A bunch of people are upset about the new scanners the TSA is using and upset about the new “enhanced” pat downs. I can understand. After reading a bit about both of them, it doesn’t sound like something I’d like to run my family through. However, the suggestions I’m seeing for how to deal with it are ridiculous. Right now a bunch of people are planning on opting out of the x-ray machines the day before Thanksgiving which is going to create a huge travel nightmare. This might get some media attention, but it is going to take something that is moderately inconvenient and make it very inconvenient for a whole lot of people.
I don’t see how this approach is going to get the TSA to suddenly change their mind about things. It isn’t like the slow down is going to greatly inconvenience them–or at least not the people who actually make decisions for the TSA. Maybe the media attention with prompt changes, but that still seems like a round about way to try to create change.
If you really want to see changes made to the way TSA is treating people, there are three things you need to do.
1. Talk to your congress person
Let your representatives and senators know what you think and what you’d like to see changed. These are the people making the laws. They are only going to know what you want if you tell them. Complaining to your friends doesn’t count–your congress person doesn’t hear that.
2. Write the airlines
What if you could hire someone with lots of resources to take your concerns and try to get laws and procedures changed? Well you can and it won’t cost you anything. Airlines have a very big interest in getting you to fly. I don’t think most of them care what TSA does as long as people keep flying. However, if they feel they are losing money, they are going to start pitching a fit, hiring lobbyists, and doing whatever else they can to get the procedures changed.
Write them a polite short letter saying that you were planning on flying somewhere and decided not to because of the new security procedures. Remember, it isn’t their fault, but let them know they are losing customers because of this.
Letters carry disproportional weight in most businesses. I have seen businesses go out of their way to change things based on a single letter. There is something about a physical piece of mail that makes companies take it much more seriously than a phone call and just a few letters can make a big impact. It might not happen right away, but imagine this: After a poor quarter the CEO asks his team, “why are sales down?” and someone answers, “well, we have all these letters from people saying they don’t want to fly with the new security procedures.”
3. Write the airport
Airports are competing for business too and although most aren’t going to have the resources of an airline, they are still worth contacting. If you don’t want to walk through the x-ray machines, write a letter to airports that use the machine letting them know that you are using a different airport to avoid the machines.
Good morning, everyone:
The heated debate over the TSA is also a sad commentary on the modern American citizen. Why? The American citizen who existed over 100 years ago understood that life came with risks. He pushed his way across the country — braving attacks by hostile Indians, harsh winters, bandits, etc. — to carve out a place for himself and his family. He knew that life was hard, but HE PUT FREEDOM ABOVE ALL ELSE, NOT FEAR.
Today’s American citizen, i.e., the ones who are calmly accepting this form of legalized rape and molestation, would much rather be a comfortable SLAVE. That’s right. Those of you who are accepting this can no longer call yourselves a free people.
Not to trivialize a serious issue such as domestic abuse……..but you are no different from those women who refuse to leave abusive spouses because they have money and position. They put up with it because they would rather have the country club memberships, the designer clothes, the jewelry, the status, the large house. So, they look the other way. They put those things above their self-respect.
Spiritual people KNOW that there just might be worse things than death: like living your entire life in fear. They also know that if it’s wrong for a private person to do something, it should be wrong for the government to do it too.
The rest of you, sad to say, seem to confuse ‘patriotism’ with blind obedience to the government. You have stopped thinking for yourselves. You don’t bother to question anything. This especially goes to a lot of you baby-boomers who pat yourselves on the back for having been a ‘daring’, ‘revolutionary’ generation, when the only thing you have going for you is Woodstock.
Okay, so your generation created a lot of great artists, but what have you done since then? Seems to me that a lot of you have turned into the very people you used to criticize. Many of you are now employed by the same government that is spending us into bankruptcy, devaluing our currency and robbing us of our property, rights and dignity. Of course, what do you care? You have fat governemnt pensions that surpass anything in the private sector.
Those of you who reject the travesty of being told that we’re in places like Afghanistan to bring freedom and democracy while we are losing our freedoms over here can join me in protesting the TSA. Don’t just opt-out of body scanners. DON’T FLY AT ALL. Visit the link below. We have to organize a massive boycott of all the airlines in the United States starting the week of Martin Luther King Jr. Day. We will boycott air travel indefinitely until the freshmen Congress disbands the TSA and repeals the Patriot Act, for starters.
If you TRULY want your country back, visit the link for my Meetup group below:
http://www.meetup.com/National-Boycott-of-Airline-Travel-2011/
Years ago, Dr. King staged a boycott of an Alabama bus company to put an end to discriminatory policies against blacks. Well, this is a modern version of the same thing. The only difference is that today, ALL Americans are being marginalized and treated like non-humans. We have to make the airlines lose a massive amount of money by January of next year to send a hard-to-ignore message to the freshmen Congress. Thank you.