TSA: We're not the bad guys. OK, we look like them.

[xJOHNx]

Never trust a woman, Carol. We'll borrow your favorite shoes, flirt with your man and eat your secret stash of chocolate

Like: We'll borrow your favorite man, flirt with your chocolate and eat your secret stash of shoes?

 

[teekin]

Like: We'll borrow your favorite man, flirt with your chocolate and eat your secret stash of shoes?

Uhhhh, close, care to try again? :angel:
lori

 

[Jenny_in_Chico]

Uhhhh, close, care to try again? :angel:
lori

I thought that I was the only one here with a secret stash of men! Awww!!!

 

[Bruno@MT]

Devil's advocate: if Customs and TSA just let an al-Qaeda operative stroll through with a computer containing the master plan for a devastating WMD attack on the USA, would not everyone here be all over them for failing to protect the country?

I'm as concerned as you are with the erosion of our freedoms and privacy, but at times it seems we are putting our police forces in a position where nothing they do is right.

If an al qaeda operative would carry the doomsday plan with him on a laptop, he would be an idiot. Why would he take the risk?
encrypt it, Upload it to a secure server and download it in an internet cafe. Then decrypt it on the laptop itself on an encrypted drive.
These laptop searches are just part of the security circus.

And indeed, the officials will never get it right as long as the US public cannot accept the fact that you are never 100% safe and that sometimes, **** happens. You'd be a lot safer if the US simply stopped messing with middle eastern countries as if they were peons in a global game of chess.

 

[xJOHNx]

Uhhhh, close, care to try again? :angel:
lori

We'll favorite your borrowed man, flirt with your chocolate and secret your eaten shoes of stash?

 

[Carol]

We'll favorite your borrowed man, flirt with your chocolate and secret your eaten shoes of stash?

I would be mortified!

 

[Jenny_in_Chico]

I would be mortified!

God, I could really flirt with some chocolate right now.

 

[Bruno@MT]

God, I could really flirt with some chocolate right now.

I am Belgian. My Kitchen and pantry probably contain several kilos of Belgian chocolate in various forms at all times. There's bars and plates of chocolate, bonbons, chocolate eggs, chocolate spread for sandwiches, chocolate crumbs for sandwiches, little chocolate balls for use in cakes etc.



Yep.
Looooooooooots of chocolate...
all Belgian...
all mine

 

[xJOHNx]

Just ate some fine côte d'or. All black 86% cacao... Luckily chocolate is vegan.

And bruno, you'll have to share I'm in Ghent right now

 

[Carol]

I just got my braces off (yay me!) so to celebrate I bought a bag of Swiss chocolate (Lindt truffles) to share with my counterparts at work.

The guys are all having a great time flirting with chocolate, lemme tell ya.

 

[grydth]

I've worked with the best, inside and outside the government. I've been in buildings inside the beltway where you were escorted and overhead lights told everyone you were coming, and if you stepped off the yellow lines, you got shot. Trust me, I know more than they do, I taught a lot of them. If I encrypt it, they're not reading it. And not one of them can read the code I've written, because I wrote it. And I'm not the best there is. Point is, no, they won't know what they're looking at on over half the documents on my laptop. And they've got what, 30 minutes, maybe an hour, to examine my laptop and decide whether or not to let me back into the country? Nope; this is security theater. They do not know what they're looking at. Unless it's labeled 'sekrit plans to destroy Amerika', they won't have a clue.

Based on the totality of your posts here, I would trust you... and thereby conclude these searches should not be taking place.

 

[Jenny_in_Chico]

I am Belgian. My Kitchen and pantry probably contain several kilos of Belgian chocolate in various forms at all times. There's bars and plates of chocolate, bonbons, chocolate eggs, chocolate spread for sandwiches, chocolate crumbs for sandwiches, little chocolate balls for use in cakes etc.



Yep.
Looooooooooots of chocolate...
all Belgian...
all mine

And you're already married, isn't that right?

 

[Ken Morgan]

And you're already married, isn't that right?

The first time I came back from Belfast, I had 28 pounds of chocolate. The second time, with the kids, we had closer to 50...

Yeah....I got problems.

"Hi, my name is Ken"
"Hi Ken"
"...."

 

[Ken Morgan]

Checking anything on a computer looking for terrorists secrets is a waste of resources.

The first misconception that most people have is that terrorists are stupid. No they’re not, they’re fanatics, but most are certainly not stupid. Are there stupid terrorists? Of course.

Perhaps it has more to do with industrial/economic snooping more than anything. All these business guys coming from all over the world are probably in competition with some American companies, what a great way to keep/create jobs. Or find someone’s secret tax files.

