My US Rep Ed Markey has a post on HuffPo, saying cargo security is more important than business:
The American people deserve to know that when they fly on planes, the cargo underneath their feet is as rigorously checked as they and their bags are checked. Americans deserve to know that maritime cargo headed for our shores is scanned before it reaches our shores to ensure it doesn’t contain a nuclear weapon. And they also deserve to know that commerce doesn’t trump homeland security when it comes to securing our transportation systems.
Actually, I think the whole shoe-scanning and minty-fresh-gel prohibition are almost surreally stupid. But anyway…
(I also hope that Mr. Markey will take this as an open invitation to cross-post here, where his own locally-active constituents are likely to read it.)
I shall take it upon myself to illustrate the facts in the case.
The facts are thus.
Al-queda in Arabic literally means the database.
The database was a listing of arab “insurgents” trained and encouraged by our CIA for the purpose of causing havoc for the Russians when they occupied Afghanistan. This database was used to track and help the “insurgents” communicate with their families while they were off doing the corporate job of securing pipeline rights for globocorp with the full support of our CIA. The founder and creator of this “the database” is none other than Rumsfeld’s “replacement” Mr. Gates.
Ya and.
http://people.csail….
Mr Markey is either
A. Disingenuous
B. Uninformed
C. A liar
<
p>
I know someone who is very intimately involved in the cutting-edge cargo scanning technologies (which, btw are relatively new, post 9/11, and developing daily). And I can say with confidence that Mr Markey is taking full advantage of the general public’s aversion to minutia and technical jargon in order to manipulate opinion.
<
p>
I wish I could choose B, but it’s more likely A or C.
What, in Markey’s quoted text, is disingenuous or wrong? Don’t we want cargo coming in to be scanned? That makes us safer right? And safer is good? I don’t want to alarm anyone, but if al-Qaeda could sneak a nuke, a dirty bomb, or even some anthrax into Boston or New York, they definitely would. And I would think they’d try to do it by boat, if not by plane.
<
p>
So, by all means, scan away.
that the liquid rules on airplanes are kind of crazy.
Unless you back up your own assertions, you might be said to fuel yet another type of hysteria, which is the certainty that all legislators are hacks. Maybe this one is, maybe he isn’t. But you need more than what is in yout post to be close to convincing me to pay attention.