can just double down:
“[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?”
Napolitano’s comments, made a day before one of the nation’s busiest travel days, come in the wake of a public outcry over newly implemented airport screening measures that have been criticized for being too invasive.
The secretary has defended the new screening methods, which include advanced imaging systems and pat-downs, as necessary to stopping terrorists. During the interview with Rose, Napolitano said her agency is now looking into ways to make other popular means of travel safer for passengers and commuters.
Napolitano isn’t the only one who’s suggested that advanced scanning machines could be used in places beyond airports.
Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.), chairman of the Senate Homeland Security Committee, introduced legislation this past September that would authorize testing of body scanners at some federal buildings.
Napolitano’s comments were in response to the question: “What will they [terrorists] be thinking in the future?” She gave no details about how soon the public could see changes in security or about what additional safety measures the DHS was entertaining.
Lawmakers from both parties have received hundreds of complaints about the new methods — some have likened the pat-downs to groping — and have called on Pistole to address the privacy concerns of their constituents, who were not informed about changes ahead of time.
Many lawmakers say the public should have been informed before the pat-downs and body-imaging techniques were put into practice. As a result, any move to implement new security screening measures for rail or water passengers is likely to be met with tough levels of scrutiny from lawmakers.
Pistole, who spent 26 years with the FBI, told reporters Monday that he rejected the advice of media aides who advised him to publicize the revised security measures before they took effect. Terrorist groups have been known to study the TSA’s screening methods in an attempt to circumvent them, he said.
Napolitano said she hoped the U.S. could get to a place in the future where Americans would not have to be as guarded against terrorist attacks as they are and that she was actively promoting research into the psychology of how a terrorist becomes radicalized.
“The long-term [question] is, how do we get out of this having to have an ever-increasing security apparatus because of terrorists and a terrorist attack?” she said. “I think having a better understanding of what causes someone to become a terrorist will be helpful.”
DHS and intelligence officials are not as far along in understanding that process as they would like, Napolitano said, adding that until that goal is reached, steps need to be put in place to ensure the public’s safety.
That’s right. Hold your little elections. And your Tea Parties.
But who’s your daddy now, America?
(thanks to GeoffB)
****
update: Why should anybody believe the apparatus for a police state is being put in place. Why, that’s just crazy talk.
I could tell you what was radicalizing me, in a V for Vendetta kind of way, but then I’d have to go on the watch lists, wouldn’t I? And besides, they’ve already anticipated this kind blowback
INTENDED CONSEQUENCES?
the new methods
well for reals this is very little different than how we’ve treated suspected dangerous criminals forever and a day – the new method is that under bumblefuck’s auspices we’re applying these techniques indiscriminately, expending no effort at all to target actual criminals.
I think the old methods were superior.
Shows just who the current administration sees as being their enemy.
It’s also a violation of the 4th, 5th and 14th Amendments to the United States Constitution. If the Constitution still means anything, that is. And if somebody want to make a federal case out of it.
Let’s take a READER POLL! instead.
It helps from time to time to be reminded of the massive power of government.
Sometimes people actually think they are free.
“…adding that until that goal is reached, steps need to be put in place to ensure the public’s safety.”
“….The interrogations and beatings will continue until morale improves…”
Remember how the usual suspects were caterwauling about our loss of civil rights when Bush signed the PATRIOT Act?
But this? This is for your own good, so shut up, spread ’em, turn your head and cough.
Screening at train stations is a joke, because it won’t work.
If a terrorist is determined to take out a train, he won’t go anywhere near the station. He’ll find a place along the track where he can plant a bomb and trigger it when the train passes, or just tamper with a rail to cause a derailment. (That could be done very subtly so as to not even leave anything suspicious-looking.) There can’t be 100% surveillance the entire length of the track all the time.
Isn’t it funny how the Left loves mass transit and hates individual automobiles (except for the elites, of course), which makes for such large, tempting targets in the first place?
“ensure public safety.”
Why am I not filled with confidence?
“I think having a better understanding of what causes someone to become a terrorist will be helpful.”
Ugh.
If only we had some IDEA. It’s just a mystery.
Piggybacking along rjacobse’s comment, remember when the leftards were screaming the old Jefferson admonition “those who would sacrifice liberty for security deserve neither” during the Bush years? Now, they’re as quiet as titmice. Maybe, just maybe they were politicizing security. Maybe they really do want the police state.
Yeah, Carin. I’m stumped, too.
It’s funny, though, because with all this nonsense with public transportation, you’re going to have a lot of folks who will simply resort to their private automobile.
Flying from Detroit to Chicago used to be a time-saver. now? Nope. May as well drive. Same could be said for any driving trip w/in and 8 or 9 hour radius.
Perhaps further.
– So until we “figure out” what makes a lunitic a lunitic, we’re just going to have to live with more and more intrusions on our civil liberties.
– Drudge is right. The terrorists have won.
Good article on Israeli security measures here.
