Earlier this week while I was listening to the Rush Limbaugh program in the car, his guest host started talking about how Joan Rivers was actually denied boarding a Continental Airlines flight because of her name. Apparently, Joan Rivers' passport says "Joan Rosenberg aka Joan Rivers". Ok, so you're thinking what I was thinking. Rosenberg...hmm...they didn't let her fly because of a jewish surname? No, it was the "aka" that kept her from boarding. No, it was the "aka" or what most of us read as "also known as". According to the story, "aka" is a muslim name and the airline said 'no' to the muslim named person boarding their aircraft.
So this started me thinking. (Yeah, I know. But stay with me, I might have a point). Why are we putting all of the security burden on the TSA? First of all, they're just working schmoes like the rest of us so I certainly don't blame them for a lot of things. Second, they're working as a federal entity and are literally tied up with regulations that prohibit things that would make sense like, oh say, behavioral profiling. So what if we turned the real security work over to the individual airlines? They're private businesses, they reserve the right to refuse service to anyone so why don't we give them the right to look at someone and say, "we don't really want you flying on our airline because a)you're paying for your ticket in cash, b)you have no luggage c)you have said 'death to America' like 50 times since you got in the check-in line and c)your prayer rug looks like it has a fuse coming out of it. If you wish to take this flight, you will need to submit to a search and questioning by these TSA agents. Thank you for flying the friendly skies."
So, instead of spending billions of dollars on full body scanners that take away EVERYONE'S dignity, let's have each airline decide for themselves who is going to fly and who isn't. Let them spend their own money training their employees in what to look for and allow them the ability to "trust their gut" when someone just doesn't look or act right. After all, each airline is a private business and stand to lose more and more money when more and more people decide it's not longer safe to fly.
But if the guy walks up to the agent with no luggage, looks like Osama bin Laden and doesn't really know where he's going, the agent should be able to mark his boarding pass in some way that will let TSA agents know they should take a good look at this guy's underwear for explosives.
Get the burden off of the TSA because we all know the ACLU is just looking for them to violate someone's civil rights so they can sue the government. Let the airlines decide who flies and who doesn't. Get rid of those self check-in kiosks, have everyone check-in with an actual person. If someone doesn't act right, look right or fit some type of behavioral profile for a terrorist, then mark their boarding pass to alert the TSA agents. Let TSA continue their random searches on white-haired grannies and caucasian soccer moms if they want to, but when they get a boarding pass with a specific mark on it, they search that person too.
Our country has become so afraid of offending groups of people that we're willing to offend everyone rather than do the sensible thing. We KNOW who the people are that want to kill Americans. We know what they look like, how they act and where they come from. We are not fighting an invisible enemy here. WE KNOW THE PROFILE! It's pretty simple. But because someone decided that profiling is "racist" or "offensive" we're acting like idiots and making things more complicated than they have to be.
Until United Airlines, Southwest, Delta, Continental, etc are literally run by the government and being a flight attendant has become a government job, let them decide who they want to serve and who they don't. They already kick unruly passengers from the plane. How many stories have we heard about parents of unruly children or improperly dressed passengers (remember that fugly chick that was dressed like a Hooter's waitress) getting kicked off an airplane? Why has it become so ok to kick off the parents with a child who refused to sit in his seat during take-off but so terrible to ask people that fit a certain profile for terrorism to step out of line for an extra pat-down? It's time America and it's airlines starting fighting back. Kick those terrorists out of the friendly skies!
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