The Power of No
 

The TSA's "experts", (more aptly lunatic fringe wing-nuts) suggested that survivors of sexual abuse should simply "try to pretend they're somewhere else" while being pawed by the TSA gropers.

This demonstrates the amazingly poor discernment the TSA possesses with regard to selecting consultants. They seem to unerringly locate and select the most incompetent, least qualified and most delusional, no matter what the sphere of "expertise". In the realm of post-assault counseling, they managed to outdo themselves.


It is Sharon Cissna who is qualified to advise abuse survivors on the road to wellness, and she doesn't just talk the talk. She's modeled the behavior survivors need to adopt in order to thrive:

The percentage of people who've experienced some kind of physical assault with resultant trauma is very high. We can't trust most of the organizations that gather these statistics, because they've all got axes to grind. Nonetheless, the percentage is high.

For these people, saying "No!" and making it stick is the way to true healing. Saying no should not preclude these people's travel.

Saying "No!" to 4th amendment violations is every American's right, a right that used to be protected by the federal government.

We need to say "No!" to the violations of our Constitutional Rights, "No!" to the reckless endangerment inherent in backscatter Xrays, "No!" to the TSA's lies and "No!" to the squandering of public funds on worthless technologies.

Sharon Cissna said "No!", and she's stronger and happier because she did. We will all be better off when we stand together and do the same.

Great for her and anyone else that can take four days away from their work and/or time off from work. However, I am 99.999999999+% sure that if I called my boss and said I am going to be hours or days late getting to work because I refused to comply with TSA security requests that I would no longer have a job.

So far, I have chosen to opt out of scanning and go for the pat down. Every time I am asked to remove something or open something I ask under what authority is such action required. Whenever I feel that someone has been rude to me or lied to me I have spoken with a Team Leader, Supervisor or Manager. I have filed "email" complaints because now the TSA doesn't even supply customer comment cards (at least that is what I am being told over the past two to three years). The results ...

I have spent many cumulative hours standing around security check points waiting for said Team Leader, Supervisor or Manager to show up. I have been subjected to additional screenings, rude comments and threats that I would be held so as to miss flights. I put up with all this because I believe in protecting my rights, such as they have become. I suspect, but can not prove, that most people are not willing to take the stand and suffer the consequences. I know that if it got to the point of walk through a scanner or don't fly and miss work I'd be walking through the scanner because I have bills to pay.

Let's be thankful Sharon Cissna can afford to take 4 days off from work to protest the TSA, and probably another week to go to DC and testify before the House Subcommittee. It is doubtful she would have been able to do so in 62 when she started working as a counselor, in 72, 82, or 92. Now she can, and we all benefit.

At each stage of our lives we enjoy certain privileges, although we may not understand them as such at the time. Thank you for doing what you can to make your point against 4th Amendment violations.

How Did She Get Here?
 

Does anyone know how Rep. Cissna got to DC? Did she fly commercially or did the Committee arrange for either MILAIR or a charter?

If she flew commercially, does Juneau have Cancer Machines? If Juneau doesn't have them, she was OK outbound. But, she's likely to have to make the same bad choice flying home from Dulles or DCA, unless she reads FT and knows how to beat the system at Dulles.

Also, I'm assuming she paid her own way?

The Committee needs to hear from you (or many of us) as well to drive home the point that we are forced into making one of two unacceptable choices.

From original article:

Thanks -- I read it too fast. I know for sure that neither LGA nor ALB have yet to be infected.

Quite Welcome:)

Elizabeth,

The title of your post is so on point for me right now. I've been thinking of a previous set of comments related to the overall impact of the body scanners/patdowns on society as a whole.

I wonder at times if "the power of No" is diminished. What is the impact of having a person, who clearly submits under duress in order to proceed, leave a checkpoint in tears? What is the impact on the passenger, on the offending TSO, on TSOs standing around and watching, or those supervisors/managers, etc who have to deal with this passenger?

Rape, for example, is about power. Do we really think that humiliating someone in this manner doesn't have the same impact. Do we really believe that allowing a bunch of large, male TSOs to stand around and "bully" someone into submitting has a different impact?

Our children are growing up in a society that for the most part seems to accept this. Their view of good touch/bad touch is being warped. Are we now breeding more victims and more offenders?

We are living in a society that expects us to throw away everything we've ever learned about protecting ourselves physically. What does it do to a person who's primary instinct, in a similar situation, is to physically protect himself/herself? Will it have the effect of subconsciously changing that view? Will said person now not automatically air on the side of protecting themselves?

In some ways I am lucky because I live in Canada and the intrusiveness is not quite at the same level as it is in the US. However, I do have to travel to the US for work and to visit family. I have been able to reduce my air travel at this point but it will never be zero. I choose to opt out and be vocal but there are still times that I feel my skin crawl. As I've noted before, the touching of bare skin, hair and face just makes me want to vomit or punch the offending TSO. I've said at much at least once.

