Carrying Security Efficiency Too Far

I rarely carry a topic over to a second post but after writing yesterday's about the lack of privacy due to over zealous camera surveillance, I had to chuckle about the TSA firing five and suspending scores more for not properly screening passengers in a Florida airport.

Supplemental screenings were not performed on 300 to 400 passengers during a time in 2011.  It makes me wonder if those passengers got through and nothing happened on any of their flights if we're not being told something no matter how subtle.  All the screening isn't necessary!  Just multiply it out to all the airports and how many more passengers may have been spared the hassle if other agents, too, had been lax.
 
On the other hand, maybe the wrong people are being screened!  Forget sending the drones to focus on the sanitary habits of cattle, just focus the cameras on the TSA workers!  Okay, the diatribe on the cattle was meant to be tongue in cheek playing on the mental image of cows being spied upon.

The TSA worker issue is another matter.  Quite often there are tidbits in the news about people having items stolen from their checked luggage, but when your carry on luggage completely disappears while you are being scanned it's quite another.

A writer for The Financial Times lost her luggage between the time she put it on the belt at JFK and the time she exited the body scanner. A search of the area turned up nothing except the irritation level of security personnel.  Certainly the cameras would show what happened to it.  But no.  Cameras are only placed where they can see you place your luggage on the belt.  There are none on the other side of the x-ray machine so if you're off being scanned it can disappear without a second glance. The article didn't say, but I'd like to know if this is the case because it's less expensive and more efficient to have only one camera?

It also made me laugh because this is a government entity that is proving to be extremely expensive considering the return on our money.  More passengers have been robbed by TSA employees than terrorists caught.

I'd suggest sticking with the drones and the cattle but what if some errant drone operator decided to take out a poor cow because it was defecating too close to a water source?  Of course they are highly trained and professional at what they do, but cattle aren't like people.  They can be herded, but they are not sheep!

Privacy No Longer Exists

A headline caught my eye today.  It would seem the EPA is now using drones to spy on farmers in Iowa and Nebraska.  Though they don't have the authority they are doing so anyway as a cost efficient way of keeping their eye on water quality in regions where cattle are raised.

The poor cattle!  They've been getting a bad rap for years because what exits their bodies is deemed bad for us.  So bad the government has to use drones to keep an eye on their wanderings?  Do drones also test the ground water?  If not there goes your efficiency.

I started wondering about what else they keep an eye on while coming from where ever they come from and returning.  The farmers themselves?  I wonder how many one finger salutes they pick up.

Actually, none of us seem to be free from surveillance.  Cities have cameras mounted on buildings, businesses do too. Stop signs are watched.  Our phones have them. Just ask a politician who has been caught in a compromising situation by a cell phone camera. Our pads and computers have them. My computer has one looking at me though I never use it.  Can it be triggered remotely?  I hope not. I don't photograph well.  We can't go through airports without having our nakedness scanned.  There are high altitude spy planes and satellites that can detect a quarter in your hip pocket.

Police have them on their dashboards and on their uniforms.  You can get pens that have them and place it in a shirt pocket and no one knows the difference.   They're everywhere.  Facebook has come under fire for it's privacy practices.  At least they have some if you're inclined to dig deep enough.  Of course they're betting you won't and you probably don't.

Maybe it's just me, but as long as it's my computer or a friend's cell phone I consider it an annoyance at times, but when the government has free reign with spy in the sky technology I get uneasy.  Not that I have anything to be afraid of other than embarrassing myself, but still.  The thought that I can go out in my yard and have every move recorded without my even knowing it seems an appalling invasion of privacy.  At least it would be if there were such a thing. Privacy.

Creeping Big Brotherism

Maybe I should say 'creepy' big brotherism!  It seems to be everywhere in every guise one can imagine.

Let's first look at 'The Big Apple' where the only thing you'll soon be able to eat is just that.  An apple. Probably not a big one at that.  Mayor Bloomberg has taken it upon himself to be a one man food police force.  First, while not a foodstuff, still significant - tobacco.  Then he banned trans fats, salt and now sugary drinks.  Not that some of these items can do harm if consumed in huge quantities on a regular basis, but does one person or committee or whatever have the right to dictate what we can and cannot do?

Consider the politically correct movement to regulate what schools can name their sports teams.  Even the Indians cannot, in many cases, name their own teams after themselves.  It's offensive to someone, but who?  And who says?

Just recently here in Idaho a State Liquor Division administrator is refusing to stock a vodka named Five Wives?  Why?  Because it's offensive to Mormons and there are a lot of Mormons in southern Idaho.  Heck, Mormons don't even drink!  At least they're not supposed to.  Maybe the Idaho Liquor Dispensary (don't you love the name?) shouldn't operate in southern Idaho at all.

The irony of it is the vodka is distilled by Ogden's Own  in Ogden, Utah.  You can't get more into Mormon country than that!   Even more amazing is that they can't keep it on the shelves in  northern Utah!  Somewhat amazed and amused the distillery tells us it is another step in their effort to "create a portfolio of products to pay homage to the heritage of the American west".