The reason why there has been no major terrorist attack in the US for years is more because the terrorists got what they wanted, rather than a the success of security. They have the west/US involved in costly, bloody wars around the world, where before much of the local populous was indifferent or supportive of the west, they now are indifferent or hate the west. Great environment for the terrorists to take over sections of these countries.

 

[Gordon Nore]

Checking anything on a computer looking for terrorists secrets is a waste of resources.

Splendid post, Ken. Indeed, looking at 9/11 and the would-be shoe- and underwear bombers, the ones that got through have avoided devices like laptops that normally attract attention. The 9/11 hijackers used box-cutters, which escaped detection at the time.

The two more recent events in which airport security had been breached which did not involve terrorists were partly the result of officials not being at their posts.

But for some crafty explosives work, terror attempts on US planes have been rather blunt, crude efforts.

 

[Blade96]

All well and good, but, where is that fine line between being safe and being free? Can both coexists? Some times you have to give up one to get the other.

I think you can have both but, as one character says in one of my fave tv shows "The price of freedom is eternal vigilance." Its also made clear that if you are 'safe' you dont have to watch yourself but you give up your autonomy and independence. neither is good. Therefore i think a balance needs to be made. you can be safe but not retardedly so. You can be free and not be retardedly cautious where you're afraid of everything and violate others rights in the process.

Generally speaking, when traveling don't take something you would not want some species of government official seeing. The funniest examples have been those couples who just couldn't leave the sex toys at home.

.....

LOL I just spit my tea on my monitor at the mental picture you created in my head of some species of gov official reaching into someone's trunk - and all he pulls out is someone's stash of used sex toys! =]

So you put the flash drive with the encrypted files describing the plan to destroy the US Capitol using WMD in the cat's bottom. I see. Very clever, Carol. Very clever indeed.

Ewww. carol

 

[Carol]

LOL I just spit my tea on my monitor at the mental picture you created in my head of some species of gov official reaching into someone's trunk - and all he pulls out is someone's stash of used sex toys! =]

LMAO! They're supposed to go in checked baggage.

Oh did I type that out loud?

Ewww. carol

PETA fears me.

 

[Bill Mattocks]

LOL I just spit my tea on my monitor at the mental picture you created in my head of some species of gov official reaching into someone's trunk - and all he pulls out is someone's stash of used sex toys!

When I traveled for a living, I used to pack a rubber chicken in my luggage on top of my clothes. He was the first thing the inspector saw when he or she opened my luggage. I called him 'Bony, the anti-terrorist rubber chicken' because wherever I took him, I never saw any terrorists, so he must be working.

However, in Dallas, on my way back from Brazil, the Customs Officer opened my luggage and there was Bony. He picked Bony up and held it up (I'm thinking he was hoping to humiliate me) and loudly announced "What's THIS for?" I looked him right in the eye and said "Sex."

That was the fastest clearance I ever got through customs.

 

[Ken Morgan]

A guy I use to work with, karate, man’s man, a legend in his own mind type guy was coming back from Mexico to Toronto when the hot 18 year old beside him asked if he could take her bag through customs for her. There was alcohol in the bag and she was too young to drink/buy.

So buddy gets up to customs, they open the bag, look at him and ask whose bag it was. He of course says mine. Then they proceeded to pull out pink panties, a couple of thongs, makeup and a vibrator.

 

[Blade96]

LMAO! They're supposed to go in checked baggage.

Oh did I type that out loud?

Yep.

PETA fears me.

should fear me too. cause i'd stop em if i could.

When I traveled for a living, I used to pack a rubber chicken in my luggage on top of my clothes. He was the first thing the inspector saw when he or she opened my luggage. I called him 'Bony, the anti-terrorist rubber chicken' because wherever I took him, I never saw any terrorists, so he must be working.

However, in Dallas, on my way back from Brazil, the Customs Officer opened my luggage and there was Bony. He picked Bony up and held it up (I'm thinking he was hoping to humiliate me) and loudly announced "What's THIS for?" I looked him right in the eye and said "Sex."

That was the fastest clearance I ever got through customs.

A guy I use to work with, karate, man’s man, a legend in his own mind type guy was coming back from Mexico to Toronto when the hot 18 year old beside him asked if he could take her bag through customs for her. There was alcohol in the bag and she was too young to drink/buy.

So buddy gets up to customs, they open the bag, look at him and ask whose bag it was. He of course says mine. Then they proceeded to pull out pink panties, a couple of thongs, makeup and a vibrator.

Now THESE are funny!