When you go to the airport, contrary to what TSA supervisors are saying, when you buy an
airline ticket, you do not give up your constitutional rights.
And we are standing here today to say that American citizens should be able to travel
freely without being harassed and intimidated by their government.
Hi I'm Stuart Howe, I'm a freelance reporter for Infowars.com and I'm here at Los Angeles
International Airport to talk with travelers both before and after the TSA process, see
what their thoughts are on being groped, fondled, or sent through backscatter radiation machines
in the interest of security.
We're actually here to talk about the new scanners, we're trying to get people's opinions
on those.
In Nazi Germany we had the Reichstag fire.
September 11, 2001 in the United States of America was used to create the Homeland Security
apparatus and which then began putting airline security under it, FEMA, Federal Emergency
Management Agency under it, we have also this is related to these fusion centers, what they
call the harmonization of local law enforcement up through the federal intelligence bureaucracies,
so this is all involved with these initiating events, so what we also need to discuss with
people is their familiarity with the fraudulent nature of these initiating events and I'm
also interested in seeing how far they're willing to be groped by Big Sis' blue gloved
hand.
It's better to be safe than sorry, to go through the machines, it's not a hard process, stick
your arms up and you're out.
Safe from the terrorists?
Yeah, safe from the terrorists, yeah.
I read the media and it's like radiate, be groped, or die, I'm going through the scanner
and hope everyone else who's trying to blow me up is going to go through there as well.
Our elected officials feel that it's necessary to keep everybody safe and to keep terrorists
off airplanes and I'm cool with the body scanner situation.
You kind of are dealing with the assumption that a lot of these terror attacks are genuine
and that there really are bad guys and turbans that hate us for our freedoms.
We'll see if anything gets put down.
People are basically brainwashed with this information or I should say misinformation.
The illusion of safety, oh we're safe now, we've given up all our freedoms, so we must
be safe.
You don't worry about your daughter traveling in terms of the stories of this sort of aggressive
groping or the pictures.
Well now that you mention it, you know, I'm going to be asking her and I don't think she
knows what's been going on, I don't think so, I don't know, but I don't mind screaming
like that.
Here in Chicago we watched as passengers like this man are subjected to exhaustive security
checks.
He's patted down, his wheelchair is examined, and his hands are swabbed all in public view
in a see-through room at the security checkpoint and he's not alone.
It's humiliation, he yelled at me, no, get the belt off, I told you to get the belt off,
so I took the belt off.
He ran his hands down over and pulled the pants down, they went down around my ankles.
At that point Perry was standing in his underwear in public view.
He asked to see a supervisor, that made things worse.
She was yelling, I have power, I have power, I have power.
The power to stop him from flying to Florida with his wife that day to celebrate their
50th wedding anniversary.
Make you feel like you have no rights.
TSA officials say that when the metal detector goes off, their agents must resolve what caused
the alarm, but experts say it's important to use common sense when balancing security
with customer service.
This is not what makes us safer, this is preposterous to think that the TSA has made us safer.
What we're doing and what we're accepting and putting up with at this airport is so
symbolic of us just not standing up and saying enough is enough.
I know the American people are starting to wake up, but our government, those in charge,
Congress as well as the executive branch, are doing nothing.
I mean, I got to fly with my wife next month and I'm nervous.
I don't know how I'm going to handle it.
Watch my wife get groped because I'm certainly not going to let her get sprayed by any radiation.
And meanwhile America is out buying George W. Bush's book.
Can you imagine?
Sensationalism is the order of the day.
Sensationalism is what keeps the sponsors going.
So now the old hunkly, wrinkly news is history.
Now we're getting sensationalism, it's got to be hot and fast, otherwise they're not
going to get the sponsorship.
So now the media is being skewed just for sales.
So I think there's reason to be concerned, reason to deal with this problem.
We're not dealing with it the right way.
We're doing the wrong thing and groping people at the airport doesn't solve our problems.
What has solved our problems basically has been that they put a good lock on the door
and they put a gun inside the cockpit.
That's been the greatest boon to our safety.
Safety should be the responsibility of the individual and the private property owner.
But right now we assume the government's always going to take care of us and we are supposed
to sacrifice our liberties.
I say that is wrong.
We are not safer.
