A virtual hoard of the shiny things I find on the internet.
Catching Elephant is a theme by Andy Taylor
Neither the individual screener nor the agency as a whole can be taken to court over these new patdowns without being subject to being thrown out of the case docket because of national security. Being groped by a person with impunity is what makes me absolutely angry. Being groped by a person who makes less per hour than your average grocery clerk means we’re putting security in the hands of the untrained, the unequipped and unprofessional. But this new change is supposed to make us safer, somehow? Explain that.
I would only add that there is still a gap between how seriously we (as a society, collectively- clearly there are individuals who take it more seriously than others) take forms of assault like groping, and that as a result, many gropers can and do grope with impunity.
But the solution to that problem is to take the kind of non-institutional groping that happens MORE seriously, not to take government-mandated groping LESS seriously.
EDITED TO ADD: Though that dude the other day who was all, “OMG, women have to deal with this ALL THE TIME” was pretty funny, and if all this bullshit actually does get men who had not previously taken groping seriously to start doing so, then yay, a pearl in this enormous pile of crap.
