BIG GAY AL’S BIG GAY T-SHIRT

[defrog]

ITEM [via Neatorama]: A woman is threatened with arrest and forced to leave a federal building in Van Nuys by a guard who claimed her t-shirt was illegal under official Rules and Regulations Governing Conduct on Federal Property.

The t-shirt? A plain white T with the URL "lesbian.com".

Turns out, of course, that there is nothing in the Rules and Regulations Governing Conduct on Federal Property that dictates what specific clothing is allowed. Also, the guard is employed by Paragon, a private company contracted by the DHS, so it’s likely he was following his own personal interpretation of the rules in his head.

Or maybe he was just following the example set by other fine American institutions, like shopping mall rent-a-cops, airport security and the Capitol Police in regards to Unlawful T-Shirts.

To say nothing of his outgoing President. Sure. The President can discriminate against people wearing t-shirts he doesn’t approve of, why not some snippy Paragon guard in Van Nuys?

No shirt no service,

This is dF

Comments

[def-fr0g-42.livejournal.com]

What gets me about all this is this apparent strategy that if you want to catch someone who might be planning to bomb a plane, the obvious place to start is people with t-shirts with the word "bomb" on it. They're basically admitting that they think terrorists actually wear t-shirts identifying their intentions. Which is beyond stupid.

Or, in other cases, the excuse is "You might upset the other passengers." If that's true, then the terrorists have already won this war.

[jasonfranks.livejournal.com]

They're not really trying to catch terrorists, they're pretty much just covering their asses. As Suspicious Arab-Looking Guy #1 (my ex girlfriend's mother told her that I look like Mohammed Atta) I cop more than my fair share of this. It wouldn't bother me at all if I felt that they were actually protecting me, but the only way to do that properly is to do it El Al style, where every single passenger is questioned and they go through every single bag in the presence of its owner before they let anybody onto the plane.

But you can't get minimum-wage security guards to do that, you need highly trained guards, and the airlines are already struggling for money. El Al is a pretty small airline in comparison to the US carriers.

I don't know if bullshit security is better or worse than no security, but I'm sure there are plenty of experts who do...

-- JF

[def-fr0g-42.livejournal.com]

I've been through the El Al experience twice. I've heard people suggest the US adopt their approach, but I've also heard two respected experts say it's completely unrealistic for the US due to the number of airports alone. El Al works because it's a small scale operation.