Why do Americans still celebrate Independence Day on the 4th of July

Why do Americans still celebrate Independence Day on the 4th of July

By Dark Politricks

On the 4th of July there is only one question that needs to be asked by all Americans who are actually celebrating this holiday.

“What are you actually celebrating and why?”

You may not be ruled by King George any-more but the recent 2 Presidents have acted far more like Kings than the English monarch ever did.

It cannot be the freedom of speech you used to cherish. No you have to have permits and free speech zones for protests now. Plus your constant chatter on the phones, Internet and talk in public is constantly monitored by technology like NSA’s PRISM, TRAPWIRE and the much older ECHELON.

It cannot be the free movement around the country without fear of harassment, secure in your papers from unreasonable searches. Not when the Police, TSA, Transport Cops, Border Guards and other agencies can now forcibly take blood and DNA samples from you, scan your naked body and grope your genitals if you refuse to be scanned, stored and studied as you go about your way.

Add to that the fact that most people are carrying the equivalent of chips in their skin by having smart phones on their person 24/7.

Phones that record your every movement to local databases on your phone that can easily be extracted by the Police or if you turn off this feature (check https://maps.google.com/locationhistory/b/0 once logged into Google to see if your history is currently being recorded) then it will still be logged at the phone company.

Turn your phones GPS off and your location can still be located down to a few square metres from pings to phone masts and a simple triangulation formula. Turn your battery off and there is still enough power to enable this to happen – maybe this is the reason most smart phones make it so hard to remove batteries nowadays.

It cannot be freedom from a tyrant, a King George like figure who thinks he has a God-given right to take your life. No the President now has the authority to take your life without even bothering with the charade that passes for a trial if he thinks you are a danger to your country. He just needs to consider you a danger to the country and sign a bit of paper and “boom” a drone is coming your way.

Freedom from drone strikes? Nope – not even if you’re a US citizen. Your just an enemy combatant who doesn’t have the right to argue your case in a court of law.

Freedom from assassination squads? Nope. Navy SEAL Teams and other commandos are scouring foreign countries to assassinate “terrorists” and the CIA are doing the same on the homeland for “malcontents”.

What about freedom to blow the whistle when you find that your government has broken the law, spied on people without warrants or committed massacres in war zones? No – if you write the wrong article in a paper or expose secrets that have been passed to you by a whistle-blower you are more likely to be considered a traitor than a hero in this new age.

It seems journalists who try to print the truth are considered nothing more than spies and the papers and journalists who dare to print your stories of government abuse will also be attacked, spied upon and harassed.

Even people who should know better will call for your execution on live TV. Who even knows whether these talking heads are even real TV personalities anymore rather than COINTELPRO agents stirring up hate against “enemies of the state” who dare speak truth to power.

What about the freedom to work long hours for little pay? Forced to hand over large amounts of your earnings for goods that your Government mandates you “must” purchase and then watch as the endless cycle of your Government buying its own printed money through the convoluted and corrupt Federal Reserve system means that the value of your wage decreases in real terms every month as your jobs are shipped overseas to people who are willing to work even longer and for much less?

It has now come to the stage that you are monitored so much in real life through linked up CCTV systems like TRAPWIRE, massive city sized computer systems that can log every purchase you make, every movement you make through your cars GPS tracking systems or even that useful bug you so happily carry around with you for others to track you with, your phone, that you cannot even escape into cyberspace any-more.

The virtual world is just as monitored as the real one.

I have to wonder whether the places you visit in virtual games  like Second Life are also bugged and monitored by virtual agents of the state? I’d guess the answer is most definitely especially after news that the NSA and GCHQ were using the chat services that online games employ to spy on the players.

Facebook, Google, Skype, Apple and all the other big techno giants we are being shepherded into using 24/7 are all just front ends to those 3 letter acronyms that litter the American landscape.

Acronyms like NSA, CIA, FBI and the  TSA are all hankering after those data packets that log every URL, website, file, instant message and email you have ever written.

These are the modern-day “papers” of the 21st century, and secure is not something you can expect to be, especially when you willingly hand over your data to the “cloud” for safe storage.

So if you celebrated “Independence Day” then I would be interested to know what is so special about your independence when compared to a dictatorship?

You have been living under emergency laws since 9.11.

