http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/12167411/

The facts as I understood them from an interview on CNN this morning between the policeman's supervisor, McKinney and her two lawyers:
- Members of Congress are allowed to bypass the magnetometers. The Capitol police just have to recognize the person and they walk on by.
- She wasn't wearing her pin that the Capitol police ask to be worn whenever inside a Congress building
- The entrance was busy/full of people
- She looked different from what she did the previous day

And what happened? She walked through security without making sure she was recognized by the policeman. When the policeman didn't recognize her, he grabbed her and she turned around to hit him in the chest with her cell phone.

She claims that he refused to recognize her because he's racist. (Well, not in so many words, btu she says it's racial discrimination.) She says they should be trained in facial recognition and he didn't recognize her because of her new hairstyle.

My thinking: What does it matter? He still didn't recognize you. Sometimes people's faces look the same and you have to go with the whole person - facial recognition is a term I've generally only heard of used in terms of computers. And when someone's hair changes from one day to the next, it might take you a second or two to figure out who the person is - especially when the are is busy and the identifying pin isn't being worn.

My solution: Take away the privilege of being able to bypass the magnetometer. The bad guys know about this, so how easy is it to switch some personal possession with a bomb and the Congressmember will walk it right in - no problem!

Picture

I was curious about what she was trying to say...hope this picture works for you.

The woman needs to stop being so arragant, everyone ought to walk through the magnetometers unless they have a pacemaker or some other good reason for not doing so, even George W.

I am reminded of a story about our Queen Mother some years ago, told to me by a police inspector who was there. She visited a hospital and looked behind a screen where she saw a policewoman, she asked the policewoman what she was doing and was told that it was her job to search the handbags of the women, to which the Queen Mum handed over her bag and said that she ought to be searched too. Very fair.

How on earth is a security guard exected to remember every face that walks into the building? I have no idea how many congressmen and women would have access to the building, but there must be hundreds of them (plus many other dignitaries).

I am a security officer and get heartily sick of the 'racist' card being played. Part of our duties is booking illegally parked cars, and we regularly get told we are racist because we booked a car that belongs to a Somali, Lebanese, Chinese, etc. (The cars are usually empty when they are booked!)

I think this woman is so full of her own importance that she has forgotten what common courtesy is.

Cynthia McKinney is an idiot. This isn't the first time she's done something outrageous and blamed it on "racism." Her constituents most be a real bunch of mouthbreathers to select someone like her to represent them in Congress! But I should talk - here in Illinois we have Dick Durbin and Osama Obama representig us in the Senate, and you couldn't get enough brains out of those two to garnish an omelet. Of course, it's the throwbacks in Chicago who elect them, not downstaters.

I think that it is important for a variety of heritage to be represented in congress... We have a state senator here that is similar in his cried-racism attitude, but he is also the only black man (or woman) in our state senate. I think most people just ignore the more extreme accusations he makes, and he does a good job of keeping other senators in line (he's been there for quite a long time) and he's a very real person. All in all, even though the man drives me bonkers sometimes, I'm glad he's there, and so are the folks who vote for him over and over and over again. The fact is, having him around is good for our politics, even if we do have to deal with his antics.

That said, this claim of hers IS ridiculous. She ought to feel very, very bad about it. But her voting record is overall similar to my own thoughts (majority-wise, that is), and knowing no more about her, I'd rather she be there than not.

Not knowing the precise circumstances and the particular personalities involved in this incident, I would be loathe to make specific comment. There is, however, merit in what Lothruin points out about the need in some instances to shout loud and long about most injustices in order to draw attention to some.

There was almost universal acceptance of the need for civil rights in the US. There is a tendency outside the US to see that battle as having been won. Whether or not African Americans would see it that way is another matter and one on which I could not comment.

However, at the outset of the feminist and gay rights lobbies, their views would not necessarily have been so universally accepted. I would have been one of those who, whilst I wasn't opposed to such movements, was inclined to see them as too strident, too extreme in view. I wondered in fact if they were not harming their own causes.

The clamour did, however, lead me to investigate more fully and to become convinced of the overwhelming justice of their respective causes.

Sort of a 'squeaky wheeel gets the grease" philosophy?

Absolutely. Thanks Agony. Sums it up perfectly and I have never heard the analogy before. I shall now use it unstintingly wherever and whenever I can!

To give an actual number there are 435 members of The House of Representative and 100 Senators (plus staff)