I usually walk right through the TSA HQ complex (at least two buildings) which is across the street from the Pentagon City Mall. About a week ago, I observed two of the guards/screeners outside on a smoke break.

Guess what??? The TSA HQ screeners are contractors!!! The irony of it all was not lost on me.

Welcome back, everybody!

I'm not surprised the TSA brass don't trust their own employees.
Hitler didn't trust his troops either .

You seem to have a huge fetish with Hitler and Nazi's, are you practicing member?

"The price of freedom is eternal vigilance."
Some of my relatives died in poland because they didn't speak out against the nazis soon enough. I'm NOT going to make the same mistake.
When I see fascism, I won't wait for someone else to point it out. Especially when said fascists start profiling those around me, restricting travel, rounding up people who dissent and puting them in concentration camps to be tortured (see Guantanamo), and especially when they claim powers not given them by our constitution.
If you dislike being compared to a jack booted thug, you should change proffessions.

You obviously have some stability issues,but things will be OK. Do you believe in the NWO also?

There is absolutely no secret on this board that I am not a TSA fan, but there is sufficient actual cause to do away with it (or, at the very least, totally revamp its procedures) that there is no need to falsify either history or current events.

1. Nobody died in Poland because they didn't speak out against the Nazis soon enough. Poland did not elect the Nazis. Germany invaded Poland. There was absolutely no connection between any lack of anti-Nazi sentiment and the invasion.

2. Fascism was a form of government distinctive to Italy. There were major differences between it and even its closest allies, the German Nazis and the Spanish Falangists. There is certainly no comparison between the U.S. government and the Fascists.

3. Nobody has been "rounded up" and put in Guatanamo. All the prisoners there were captured in Afghanistan. While it is possible that some were taken by error, it is unquestioned that they were believed to be members of the Taliban (and that the overwhelming majority of them were).

If those who dislike the TSA (again, like myself) are to have any hope of having it abolished or reformed, they have to eschew hyperbole and baseless accusations and concentrate on the agency's real abuses and lack of effectiveness.

Not exactly true. More than a handful of Poles could have choosen to arm themselves and resist and to do such earlier. Once occupied more than a rare Pole helped send a Jew, a gypsy (or the very, very rare African to a camp where camping as a recreation choice was to be forever gone for most. Many areas within Poland that had Polish jews who were not in the ghettos were outed by their neighbors to gain favor with the occupying force.

Fascism proper may have been coined and termed in the context of Italy, however, its characteristics and even form of government were not unique, even if distinctive. There are comparisons between any two governments including the U.S. government and Fasicst Italy. For example, both had men as leaders.

Not all the prisoners in Guantanamo were captured in Afghanistan. That may have been the way it was in 2001 and parts of 2002, but it's far from true today. There are some people who were "rounded up". More than a rare "round up" in and outside of Afghanistan has not been involved in either the Taliban or Al-Qaeda proper at all. At least two cases from Afghanistan deal with people who were singled out because another party was upset about unresolved land disputes and were thus suggested "roundees".

Torture is being used by us in Guantanamo Bay and by proxy overseas. It might not involve the slow skinning of the male genitalia repeatedly, but certain techniques being used there can be considered nothing but torture and a violation of the Geneva Convention which we said we would abide by.

Given the fact that Germany had destroyed Poland's army in a very short period, Jewish resistance was doomed to failure. It is true that the Warsaw Ghetto fighters managed to hold off the Nazis for two weeks but the great majority of them also wound up dead.

Unquestionably true. Polish anti-Semitism was endemic and certainly eased the Nazi's task. However, this has absolutely nothing to do with the original contention that had the Polish Jews spoken out against the Nazis earlier that the Holocaust would have been avoided. Nothing in history indicates that the Germans who supported Hitler would have been influenced by the opinion of Polish Jews.


I don't know how many non-Taliban internees there are in Guantanamo but given the context of the original argument (which was a discussion of the TSA) it was my understanding that the contention was being made that the round-ups are in the United States (which is where the TSA operates). I don't know of a single person in the US who has been taken to Gitmo (other than Marine guards).

The British playwright and critic G.B. Shaw is supposed to have had a conversation similar to the following with a woman at a dinner party during a conversation on prostitution:

"Madam, hypothetically, would you sleep with me for a million pounds?"'

She, "Perhaps, yes."

He, "How about for a shilling?"

She, "Certainly not! What do you think I am?"

He, "That we have established. Now we are merely haggling over the price."

I agree that to compare the degree to which we are forced to give up our civil liberties and our dignity to screening procedures is slight when compared to the horrors of fascism - by whatever name. I agree that to equate the practices and the climate is probably not helpful to debate simply because it allows those who advance the argument to be dismissed too easily.

However, another part of me recognizes that perhaps it is only degree and not direction that we are arguing about.

Aside from the waste of resources, one of the worst characteristics of current "security" procedures is that it induces people to lower their expectations of being able to maintain dignity, privacy, and the integrity of their person.

Personally, I have made it a practice to be civil and respectful of the individuals who - while usually civil - carry out procedures and make demands that are anything but respectful to me. I choose simply not to overtly treat the frontline people who operate the foolish and evil system as evil fools themselves. However, I continue to resent what this kind of acquiescence does to the presumption of what is my relationship to the government which designs and carries it out.

The principle of differentiating the sin from the sinner, I suppose, also applies.

Steaming inside!

Teacher, I wholeheartedly agree with you. I believe that the creation of the TSA was a major mistake and that its operations border on the ridiculous. I was (and still am) strongly opposed to the Patriot Act and the creation of the Department of Homeland Security. (Indeed, something about the names of these two makes my skin crawl.)

Still, as much as I object when someone from the other side of a particular issue exaggerates the situation or misrepresents it, I object even further when someone from my own side does the same. The result is simply the weakening of my case.

Germany was able to destroy Poland's army so quickly only because the pols did not see them as a threat. They said the same things that YOU are saying now. As you point out, we very well may be doomed to the same fate as the polish resistance if we don't stop Bush's unholy crusade. I for one will NOT go quietly.

If the theater really IS burning, by all means, shout "FIRE!"

Poland, which had a history of being carved up by Germany and Russia, was well aware of the threat posed by the Nazis. In fact, as early as January 1934, it tried to to avert this danger by concluding a non-aggression pact with Hitler.

Like all other diplomatic attempts to deal with the Nazis it was doomed to failure. In the ensuing years, Hitler's demands became increasingly stronger.

Poland, however, made two vital mistakes in this period:

1. It depended on a coalition, which included England and France, to provide for its defense. It also expected aid from the League of Nations.

2. It kept its army too small and too ill equipped.

If your contention is that America should strengthen its military to be able to deal with all possible threats without reliance on international organizations and foreign allies, I thoroughly agree with you.

Agreed. The PATRIOT Act has one of those contrived names that uses all of the letters of the word 'patriot' as the initials. I'm ALWAYS leery of something that stupid. And, refuse to learn the true name of the thing.

"The Department of Homeland Security" sounds much like The Committee for State Security, or USSR's KGB.

Giving up liberty as the price of 'security' does indeed seem a bit dumb, eh?

No, but I do beleive in the NWH! ^

Just to add to the discussion of definitions, Fascism was indeed the correct term to describe Italy's form of gov't before/during WWII. National Socialism is the precise name of what the Nazi's practiced.