Well, polygamy is certainly part of that heritage and most certainly in Utah!  I can't disagree there are times when segments of the population need looking after by others, but self-appointed morality police offend me.  Did the Idaho administrator poll the local Mormons to see it they indeed were offended?  I rather doubt it.

Even when the Indians said they liked the idea of a non-Indian team using an Indian term for a name, the team was still denied.  Then there are the no tolerance policies of many schools where a youngster brings a GI Joe to school and ends up suspended for having a gun.  Please!

Granted,  many people are more obese then they should be, many drink too much, kids take inappropriate toys to school but what ever happened to common sense much less self determination?

We have a problem here in America.  It starts at the top.  We think we know best and try to force others to accept our way of thinking.  We get angry when they don't.  It filters down to a New York where the people are up in arms over the actions of their mayor.  It filters down to one man's opinion about what a whole religious community thinks.  It filters down to a committee who knows better than what a whole nation (Indian) of people think.  It filters down to what a school board thinks a rational description of a gun should be.

There used to be a time when we could think for ourselves.  We'd look in a mirror when adding a few pounds and go on a diet - or not.  But it was our decision.  Not someone thinking for us.

As for me?  It's getting close to cocktail hour.  I may join Hub and have a vodka.  Heck, if he has enough he may even think he has five wives!  If I, on the other hand,  have enough he's likely not to have even one.

When Is Enough Enough In Syria?

I hate war.  Anyone who reads me with any regularity knows it.  I hated the wars we've been involved in and I hate the ones we're not involved in.

On the other hand there comes a time when human decency demands action.  Night after night on the news we are witness to mass graves being filled with mostly women and children.  Government troops are slaying the population with impunity while the world sits back and watches.

 Man's inhumanity to man.  Which is worse?  What the Syrian army is doing to it's own people or what the rest of the world is doing by doing nothing?   My blood really boils when our government officials are asked why we don't intervene in some capacity and we're told it's because we "don't know who these people are", meaning the opposition.  Does it matter?

Leveling the playing field need not mean American boots on the ground.  It could mean providing arms. Or air power.  Something!  We're supposedly smart people.  But then we're supposedly compassionate too.  The UN is once again a toothless tiger because Russia opposes everything so there will be no help there.  We could do as Bill Clinton did in Bosnia when he got to the point when enough was enough.  He went it alone.

As for not knowing who the opposition is, I don't buy it. The Wall Street Journal had an article on it just today. If they know, certainly our government knows.  A lot of what has been happening in the Middle East doesn't please us.  We seem to ignore their culture and beliefs and act so surprised when they actually elect Islamists to government.  Why not?  They are Islamist countries!  The important thing is they were given the opportunity to vote.  We can't dictate the outcome and should quit trying.  Look what we have in Afghanistan.

One thing of which I'm fairly certain is that the people of Syria will long remember who helped them - and who did not.  If I'm going to bet on who a new government will be more friendly toward, regardless of ideologies, I'll bet on those who helped.

Too Many Dead And Too Young To Die

My morning routine begins with a couple of cups of strong black coffee and the morning papers.  They evoke a variety of emotions but rarely do they bring tears.  Yesterday's did.

It, of course, was Memorial Day.  The front page of the Spokesman Review was devoted to the locals who have perished in wars lasting for far too long for far too little gain.  Forty five of them.  Young men and one woman.  The oldest was 43.  The youngest 19.  All in the prime of life.

What an incredible waste.  Multiply this by every town in the country and you have thousands.  I cannot help but wonder if it has been worth it.  Multiply again the numbers of spouses suddenly single and children left without a parent.  Mothers and fathers who have lost a child.

I was so angry with George W. Bush for  beginning the war in Iraq.  It seemed to me so un-American.  Americans don't start wars, we finish them.  I guess that changed with Viet Nam when we engaged in a war different from what we were used to fighting.  Even then the enemy was mostly recognizable.  Now they aren't.  No uniforms.  Home made yet lethal weaponry.  We stand out like sore thumbs - which we seem to be even to the locals.

For what?  To stabilize a country not yet wanting nor able to be.  Yet we've committed billions of dollars in continuing aid to a corrupt government who has already bilked us of billions.  They scold us for our efforts on their behalf.  We hang our heads and apologize and put restrictions on our soldiers as to who they can shoot and under what circumstances.  My, how things have changed from the "Great Wars" where  we volunteered in droves to bail out our allies and produced generals like Bradley and Eisenhower.  Where are they now?

I understand why we have civilian over site of the military.  We don't want to be like Egypt and so many others where the military takes over.  On the other hand, civilians with no military experience seem to think they know better than the generals and we have one huge mess.

I guess this post is a day late and a dollar short.  I thank each and every member of the military for their contribution to peace in our country.  And I apologize for electing to high office those who haven't a clue as to how to run a war and won't listen to those who do.

We've gotten you into this mess.  I don't know how we'll get you out.  We can, however, elect those who understand the mission of the military and not overstep those bounds.  The question is, will we?