Laws that give the President dictatorial like powers through Orwellian pieces of legalese like the PATRIOT ACT which was written years before the date and then eagerly dusted off when the events of 9.11 unfolded.

All to be enacted under a climate of fear and patriotism, where politicians didn’t even bother reading what they voted for and detractors were attacked with Anthrax or declared “unpatriotic”. All because they were not willing to hand over their basic rights such as habeas corpus, a fair trial, freedom from torture or the right to know what you have been accused of in an open court of law.

This was back when we had a far right government running the USA. Now we are supposedly living under a liberal, left wing, Democrat!

How I laugh when I hear Americans call Obama left wing or socialist! Society is not something he is promoting with Homeland Security asking neighbours to become de-facto spies and inform on each other or where over a million Americans have top secret security clearance.

There is nothing democratic or liberal about the NDAA, drone strikes at will or the President declaring that he can spy on anyone in the world without due process.

I have to wonder what President Obama see’s when he looks in the mirror.

Does he see the leader of a once great free nation that has succumb to fear, militarism, war mongering and the all-pervasive surveillance state.

If not, does he honestly believe he’s a liberal in charge of a “free nation”?

If so does he not feel the slightest bit of guilt when he looks at that Nobel Peace prize he was so, so prematurely given in the hope that pre-election rhetoric would be converted into real “hope and change” from the Bush/Cheney years?

Instead he has taken the ball from the GOP and kicked it out the stadium, far surpassing anything the Republicans did to kill liberty and freedom in America.

Wars have increased, with covert action and drone strikes occurring in more places across the world than ever before. All under the never-ending “war on terror” banner.

Liberty at home has decreased and a true liberal POTUS would have at least stood up for the freedoms he attacked Bush for removing when he was only a Senator. Does he honestly not believe he is the hypocrite is blatantly is.

It is funny how power corrupts.

It is not so funny to look at the state of Amerika on Independence day.

 

View the original article Why do Americans still celebrate the 4th of July? at my main site www.darkpolitricks.com.

 

 

 

What happened to America?

What happened to America?

By Dark Politricks

On the 4th of July, 2013 there is only one question that needs to be asked to all Americans who are actually celebrating 4th of July, Independence Day.

“What are you actually celebrating?”

It cannot be the freedom of speech you used to cherish. No you have to have permits and free speech zones for protests now. Plus your constant chatter on the phones, Internet and in public is constantly monitored by technological mammoth like NSA’s PRISM and the much older ECHELON.

It cannot be the free movement around the country without fear of harassment, secure in your papers from unreasonable searches. Not when the Police, TSA, Transport Cops, Border Guards and other agencies can now forcibly take blood and DNA samples from you, scan your naked body and grope your genitals if you refuse to be scanned, stored and studied as you go about your way.

It cannot be freedom from a tyrant, a King George like figure who thinks he has a God given right to take your life. No the President now has the authority to take your life without even bothering with the charade that passes for a trial if he thinks you are a danger to your country.

Freedom from drone strikes? Nope.

Freedom from assassination squads? Nope.

Freedom to blow the whistle when you find that your government has broken the law, spied on people without warrants or committed massacres in war zones?

Nope, you will be hunted down like a dog and tried for being a spy. The papers and journalists who dare print your stories of government abuse will also be attacked, spied upon and harassed. Even people who should know better will call for your execution on live TV. Who knows who is even a real TV presenter anymore and who is really a COINTELPRO agent stirring up hate against “enemies of the state” who dare speak truth to power?

Is it the freedom to work long hours for little pay? Forced to hand over large amounts of your earnings for goods that your Government mandates you “must” purchase and then watch as the endless cycle of your Government buying it’s own printed money through the convoluted and corrupt Federal Reserve system means that the value of your wage decreases in real terms every month?Well you don’t have any choice in that now do you?

It has now come to the stage that you are monitored so much in real life through linked up CCTV systems such as TRAPWIRE, massive city sized computer systems that can log every purchase you make, every movement you make through your cars GPS tracking systems or even that useful bug you so happily carry around with you for others to track you with, your phone, that you cannot even escape into cyberspace anymore. A virtual world is just as monitored as the real one. Are even the virtual homes you visit in virtual worlds like Second Life bugged and monitored by virtual agents of the state? Probably.

Facebook, Google, Skype, Apple and all the other big techno giants we are being shepherded into using 24/7 are all just front ends to those 3 letter acronyms that litter the American landscape. Acronyms like NSA, CIA, FBI and the  TSA are all hankering after those data packets that log every URL, website, file, instant message and email you have ever written.

