Airline pilots, politicians won't get scanned or groped, TSA says

WASHINGTON, D.C., USSA - The Transportation Safety Administration - a misnomer if there ever was one - has decreed that for now, airline pilots will not have to go through the same security screenings as passengers.

After being pressured by the pilots' union, the TSA backed off on requiring them to go through the hoops that many thousands of airline passengers go through every day.

Here's the story in the San Francisco Chronicle: Pilots go through untouched

This is not an argument that pilots should have to have full body scans or get groped by poorly paid TSA gate workers who are likely as grossed out by the body searches as the searchees. (In most states, the pat down as performed by TSA agents could get them arrested for sex crimes...)

No, the argument is no one should have to go through this newest level of 'security'.

Krauthammer

Charles Krauthammer, hardly my favorite columnist, had it right today when he wrote:

"The ultimate idiocy is the full-body screening of the pilot. The pilot doesn't need a bomb or box cutter to bring down a plane. All he has to do is drive it into the water, like the EgyptAir pilot who crashed his plane off Nantucket while intoning "I rely on God," killing all on board."

Exactly.  Now that that particular idiocy has been resolved, why not realize that it's idiocy to do these new security measures with three-year-old children, senior citizens pushing walkers, wheelchair bound passengers and, and, and...

Krauthammer will no doubt be pilloried for this comment:

"The only reason we continue to do this is that people are too cowed to even question the absurd taboo against profiling - when the profile of the airline attacker is narrow, concrete, uniquely definable and universally known. So instead of seeking out terrorists, we seek out tubes of gel in stroller pouches."

Ah those strollers!

To paraphrase the late Art Linkletter: Kids do the darnest things.

You can add D.C. politicians to the list of people who can avoid the screenings, too: No patting the politicians

And Slate magazine asks the right question at this link: Does the TSA EVER catch terrorists?