The other thing is that the Patriot Act had a single-minded purpose and the lefties were wetting themselves over nothing more than an abstraction about the potential for abuse. There’s no abstraction with the TSA. They may stick their hand up your ass looking for a bomb, but the net result won’t be much different for you if they instead find a small furry woodland creature or a balloon full of coke.
Tone-deaf and impenetrably thick. She might even be sincere.
I’m actively promoting research into the psychology of how a terrorist becomes radicalized.
“The long-term [question] is, how do we get out of this having to have an ever-increasing security apparatus because of terrorists and a terrorist attack?” she said. “I think having a better understanding of what causes someone to become a terrorist will be helpful.”
(Until then, of course, we’ve got you by the balls.)
Not that it’s helpful or any kind of argument but I wept for my country when I read what she said, paired with this – (all too plausible) http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/30286l, a plan to define opposition to TSA as domestic extremism. Of course, then the FCC with it’s new dominion over the internet, can now come and shut down your illegal anti-government voice.
I Literally wept. It’s like 9/11 all over again, only it’s America as it was supposed to be that will fall down into dust and ruin. It’s right there in plain sight but not believing it possible, people do nothing to stop it.
Although a glimmer of hope – the comments at Nate Silver’s blog at NYT indicate real opposition and desire to pushback from likely fairly liberal northern Democrats. NYT is subscription, but if you have one you should check it out.
http://tiny.cc/36qc3
We are all extremists now.
Fark it. Missed a tag after Napolitano quote. The rest should be regular face.
TSA: Never miss an opportunity to get your junk fondled.
From Sarah’s link:
Well. Now we know where Obama plans to build his “domestic security force as large and well-funded as the military”.
The TSA has already boarded PATCO trains and searched passengers in New Jersey. They found a guy with a pipe and sent him to jail. Just so you know, if you commute, stick to your own car.
http://philadelphia.cbslocal.com/2010/09/08/patco-inaugurates-passenger-bag-screenings/
Also, Happy Thanksgiving. Go shopping. Buy local when you can and buy cheap if you can’t. If you are able to, get yourself to a local butcher and buy a side of beef, quarter or half. http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-11-18/usda-investigating-cattle-brokerage-for-bad-checks.html (when I link my posts disappear) It’s worth the $300-600 and you can get a used freezer to put it in for under $100 from any used appliance store.
After watching the news this week, I have a feeling I’ll be extraordinarily busy over the next couple of months so I might not be around as much. So probably Happy Kwanzaa too. Y’all.
A sub-watch list of the ‘regular Joe’ rightwing extremists? Problem with that, the group annoyed with TSA’s overreach is much larger and contains some who are NOT the garden-variety reich-wing lunatics they catalog. The Venn Diagram of the two sets likely would be as Jupiter next to Saturn. Or Uranus next to Venus, if you care to get all graphicy about it.
This is the same government which, in the case of the Christmas Day failed bomber Abdulmutallab, could not manage to put together the authorities who received his father’s timely warning not to let Abdulmutallab on a plane (State Dept) and the authorities who had the duty to keep him off a plane (Homeland Security). Could incompetence be more vividly demonstrated?
My fearless prediction for the coming year:
Janet Napolitano will have to testify before so many congressional investigative committees that she’ll be assigned personally-inscribed chairs, available on short-notice, in both wings of the Capitol Building.
Keep pushing, Janet. Bring it. Put your TSA agents in body armor to protect their bodies. Put them in balaclavas to protect their identities. Post armed paramilitary troops next to them, to keep people from getting too uppity. Make sure they all have shiny black kicking boots, too.
Roll ’em out to every train station, bus depot, courthouse, post office, and shopping mall. Tell ’em to harass every punk kid that tries to get smart with them. Tell ’em to clap Granny in handcuffs and drag her down to the station, just so all the other Grannies fall in line.
And then go on the networks and explain that you have no idea why people are throwing rocks and Molotov cocktails. No idea at all.
We all know what’s coming. Quit fucking around and just bring it.
A more tone deaf group of people in Washington has never been encountered.
Hear about the chem sniffers? They want to start emplacing those too.
My advice: a gun and ammo, in a coffee can, soldered shut, just might slip by.
Comrade.
A more tone deaf group of people in Washington has never been encountered.
What makes you think they give a rip about what the tone is?
By the way, I had a thought upon reading this:
Isn’t that, y’know, profiling?
Naturally, the left will have nothing to say about this. It’s for our own good.
If it weren’t for my father living in San Diego, and it being a 3-day drive to get there, I would not fly any more under the current security regime. This is simply too much. The FauxNewz talking heads on Sunday think people are overreacting, so even they don’t get it, but that’s what comes from being inside the beltway I guess. Everyone says, “Well, if this makes us safer…” and don’t even bother to check to see that it doesn’t make us any safer at all. Cavity searches would be required to make that happen. The scanners do not pick up all sorts of nasty stuff.
This really pisses me off.
Or at least a start on a powerful confirmation of Codevilla’s class distinction. It may not include the entirety of the ruling class, but it’s going to capture quite a few of them.
I have a suggestion for cause.
Well, maybe not for a “terrorist” as Napolitano defines the term (so broad as to include the T-movement I’m sure), but rather the terrorist who will try and bring down a passenger plane.
