Thread: Obama Says He Understands Ire Over Airport Screenings

Obama Says He Understands Ire Over Airport Screenings

Published November 20, 2010

Associated Press

A security officer examines a computer screen showing a scan from a RapiScan full-body scanner, being trialled by Manchester Airport, during a photocall at the airport, in Manchester, northern England January 7, 2010.

Reuters

A security officer examines a computer screen showing a scan from a RapiScan full-body scanner, being trialled by Manchester Airport, during a photocall at the airport, in Manchester, northern England January 7, 2010.

LISBON, Portugal – President Barack Obama has asked security officials whether there's a less intrusive way to screen U.S. airline passengers than the pat-downs and body scans causing a holiday-season uproar.

For now, they've told him there isn't one, the president said Saturday in response to a question at the NATO summit in Lisbon.

"I understand people's frustrations," Obama said, while acknowledging that he's never had to undergo the stepped-up screening methods.

Passengers at some U.S. airports must pass through full-body scanners that produce a virtually naked image. If travelers refuse, they can be forced to undergo time-consuming fingertip examinations, including of clothed genital areas and breasts, by inspectors of the same sex as the passenger.

Obama said he's told the U.S. Transportation Security Administration: "You have to constantly refine and measure whether what we're doing is the only way to assure the American people's safety. And you also have to think through, are there ways of doing it that are less intrusive."

At this point, that agency and counterterrorism experts have told him that the current procedures are the only ones that they think can effectively guard against threats such as last year's attempted Christmas-day bombing. A Nigerian man is accused of trying to set off a bomb hidden in his underwear aboard a flight from Amsterdam with nearly 300 people aboard.

Obama said that in weekly meetings with his counterterrorism team, "I'm constantly asking them whether is what we're doing absolutely necessary, have we thought it through, are there other ways of accomplishing it that meet the same objectives."

For now it sounds like there aren't, and travelers will face potential pat-downs and scans.

"One of the most frustrating aspects of this fight against terrorism is that it has created a whole security apparatus around us that causes huge inconvenience for all of us," Obama said.

The new scans show naked images of the passenger's body, without the face, to a screener who is in a different location and does not know the identity of the traveler. The U.S. has nearly 400 of the advanced imaging machines deployed at 70 airports, expanding to 1,000 machines next year. So not all airports have them and not all travelers are selected for scans.

The hands-on searches are used for passengers who don't want those scans or when something suspicious shows in screening, or on rare occasions, randomly

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/world/2010/11/20 ... z15uhMo56m

Of course him and Michelle and his girls haven't had to suffer this intrusion!

Originally Posted by stevetheroofer

"I understand people's frustrations," Obama said, while acknowledging that he's never had to undergo the stepped-up screening methods.

He understands? But what has he done about it?

Headlines on Drudge today:

TSA Pat Down Leaves Bladder Cancer Survivor Humiliated and Covered In Urine...

Young boy strip-searched...

Woman With 2 Artificial Knees Describes 'Sexual Assault' By Screener...

TEARS AFTER ROUGH SKIRT SEARCH...

Cancer-surviving flight attendant forced to remove prosthetic breast...

This is B---S---T
Our freedoms and Liberties are being taken away

HOW MANY YEARS NOW-----have we been flying as passengers on aircraft and never had problems before until terrorists decided to spread their LOVE for humanity around to the rest of us? If they are going to fight TERRORISM. FIGHT IT TO WIN! The HELL WITH RULES. RULES ARE FOR GAMES!

Let his wife and daughters go in disguise and through it and then see how he feels.

Yeah, it was on Obama's watch that we had the military base Texas shooting and the Nigerian hijacker, which, to be real about it, the CIA let onto the plane being that the Nigerian's father notified FBI and CIA along with the underwear bomber's name being on a DO Not Fly List, which evidently our incompetent government is too dumb to read.
So, frankly I have no idea of why Americans are always so excited to give the "Royal Obama Government" yet more of their rights, and buy into the fact that they are "keeping us safe" when Obama not only refuses to secure the border but Gov R. Perry of Texas said last week that Obama was trying to remove border agents from the Mexico border with Texas. Something dont make sense.

Originally Posted by bigtex

TSA Pat Down Leaves Bladder Cancer Survivor Humiliated and Covered In Urine...

TSA pat-down leaves traveler covered in urine

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/40291856/ns/travel-news/

Orlando, Fla., said he was left
humiliated, crying and covered
with his own urine after an
enhanced pat-down by TSA
officers recently at Detroit
Metropolitan Airport.

“I was absolutely humiliated, I
couldn’t even speak,â€

Originally Posted by Creoleguy32

Something dont make sense.

Nope. It makes ALOT of sense:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sturmabteilung

The Sturmabteilung (German pronunciation: [ˈʃtÊŠÊ

Originally Posted by bigtex

He understands? But what has he done about it?

He's playing a phony game of "good cop, bad cop", like when George Bush claimed to want the border closed but really didn't, that way they [think] they will get votes.

They don't realize that nobody is dumb enough (except for their 'True Believers") to fall for this.

Obama was also overseas when the worst of this flared up so he could blame his minions when he was really giving the orders. The 'Crotch Grab' sounds like some gangster prank joke for refusing to go along with orders, in this case, voting the Democratic Congress back into power.

And muslims get a pass

Whats wrong with this picture

Here is video of a 3 year old being groped by TSA

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VN6pJ7nP ... re=related

Here is a video of a 5 year old being strip searched in public

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=skkCpnCm ... r_embedded