Today is Thanksgiving, the day when American families gather together to enjoy the traditional meal, and give heartfelt thanks that their TSA "pat down" agent didn't have cold hands.
At this busiest travel time of the year, it seems oddly appropriate that airline passengers are being given the turkey-like choices of being plucked (via scanner) or stuffed (via "enhanced pat-downs"). Unsurprisingly, and perhaps deliberately, many passengers are now downright thrilled to jump into the naked body scanners rather than having their private parts squeezed like a dog's squeaky toy.
But putting levity aside for a moment, Hope n' Change sympathizes with the TSA agents performing this thankless job...and notes that there really is a reason for the intrusive security measures. Terrorists hide bombs exactly where they are least likely to be looked for, including not only underwear but bodily cavities. And we're not talking about teeth.
So we concede that the TSA needs to have the ability to conduct these searches, but we strongly disagree with the TSA's assumption that all people from grandmothers to 3-year-olds are just as likely to be terrorists as young, middle-eastern males who have recently been to Syria.
Bringing real intelligence to the screening process would inevitably result in creating a profile of a "most likely terrorist" - but currently, our government is more afraid of "profiling" than of "terror." And oddly, they've chosen to show this "sensitivity" by squeezing everyone's genitalia.
Yes, the bad guys (who aren't necessarily stupid guys) may sometimes try to use grandmothers and 3-year-olds as bomb "mules," and so a certain number of random searches will always need to take place.
But we can, and must, create a smarter screening process. And when it gets here, there will be real cause for giving thanks.
In the meanwhile, Hope n' Change wishes you and yours a very Happy Thanksgiving, and reminds everyone that even in these odd times, we Americans have a truly unbelievable number of things to be thankful for.
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