Judge dope slaps the DHS hard for confiscating $35,000 from US family

[Fox McCloud]

Originally Posted by Ted DuPuis

Precisely. The TSA will go away when the people demand it.

So never. To do so would admit that transit can not and will never be 100% safe from bad guys.

Collectively we lack the ability to accept that casualties will happen as a trade off for ease of use & overall improved experience.

[iSpectre!]

Originally Posted by jsstevens

And so another industry's jobs go overseas...

I'm pretty conservative, and I think the war on drugs is a losing proposition.

John

Same here. I'm no fan of recreational drug abuse but when you look at the drug war, it's difficult to see any impact on drug use. All I see is an enormous price tag, destroyed lives, and dead cops.

My solution would be to legalize and regulate rec drugs but strongly enforce employers' rights to deny employment to anyone who fails a drug test. Also, drug tests for anyone taking government money.

[Tom D]

And yet the drug dealers simply do a electronic transfer of funds, and no one says shi- about it.

[BT]

How anyone in Government expects a vacation holiday industry to survive exposure to the A-hole Emergency Network on every trip is beyond me.

As far as I'm concerned, airline travel sucks from the moment you try to find a parking space at the departure airport, until the moment you leave the airport at your destination.

If I'm on holiday, the last thing I do is go near a major airport or an airline.

Trying to build a holiday travel industry on a foundation of that much mistreatment and frustration is just plain stupid.

Most business travel could cut over to online conferenceing in a heart beat. The whole industry is on such thin ice.

[iWin]

Originally Posted by kontiki

How anyone in Government expects a vacation holiday industry to survive exposure to the A-hole Emergency Network on every trip is beyond me.
...
Most business travel could cut over to online conferenceing in a heart beat. The whole industry is on such thin ice.

Yeah, I agree, but never underestimate the docility of the sheeple.

I would have bet that airlines would be screening bloody murder but they have plenty of business. The TSA has backed down due to some complaints and tried to make the gate agents a little less nasty as they voyeuristically check your wallet contents for no reason.

I WILL NOT fly commercial short of work order or emergency purpose.

You'd think that business would embrace online conferencing but some industries won't try it. The other end has corporate GA air travel.

[Florida Cracker]

I got "chosen" out of hundreds, for a nude-o-meter, screening, last week. As soon as the make believe, cop pointed to the scanner and demanded I enter, I politely responded, "I am NOT going into that machine."
He started shouting into his shoulder mounted walkie talkie, "I've got an OPT OUT! I've got an OPT-Out!."
I started speaking sternly, "I will not submit to a sub-lethal dosage of radiation to make your boss feel relevant and I will not be bullied into changing my mind, so let's get going, here."
A different TSA agent asked me (very politely) to move my belongings off the conveyor to a "secure" station and he frisked me, very thoroughly but gently and with what I thought, was admirable courtesy.
He then ran some kind of swab over his plastic gloves and ran it into some kind of scanner. Satisfied, he wished a me a nice flight home, and walked away.
TSA is nothing. It's less than nothing. If it disappeared tonight, no one would notice any change in traveling security, and we all save a bundle of wasted tax dollars.

[Ron]

Just say NO to a search.

Originally Posted by mikea

There was the Mexican who lost his $nn,000 life savings he was bringing back to Mexico just because it was $nn,000. Another one who was sent on a mission to buy a truck for his village with cash.

The troopers in Florida are taking any cash they find on random car stops.

And a $12,000 cash tip is, by definition, drug money. http://news.yahoo.com/minn-waitress-...222452161.html

That is, when you add $1.00 to a stack of cash adding up to $9,999.00, it belongs to the government.

[steingar]

Originally Posted by Florida Cracker

I got "chosen" out of hundreds, for a nude-o-meter, screening, last week. As soon as the make believe, cop pointed to the scanner and demanded I enter, I politely responded, "I am NOT going into that machine."
He started shouting into his shoulder mounted walkie talkie, "I've got an OPT OUT! I've got an OPT-Out!."
I started speaking sternly, "I will not submit to a sub-lethal dosage of radiation to make your boss feel relevant and I will not be bullied into changing my mind, so let's get going, here."
A different TSA agent asked me (very politely) to move my belongings off the conveyor to a "secure" station and he frisked me, very thoroughly but gently and with what I thought, was admirable courtesy.
He then ran some kind of swab over his plastic gloves and ran it into some kind of scanner. Satisfied, he wished a me a nice flight home, and walked away.
TSA is nothing. It's less than nothing. If it disappeared tonight, no one would notice any change in traveling security, and we all save a bundle of wasted tax dollars.

My hero.

[John Baker]

Do we now have a government that is so much more powerful than it's people that even it's own currency is now a reason to arrest and seize?

Somalia is starting to look more and more like our own government's blueprint of what a Democracy should be.

-John

[Gerhardt]

It's not like this is anything new. It's been going on long before the TSA was birthed. 60 Minutes did a segment 15-20 years ago exposing cash seizures at an airport. When the gate agent noticed someone with a large amount of cash she would quietly summon the feds, who would detain and question the traveler. If the traveler wasn't a wealthy person the feds seized the cash. IIRC, one guy was a salt-of-the-earth black man who owned a landscaping business traveling for his business to purchase trees or shrubbery and carried IIRC around $6K cash because that's how he got the best prices from the producers. The feds took his $ and he didn't have the funds to fight to get it back.

Ed Bradley went undercover posing as a traveler carrying cash and they filmed the gate agent calling the feds who quickly arrived and asked him why he was carrying so much $. He tried to say it was none of their business but that didn't go over very well. Until he told them who he was and revealed the camera.

[steingar]

Originally Posted by Gerhardt

Ed Bradley went undercover posing as a traveler carrying cash and they filmed the gate agent calling the feds who quickly arrived and asked him why he was carrying so much $. He tried to say it was none of their business but that didn't go over very well. Until he told them who he was and revealed the camera.

I miss that era of 60 minutes.

[Florida Cracker]

Originally Posted by steingar

I miss that era of 60 minutes.

Is that an age joke? Ageism is just as ugly as racism, you know...