And we also know there are individuals who are making money off this.
Michael Chertoff.
I mean, here's a guy that was the head of the TSA selling the equipment.
This is much more about money than it is about security.
The former Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff represents RapiScan, the
company which is selling these scanners to his former department.
Meet Michael Chertoff, head of the Department of Homeland Security from 2005 to 2009.
We could deploy the scanning machines that we currently are beginning to deploy in the
U.S. that would give us the ability to see what someone has concealed underneath their
clothing.
Today, he's the co-founder of the Chertoff Group, a security and risk management firm
whose clients include RapiScan, one of the biggest manufacturers of body imaging screening
machines.
I know you've been an advocate of this technology for a long time, but just in the interest
of full disclosure, I also want to point out in your current role as a security consultant,
you are representing some of the companies who manufacture that technology, correct?
Absolutely correct.
So perhaps Chertoff's interest in body scanners and security isn't just about protecting the
American people.
And the equipment's questionable.
We don't even know if it works, and it may well be dangerous to our health.
You know, the way I see this, if this doesn't change, I see what has happened to the American
people is we have accepted the notion that we should be treated like cattle.
Make us safe, make us secure, put us in the barbed wire, feed us, fatten us up, and then
they'll eat us.
And we're a bunch of cattle, and we have to wake up and say, we've had it.
It's all just conditioning us to be obedient to the almighty state, and I think it's a
bad sign for it.
The greatest threat to a government, the people who think for themselves, and if you can condition
people to every day, all day, depend on the government to do their thinking for them,
then they become more obedient.
So if we depend on the government to protect us from our food and all our habits and tell
us how much salt we can have and whether we're allowed to gamble and all, the government
owns us.
Instead of you owning yourself, the government owns you, and that would be very, very dangerous.
So all this activity with the federal government regulating our every economic and personal
habit is very, very dangerous.
It's not that individuals can be perfect, it's just that governments are always imperfect,
they always make mistakes, and when they do them, they're very, very painful, and they
hurt every one of us.
Mr. Speaker, a nationwide revolt is developing over the body scanners at the airports, and
it should.
Hundreds of thousands of frequent flyers who fly each week are upset about getting these
frequent doses of radiation.
Parents are upset about being forced to have their children radiated or being touched inappropriately
by an unrelated adult.
Are they harassing a kid?
Yep.
It's ridiculous.
This is being imposed on many levels of awareness.
People that just don't want to have their genitals grabbed, you've got people that just
don't want the cancer risk, you've got people that are concerned about the health aspects,
people that just are aware to some degree about the Fourth Amendment infringement on
their rights.
We don't want to have someone who really has an intent to do harm.
We're not going to allow anyone or any group to detract from our mission to ensure the
safety of our traveling public.
The American people should not have to choose between having full-body radiation or a very
embarrassing intrusive pat-down every time they fly as if they were criminals.
What are you making, though, out of discussion now in America?
Everybody's got an opinion, the pat-down policy.
Maybe as I spend so much time every morning dealing with the threat assessment that's
out there and the fact that it's real, unless there's a new technology that comes along
pretty quickly, I think it's a necessary policy.
I think it will have the effect of saving lives, intercepting explosives.
The way you used to pat-down a passenger in the airport is with the back of the hands.
Take the back of the hands and you rub it down this way.
Now we've switched it to the front of the head and we go down the body and to the breast
portion.
If it's a female passenger, you're going to see if there was anything in a bra.
I mean, is it an equation?
Well, uh...
If you think about it, I mean, really, we're fighting, I mean, terrorism is, it's a threat
and I think Americans should, I mean, they should realize it and put up with it.
Anyone in the administration against doing it?
No, we're all in the administration saying, continue to look to see what the best technology,
the least intrusive, that gives us the greatest security.
Where would you draw the line of what you would allow, would you allow your wife to
be groped, would you allow yourself to be...
Well...
What choice do you have?
Well...
What are your odds?
You can call the police and you can initiate charges for groping.
Apparently, if it's done inside of the clothing, it's a felony if there's a malicious or lewd
intent.
Outside of the clothing, it's a misdemeanor assault type of a charge, so the one district
attorney now in California...
It is in the White House.
Why is this in the...
Let's see.
Yeah, that is an option.
Yeah.