These are the modern day “papers” of the 21st century, and secure is not something you can expect to be, especially when you willingly hand over your data to the “cloud” for safe storage.

So if you are celebrating “Independence Day” today then I would be interested to know what is so special about your independence when compared to a dictatorship?

You have been living under emergency laws since 9.11.

Laws that give the President dictatorial like powers through Orwellian pieces of legalese like the PATRIOT ACT which was written years before the date and then eagerly dusted off when the events of 9.11 unfolded.

All to be enacted under a climate of fear and patriotism, where politicians didn’t even bother reading what they voted for and detractors were attacked with Anthrax or declared “unpatriotic”. All because they were not willing to hand over their basic rights such as habeas corpus, a fair trial, freedom from torture or the right to know what you have been accused of in an open court of law.

This was back when we had a far right government running the USA. Now we are supposedly living under a liberal, left wing, Democrat!

How I laugh when I hear Americans call Obama left wing or socialist! Society is not something he is promoting with Homeland Security asking neighbours to become de-facto spies and inform on each other or where over a million Americans have top secret security clearance.

There is nothing democratic or liberal about the NDAA, drone strikes at will or the President declaring that he can spy on anyone in the world without due process.

I have to wonder on this day what President Obama see’s when he looks in the mirror.

Does he see the leader of a once great free nation that has succumb to fear, militarism, war mongering and the all pervasive surveillance state.

If not, does he honestly believe he’s a liberal in charge of a “free nation”?

If so does he not feel the slightest bit of guilt when he looks at that Nobel Peace prize he was so, so prematurely given in the hope that pre-election rhetoric would be converted into real “hope and change” from the Bush/Cheney years?

Instead he has taken the ball from the GOP and kicked it out the stadium, far surpassing anything the Republicans did to kill liberty and freedom in America.

Wars have increased, with covert action and drone strikes occurring in more places across the world than ever before. All under the never ending “war on terror” banner.

Liberty at home has decreased and a true liberal POTUS would have at least stood up for the freedoms he attacked Bush for removing when he was only a Senator. Does he honestly not believe he is the hypocrite is blatantly is.

It is funny how power corrupts.

It is not so funny to look at the state of Amerika on this once special day.

 

View the original article What happened America? at the main site www.darkpolitricks.com.

 

Alex Jones Interview with Howard Stern

Alex Jones Interview with Howard Stern

By Dark Politricks
youtube.com

Alex Jones calls in to the Howard Stern show to talk to him about all of the following:

• The real story between juice boxes making your kids gay and shrimp committing suicide.
• Why gun control might be ideal in a perfect world but that we don’t live in one.
• Why the war on terror is a ruse for the American government to bring in measures such as the TSA groping, drones over the USA and the NDAA.
• When bin-Laden really died and why they killed the Seal Team who attacked the compound in Abbottabad.
• The Georgia Guidestones and what they mean.
• Population reduction and how they are planning on doing it with vaccines and soft kill methods.
• How in the future the elites won’t need 7 billion people and how MIT are already planning the robots to take over the means of production for the “wealth creators“.
• Vacccinations and why he hasn’t let his kids have one.
• Why is it that McDonalds hamburgers can sit on a shelf for a year and still be eaten.
• His relationship with Charlie Sheen and why Glenn Beck threatened to ruin his career.
• The interview with Piers Morgan and why his “spidey sense” told him to get out of New York after seeing shit stained toilets in the CNN building.

He also talks about his past and his family including:

• How he lost his virginity at the age of 12.
• How he is happily married to a Jewish woman and doesn’t put his success down to being an “Israeli Mossad Disinfo Agent”.
• How he is interested in spirituality but see’s all organised religion as BS.
• Why he home schools his children and why he thinks home schooling is growing in the USA.
• How he played sport as well as did drugs at school – and he inhaled!
• Why he loves history and went into talk radio as he hated hearing the USA being put down in Community College classes.
• Who he respects in the industry and who his top hated people are.

This is a good interview that doesn’t put Alex Jones in a bad light.

It also might hopefully might wake a few people up to what is going on in the world.

Remember to fact check everything he says on the show for yourself as it is very easy to take something out of context.

