There’s been a lot of talk on the Internet lately about the Transportation Safety Administration, a.k.a. “Total Sexual Assault.”

In fact, yesterday, it was the topic for the latest Round Tuit post.

The problem is, as Janet Napolitano’s recent comments (Edit 3/21/2017: Link broken/removed.) indicate, talking is not going to restore baseline civil liberties to America.  It’s time to throw a wrench in the works.

Not everyone is unhappy about the government’s Total Sexual Assault program.  Some people actually enjoy being groped.  Others, like Reg Henry, think those who don’t like being groped are just hypermodest weenies, or wussies, or something like that.

Mr. Tyner, the TSA workers do not want to touch your junk. They are doing their duty. That is all. Nobody would be interested in touching your junk if it were not for the jackass terrorist who tried to blow up his underpants and the plane they were flying in. The threat from foreign underpants is real.

The same goes for the official who must sit in a separate location and view the images from the body scan machines. What a horrible job. This being America, acres and acres of fatty flesh pass by, putting the viewer off cupcakes for the rest of the shift. If a hot body should appear, the government’s no-fun policy ruins the moment, because heads are blurred on the screen. And if a supervisor does hear laughter or hubba-hubba sounds coming from the viewing booth, the operator is put in charge of shoe inspection.

Tyner, of course, is the guy I wrote about the other day who refused to allow the Total Sexual Assault team to “touch [his] junk.”  While his actions made him a hero to me and large numbers of other people, Reg Henry disapproves.

So does Jessica Gottlieb, whose blog tagline proudly proclaims her to be, among other things, a “Mother.”

Mothers like Jessica Gottlieb are at least part of why America is so fucked up today.  “No, darling.  It’s okay.  Let the nice man in the uniform feel your private parts.  It’s okay.”

Jessica’s ignorance is clearly demonstrated not only by her lack of understanding of how the procedure is done, but by her apparent lack of understanding of the meaning of “sexual assault.”  Jessica writes:

Someone please explain to me how a public pat down with the back of the hands is a sexual assault (John Tyner’s words not mine). I’m sure real victims of sexual assault would beg to differ.

As one of the people leaving a comment to her article noted, it’s not a “public pat down with the back of the hands”; it’s a public patdown where you are fondled. (It’s my understanding that it does not have to be public, but I also understand that it normally is.)

As for the opinions of “real victims of sexual assault”?  Here’s one from an article titled “Rape Survivor Devastated by TSA Enhanced Pat Down”:

“This was a nightmare come to life,” Celeste says, “I said I didn’t want them to see me naked and the agent started yelling Opt out- we have an opt here. Another agent took me aside and said they would have to pat me down. He told me he was going to touch my genitals and asked if I wouldn’t rather just go through the scanner, that it would be less humiliating for me. I was in shock. I couldn’t believe this was happening. I kept saying I don’t want any of this to happen. I was whispering please don’t do this, please, please.”

Since Celeste didn’t agree to go through the scanner, the enhanced pat down began. “He started at one leg and then ran his hand up to my crotch. He cupped and patted my crotch with his palm. Other flyers were watching this happen to me. At that point I closed my eyes and started praying to the Goddess for strength. He also cupped and then squeezed my breasts. That wasn’t the worst part. He touched my face, he touched my hair, stroking me. That’s when I started crying. It was so intimate, so horrible. I feel like I was being raped. There’s no way I can fly again. I can’t do it.”

Note that “she” is a survivor of rape.  “He” is a government-certified fondler groper passenger screener.

I’m just glad I’m not one of Jessica’s kids.

Some idiots say these sorts of things are necessary, “If they had full body scanners, it would have stopped the underwear bomber.”  Many people have agreed that if the scanners would do that, they wouldn’t mind them.

I hate to throw a wrench in the works, but there are several problems with this.

First, the digital strip search can be defeated. I don’t know how and, if I did, I wouldn’t tell you anyway.  But the experts say it might not have caught the underwear bandit.  And no one has claimed it would catch someone with a bomb up their ass.  Terrorist bombers tend to be pretty committed.  They will stick bombs up their asses. Or inside dogs.

Second, even if the digital strip search worked, each time you go through it, you are exposed to radiation.  If you only fly once in a blue moon, maybe that’s not a problem.  Maybe.  But at least one story I read said that backscatter radiation from such machines “could reasonably be expected to result in about 32 excess cancer deaths per year.”

I think that’s more than the number of Americans typically killed by terrorists while flying each year.

But let’s say it was the same, as at least one physics professor has calculated. Is it worth that?

Because here’s the third drawback: it exposes us and our children to more than just a little unnecessary and useless radiation; it also exposes us to either potentially becoming unexpected porn stars, or sexual assault victims.  Even worse — yes, worse — it teaches our children that giving in to government agents — giving them whatever they want, whenever they want — just because they want us to do so, is right.  It teaches us to be sheep and not “we, the People” who established a Constitution to “secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity.”

And for what?

“It makes us safer.”

Putting all Americans in handcuffs and shackles all day long would make us safer.  But any idiot with a single functioning neuron quickly recognizes that putting all Americans in handcuffs and shackles all day long is impractical and would create such significant problems that that single-neuroned individual would not even consider this “solution.”

Similarly, although we’re moving in this direction, most of us probably still think it’s not practical to assign a police officer to tail everyone all day long to make sure they don’t do anything they shouldn’t.

The problem now, of course, is that the Total Sexual Assault team does not want to back down.  Maybe it’s the thought of all that money (11/2015 update: link broken). Maybe they just like groping and killing Americans and their kids. (How many more guys like this are cleared to check passengers?)

There is a way to fix this, however.  It will work and it won’t take long.

How do I know this?  Because I did something similar awhile back at the Juvenile Justice Court.  At that time, contrary to California law, the Sheriff’s Department was bringing most children to court in shackles. Although, as I said, it was against the law, the court was allowing it.  Initially, when I protested, nothing was done about it.  One day, I just decided I’d had enough.  I drew a line: from then on, I decided, I would argue against it every time it came up.  The result was that whenever I came to court on a juvenile case, the court stopped functioning.

Other attorneys joined in, as well.

It took awhile — somewhere between several weeks and a couple months, as I recall — but the arbitrary shackling of minors stopped.

If everyone got together and refused to fly until Total Sexual Assault changes its policies regarding the free People of the United States of America, at least that encroachment upon our Constitution would come to a quick halt.

I think it will take longer than the one-day “opt outs” currently being planned.  But I assure you, if enough people throw a wrench in the works, the daily sexual assault of tens of thousands of Americans will stop.

If you can’t bring yourself to stand up for your own rights, do it for your children.