I saw an interesting article at www.powerlineblog.com that was posted this morning and included the following excerpt:

"This is a true story.

Two weeks ago I was flying back to NYC from WDC with a business colleague on the Delta Shuttle. We purchased our tickets at the gate 45 minutes before flight time. On our ticket was a code ssss. When we pulled up to the security check point, my friend and I were escorted into a holding area, a 10 by five foot plexi-glass box. We were told to wait because we had been tagged for additional screening. About a minute later, two more individuals were put in our box, a fully uniformed US Marine Colonel and Dan Rather. We were all put through extensive screening and then allowed to leave. While I can understand why my friend and I were put to additional screening, we fit a profile of two male on site buyers of one way tickets, the other two seemed like a complete waste of valuable time.

I do appreciate the irony of Dan Rather being searched, but still think it is a colossal waste of resources."

I agree with the opinion expressed as to the waste of resources. Even though I am not a big Dan Rather fan, I don't think he needs to be subject to a secondary.

You never know, Dan could be an Al Qaeda agent. You can never be too careful.

Even our pilots could be Al Qaeda. They all must be strip searched. Why do we trust our pilots?

He got SSSS because he was in Pyongyang with me last October.

To add insult to injury he had to fly in the back of economy on Air Koryo on the way back to Beijing.

Do you balim them for SSSSSSSSSSing Dan Blather???

I'm more appaled at the USMC secondary.

First, on a common sense scale. But I know that the TSA and common sense are mutually exclusive.

Second, ticket agents have the power to wipe out the SSSS on military personnel.

Remeber, it is all about statistics and appearences.

By SSSS'ing a Marine in uniform and the national newscaster of your choice, the TSA can state with some accuracy that they do not profile and thus are not racists.

A marine in full uniform would most likely be traveling on orders and is therefore exempt from being made a selectee.

Obviously the computer may not know he is a marine, it could be a random SSSS, but the marine can present his orders and be exempted from the process - however I talk to quite a few soldiers who have been selectees and they seem unaware that they can do this.

That's it 100%-- wasting time and money to appease the PC crowd!

I thought Dan Rather died last year, No?

With apologies to Mark Twain, rumors of his demise have been greatly exaggerated. He has not been the anchor of CBS's weeknight newscast for some time, but he has not assumed room temperature.

Courage, Dan.

--PP

As opposed to TSA which is 100% wasting time and money to appease the "save america from IslamoFascism" crowd?

Perhaps you are thinking of Peter Jennings

Lets be at least a little fair and accurate - "100%" rarely applies in any circumstances. Basic airline security (e.g. x-ray for guns) goes back far before TSA as we know it. So at the very least part of the money spent on TSA is performing a useful function. Is TSA wasting money - sure - its a government agency and government agencies tend to waste money trying to satisfy too many constituencies at once. I'm not really sure if there is a practical/feasible alternative though - by some arguements they could be more efficient applying profiling techniques but that would set off left leaning constituencies. On the other hand their current techniques which try to avoid direct profiling tend to set off the Right leaning constituencies.

By the same token 100% couldn't apply to trying to satisfy the "save america from IslamoFascism" crowd. If they were really 100% committed to such a goal then they'd be strip-searching every "muslim looking" (whatever that is) person that tried to fly.

In the end its just another mixed up government agency. When something big happens I'm sure they'll do what every clumsy large business/government agency does - try to cover up their mistakes with another re-org.

Logically, I'd agree with you a 100% of the time.

But, as has been pointed out by several posters in other threads... think of Aldrich Ames and other senior CIA spies - would you have expected them to be traitors?

Much as I hate to see a uniformed patriot being subject to this nonsense, I can't fault it. He is no less a threat than 80 year old Dorothy with her knitting needles.