Also you won’t find any ranting and raving in this interview and personally I think Alex comes off well – especially after the criticism I gave him for losing his cool on the Piers Morgan show.

In fact after all the years of listening to him it is one of the first I have heard him have a laugh and joke and show a sense of humour. It must be the fact he was speaking to Howard Stern and not Piers Morgan that did it!

 

View the original article Alex Jones speaks to Howard Stern about his life, drugs, sex and population control at www.darkpolitricks.com

Why I won’t be travelling to the USA anymore

By Dark Politricks

As a Brit it is a common to have a love hate relationship with all things American and this complex relationship goes both ways. I have been to America twice before, both times to Boston and I found lots of things to like as well as some not so good however the same would be said for any country visited by anyone.

When I last travelled to the USA I had to fill out a little card on the plane that asked a number of questions such as:

• Have you ever done drugs
• Have you ever been convicted of a criminal offense
• Have you ever taken anti depressents
• Are you mental

And so on an so on (I am obviously paraphrasing, and doing so badly. My memory is not what it is due to being a drug abusing criminal mentalist…)

Obviously being someone who has not spent a minute of my life under any kind of shelter I obviously had to lie to the numerous questions I would have answered yes to under most other circumstances.

My trip was being paid for by my work and it wouldn’t have looked good if they had forked out the few grand they had done on business class travel and 5 star hotels for me to be turned away by the first TSA brownshirt who came across my cross covered card. In no manner whatsoever am I danger to society but like most young men who had to fight their way through the UK’s state comprehensive school system I have a few blemishes on my record.

So lie I did and I got into the country and had a very nice time in my hotel room which was actually bigger than the flat I was living in at the time. In fact the bed was so big I could have slept like a log whilst an orgy involving dozens of giant Amazonian women went on all around me and would have never noticed. My room / suite had more kitchen appliances than most UK homes and the three piece leather suite was never used because I had a wide screen TV in my bedroom that meant I never needed to get out of bed. Yes you Americans know how to spunk money on hotel rooms, it’s just a shame that you ruin all your TV shows showing ad breaks every 5 minutes.

My point is not that I managed to enjoy the amenities on offer but more that if I ever wanted to come back to the states I wouldn’t get as far as Heathrow airport. The current VISA waiver system which the UK enjoys with the US has a number of get out of my country clauses which many people would fail meaning that if they wanted to travel to the states they would first have to apply for a VISA from the US embassy and in most cases be denied entry.

From the london.usembassy.gov website:

Travelers with arrests/conviction(s)

Under United States visa law people who have been arrested at anytime are not eligible to travel visa free under the Visa Waiver Program(VWP); they are required to apply for visas before traveling. If the arrest resulted in a conviction, the individual may require a special restricted visa in order to travel. The Rehabilitation of Offenders Act does not apply to United States visa law. Therefore, even travelers with a spent conviction are not eligible to travel visa free; they must apply for B-1 or B-2 visas.  If they attempt to travel under the VWP, they may be refused entry into the United States.

Traffic offenses

Travelers with minor traffic offenses which did not result in an arrest and/or conviction for the offense may travel visa free, provided they are otherwise qualified. If you are not sure whether or not you are eligible to travel visa free, the only way to resolve this question is to apply for a visa.

Travelers who have been afflicted with a disease of public health significance, a mental disorder or drug addicts / abusers

Travelers to the United States who have been afflicted with a disease of public health significance, a mental disorder which is associated with a display of harmful behavior, or are a drug abuser or addict, are not eligible to travel visa free under the Visa Waiver Program. They are required to apply for B-1 or B-2 visas.

Note:Travelers with mental illnesses can travel visa free under the VWP provided that their condition does not render them a danger to themselves or others. They may wish to carry letter from their doctor to that effect to facilitate their entry into the United States.

Now I reckon that those conditions would rule out most people I know and probably a large percentage of my fellow country men. I don’t know whether you would label yourself a mentalist, a drug addict or a criminal but if any of the following applies to you then it’s very likely you won’t ever get into the USA:

If you have been arrested for anything even if you are then de-arrested because the police made a cock up. Unfortunately this applies to me as the first time I was ever arrested at the age of 14 it was because some copper thought that “I looked suspicious” and someone had been riding around our estate on a stolen moped. After being threatened with a kicking in the woods from 3 middle aged cops a call came over the radio to say they had caught the moped rider so I was let go without even an apology. That event on its own is enough to prevent me from just hopping on a plane to the states without pre-approval.

