Readers’ Matzav: A Different Take On Airport Pat-Downs

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screenerDear Editor,

I would like to comment on the recent tumult over the screening tactics used by the TSA at this country’s airports. I want to take a totally different approach than readers on this site and the media in general.

Give it up! Stop making such a big deal! Stop being such mefunakim! It should not be such a big deal that a TSA security officer has to pat you down for a minute. Nothing’s going to happen to you. You won’t die. They want to make sure that the aircraft is safe. They want to make sure that you are safe. So let them check you, and yes, let them pat you down.

We’ve become a generation of whiners. We complain about everything, and if someone, G-d forbid, touches us because we live in an age of terrorism, we go nuts. It’s time to grow up, boys and girls. It’s the year 2010 and it’s an age of Islamic terrorism. Until our country has the guts to profile passengers, as we should be doing, we have to rely on pat downs. And if the pat down gets a bit too personal for you, then sorry, that’s the price you pay for flying. And if they have to put you through a full body scanner, that’s what they have to do. Don’t worry so much. No one cares to see the images they took. Stop being so paranoid. Stop crying. Stop complaining. Take it like a man and move on. That’s what I do.

Happy Thanksgiving.

Sincerely,

Kalman Reiss

{Matzav.com Newscenter} 


23 COMMENTS

  1. Absolutely correct. You can not have it both ways. If in these tough economic times, if you B”H can afford to fly around instead of worrying about putting basic food on the table then stop being a baby! So you may ask, body scan or pat down? Be patriotic and request both. You can never be too sure.

  2. I think that you are missing the point of what people are complaining about. The main point is, that these scanners (and pat downs) are totally in-affective. By us sitting back and not making a big deal about it, the TSA will just continue doing their stuff, which is a big waste of time and $. So, yes! Make a big deal. Make the TSA be forced realize that their method of “keeping us safe” is in-effectual and stupid!
    (And, yes, if someone feels uncomfortable with a stranger viewing their body on a scanner, or feeling their body through a pat-down, they have every right to cry and scream…)

  3. The procedures impemented by our government will not protect us one iota. Our intelligence agencies need to know about the planned attack before the wicked ones get to the airport. WE NEED TO PROTECT OUR BASIC HUMAN RIGHTS!!! The government has no right to see us naked or to manually abuse us. Once we give up this right, what’s next? Grub TSA people feeling us up at every subway station? At every bus stop? Strip searches at every office building on the way in to work? After all, the government needs to keep us safe. Therefore Federal employees are allowed to manhandle us? There is no great leap here from one step to the next.
    Reading comments such as the above gives me insight into how Hitler came into power. WAKE UP! Every trampling of human rights leads to more of the same.
    Imagine sending a seminary girl off to Israel and she fails the scanner. Are we agreeing that the goverment is allowed to touch her in the manner??? After all of our work to keep our children out of public school? Imagine a elderly Rav on a flight to a Talmid’s wedding somewhere and he fails the scanner. Are we saying that it is just fine for a grub YSA employee to manhandle him? Is this different from the KGB?

    And yes, people need to fly. People fly for business and for social obligations. It is not a privilege. Most people would stay home if it was possible. Are we creating a police state that in order to fly one has to appear naked on a machine?? Or for government people to touch us in totally inappropriate places?

    Think!! We have a right for basic human privacy.

    And the scanners wont help one bit for security. And seeing naked images of everyone all day even without seeing the face will just further drag our decadent society downwards. We have lost all common sense and respect for another.

  4. Has the author of this article been subjected to this public humiliation? If not, he should not be commenting on this unnatural embarrassing procedure.
    (this is besides to the fact that this new security measure has been deemed ineffective by major security experts)

  5. I’m with you. Just imagine (chas v’shalom) if some sweet looking 13-year old girl, actually trained to be a “shahid” (a “martyr” for Islam*) was not searched, and subsequently brought down a jumbo jet with 300 people aboard. Oh…the hand wringing and accusations that would fly against the TSA for failing to protect us! All those objecting to body-scans and pat-downs are not just hypocrites, they are dangerous. In their warped minds, mass-murder is preferable to a 10 second-body scan. May sanity prevail.

    *There are numerous YouTube videos showing how Arab CHILDREN are brainwashed into hatred of the “infidels” and inculcated with a desire for martyrdom and death.

  6. you were never patted down & you have not seen your wife or daughter patted down because if yes you would of not wrote this way.

