Originally published September 10 2011
Never going back: Air travel changed for worse, forever after 9/11
by Ethan A. Huff, staff writer
(NaturalNews) As the ten-year anniversary of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks quickly approaches, a recent USA Today piece reflects on the drastic, and likely permanent, changes that have taken place in US airport security. What was once a relatively simple and painless walk through the metal detector has mutated into a nightmarish circus of screaming TSA agents, invasive pat-downs, naked body scans, strip searches, and other unconstitutional violations of personal and civil liberties -- and conditions will most likely never return to what they once were before 9/11.
Many NaturalNews readers will remember pre-9/11 flying conditions when friends and relatives could freely walk to departure gates to see off their loved ones. Or when spending a few minutes in a short security line, with no convoluted restrictions on liquids or wearing shoes, was all it took to board a flight. These were the days when Americans were treated more like innocent travelers than guilty terrorists, and when airport security was not run by the heavy hand of a bloated federal government.
But everything changed, of course, after the 9/11 tragedy took place. Americans willingly sacrificed their freedom in the name of security and protection against terrorists. And as well-intentioned as many people likely were in bowing down to the federal overlords that were all-too-quick to unlawfully search them and seize their property, this capitulation to tyranny has made air travel feel more like lining up for roll call at a Nazi concentration camp than simply embarking on a peaceful and more rapid form of transportation than bus or car.
Air travel has not become safer by 'enhanced' TSA security protocols, despite propaganda
Some people might argue that because there have been no US major attacks since 9/11, the TSA's enhanced security protocols have obviously been a success. The US government and mainstream media have repeated this mantra for years, and have even singled out a few supposed cases where terrorists were stopped as supporting evidence. This notion, however, is a logical fallacy, and here is why.
Just because there have been no major terrorist attacks on US soil since 9/11, it does not mean that TSA and its enhanced security procedures have had anything to do with it. After all, TSA has had to "upgrade" its security protocols several times since its post-9/11 inception because of potential terrorists like Richard Reid, also known as the "shoe bomber," and Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the media-dubbed "underwear bomber," both of which had breached security.
A recent report issued by the House Oversight and Government Reform Subcommittee on National Security, Homeland Defense and Foreign Operations also found that since November 2001, there have been more than 25,000 airport security breaches, despite a present TSA. These, of course, include the case where a man successfully flew from New York to Los Angeles without identification or a ticket (http://www.naturalnews.com/032918_TSA_securi...), and another in which an armed undercover agent made it through the TSA security line multiple times without being detected (http://www.naturalnews.com/031529_TSA_naked_...).
This same government report found that the US Department of Homeland Security's (DHS) TSA failed to detect terrorists at least 23 times throughout the past decade, and that these terrorists had slipped through the security screeners and boarded passenger airplanes just as easily as the 9/11 terrorists had done through the old security protocols (http://www.judicialwatch.org/blog/2011/apr/t...).
In truth, Americans are no safer than they were prior to 9/11 -- but now they have to deal with a whole slew of invasive, convoluted, and humiliating security procedures that, according to a USA Today / Gallup Poll conducted in 2010, have deterred at least 27 percent of formerly-regular air travelers from flying at all.
"Don't get misled into believing we're safer than before 9/11," said Michael Boyd, an aviation consultant for USA Today. "We are simply being screened by a bigger bureaucracy, and the back doors of our airports -- where the security failures really were on 9/11 -- are still wide open."
TSA now setting up shop at stadiums, bus and train stations, malls, other public places
Air travel for Americans will most likely never return to pre-9/11 conditions, as there almost always seems to appear a new terrorist boogeyman every time Americans begin to raise a fresh uproar about TSA abuses. And it appears as though TSA will continue to expand its operations into every aspect of American life and transport, including establishing a presence at sporting events, bus and train stations, shopping malls, and various other public placed deemed a potential security threat.
Back in December, NaturalNews warned readers that DHS was planning to implement its new "VIPER" (a chilling acronym for the new DHS "Visual Intermodal Protection and Response" program) teams all over the US. At that time, it had already begun testing the program, which is gravely similar to the NAZI checkpoints established throughout Germany during World War II, at a Tampa, Fla. Greyhound bus station (http://www.naturalnews.com/030596_TSA_securi...).
In other words, conditions are only going to get worse in the so-called "land of the free," as innocent citizens are repeatedly and increasingly treated like terrorists everywhere they go. And if Americans ever hope to stop this tyrannical madness, they will have to step up now and begin resisting this tide of fascism that is quickly transforming the US into the largest and most advanced police state the world has ever known.
Sources for this story include:
http://travel.usatoday.com/flights/story/201...
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