Ever been nicked for smoking a spliff? Half the people I know have. Even though weed is being given to people all over the states on prescription being ticked off, cautioned or convicted for getting stoned over here is enough to prevent you getting into the USA.

Traffic offenses, don’t even get me started on those. I don’t know if points on a license are considered “convictions” under the US guidelines but being banned for whatever reason definitely is whether it was for exceeding the 12 point allowance, drink or drug driving or any other bullshit our government likes to use an excuse to fill their empty coffers by milking motorists.

As for being mental well that is always going to be a subjective decision made by someone who probably knows fuck all apart from the fact that you have been prescribed some kind of drug that a percentage of users have had issues with. Half the women over 50 in this country are on repeat prescriptions because they are now addicted to valium or other Benzos and our GP’s throw SSRI’s around like penny sweets. Being on anti-depressants, anti-psychotics or even certain sleepers could be considered cause for alarm. I mean if you’re on Prozac the likelihood is that at some point during your depression you have thought about topping yourself or maybe taking out a few enemies as you go down. I know I did when my GP earnt his commission from Big Pharma by throwing pills at me during my teens.

Obviously I am taking the piss but it shows you the conditions America already imposes on travellers, business men and tourists and that is before we have even mentioned the dangerous and privacy invading porno scanners or junk groping that the TSA now inflicts on it’s victims.

As far as I am aware these invasive measures have stopped not one single terrorist or potential threat to the airways but what they have stopped is thousands of potential travellers visiting their country.

Being strip searched by the police is not a fun experience under any circumstance but at least you know that your being searched for a reason having been arrested for a crime which suggests that contraband maybe hidden on your person. Having a virtual strip search at an airport is really no different apart from the following facts:

• You have not been arrested or even suspected of having committed any crime. There is no probable cause.
• The act of being X-Rayed has been shown by a recent study to be potentially dangerous especially to the percentage of poeple who are more susceptible to problems caused by radiation, frequent fliers or those who have already suffered cancer.
• The naked image of you, your wife or your child is going to be seen by some of the most socially inept, power crazy, perverted people on the planet. Just doing my job is no excuse for anything whether it be a policeman or TSA agent. People choose the jobs they do, no-one forces them to apply for positions that give them abusive powers over other human beings.
• Whatever the powers that be say the images can be and are stored on computers and printed out for others to see. In fact I wouldn’t be surprised if the whole point of the scanners was to build up a huge worldwide database of every-one’s body, just like the finger print or DNA database. This could then be used with the new generation of CCTV camera’s and portable scanners being introduced everywhere to identify those the state considers undesirable or god forbid a terrorist.

I don’t know the figures but it would definitely be interesting to see the effect these new measures have had on tourism to the USA. The recent outrage over the TSA and their groping has been a beautiful sight to behold and it’s one of the things that I admire about the USA in that when the public actually manage to get really worked up over something they can affect some change.

However the difference between the USA and the UK is that you have a written constitution to back you up when you demand that the government obey those God given rules that prohibit unreasonable search and seizure.

Whilst the constitution is based on our own common law we don’t have anything to fall back upon apart from the EU’s Human Rights Act. Article 8 most definitely protects our right to privacy but then article 15 allows contracting states to derogate from certain rights guaranteed by the Convention in time of “war or other public emergency threatening the life of the nation”. I am guessing that our government would use the never ending and totally phony and unwinnable war on terror as an excuse to override our rights to privacy.

Now I never thought I would ever say this but what we we really need is some American TV. Obviously without all the adverts and the right wing nutjobs who think that the government has ever right to give potential tourists free prostate exams if it helps catch the dead Bin Laden. However here in the UK we don’t have the “opinion makers” and talk shows that fill the airwaves in the US.

The BBC news channel is nothing more than a government mouthpiece and the same can be said for Sky News which just delivers the news without much debate. There are no Glenn Becks, Jon Stewarts, Keith Olbermanns or Bill O’Reilly’s to deliver their slant on the news of the day and help motivate the masses (rightly or wrongly) behind a particular meme or topic du jour.

What we really need is our own Judge Napolitano to defend our basic freedoms and hold others to account when those freedoms are rough ridden over by the state. I have to give him his dues, no matter what the topic, if it’s unconstitutional it’s wrong. We need our own TV champion of civil rights, privacy and the rule of common law and we need them to have a prime time TV show so that the uneducated can become informed about the shit we are force fed every single day in the name of “protecting our freedoms”.

