Originally Posted by
Isobel
Maybe not, but if [silence] appears to mean consent, and can be used by the TSA and the DHS in their statistics to suggest that 99 percent of us have no problem with the scans and the pat-downs, then it might as well BE consent. Whereas, if everybody opted out...just stood there all together and said the equivalent of Don't Touch My Junk...this travesty could not continue.
No ... the better case to make is that silence means
silence, and shouldn't be used by either side in the debate to justify their own biased positions.
Besides, if we want to wage war with statistics, all we have to do is point to the innumerable polls out there that are critical of TSA and its procedures.
As for everyone opting out and calling "don't touch my junk" ... keep in mind that in that particular exchange, the passenger
lost. He didn't get to pass through the checkpoint ... and last time I heard, he was being threatened with an $11,000 fine for not letting the TSA touch his junk. If "everybody" did this, we'd all end up losing just like he did.
Frankly, the TSA doesn't care whether or not we opt-out. TSOs get paid the same for screening us, no matter which screening procedures we force them to use, and no matter how long those procedures take. That's why I question most of the "organized protests" I've seen here ... in order to be effective, our "opponents" would have to be inconvenienced by what we're doing, and I see no evidence of that.