Airport scanners are, in every way, racketeering

http://onlinejournal.com/artman/publish/article_6633.shtml

Airport scanners are, in every way, racketeering
By Gordon Duff
Online Journal Guest Writer
Nov 30, 2010

Let’s begin with one fact. We are using expensive, dangerous and illegal scanners in our airports for one reason. A year ago, a single “terrorist,” really a moronic dupe with a defective bomb in his crotch was escorted onto a plane for Detroit, no search, no passport, not even a ticket, placed on a plane by an airport security officer who is a former IDF “commando.”

These are the facts, plain and simple. The government depends on you not knowing this so you will let them either radiate you or grope you, you get to choose, next time you fly. In order to get away with this affront to decency and common sense, they hid the fact that their “terrorist act” never really happened. Everyone involved, airline personnel, security, all the video, the statements, the names of those who smuggled the “Crotch Bomber” through Shipol Airport, all missing, vanished into thin air, along with the civil rights of over 300 million Americans.

All we have is a story, more comedy than reality, the scraps of a bomb that could never work, could never damage a plane, a bomb we are supposed to believe traveled 15,000 miles from Yemen through Ghana, Nigeria, the Netherlands to Detroit to burn a hole in someone’s pants. We know security escorted our criminal mastermind onto the plane.

There is a 99.9 percent chance that they also gave him the bomb. Maybe it was in a Duty Free bag. Nobody ever asked, nobody checked, nobody is asking, nobody is reporting about it. Who has that kind of power?

The evidence that could prove me wrong mysteriously disappeared, including the arrest record of the second terrorist picked up in Detroit Metro Airport. All video, names of all airline and security personnel in Amsterdam, all statements, all no longer exist. The “authorities” insist that the “Crotch Bomber” appeared on a plane, perhaps by teleportation, something out of science fiction. This is exactly what they are telling us to believe and nobody is calling their bluff. Who has that kind of power?

This is why you are getting X-rays; this is why your children are having their underwear invaded and their private areas groped’ this is why your wife’s breasts and pubic areas are being photographed. See that group around the scanner display? Is that your teenage daughter going through?

Is airport security an airport conspiracy?

Another thing that could be established with a cursory investigation is the direct relationship between the owners of the security company that handles not only Schipol Airport in Amsterdam, but Detroit as well, and the former director of Homeland Security, dual American-Israeli citizen Michael Chertoff. What are the inter-relationships between the companies that failed so horribly in dealing with the “Crotch Bomber” and the companies now making billions of dollars selling scanners. Do you think we could create a big circle, scanner peddlers, government security agencies, airport security “failures” and the politicians who have been peddling the ‘war on terror’ while raking in cash?

The relationships are there and under any normal circumstance with any “normal” group of criminals, we would have a grand jury dealing with these “relationships.” The usual term for such things is “racketeering.”

scanners aren’t just illegal, they’re unconstitutional

Airport scanners are illegal. They emit cancer-causing radiation, no doctor will tell you different. Such devices are prohibited by the exact same laws that prohibit the use of “dirty bombs.” An airport scanner is a similar device and using one against another without medical necessity is, in fact, a form of terrorism.

However, the law that declares the use of such devices illegal was given an exception. The government may, if it wishes, expose citizens to dangerous and cancer-causing radiation because they are planning to travel on airplanes.

For those of us who believe in the constitution, listen carefully. The federal government does not have the authority to expose anyone to radiation. Why?

The constitution prohibits it under the theory of “equal protection.”

One could also look on TSA activities as “cruel and unusual punishment” but, as yet, air travel isn’t officially a crime, and only criminals can be punished. Innocent travelers are either sexually assaulted or given cancer.

Back during the Cold War, the military exposed soldiers and sailors to radiation from nuclear weapons, ionizing radiation just like the scanners emit. They kept it secret for years but, when those exposed started dying of cancer, the government was forced to admit they broke the law. Yes, they broke the law, exposing humans to radiation is illegal, it was then and it is now. No group has fewer rights than people in the military but even that wasn’t allowed. Now we are being told that the government has even more power over air travelers than they do over the military? We know of no legal precedent for this, as none exists.

Yes, air travelers are a “class” of citizen, a group that cannot be subjected to punishment, unlawful search or threats to their life and person, and scanners are absolutely just that, a threat. Congress may pass no law that modifies or limits any constitutional right, no matter how much money they get from lobbyists or how little five Supreme Court justices seem to care about our laws. Police can’t go into schools and X-ray children, shopping malls can’t X-ray customers, the military can’t even X-ray soldiers but, for some odd reason, a purely financial reason, airline passengers are unique.

Why doesn’t Israel use scanners?

Oh, you didn’t know this? Israel, the country that tells us every day that they are plagued with continual terrorism has no airport scanners. They are illegal in Israel. They are considered dangerous and a violation of civil rights, even for Palestinian terrorists.

