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TSA's 9/11 Propaganda Piece on the blog [merged threads]

TSA's 9/11 Propaganda Piece on the blog [merged threads]

Old Sep 11, 2008, 12:28 pm
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TSA's 9/11 Propaganda Piece on the blog [merged threads]

Originally Posted by Blogdad Bob
As many of us reflect on 9/11, I wanted to share the story about how I came to TSA and what it meant to wear the TSA uniform. ...

Thinking back to 9/11 and when I joined TSA, I remember how people often said hello and even shook our hands. For the traveling public, it's been seven years without an attack in the U.S., and to many, the rules are now burdensome and our checkpoints are a necessary evil. For officers, it's one day at a time, with some days when you find a gun, a knife, hollowed out shoes, or items in bags that look like plastic explosives or an IED. Things that make the hair on the back of your neck stand up, your heart stop, because it's a threat until you can prove it's not one. It happens far more than you think, so when an officer asks to get a better look at you or your bag, know that it's because they want to make sure everything's okay.

Today, at airports around the country, officers on duty at 8:46 a.m. participated in a moment of silence to mark 9/11. The new uniform also carries a reminder of 9/11. If you look closely at the patch on an officer's left shoulder, youll see nine stars and eleven stripes behind the eagle. If you look at the eagles wing, you will see the Twin Towers. We think about it all the time so passengers can get safely to their destination. Our personal creed is not on my watch.


Can't say I'm surprised to see them gush about how they're protecting us and using "remember 9/11" as a battle cry while they destroy the very thing that those people died for: freedom.

Skeletor and the TSA pumping out propaganda on 9/11 ... imagine that.
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Old Sep 11, 2008, 1:13 pm
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<SNIP> Thinking back to 9/11 and when I joined TSA, I remember how people often said hello and even shook our hands.
Yeah, and I remember on day one of the TSA taking over a screener said Good morning, sir to me in the same manner and tone you would expect a FA to ask if you would like a pre-departure beverage. Wheres the customer service element these days?



Things that make the hair on the back of your neck stand up, your heart stop, because it's a threat until you can prove it's not one.
[/golf_clap]
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Old Sep 11, 2008, 1:25 pm
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Dear Comrades,

9/11 means many things to many People. For some of you, it is day the the federal government started to destroy civil liberties in this nation and start to become more like Axis of Evil. However, I want to share story about how I came to Communist Party and what it means to wear Communist Party costume...

Before 9/11, I was always looking for work. Ok, not really work, but rather some function that did not require much effort, physically or mentally. but still paid many kyat (sorry, imperialist dollars). Suddenly, federal government went into frenzy after murderers destroyed buildings. Take away this, restrict that, secret rules about this, cannot talk about that... Perfect opportunity, Comrades! So I joined People's Workfare Program and eventually became Minister of Propoganda blogger.

Many Comrades who send in email are very negative. (Haha don't worry, we log IP for future when Party is permitted to really investigate Comrades with Bad Attitude!) They do not understand principle of Party: Security through Obscurity. Remember, We tell you Comrades what you need to know. Since there is no Improper Use of Magic Office, we can claim our devices can do anything, even if we don't really know what they do! Is very satisfying career talking down to Comrades Who Complain.

Today I marked moment of silence and then had moment of great joy when I looked at checkbook which used to have much red (glorious color) ink. Now is all black, like sections of Constitution.
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Old Sep 11, 2008, 1:42 pm
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Enhanced censorship on TSA blog on 9/11

Not only is it a propaganda piece, but they are admitting that they are censoring TSA-unfriendly posts in this thread:

Bolding mine:
Blogger Bob said...

Al, I thought the same thing at first, but it hit me. The fact that you have to scroll down so far shows you how many lives and families were affected that day.

Also TSO Tom, I'm sad to say that some of the public has attempted to use this thread to air gripes. I have been heavy handed with the reject button in this post today.