  7. Excuse me! Since when will “nothing happen” when being touched inappropriately? Is it OK for you to touch people in your office or on the train?

    Sorry, but you have some soul-searching to do

  8. Yes- it’s totally true! It gets me really nervous when ppl complain about the security measures. What do these people want? – they blame security when there are R”L terror attacks but then complain when improved security measures are put into place! We’d all rather be patted down or scanned than be blown up in an attack- so let’s appreciate what the state is doing for OUR BENEFIT and stop complaining!

  9. They have not, and will not, stop even one terrorist whith stupidity.

    Excuse me. Is it ok if people touch you that way? Well, the gemorah tells us that if a person does not object to wrong behavior of his daughter… it’s because he’s involved with garbage as well. Ridiculing objections and “no-big-deal”ing such behavior does not reflect well on a person.

  10. #6, Shuah Cohen. If people are profiled and spoken to online, then yes, the “sweet” thirteen year-old would face more questions.. and then she, and only she, would be searched.

    How does this work to justify so many thousands “searched” this way daily?

  11. I was watching a video of a Holocaust survivor who suffered from anxiety as a TSA official “mistreated” her TWO YEARS AGO, before any of this nonsense had began. Imagine how the woman would feel today going through TSA security, It would most likely bring up horrible memories of the Holocaust as did the last time she went and they were not even doing this ridiculous pat downs.

  12. This issue of these bizarre severely invasive “pat down” and “strip down” checks of airline passengers is an extremely serious problem. Under the guise of (so-called) “security,” TSA agents are now able to legally do what are really horrifically horrible things to people.

    See http://www.patriotupdate.com/stories/read/6204/Video-Young-Boy-strip-searched-by-TSA- for more detail and read the numerous comments there, which express the vehement outrage countless people rightfully have about this situation.

  13. A pat-down search is nothing new. It was implement by Lot over 3,000 years ago. And they may learn from him how to do it. (Just some aggressive hugs and kisses to make sure the subject isn’t hiding anything in the mouth or under the arms).

  14. Sorry Kalman Reiss, you are very wrong. These pat downs and xrays will not help. Getting rid of a certain sect that trains their children from 5 years old to kill; that will. Banishing them from this country will.

    These pat downs are downright disgraceful, disgusting, and will never help in catching anyone with a bomb.

    Stop dreaming.

  15. The following article is at http://www.newsmaxhealth.com/health_stories/blaylock_TSA_scan_safety/2010/11/24/363489.html?s=al&promo_code=B2F7-1

    Dr. Blaylock: Body Scanners More Dangerous Than Feds Admit

    Wednesday, November 24, 2010 9:58 AM

    By Dr. Russell Blaylock

    Dr. Russell Blaylock is a nationally recognized board-certified neurosurgeon, health practitioner, author, lecturer, and editor of The Blaylock Wellness Report.

    The growing outrage over the Transportation Security Administration’s new policy of backscatter scanning of airline passengers and “enhanced pat-downs” brings to mind these wise words from President Ronald Reagan: “The nine most terrifying words in the English language are: ‘I’m from the government and I’m here to help you.'”

    So, what is all the concern really about — will these radiation scanners increase your risk of cancer or other diseases? A group of scientists and professors from the University of California at San Francisco voiced their concern to Obama’s science and technology adviser John Holdren in a well-stated letter back in April.

    The group included experts in radiation biology, biophysics, and imaging, who expressed “serious concerns” about the “dangerously high” dose of radiation to the skin.

    Radiation increases cancer risk by damaging the DNA and various components within the cells. Much of the damage is caused by high concentrations of free radicals generated by the radiation. Most scientists think that the most damaging radiation types are those that have high penetration, such as gamma-rays, but in fact, some of the most damaging radiation barely penetrates the skin.

    One of the main concerns is that most of the energy from the airport scanners is concentrated on the surface of the skin and a few millimeters into the skin. Some very radiation-sensitive tissues are close to the skin — such as the testes, eyes, and circulating blood cells in the skin.

    This is why defenders using such analogies as the dose being “1,000-times less than a chest X-ray” and “far less than what passengers are exposed to in-flight” are deceptive. Radiation damage depends on the volume of tissue exposed. Chest X-rays and gamma-radiation from outer space is diffused over the entire body so that the dose to the skin is extremely small. Of note, outer space radiation does increase cancer rates in passengers, pilots, and flight attendants.

