“This is not the way my country should be treating me,” she said. My concern is that if that’s the way they’re treating American citizens I would hate to think how they’re treating other people. It’s crazy.”
Quote: Cecilia Beaman, a 57-year-old grandmother, school principal and now suspected terrorist thanks to the swift and entirely inappropriate actions of a TSA employee. Thanks to Bruce Schneier for blogging about this and other interesting topics.
The US terrorism hysteria is well out of control now and has been for quite some time. When I visited Los Angeles back in April, I saw many of these school leavers (aka TSA screening employees). Most of them looked like they might be able to protect me from a conker fight in a school playground, but weren’t really likely to save me from a witch on a broomstick. They do – however – seem to be quite adept at frightening middle aged women leading school trips. Good old uncle sam’s federal government puts its citizen’s hard earned cash to good use yet again. Why don’t they just stop and think – 2000 people (yes, only 2000[0]) apparently died last year worldwide from terrorist incidents and many of those were figures the US chose to account in Iraq. My point is, make the roads safer, cut down on gang warfare, do those things that actually matter – and let a poor woman who makes a mistake and leaves a knife in her bag off with an appropriate warning.
I read a lot of US news now – and indeed other foreign affairs on occasion (e.g. Canada). I don’t know when I started to take such an interest, but I do know that these things bother me and I have a right to feel bothered by them. Someone asked me recently why it is that we should take such an interest in what’s going on in another country. The answer is that the UK mirrors the US but with merely a time shift in implementation – our government would love to be every bit as evil as Bush and his cronies, given the chance, but they don’t quite have enough idiots willing to go along with them at this stage. They are really trying to push the big brother (and I don’t mean a stupid TV show: wake up! take an interest in the real world!) thing over here.
Jon.
[0] Source: A random US news broadcast I saw in San Francisco on a major TV station. Apparently these were figures published by the US federal government – who are, somewhat arguably, also behind much of the violence in Iraq.