Bob

EoS Blog Team
Here's my post from several hours ago, which I'm pretty sure has been rejected (instead of the usual tactic of just delaying it long enough to bury it in the posts). I guess TSA doesn't think 9/11 is an appropriate day to reflect on the negative things that we have allowed to happen to our country because of 9/11/01. Yet another Soviet-style, Stasi-style action by TSA--on their holy remembrance days, they may only be praised, or put another way, no First Amendment for one day a year. (How long before TSA's beloved mission creep expands that to year-round?)

Originally Posted by studentff
9/11 was a tragedy that should be remembered, but let us not get so caught up in those memories that we forget the monster we have created in our own backyard.

A post from 7:05 p.m. on 9/10 in the passive-millimeter-wave thread demonstrates yet another example of TSOs and in this case a screening manager needlessly abusing and humiliating a disabled American. That is not anomaly in an agency that has forced people to remove prosthetic legs, forced prosthetic wearers to drop their pants either in public or at private screenings, and forced a woman to remove a nipple ring while TSOs laughed. (The nipple-ring removal was even endorsed by TSA management in the press before a "policy change" was eventually announced.)

This is also the same agency that uses an un-American secret blacklist to deny innocent Americans freedom of movement with no effective means of redress or due process. If the Blogger Bob was learning about terrorism in college Poly-Sci classes, he also should have been learning about secret blacklists in the era of red scares and labor strife and why we don't use them in a free society.

And of course, TSA continues to steal under color of authority, permitted items like the custom battery pack for an external DVD player. Again, this theft was touted as a success by TSA. And that's not to mention the countless thefts of other permitted items such as hand tools.

Meanwhile, power-tripping screeners and their supervisors continue to abuse passengers with little accountability and under the protection of being able to issue civil fines for "non-physical interference" if a passenger so much as questions them. Power-tripping TSOs refer a special-ed teacher for arrest and threaten her with a $10,000 fine for carrying a leather bookmark, while power-tripping screeners at another airport issue a passenger a fine for "only" a few hundred dollars for forgetting a cheese slicer in his carry-on. TSOs needlessly paw through non-alarming wallets hoping to read some juicy tidbit that they can use to justify detention and harassment. Retaliatory secondaries and arbitrary interpretations of the SOP are routine to anyone who flies more than a few times a year, and TSA management rarely if ever undertakes transparent, public discipline of the offenders.

TSA continues to endorse and encourage such power trips by relying on secret rules and using SSI and designed inconsistency as excuses for misbehavior.

As for TSA's ever stricter prohibitions on items, for "many, the rules are now burdensome" because they have gotten out of hand. TSA is obsessed with finding cash and drugs, which are not threats to aviation, in hollowed-out shoes, when a metal detector (to detect knives/guns) and an ETD swab or puffer (to detect explosives) would detect threats to aviation without forcing shoe removal. TSA has created a papers-please state of laughable ID checks with blacklights and loupes, where you have to request permission from the government to travel in your own country. And of course there's the war on water--2 years after TSA over-reacted to a half-baked plot, they still ban most passengers from carrying any significant quantity of liquids. I still think that when someone weaves explosives into fabric, TSA will actually try to demand that we fly naked.

9/11 was tragic, but I am sick of hearing how things "changed forever" on 9/11. Terrorism was and is nothing new, and the only reason things "changed forever" was because our government and people tolerated throwing out the Constitution, liberty, and common sense in the name of feel-good security theater.

Meanwhile, cargo still is not screened.

TSA is so out of control and on such a gigantic power trip that the only way to solve it is to disband the agency, bar the leadership from public service or security service for life, and re-constitute airport screening with as much emphasis on liberty and civil rights as on security. The mission must be pared down to the legal mandate of keeping weapons, explosives, and incendiaries off of commercial aircraft; no other activities (blacklists, papers-please checks) or seizures (cash and drug referrals) should be allowed.


