Airport Security Theatre Linkspam

Wednesday, January 6th, 2010

So! Security Theatre continues:

• TheStar.com asks how can we make our airports more like Israel’s, which handles far greater terror threats with far less inconvenience. “At Ben Gurion airport in Tel Aviv, screening is done in 30 minutes.” The basic gist? Training airport security and personnel what a suspicious person actually looks and behaves like, and having them look for — WHAT A CONCEPT — that.
  

  “But here it is done completely, absolutely 180 degrees differently than it is done in North America,” Sela said.

  “First, it’s fast – there’s almost no line. That’s because they’re not looking for liquids, they’re not looking at your shoes. They’re not looking for everything they look for in North America. They just look at you,” said Sela. “Even today with the heightened security in North America, they will check your items to death. But they will never look at you, at how you behave. They will never look into your eyes … and that’s how you figure out the bad guys from the good guys.”

  This kind of behavioral profiling I don’t object to, especially if the people doing the profiling are actually thoroughly trained on what to look for.

• Everybody’s talking about the Backscatter X-rays apparently being implemented all over. The ones that break child pornography laws. And how will non-binary gendered people be affected by this? They say only “same sex” people will view the scans in a separate room not visible to the public, but what about trans, intersexed and gender queer people? What kinds of scrutiny will a trans-man come under when scans reveal female genitalia? Because what I’m sure these people want in their life is even more of this.
• The TSA has withdrawn their subpoenas on the two bloggers who posted the new rules on Boxing Day and apologized for their strong-arm tactics. They’ve also promised to resolve issues one of the bloggers has been having with his laptop ever since the agents seized it to image the hard drive. This doesn’t really pacify me toward the TSA at all.
• Canadian airlines might have to break Canadian privacy laws to enforce the new TSA rules that would force them to collect the name, gender and birth date of every Canadian who flies through American airspace, even if their planes don’t touch the ground in the States. If Canadian privacy laws change because of this shit, I am going to freak the FUCK out. Canada has comparably fantastic privacy laws and has managed to retain them through the last decade, and if that changes because of an underwear bomb….Anyway. Unsurprisingly, a Muslim woman from Nova Scotia has already been refused entry to the US after being questioned for four hours and fingerprinted for trying to do something as threatening as visit her husband.

Beware the Sky Blankets and Other Ridiculous Things

Wednesday, December 30th, 2009

On Christmas day, a man tried to explode the plane he was on using a bomb in his underwear. His actions were thwarted by a bomb that didn’t work properly and other passengers, but perhaps predictably (and disappointingly if you think like me) the TSA dumped a whole pile of arbitrary new flight dos and don’ts on the heads of travelers at this, the peak travel season. These rules included, among other things, a restriction on passenger movement during the last hour of travel over American airspace. For the last hour of travel, passengers are not permitted to use blankets, pillows, laptops, the in-flight televisions, or move about the cabin at all. The only thing passengers are permitted to do for the last hour of travel, it seems, is to sit perfectly upright in their seats with their hands on the arm rests.

I am not afraid of terrorists when I fly. Not even a little bit. Partly because the chances of being killed by a terrorist while in a plane is 1 in 10 million, but mostly because being afraid to fly — being afraid to carry on the every-day actions of my life — is how terrorists win, and I’m stubborn enough and proud enough and some might say stupid enough to defy those people who prey on my fear.

You know what I am afraid of, though? A country and a society that responds to 1 in 10 million odds with nonsensical security theatre that restricts my right to fucking pee. Every time we give up a right — even a tiny, seemingly insignificant one — the terrorists win. We beg not for real security, but for a pacifier of safety to suck on, and for it we’ll give up anything and that terrifies me. It terrifies me, and enrages me, and frankly it offends me.

And now? Two bloggers are being subpoenaed for posting the wackadoo new TSA protocols.

Anyway. Fuck you, TSA.

Maine Votes, Breaks LGBT Hearts

Wednesday, November 4th, 2009

It’s happened again.

These days I am truly thankful to live in a place where the entire country has already long moved past the bulk of the controversy of same-sex marriage. It’s a done deal here, has been since 2005, and while various groups still occasionally flail against it, there has been only one real instance where any possibility of “repeal” existed, and in a free vote (for those not acquainted with Canadian Parliamentary politics, this means party loyalty is released and all MPs are permitted to vote along their own — and hypothetically their constituents — beliefs instead of “towing the party line”) the motion to re-open the issue was defeated in a Conservative government. Yes, even most of our Conservatives can’t stomach the idea of taking away rights granted, despite what their personal feelings may be about same-sex marriage, and I’d like to think the sentiment is echoed by Canadians in general.

