Comedic Actor Rob Schneider Exposes the Absurdity of TSA Enhanced Security on Popular Podcast

Just thought I'd bring it to light that on the Adam Carolla Podcast from Dec. 7, 2010 with Rob Schneider as the guest, the comedian / actor (best known from Saturday Night Live) had a lot of incredible stuff to say regarding everything going on with TSA's so-called enhanced security as of late.

In summation, he completely broke down the absurdity of this whole thing. I took the time to write out the relevant parts of the show and I tried to quote as closely as possible (although there is some paraphrasing) so when reading try to picture it in the context of a casual conversation. All quotes are from Rob Schneider during the interview except from where I note when Adam Carolla is talking or in parentheses when I clarify something.


Rob Schneider: 'I just flew in from Boston Logan Airport and I felt molested. Ya know, I know you gotta do something at the airport but....
It is sad but I'm more sad that Americans are puttin up with this crap. Some statistic says 80% of Americans are OK with this image resonance..new machines which use tera-hertz of electromagnetic radiation and the early reports on it, because they haven't been out so long, you know none of these things get safety tested beforehand the government just says it's fine. Yeah well the gov. says a lot of things.'

(In regards to the amount of radiation being comparable to 20 minutes in flight) :

Schneider: 'It's different, that's such a lie. There's a difference between a reflective sort of radiation that's natural that your body can handle, and a machine that's shooting it through your body and having it bounce back through your body again causing DNA replication damage..and I can't believe more people aren't opting out. And if you do opt out like I did at Logan yesterday....' (goes on to describe the invasive pat down / groping)

Adam Carolla: 'More people are worried about vanity than radiation. Everyone's worried about them seeing the outline of a breast, genitalia, etc'

Schneider: 'First of all it's unconstitutional...Our fourth amendment should prevent unwarranted search and seizure. I think this fits right up there. They have to have a reason to do that ya know.'

Carolla: 'But then what is the plan..I mean, if Rob Schneider ran the TSA, how would this work?'

Schneider: 'Well if you look up the word security, the word security means 'secure', to isolate...As soon as you isolate youself, you become aware that your alone, you become more afraid, and therefore you need more security. So it's a never ending security thing. And so, it's too much. At a certain point you just have to stop it.

'And everything's just after the fact. They put bombs in shoes? Okay, no more shoes. They put bombs in liquids? Okay, no more liquids. They put bombs in underwear? No more underwear....So I think at a certain point, you know it's a risk..Cause what's gonna happen if a guy's stick plastic explosives in his behind, takes it out on the plane, and blows up the plane? What are you gonna do a catscan for everybody? There's no end in sight to how much more they can do and how much more they can bankrupt our economy with this stupid security.'

'We live in an impermanent world, full of change. You have to accept that that is your world. There is nothing permanent about us....There is only constant change and you just have to get over it.
'So what would I do? I'd get rid of all security...and then...Here's what you do in Israel. Ya know who's the first line of defense in Israel? THE bleeping PUBLIC! and that's what we should do..
'I was over in Israel a year and a half ago, and they were just laughing at us (meaning the US - Jedimind). And there was an assessment by Israeli security which didn't get any publicity over here. But the idea was they did a test. They left a package in a train station, in a bus station, in a sporting event in a movie theatre, a mall, etc. and nobody did anything! So you have to wake people up. The first line of defense is the public.

'The thing is they don't want to alarm people, or educate them or tell them to get involved. They just want em to just be kind of mindless and the dumbing down...and it's working very well.'

Carolla: 'When you're going through those security lines. It is very much sort of, lambs to the slaughter, or at least a lemming going off a cliff or something... Now that they rope it off, you actually feel like livestock at a certain point..

Schneider: 'Right. With no ride at the end like Disney land. At least at Disney you get to go 'Whee'!

Carolla: 'Yeah. You're just shuffling and shuffling and shuffling. The big payoff is some fiesta mix and a miller lite at 30,000 feet. You just sorta shuffle and then some guy who makes $8/hour talks to you in a condescending tone because you forgot to take your belt off.

Schneider: 'It's humiliating...It's all an illusion'



He even said that although he hates to be seen as another elitist Hollywood type, he will be flying on a private plane from now on.
He also talks a bit about how politicians hands are tied to make unpopular decisions that will benefit the people because they're too worried about reelection right around the corner.


I was completely taken aback when I first heard this podcast because I couldn't believe that someone as relatively famous as Rob Schneider was not only speaking out against this invasion, but also making some incredible points that I hadn't thought of before. Also, keeping in mind how silly his movies are, I just didn't expect it. I work within the airport industry myself and so this issue has really gotten me fired up and hits too close to home for me to ignore. I've tried to get people fired up but I can tell they think I'm a bit over the top with my opposition to it all. I say, they're not mad enough. If you're not part of the solution you're part of the problem sort of thing.

In hindsight I'm actually not that surprised to find that a comedian hit the nail on the head so perfectly regarding this issue. Just as the phrase "it's funny cause it's true" indicates, people in the business of being funny must be able to cut through the bull in life no matter where it is and expose some truth. We saw this especially with the greats like George Carlin, Bill Hicks....They were able to shine a light on the world and reveal it as it really is, doing away with the ceaseless illusions and traps of language, culture, etc...and that light always reveals just how absurd, to the point of being hilarious, much of our society/reality is. Sometimes I feel like life itself is one big joke. Luckily, depending on how you look at it, that actually isn't necessarily a bad thing.

Getting back to the tyranny, here's a great quote by Albert Einstein to end off : "The world is a dangerous place to live; not because of the people who are evil, but because of the people who don't do anything about it."

looking forward to finding clips of this on youtube, thanks for posting it

wow small world my wife and i just saw Rob Shnider live out here in MA . he'd basically made same points but he was very funny about it.
great night and show thou

If the mods could move this to a more appropriate forum it'd be appreciated. There's at least a few that would be more fitting for it.

reply to post by alaskan


For what it's worth, the podcast is free to download. I get it from itunes.