By all means should our law enforcment, intelligence agencies, and military search for and root out terrorists. But the place for law-enforcement to catch them is before they get to the airport, and the place for the military to catch them is before they get in the country. Better checkpoint screening would not have stopped 9/11 because the attack was based on a philosophy of crew-cooperation with hijackers, not on prohibited items. Better intelligence and usage of intelligence might have stopped the attacks.

7 years later America is substantially less free and little if any safer. I still live my life, but no longer refer to the USA as a free country and use the phrase "land of the free, home of the brave" only in sarcasm as I point out that my countrymen are afraid of 4-oz toothpaste. If I ever have kids, it will be hard to explain to them that our country used to value liberty, privacy, and the right to anonymity while they grow up in the growing surveillance state and budding police state that we have become. The terrorists have caused us to spend untold billions of dollars on security by executing an attack that cost them less than a million dollars and less than two dozen operatives. I don't consider that outcome to be an appropriate honor for the 3,000 victims of 9/11.
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Old Sep 11, 2008, 1:51 pm
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Exclamation TSA blog: widespread censorship of comments on 9/11 post

TSA posted a "Seven Years Later" 9/11 retrospective today.

A half-hour before Blogger Bob allowed someone to anonymously post a 3000-line comment listing names of people who died in the WTC disaster, I attempted to post:

And as everyone reflects, I'd like to remind them that as reported by Peter Tatchel of The Guardian on September 12 2007, chair and vice chair of the 9/11 Commission, Thomas Kean and Lee Hamilton, have since stated that they were "set up to fail" and were starved of funds to do a proper investigation. They also confirm that they were denied access to the truth and misled by senior officials in the Pentagon and the federal aviation authority; and that this obstruction and deception led them to contemplate slapping officials with criminal charges. Also note that despite the many public statements by 9/11 commissioners and staff members acknowledging they were repeatedly lied to, not a single person has ever been charged, tried, or even reprimanded, for lying to the 9/11 Commission.

The final report did not examine key evidence, and neglected serious anomalies in the various accounts of what happened. The commissioners admit their report was incomplete and flawed, and that many questions about the disaster remain unanswered. Despite these unanswered questions, the 9/11 Commission was closed down on August 21, 2004.
My comment has yet to be approved. I've posted over 200 comments on that blog, and only five of them have been censored. Each time it was clear why (generally, Bob clamping down on conversation veering off-topic).

This comment has yet to be approved.

Not long after that, Bob commented:

I'm sad to say that some of the public has attempted to use this thread to air gripes. I have been heavy handed with the reject button in this post today.
I also attempted to comment:

Seven years later, let's put our differences aside and honor the heroic survivors of 9/11. Their stories and concerns deserve attention.
and also:

Bob, my comment was not a gripe, it was a statement of fact, and it was directly related to this post, and you have yet to approve it almost an hour later.

The 9/11 Commissioners have stated that their report was incomplete and flawed, and that many questions about the disaster remain unanswered.

This and more was reported by Peter Tatchel of The Guardian on September 12 2007.

Please allow my previous comment which is not buried beneath the 3000-line monster you allowed.
and then:

William Rodriquez helped 15 people from the WTC to safety, and as Rodriguez was the only person at the site with the master key to the North Tower stairwells, he bravely led firefighters up the stairwell, unlocking doors as they ascended, thereby aiding in the successful evacuation of unknown hundreds of those who survived. Rodriguez, at great risk to his own life, re-entered the Towers three times after the first, North Tower impact at about 8:46 A.M., and is believed to be the last person to exit the falling North Tower alive, surviving the building's collapse by diving beneath a fire truck. After receiving medical attention at the WTC site for his injuries, Rodriguez spent the rest of 9/11 aiding as a volunteer in the rescue efforts, and at dawn the following morning, was back at Ground Zero continuing his heroic efforts.

He was the last man out.
None has made it past the censors.

Is anyone else having difficulty getting on-topic and within-guidelines comments approved there today?
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Old Sep 11, 2008, 2:00 pm
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posts crossed in the mail; need independent TSA uncensored blog?