Islam.
No, really. I bet 2999 of the next 3000 acts or attempts on a passenger jet will be Islamists.
That’s where I would start.
Funny that she’s trying to understand what radicalizes people against Americans, as she sets up an apparatus that’s designed specifically to radicalize Americans.
Did I say funny? I meant tragic.
The boldness of the ruling class’s moves these days is breathtaking, makes me wonder and worry a bit if they have something in the works to save themselves from the consequences of their actions. Or are they that delusional? Are these actions the something that is supposed to shut the opposition down? How delusional would they have to be to think that? Are we so deep inside their OODA loop that they can’t come up with anything that doesn’t backfire anymore?
OK, paranoid speculation time. I know that paranoid theories rarely pan out but maybe part of the reason for that is that some crank reveals the plot before it can materialize. I’ll volunteer to be the crank this time. You know what would really work in their favor now? If some idiot detonates a truck bomb next to TSA HQ. I don’t think they’re competent to pull it off or could get anyone competent to go along but what if they reveal a plot to do it? They could do that, theater they are good at and they’ve laid some groundwork for such a scenario. /paranoia
I think it’s far more likely that HQ gets bombed by one of its own. Probably some guy disgruntled that he always got stuck groping the fat guys and ugly chicks.
LBascom,
Racist! Racist!! RACIST!!!
Consider yo’self denounced.
o__o
The government’s blinkered political correctness will, sooner or later, prove lethal.
Something else that bothers me is the bull that “we can’t do it like El-Al does, we have too many flights.” We have 60 times the flights, but we have even more airports. We can and should do it like the Israelis do it. That would be effective, and people could respect the process then. No one can respect our process now because it goes out of its way to be “fair.”
If we make it through all this, future historians are going to have a lot of fun trying to figure out why we behaved so stupidly.
Cranky, if I may be so presumptuous…
“No one can respect our process now because it goes out of its way to be “
fairnon-discriminant.””Cool is a rule, but sometimes bad is bad.
OT: Does anyone do, or know someone who does, for music what serr8d and Stoaty Weasel do for images? Suggestions to ric-at-riclocke-dot-com por favor.
I want to score Mac Davis’s “Oh Lord It’s Hard to be Humble” for brass band.
Regards,
Ric
we could do it like el-al but that would mean scrapping tsa and returning security to the airlines. too much rent seeking/liability at stake in that approach.
Is it just me, or does Glenn Harlan Reynolds seem all wishy-washy here?
That’s it, Glenn. Let’s have a referendum and vote the terrorists off the plane.
– BTW, as predicable as the toilet stopping up over a holiday, the Lefturds are all atwitter that “opt-out” did not happen for the most part, which of course they ascribe to proving how effective this braindead bunch of wankers in Washington are doing their jobs.
– In reality it didn’t happen for two reasons. First, and most important, TSA dialed back intrusive searches/actions to almost zero, and secondly people have a hard enough time with holiday travel without adding to the chaos.
– The real test will come over non-holiday travel periods. The turds keep hoping this will just go away, Bumbblefuck has enough problems.
– We’ll see.
Not “almost” but to zero. Now the question is why?
If this was an administration that cared one whit about the public then I’d say they were taking a second look at what they had done due to the reaction to it. Since there is abundant evidence that they care not for the screams of the ‘little people” then why would they dial the security back to nothing now?
Trust is something I have none of for this group. They always have hidden plans and agendas.
A bit of backpeddling at The Hill?
So they’re still thinking about what they might do to tighten security beyond airports, but they’re not thinking about scanners? Or they’re thinking about scanners but don’t yet have plans in place to use them? Or, more likely, they’ve been slapped around enough for the moment?
I’m wondering if they have any inkling what a fiasco they’d be creating if they try to institute airport-style security in, say, New York City. Consider that to get to work by 8am my sister-in-law leaves home at 6am, boards the Staten Island Ferry, crosses to the City, takes a bus to the subway, and then takes the subway downtown, with short walks between all three. What time would she have to leave for work in order to go through airport-style security checks three times? And last time I checked New Yorkers weren’t exactly bashful about voicing their opinions of such nonsense.
43. Big Bang Hunter posted on 11/24 @ 9:47 pm
– BTW, as predicable as the toilet stopping up over a holiday, the Lefturds are all atwitter that “opt-out” did not happen for the most part, which of course they ascribe to proving how effective this braindead bunch of wankers in Washington are doing their jobs.
– In reality it didn’t happen for two reasons. First, and most important, TSA dialed back intrusive searches/actions to almost zero, and secondly people have a hard enough time with holiday travel without adding to the chaos.
Three reasons. There was a lot of traffic on the interstate here on Thursday morning, where for years (both boom and bust times) the Thursday AM drive was always a smooth run. So much so I got off the highway and drove through the back roads.
Mohamed Mohammed’s Child Mohamud tries to blow up a Christmas tree lighting event in Portland. Kudos to the FBI for their ‘sting’ operation.
I blame Christmas trees.