In addition to a more complacent population, I really think this will result in more victims in waiting and more offenders. Is this really what we want as a people of the world? It's a scary thought.

" I choose to opt out and be vocal but there are still times that I feel my skin crawl. As I've noted before, the touching of bare skin, hair and face just makes me want to vomit or punch the offending TSO. I've said at much at least once.

In addition to a more complacent population, I really think this will result in more victims in waiting and more offenders. Is this really what we want as a people of the world? It's a scary thought."

I couldn't agree with you more. Swallowing our revulsion and enduring these pawings warps us. Pretending it's OK warps us more. The impression submitting gives to our children is an enormous lie, bigger than any we could utter. Actions speak louder than words.

Then there are the offenders. The government is hiring people to commit assault, and normalizing attitudes and patterns of behavior unique to Sociopaths: "Authoritarian, Secretive, Paranoid, Only rarely in difficulty with the law, but seeks out situations where their tyrannical behavior will be tolerated, condoned, or admired, Conventional appearance, Goal of enslavement of their victim(s), Exercises despotic control over every aspect of the victim's life, has an emotional need to justify their crimes and therefore needs their victim's affirmation (respect, gratitude and love), Ultimate goal is the creation of a willing victim, Unable to feel remorse or guilt, Extreme narcissism and grandiose, and May state readily that their goal is to rule the world." (If this last part seems over the top, read this.)

The TSA is abusing citizens, taking their agency in the wrong direction and degrading the moral character of employees who might be functioning far better if not for the unwholesome influence of the TSA's depraved policies.

We've got to speak out for all the victims, and resist this unhealthy trend with every legal means available to us.

The power of NO scares me.

In April 2009, long before the current scope-and-grope procedures were implemented nation-wide, I flew BWI-LAS on vacation. While sitting at the gae at LAS, waiting to board for my return flight, I witnessed something I'd never seen or heard of before, a phenomenon that I now know (from FlyerTalk) is called a "gate check." I saw a passenger have her bag hand searched by TSOs, while the passenger herself was being frisked, at a table set up in front of the gate.

Now, this was not the enhanced pat-down that we're currently fighting; rather, it was the old-fashioned police-style frisking that is far less invasive and far less uncomfortable than the gropedown.

I sat there for several minutes, watching this happen, stunned and horrified, and a powerful thought sprung to my mind - "I will not be frisked like a common criminal. I'll rent a car and DRIVE from Vegas to Baltimore first!" I was outraged at the very thought, but my conviction was, perhaps, the strongest I've ever felt about anything. I would not submit.

Fortunately, I was not forced into that position in LAS, and boarded my flight without incident. But my conviction hasn't wavered, and when the new scope-and-grope procedures were rolled out in 2010, they only strengthened my resolve.

I will NOT be frisked like a common criminal. I will NOT allow anyone to put their hands on my body without my permission. I don't care if it keeps me from flying, I won't submit. I don't care if I'm arrested. I don't care if it puts me on a no-fly list. I will NOT submit to a pat-down, frisking, gropedown, whatever you call it - I will NOT allow anyone to put their hands on my body. Period.

I despise those infernal machines known as AIT scanners with every fibre of my being, not because of the health risks they present, but because of the blatant violation of my 4th Amendment rights that they represent.

But the last time I flew, I submitted to the despicable nude-o-scope, because to opt out would be to invite strangers to put their hands on my body, and that I will not do.

Going through the NoS won't guarantee that I'm not chosen for a pat-down. Even if I don't alarm the device, I could still be chosen for a 'random' pat-down. If chosen, I will, of course, refuse. And that's where my fear lives.

Refusing a random gropedown means that I won't fly that day. Okay, I can live with that. But depending on the situation, my refusal may or may not bring other consequenses. I may or may not be confronted or bullied or threatened by TSOs or local LEOs. I may or may not be hit with the famed $11,000 fine. I may or may not be placed on some sort of watch list or no-fly list. And it's that uncertainty, that not knowing what consequenses I may have to endure for my convictions, that scares the hell out of me.

Not knowing is the worst part.

And they WANT you to not know. THAT is the worst part.

There is a malignancy infesting our airports.

And it is wearing blue shirts.

It is morally wrong to frisk everyone. People try to rationalize it, but its really fear that is making them cave when they know they shouldn't.

And our one sure consolation is that at least the cancer will, more likely than not, GET cancer from standing near X-ray machines.

I, for one, cannot wait. I will sing and dance in the streets at the first announcement of a TSO facing terminal cancer. Such poetic justice has not been seen since long before I was born.

"Terminal Cancer"

So at last we have a diagnosis of this malady. <heh>