Originally Posted by studentff
Not only is it a propaganda piece, but they are admitting that they are censoring TSA-unfriendly posts in this thread:
I didn't see this thread before starting another, "TSA blog: widespread censorship of comments on 9/11 post".

I've been thinking for some time that it would be good to start another blog that would publish TSA's feed, then allow people to post comments that would not be censored, and would also be automatically posted to the TSA blog, where they could do whatever they wish with each post. Each post could be signed with a link to the preferred blog. Bonus points for Slashdot-style vote up/down by the community, increased weight on people with better reputation for moderation, etc. Eventually, Web searches for "TSA blog" would result in links to the uncensored one.
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Old Sep 11, 2008, 2:08 pm
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I'm curious as to whether Bob sees the irony in censorship in order to "honor the memory of those who died on September 11th".

I don't generally agree with Keith Olbermann, but he was right last night -- it's no longer September 11th. The government has cruelly twisted it into 9/11 (tm), a platform from which to preach, a platform from which to make law, a platform from which to do pretty much anything but honor the victims.
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Old Sep 11, 2008, 2:09 pm
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I was just over at Blogdad Bobs place and chills went down my spine when I saw the words "heavy handed with the reject button."

The First Amendment does not apply on 9/11?

Is there a secret memo we are not allowed to see: "SSI - Constitution suspended indefinitely until further notice"?

9/11 is a day to celebrate the US is still here in spite of the terrorists, not a day to demonstrate the New Expanded Censorship Powers of Big Brother.
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Old Sep 11, 2008, 2:11 pm
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Originally Posted by Blogdad Bob
Our personal creed is not on my watch.
Wasn't that a Nixon campaign slogan.
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Old Sep 11, 2008, 2:32 pm
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'Tis a good thing that I didn't post over there my thought that the more one sees of what is happening post 9/11, the virtual strip search, a national ID card, and on and on, the more one might believe that it was a conspiracy and that Bush and cronies were involved.
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Old Sep 11, 2008, 2:35 pm
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There's no free speech on any forum or blog. It's a private space where the owners can edit or disallow whatever they want.

Your right's aren't being violated in any way, shape or form. Keeping in mind I don't agree with what they are doing.
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Old Sep 11, 2008, 2:45 pm
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Originally Posted by TheCrackedJack
There's no free speech on any forum or blog. It's a private space where the owners can edit or disallow whatever they want.

Your right's aren't being violated in any way, shape or form. Keeping in mind I don't agree with what they are doing.
There's no mandated free speech, but that still doesn't make censorship look good. Particularly if the posts censored don't violate the ToS of the blog. It doesn't look good either for a blog that touts itself as a way for the public to interact with TSA to declare a "praise only" day.

Like wildcatlh said in the other thread, censorship as a means of honoring those who died on 9/11 seems rather wrong. Of course, TSA's ongoing shredding of the Constitution, liberty, and common sense in their honor is wrong too.
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Old Sep 11, 2008, 2:47 pm
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Originally Posted by TheCrackedJack
There's no free speech on any forum or blog. It's a private space where the owners can edit or disallow whatever they want.

Your right's aren't being violated in any way, shape or form. Keeping in mind I don't agree with what they are doing.
And who are the "owners" of tsa.gov?
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Old Sep 11, 2008, 3:08 pm
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Originally Posted by planeluvr
Wasn't that a Nixon campaign slogan.
Could easily be, it is an old navy term relating to watch periods on a ship, and Nixon was a supply clerk (or whatever they call it in the Navy) in the Navy, and was on ships in the Pacific, so he would be familiar with it.
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Old Sep 11, 2008, 3:45 pm
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Originally Posted by Spiff
And who are the "owners" of tsa.gov?
From a legal perspective, he's right -- there's no guarantee of freedom of speech on the blog, even though it's government owned.

From a moral perspective, as I said before, it's incredibly 'wrong' of them to be doing this.
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