Quiet Skies and Quiet Rights Infringements

Not to mention quiet wastes of taxpayer money.

https://www.bostonglobe.com/news/nation/2018/08/18/tsa-says-armed-air-marshals-don-follow-ordinary-fliers-some-ordinary-fliers-beg-differ/Y0k3mV3HPUCgzS20PpAU3H/story.html

Don't want to read that? Here's a summary.

The TSA has what it calls "Quiet Skies", a surveillance program on people who it deems to be a risk to their fellow air passengers. These are people who are not on a terrorist watch list and not suspected of any crime. One of the triggers to putting someone on that list (there are around 5,000 people on it) is to have visited a country on their special list. Turkey is one of those countries. Sounds good, right?



Tell that to Taylor Usry. She went to Turkey on company business. What horrible, scary, threat to US security did she do there?

She took an arts and crafts course. Seriously, it's in the article.

And tell all of this to WNBA player Courtney Vandersloot, who played in Turkey on a work visa and is also a target of Quiet Skies. Because evidently assists (she's a point guard) are a threat to national security. Here's some more information on this terrible threat in our nation's skies: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Courtney_Vandersloot

And in case you were wondering, these are both white women, and they aren't Muslims. They are both American citizens, born in the USA.

Air marshals will fly with people in the QS program (surreptitiously, of course), and that costs $$. TSA agents also take note of everything from whether a person went to the restroom in the airport, or used their phone. Usry said 'TSA screeners were extremely hands-on and inquired about the underwire in her bra, she said, and asked if she was wearing a thong or panty liner.' Vandersloot also says she got questions about her underwear.

Per the article (this information is in a video embedded in the article), this surveillance is extending to domestic flights, in and out of cities such as Boston, NYC, Seattle, and Washington, DC.

Also, be sure to check out the video in that article (it can't play here because of how it's embedded on the Boston Globe site).

So, what say you? I'm all for safer skies and I'm sure most people are. And 'security theater' exists, where the appearance of being vigilant is felt to be a good safety measure (that part is debatable, particularly as you take off your shoes and force your shampoo into tiny bottles and can't take a small pair of scissors on board to cut the fringes on your knitting).

But this is invasive, expensive, unnecessary, and most likely unconstitutional.

Is anyone willing to defend it? And if so, why?