What is the point of fighting a war on terror to protect our way of life that the terrorists supposedly despise if we are just going to throw away said freedoms at the drop of a pin. So many rights and freedoms have been lost whilst we chase shadows from cave to cave that we have almost done the terrorists job for them. Bin Laden’s ghost must be chuckling himself to sleep every night as he watches western government after government turn more into the despotic authoritarian Islamic countries we are supposedly shit scared of.

For too long we as a people have bent over and let the government have it’s way with us. Until we manage to join together and say enough is enough they will continue to collectively sodomise us until we are all wearing man nappies. If that happens no-one is going to willingly choose to go through US customs.

TSA molestation creates the new term: Gate Rape

By Dark Politricks

The abusive treatment by TSA robotwats at US airports all over the country has led to massive outrage from pissed off travellers and citizens alike. The porno scanning genital groping sex fiends in uniform have made such a supposedly easy process into a Nazi-esque nightmare that new terminology is entering the lexicon including the new term “Gate Rape”.

From Urban Dictionary:

Gate Rape

The TSA airport screening procedure.
My sister got gate raped at LAX.

Gate Rape

Passing through a security gate at an American airport, which requires either a full-body scan where T.S.A. guards ogle your naked body or an “enhanced” pat down where T.S.A. guards molest you. The T.S.A. is required by law to make the process as humiliating and abusive as possible.

Gate Rape

Sexual groping of one’s genitalia at airport security by agents after a traveler refuses full body x-ray search.

I am glad we just went though the body xray, that guy got gate raped!

Arrested TSA worker asked girl to be his ’sex slave’

Stephen C. Webster
Raw Story
Monday, February 1st, 2010

A Transportation Security Administration employee in Florida is behind bars this weekend after a 15-year-old girl claimed he groped her and asked if she would be his “sex slave,” according to published reports.

Charles Henry Bennett, a 57-year-old TSA worker at Orlando International Airport, is being held without bail after he reportedly confessed to a version of the described events, even acknowledging his shocking request. The girl was allegedly 13 at the time. According to a police report discussed in area media, Bennett allegedly grabbed the girl’s breasts from behind and solicited her.

“It’s unclear exactly where the alleged abuse took place and how Bennett and the girl met, because the arrest report detailing the abuse is heavily redacted,” local news site Florida Today noted.

The arrest was a product of an investigation initiated after the state’s Department of Children and Families was informed of the girl’s allegations, the publication added.

Multiple news agencies cited Bennett’s MySpace page, but none linked readers directly to it. On the page attributed to Bennett, text describes him as “a BDSM Master” with “many years experience in the lifestyle and as a trainer.”

BDSM is an acronym commonly used to refer to sexual fetishes that fall in the bondage, dominance, submission and masochism categories.

“I am very open minded n expect the same from friends. I enjoy meeting new ppl in the lifestyle and those that r curious,” the page adds, concluding that its owner is searching for “Submissive females”.

“Police said the girl was reluctant to provide specific details about the incident and appeared sullen,” NBC affiliate WESH 2 in Orlando reported. “They said she also expressed sorrow at the prospect of Bennett being arrested. While she did not report any other episodes of abuse, she did not deny other acts of sexual assault occurred, the police report said.”

This video is from MyFox Orlando, broadcast Sunday, Jan. 31, 2010.

TSA worker plants white powder baggie on traveller as a joke

Raw Story
Friday, January 22nd, 2010

Agent was contraband detection trainer; ‘no longer employed’ at TSA

These days, joking about anything illegal while in an airport security line will likely land you in a holding cell, and might even result in criminal charges. But this column from the Philadelphia Inquirer has some wondering whether that rule applies to TSA employees themselves.

Inquirer columnist Daniel Rubin reports that a 22-year-old University of Michigan student fell victim to a particularly cruel “joke” at the hands of a TSA employee at Philadelphia International Airport on Jan. 5.

As Rebecca Solomon passed through security on her way to boarding a Detroit-bound flight, a TSA agent pulled a small baggie filled with white powder out of her carry-on and asked, “Where did you get it?”

A panicked Solomon suffered for 20 seconds before the guard cracked a smile and said, “Just kidding.”