    We also know that certain groups of people are at a much higher risk than others. These include babies, small children, pregnant women, the elderly, people with impaired immunity (those with HIV infection, cancer patients, people with immune deficiency diseases, and people with abnormal DNA repair mechanism, just to name a few).

    As we grow older, our DNA accumulates a considerable amount of unrepaired damage, and under such circumstances even low doses of radiation can trigger the development of skin cancers, including the deadly melanoma. I would also be concerned about exposing the eyes, since this could increase one’s risk of developing cataracts.

    About 5 percent of the population have undiagnosed abnormal DNA repair mechanism. When exposed to radiation, this can put them at a cancer risk hundreds of times greater than normal people.

    It also has been determined that when skin is next to certain metals, such as gold, the radiation dose is magnified 100-fold higher. What if you have a mole next to your gold jewelry? Will the radiation convert it to a melanoma? Deficiencies in certain vitamins can dramatically increase your sensitivity to radiation carcinogenesis, as can certain prescription medications.

    As for the assurances we have been given by such organization as the American College of Radiology, we must keep in mind that they assured us that the CT scans were safe and that the radiation was equal to one chest X-ray. Forty years later we learn that the dose is extremely high, it is thought to have caused cancer in a significant number of people, and the dose is actually equal to 1,000 chest X-rays.

    Based on these assurances, tens of thousands of children have been exposed to radiation doses from CT scanners, which will ruin the children’s lives. I have two friends who were high-ranking Environmental Protection Agency scientists, and they assure me that in government safety agencies, politics most often override the scientists’ real concerns about such issues.

    This government shares House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s view when she urged passage of the Obamacare bill sight unseen — “Let’s just pass the bill, and we will find out what is in it later.”

    When the real effects of these scanners on health become known, Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano and the rest of the gang who insist the scanners are safe will be long gone.

    2010 Newsmax. All rights reserved.

  16. All of a suuden everybody is an expert on what will or what will not deter terrorists from trying to harm us.

    They use gender appropriate people to do pat downs…and yes I have been patted down way too many times due too extensive travel….and you know what? Every time that they do, I say B”H we are being vigalant against a very real threat and doing the best hishtadlus that we can.

    If any of you brilliant folks have a better way to handle the very real terrorist threat that we are facing I am sure that the TSA would love to hear from you.

  17. wHOEVER WROTE THE ARTICLE IS A COMPLETE MORON. THIS IS NOT A “PAT DOWN” I wish it was only a pat down.

    The screners are putting their hands down……… need i write more? And if you don’t believe me I would be glad to send the pictures to you. This is disgusting and if anyone were to do this outside an airport they would immediately be arrested for obvious reasons.

    i guess you don’t fly or haven’t been to an airport lately.

  18. listen man, if it doesnt work, complain. but until that time when they have a better way this has got to be done, who cares if some guy sees you, you dont know him and he doesnt know you. though you are right about the pat-downs, perhaps it can be arranged that women do women and men do men.

  19. Let me get this straight, if I may, please.

    So it would be perfectly acceptable for “a seminary girl off to Israel” to be exempted from passing through the scanner or to be physically checked by a female TSA operative?

    If so, what about a Gentile girl of the same age, off to Paris for example? Using your standards, should she undergo the currently accepted security checks?

    Why do Jewish people have such blatantly obvious double standards? Are yiddn somehow superior to the rest of the world in this respect?

    There are a lot of questions in this posting, and I strongly recommend other readers to consider this as a little lesson in practical middos.

  20. Seems like you had your “too much whining/complaining shmooze” in your pocket for too long and had to vent it out.

    The point is NOT “don’t you want to be safe”, “or would you rather a plane blows up”??

    Of course noone wants that, and that’s why most good Americans who pose NO DANGER – DON’T COMPLAIN ENOUGH and just go with whatever they are told.

    But this is foolish because the EXPERTS- WHO HAVE ACTUALLY STOPPED TERRORISTS-unlike the tsa, who never stopped anyone- say that these methods DON’T WORK!!

    So what do you want that we suject ourselves to SENSLESS , INEFFECTIVE, INTRUSIVE, EMBARRASING, methods?????

    The tsa is obviously not competent, and just carries on with their work like robots abusing little children, or old infirm people, even to the point of hurting them and ignoring their pleas to stop!!!
    (nebach like what they did to the bladder CANCER SURVIVOR-HELP!!!)

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