A “Palestinian terrorist” inside Israel has more rights than a pregnant woman in America.

When I think about Israel not having scanners, something I recently saw on Fox News comes to mind. A week ago, my favorite Israeli-American, yes, my absolute favorite, Geraldo Rivera said something curious. He was on Judge Napolitano’s show, Freedom Watch. Geraldo had just finished discussing the 9/11 Truth movement and the families of the victims who are demanding a new investigation. He admitted his errors in the past and expressed, with reservations, support for their efforts. We thank Geraldo for that and, whatever his motive, he has done something good.

However, before leaving the show, Napolitano asked Geraldo to comment on airport scanners. Geraldo said that he preferred the “choice” of using “profiling.” Normally, when a comment is made on Fox, I simply ignore it as I recommend for everyone, not just the comments but what is supposed to pass for news itself.

Geraldo is a different kind of animal, as it were. He sits closer to the top of the feeding chain than Glen Beck or Sean Hannity. We actually examine what Geraldo says, the new Geraldo at least, and do so with discernment. Geraldo has “access” and goofs like Beck and Hannity do not.

Israel uses “profiling” and, theoretically, America doesn’t. We all know better, of course. In fact, both governments maintain, not only “no fly lists” but massive secondary “watch lists” and “person of interest” lists which are activated upon purchase of an airline ticket. This is why tickets that are purchased less than 48 hours before a flight or are purchased with cash guarantee extensive security screening. We also know America profiles.

Profiling, if only I were making the lists . . .

America has cancer-causing scanners and intrusive body searches because Americans refuse to submit to profiling, not because gangster profiteers put a bomb-carrying terrorist on one of our planes. I keep having to remember this, not that any of it is true, but it is what I am told to believe. Welcome to America.

I shouldn’t blame Michael Chertoff, no, not him, it’s the ACLU, they did it. America has no profiling and, thus, requires billions of dollars of scanners. This is what I am told to believe. However, it is simply not credible.

Does America have profiling?

One of my friends is British but was born in Pakistan. We went to university together. He teaches at one of those colleges in Britain we see on TV mysteries, the ones where everyone is murdering everyone else. He teaches, among other things, American History. He also heads a security “think tank” that advises, and you will love this, the US Departments of Defense, State and Homeland Security.

We were at The Trout, having lunch with our wives. “The Trout” is the pub made famous by Inspector Morse (played by actor John Thaw), a well known “watering hole” on the Thames outside Oxford. While knocking off bottles of Prosecco (an Italian dry sparkling wine made from the Glera grape variety) he told me of the near impossibility for anyone of his ethnicity traveling in the United States. Notwithstanding his British passport, academic credentials or relationship with the “organs of state security,” he told us that travel to America, even travel around America is intolerable, searches, questioning, confrontations, even threats.

In fact, it is a reasonable statement that only certified terrorists can get through American airports at all, when taking into account ethnic origin. They seem to glide right through as though they were on magic carpets.

“Going to Yemen for training, look forward to having you back. .” . . .”Back from terrorist training in Yemen? Didn’t stop off in Tel Aviv this time? Good to have you home, sir!”

America profiles, not only does it profile but it maintains, as stated, no fly lists but also accesses passport databases and airline records to track not only foreign travel but use of credit cards as well. Not only are all “Muslim types” profiled but single males, those who travel to Asia on business and oddly, or should we say “especially,” former and current members of America’s armed forces. Nobody is more unreliable than someone who has fought for their country.

My list

Ah, but if I were making the lists, it would include a few more categories:

Members of “conservative” organizations that call themselves “patriotic,” whether tied to former military service, gun ownership or beverage choice. This is where the angry folks who want to blow things up come from; it’s time we all admitted that.

Anyone who has been trained by or served in a foreign military organization.

Any politician who has sworn allegiance or loyalty to a foreign government.

Anyone with a second passport from another country, no matter how “special” that country thinks it is.

Anyone who has a record of traveling in and out of Washington DC.

Anyone who believes in “the rapture”

Anyone who advocates war but has never actually fought in one.

As usual, fox in the hen house

When America turned airport security and so much more over to organizations that profit not just from the “war on terror,’ but from America being beset or certainly seeming beset by enemies, does there seem to be a conflict of interest? When the secretary of Homeland Security leaves his job and starts peddling airport scanners and then, quite mysteriously, a bizarre and improbable, almost comic terror attack happens, should we wonder?

When the answer we have to a less than credible threat is a solution which may kill thousands, do we suspect those we elected and those we pay to protect and serve? Do we perhaps consider that they do not have our best interests at heart and, just perhaps, may never have?

Do we finally begin to follow the money?

Gordon Duff is a Marine Vietnam veteran, and Senior Editor at Veterans Today. His career has included extensive experience in international banking along with such diverse areas as consulting on counter insurgency, defense technologies or acting as diplomatic officer of UN humanitarian groups. Gordon Duff’s articles are published around the world and translated into a number of languages.