I’m Shocked, Shocked: the Media Continues Lying for the TSA

Becky Akers
LRC Blog
December 19, 2010

The corporate media constantly claims that Americans applaud the TSA’s ogling and sexual assaults. Indeed, the Dallas Morning News reports that “officials from the Transportation Security Administration Friday re-introduced its airport scanning machines and said the public seems to have accepted the technology.”

Do editors ignore their own websites? Each reader who commented on this propaganda excoriated the TSA – as they do on all such articles anymore. Yet I wager that the next time the Morning News regurgitates the TSA’s press release, its reporter will trill that Americans live to titillate the agency’s thugs while risking cancer.

• A d v e r t i s e m e n t

Also pimping for the TSA is US News and World Report. It published what purports to be a pro-and-con debate under the headline, “Is TSA Going Too Far With Air Security Measures?” Gosh, I don’t know; maybe just a little?

You might think no article could possibly exceed this title’s bias. You would be wrong. Answering in what we’re supposed to believe is the affirmative is “Jena Baker McNeill,” a “Homeland security policy analyst at the Heritage Foundation in Washington, D.C .” Like her neocon employer, Jena has long criticized the TSA for not destroying more of our freedom, and her response here doesn’t disappoint: ”There is absolutely nothing wrong with full-body scanners,” she begins. I guess cancer and pedophilia don’t count as “wrongs” in the neocons’ brave new world. “In fact, the more we innovate and introduce new security technologies, the more we can stay one step ahead of terrorists.” She does acknowledge that “there are major problems with the way the Department of Homeland Security, through the Transportation Security Administration” manages its despotism — or so we’ll assume: we’d have to subscribe to discover what follows “Administration.” Breathes there the moron stupid enough to do so?

Agreeing with—sorry, rebutting Jena is a guy who admits outright that he’s “worked” for both the DHS and the TSA. No surprise that he finds “body scanning machines and enhanced pat-downs … justified in the context of our unfortunate reality.”

Readers again vehemently disagree. Check out not just their comments but the website’s poll, which repeats the headline’s question. When I voted, I learned that 96.28% say yes, the TSA’s gone way too far despite Jena and her buddy’s attempts to convince us otherwise.

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I reckon the other 3.72% is comprised of editors, reporters, and employees of the TSA and its adjunct, the Heritage Foundation.

This article was posted: Sunday, December 19, 2010 at 9:28 am

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