Rubin describes the bizarre encounter like this:

A TSA worker was staring at her. He motioned her toward him. Then he pulled a small, clear plastic bag from her carry-on — the sort of baggie that a pair of earrings might come in. Inside the bag was fine, white powder. She remembers his words: “Where did you get it?”

Two thoughts came to her in a jumble: A terrorist was using her to sneak bomb-detonating materials on the plane. Or a drug dealer had made her an unwitting mule, planting coke or some other trouble in her bag while she wasn’t looking.

Put yourself in her place and count out 20 seconds. Her heart pounded. She started to sweat. She panicked at having to explain something she couldn’t.

Now picture her expression as the TSA employee started to smile. Just kidding, he said. He waved the baggie. It was his.

And so she collected her things, stunned, and the tears began to fall.

The Inquirer’s Linda Loyd reported later Thursday that the TSA says the employee in question in the incident is “no longer employed by the agency.”

The TSA reportedly isn’t disputing Solomon’s version of events.

The employee can’t be named because of TSA privacy regulations, which also prevent the TSA from saying whether he quit or was fired. But Solomon told the Inquirer that she was told he was a trainer who taught TSA employees how to detect contraband.

View the original article at Raw Story

Heathrow staff given body language training to spot suspected terrorists

Richard Edwards
London Telegraph
Friday, January 15th, 2010

Security staff at Heathrow are being trained in “behavioural profiling” of passengers to spot suspected terrorists.

A specialist unit of airport staff are being taught how to recognise the body language of potential suicide bombers.

Police patrolling at transport hubs already look for suspicious behaviour, however the new scheme, called a Behavioural Analysis Screening System, aims specifically at learning about the traits of would-be bombers.

The specifics of the training are secret but it will be based on an Israeli model, which attempts to identify a suspicious individual walking in a crowd of hundreds by looking for nervous behaviour, such as avoiding eye-contact, or having the appearance of being drugged.

View the original article at London Telegraph

Meet Mikey, 8: U.S. Has Him on Watch List

LIZETTE ALVAREZ
New York Times
Thursday, January 14, 2009

The Transportation Security Administration, under scrutiny after last month’s bombing attempt, has on its Web site a “mythbuster” that tries to reassure the public.

Myth: The No-Fly list includes an 8-year-old boy.

Buster: No 8-year-old is on a T.S.A. watch list.

“Meet Mikey Hicks,” said Najlah Feanny Hicks, introducing her 8-year-old son, a New Jersey Cub Scout and frequent traveler who has seldom boarded a plane without a hassle because he shares the name of a suspicious person. “It’s not a myth.”

Michael Winston Hicks’s mother initially sensed trouble when he was a baby and she could not get a seat for him on their flight to Florida at an airport kiosk; airline officials explained that his name “was on the list,” she recalled.

The first time he was patted down, at Newark Liberty International Airport, Mikey was 2. He cried.

After years of long delays and waits for supervisors at every airport ticket counter, this year’s vacation to the Bahamas badly shook up the family. Mikey was frisked on the way there, then more aggressively on the way home.

“Up your arms, down your arms, up your crotch — someone is patting your 8-year-old down like he’s a criminal,” Mrs. Hicks recounted. “A terrorist can blow his underwear up and they don’t catch him. But my 8-year-old can’t walk through security without being frisked.”

View the original article at New York Times

New Airport Body Scans Don’t Detect All Weapons

John Hamilton
NPR
Wednesday, January 13, 2009

The Obama administration’s plan to protect air travelers from terrorists is counting on a technology that is powerful but imperfect, experts say.

The plan will place hundreds of full-body scanners in airports around the country. These scanners use a technology called backscatter X-ray to create images that can reveal weapons or explosives hidden beneath a person’s clothing.

But they don’t detect everything, and they won’t be in every airport.

Other experts, though, say backscatter scanners would probably miss a weapon or explosive concealed in a body cavity.

And that apparent weakness has provided an opportunity for an Indiana company called Nesch LLC, which is developing another low-dose X-ray device that can find contraband where other scanners can’t.

This machine is called DEXI, for Diffraction Enhanced X-Ray Imaging.

“To my knowledge it’s the only one that very reliably can detect the presence of such substances, explosives or illegal substances that are hidden inside of a human body,” says Ivan Nesch, the company’s president and CEO.

View the original article at NPR