As a local businessman, I will remain anonymous for this letter but I am not remaining quiet in conversation. This is an abysmal stance by an organization that should be concerned about business travelers safety! Rather than be a proponent for air safety, the Chamber is choosing to be an antagonist and shrew. You quote CIVIL RIGHTS! You are an idiot organization that doesn’t know a civil right from a civil left – or the legal meaning of “unreasonable search.” You are an embarrassment, Sedona Chamber and its directors and management! As Chamber members, we should DEMAND that the Sedona Chamber disassociate itself from the “Flyers Rights” group and its online petition. Disgusting. Small minded and not at all “unreasonable” to know that the man’s anus sitting next to you doesn’t house a bomb. When I fly which is frequent, I want guarantees that my safety is paramount whether it is the maintenance crew that fixed the engine properly that morning, or the pilot sitting in the cockpit is sober, the air is uncontaminated, the bathroom is clean, and the food doesn’t contain roaches. Scan, pat down, lift my “junk” or whatever–just get me to and from my home and family safely and without harm. Thank you.
It is time Sedona created a new and improved business commerce advocacy group and took our annual fees and the City subsidy and went to work with real facts, real numbers, real tourist and local business intelligence. We need advocacy by real businesspeople not just an overpaid group of social climbers, power friends and family connections and the usual political wannabes, all otherwise referred to as sycophants.
Found on the Chamber email was this outrageous and disgusting content: Take it off, Sedona Chamber now!
New Website for Travelers to Share Opinions About Security
The U.S. Travel Association launched a new website empowering travelers to share their opinions on air travel security screening with the Obama Administration, Congress and the travel industry. The new site, www.YourTravelVoice.org, is in direct response to the emerging vigorous debate over the efficacy and appropriateness of various security policies and the fact that a free flow of air travel is critical to the American economy and job creation. “In our recent conversations with Homeland Security Secretary Napolitano and TSA Administrator Pistole, they stressed that they are always seeking ways to improve the air travel security screening process,” said Roger Dow, U.S. Travel’s president and CEO. “We need to hear ideas and experiences from travelers to better inform our discussions with policymakers and build a screening process that maximizes security while minimizing the burden on travelers.” Flyers Rights also has launched a petition at www.petitiononline.com/StopScan. “We believe that both the AIT [scanners] and enhanced pat down mechanisms are a violation of all Americans’ 4th Amendment rights against unreasonable search,” said Kate Hanni, director of Flyers Rights. (U.S. Travel Association; TravelIndustryWire.com, Nov. 16)
Wow! The only way this “anonymous businessman” would be safe anywhere would be in a straight jacket.
Even the old security procedures were a violation of the 4th amendment. The new ones are of course an even worse escalation. And don’t even get me started on the conditioning effect it will have on children.
With the US police state now literally grabbing us by the balls, one wonders what it will take to wake up people like the “anonymous businessman “.
BTW, I am neither a member nor a fan of the Sedona Chamber of Commerce.
Here is one more example of disagreeing and being disagreeable as well. I fail to see what is outrageous and disgusting about asking for ideas and experiences from travelers about the screening process for travelers who must fly or choose to fly, for whatever purpose, whether it be business or personal. I would certainly agree that safety is paramount, but I certainly don’t know how it can be guaranteed, and I think a reasonable discussion about maximizing safety when flying is a positive step, with input from all sides.
I also find it inappropriate to publish vitriol of this sort without requiring the writer to sign it, and cowardly on the part of the writer to submit it anonymously.
Sandy Moriarty
Gee Whiz! Why shouldn’t the Sedona Chamber of Commerce flaunt their authority and thumb their noses outside of City Hall? After all, between them and their sister Uptown Main Street group they garner close to one million dollars annually. Hmmm, wonder why the C of C didn’t announce where they held their annual volunteer dinner on Sunday, November 14th? Care to wager that the location, being conspicuous by absence, means it was held outside city limits thereby denying tax revenue to the City of Sedona, the source of their annual exorbitant funding? With such ongoing displays of arrogance of power is there little reason, if any, for the C of C to just figure they are entitled to run the Federal Government? They are already in control locally. Shameful is my opinion.
Here is a link to a simple, cost effective, non-invasive, constitutional solution to airport security. But of course if this solution was implemented then Chertoff would not make any money off the scanner machines. The bureaucracy would have to shrink. People, and especially children, would not be taught proper submission to goons wearing government costumes. So it’ll never happen.
http://www.brasschecktv.com/page/985.html
I just finished reading an article by David Carr in the New York Times entitled A Media False Alarm Over the T.S.A.
There were no lines at airports, if anyone “opted out” they were practically invisible, and none of the “junk” or “shirtless kid pat-downs” happened beyond You Tube. This makes me agree with the writer of the initial letter that the Sedona Chamber and most Chambers are but dogs ruled by a wagging tail.
Not a prime rationale but time to question the role of many national businesses and donating money to perpetuate the roles. Didn’t we learn lessons from the AARP scandals, the League of Women Voter disillusionment, the NAACP leadership debacle, the Tea Party windbags, the Democrats airheads, the Fox-Msnbc and media insanities, we are failing. Now it seems Supreme Court appointments are offered in exchange for recent political favors Chicago-style and Republicans think the selling of the nation to banks and Wall Street was vindicated by the midterms.
Glen Beck needs to sit down behind his desk and stop acting like Joe McCarthy and Keith Olbermann should be mindful of his glass house while acting like Joe McCarthy. TV characters are not real, and that includes most news organizations. Count me as disillusioned for more than the local Chamber being wagged. The local Chamber is a sympton of a failed US collectiveVic Ponti, writer
NYC
since the chamber wags the city council tree most feel nothing will be done of course
like most of us here and elsewhere we just keep on payin’ and silently prayin’ that in spite of the masses of employees the chamber pays (scuse me, we all pay) we get business and not the business
H. B.