Total $@!#head Administration

[Ed Kellock]

I understand your frustration but this sure seems like a post that might be bounced for content by the list administrator.

Please don't inject the audifans community with a healthy dose of political indignation.

After all, these lists are really about the cars and not the thinly tangential trials and tribulations of life.

============================================================
From: Brett Dikeman <brett at cloud9.net>
Date: 2004/06/15 Tue PM 09:44:11 MDT
To: quattro at audifans.com
Subject: Total $@!#head Administration

So, the NEQ was down a radio at the last event- the president had it 
in his carry-on luggage and the TSA confiscated it.  Naturally, as a 
glasses-wearing-white-haired-grandfather-from-vermont-white-guy type, 
he's a real dangerous type.  He still hasn't been able to get the 
($160+) radio back- it's probably long since been auctioned off at 
that TSA facility down in Georgia, taken home by someone, or simply 
lost.

Mind you- it's not even capable of receiving aviation, business, or 
ham frequencies- it's FRS(ie Talkabout)/GMRS(General Mobile Radio 
Service) only...both of which aren't even legally useable by the 
government or businesses.  Why wasn't he allowed to simply check it 
as luggage, after an explosives-swab-check, if they were so worried?

This is, to me, the straw that broke the camel's back.  The level of 
paranoia in this country is absurd; all the policy/security nazis are 
coming out of the woodwork and inventing the most non-sensical rules 
you've ever seen, and bit by bit some sheep a TV crew dredges up 
happily talks about how it's ok, because it makes him/her feel a 
little bit safer in these "dangerous times".  I remember reading 
about a pregnant mother who was forced to drink her own bottled 
breast milk to "prove" it wasn't a biological agent to some goddamn 
TSA pinhead.  Every day the US is reminding me of tales of 'old 
soviet russia' more and more.  No travel without papers (if Tommy 
Ridge gets his way, you won't even be able to get on the goddamn 
SUBWAY without an ID check AND baggage screening!  WTF?!?).  Can't 
photograph certain things (certain things including landmarks, 
bridges, and most recently, subway systems).  Secret blacklists and 
watchlists.  Undiscloseable searches of library and bookstore 
records.  Anyone, US citizen or not, subject to arrest and indefinite 
detention without any of the protection granted to us by the 
constitution.  The list goes on and on.

I'm one of the editors of the Gripster(the chapter's newsletter) and 
I think I just hit upon a subject for a nice column.  How The Club 
Lost a Radio To Your Government.

Of course, then the NE chapter just might end up on a terrorist 
organization list, right?  Hell, maybe I'll end up on one for this 
post, wouldn't that be a gas.

Siiiigh.  I wonder how much it would cost to move to the Isle of Mann...

B
-- 
"They that give up essential liberty to obtain temporary
safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." - Ben Franklin
http://www.users.cloud9.net/~brett/
_______________________________________________
quattro mailing list
quattro at audifans.com
http://www.audifans.com/mailman/listinfo/quattro
============================================================