I don’t understand the idea that rights given can be taken away by a popular vote. It just doesn’t compute. It didn’t make sense to me when it happened in California, and it doesn’t make sense to me now.

In the last two years the LGBT fight has become so much more real for me, and much more personal. Partly because last year I finally started to explore the greyscale of my own sexuality and partly because I have grown closer to the LGBT people who are my friends and my family, and they have graciously shared with me some of the most profound and personal stories of their life, both glorious and tragic, both related and completely unrelated to their sexuality.

Other reactions from people I respect: 51stcenturyfox here and rm here.

Also from rm, a link detailing an incredibly transphobic, sensationalistic article that appeared recently in Seventeen magazine, portraying transgender people as deceivers and liars.

Oh, The Liberal Party

Tuesday, September 1st, 2009

Apparently the Liberals are gonna try to call for a no-confidence vote this fall.

A Liberal government, Ignatieff pledged, would return “competence and compassion” to the federal government.

Sure. Right. Y’all remember why Ontario decided to jump on the Conservative band-wagon in the first place, right? Something to do with Martin and his Liberal cohorts and too-many scandals?

I’m just saying. It doesn’t appear the Liberal party has sorted itself out yet. And I’m not sure Ontario’s ready to let them out of the dog house, either.

The Conservatives, he charged, have sat back and done nothing all summer as Canada’s health-care system is dragged through the mud in the United States. “The Liberals are fiercely proud of our health-care system and, unlike the Conservatives, we are not afraid to defend it,” he said.

And while I’m just as ticked as the next Canadian when it comes to the way our health care system has been spun by the US right, I’m extremely glad the federal government didn’t waste my tax dollars getting all up in the US’s face about it. I mean, why? To what end or benefit? Average Canadians are doing a fine job defending our health care loudly and proudly, so I’m not too fussed that Harper didn’t have tantrum. A “no comment” is the exact right response from our government, and never mind the fact that health care is the Province’s jurisdiction anyway. Let our news media and our people speak for ourselves, because the opinion might matter coming from the people who use the system, while a sound bite from a politician is just another sound bite from another politician.

Also? Not particularly excited to foot the bill for another election less than a year after the last one.

At least Iggy isn’t Dion.

Politics Closer To Home

Wednesday, August 26th, 2009

This spring the province of Alberta finally got around to including gay rights into Alberta’s human rights law. Which is fine if really late to the party (like, 10 years late WHOA), but they also wrote into it a proviso that parents would be allowed to pull students from classes dealing with “controversial” topics such as evolution, sex, and — you guessed it — homosexuality. (Link here and here for some more commentary.) Where on the surface this appears merely eye-rolly, what this means practically is teachers will have to send out advance notice to all parents when they intend to cover those topics in class to allow parents the opportunity to pull their children, effectively quashing any “teachable moments” that might come up, bottling impromptu discussions about “religiously sensitive topics” that come up organically, and putting teachers’ (and students’) free speech under religious thumbs. All in the name of not ruffling a religious parent’s delicate sensibilities. So gay marriage is legal in Alberta and has been for some time, but Bill 44 would make such things illegal to talk about freely in a school setting without parental approval.

We may be a very conservative province, but there was a very loud UM WHUT that echoed across the internet, the LGBT communities, and the Teacher’s Association. Social media in particular was used to rally the troops and express dismay over the perversion of a bill that was supposed to secure gay rights. And, apparently someone was actually listening. Thank goodness.

Chris LaBossiere believes this is a direct response to the lobbying done by Albertans, including an active student-populated Facebook group boasting over 11,000 members and a Twitter debate with MLAs and the public that went into the wee hours of the morning and exposed the clumsy, fuzzy language of the bill.

It warms my heart that ordinary people can make a difference and maybe have made a difference here. Kids who still can’t vote spoke up, teachers spoke up, Albertans spoke up. It’s not a done deal at all and the bill still might pass as is, but at least we didn’t let it slide by without a fight. Even in Alberta this shit doesn’t fly.