TSA TURNS 10
And
if I could make a birthday wish on their behalf... it would be that this is the
last holiday season we have to put up with their poking, groping, and scanning.
In what should
be “the most wonderful time of the year,” the path home for many Americans
begins with a long wait at the airport – and dealing with people who think a
government ID gives them the right to put their hands where they don’t belong.
Remember the joyous, exciting holiday
travel of yesteryear? “Over the river and through the woods…” Well, no one will
be writing Christmas carols about modern holiday travel – though we may hear
some blues about how miserable the experience can be.
Since its inception, perhaps no other
agency has been more flagrant in its violations of our civil liberties and as
flippant toward Americans’ constitutionally protected rights as the TSA. As you
may remember, in March of 2009, a C4L staffer found himself temporarily detained
and interrogated by the TSA after attempting to fly back after their first
Regional Conference with the event’s proceeds in his carry-on. It’s not illegal
to fly with cash and checks on domestic flights, but these agents made it their
business – something the TSA does far too often to too many people. Since that
time, the situation has only gotten worse.
For the past year, the TSA has been
installing potentially dangerous backscatter imaging machines across the country
to perform virtual strip searches on airline passengers. This leaves passengers
the “option” of either being scanned and possibly exposed to dangerous radiation
or enduring the very public humiliation of receiving one of their infamous
“pat-downs.”
When the policy was first implemented, Senator Claire McCaskill downplayed the
invasive groping that makes up one of the TSA’s “enhanced pat-downs,” referring
to them as “love pats.” The senator apparently no longer feels that way (after
selling her private jet), and she recently complained about their invasiveness
to TSA Administrator John Pistole. "I try to avoid a pat-down at all costs,"
McCaskill told Pistole. "There are many times women put their hands on me
in a way that if it was your daughter or your sister or your wife, you would be
upset."
And as
people continue to make their mistreatment and abuse at the TSA’s hands public
by sharing their stories online, more members of Congress are beginning to take
notice. Others, unfortunately, still don’t see the bigger picture.
Without immediately reining in the
unaccountable TSA and eliminating their procedures of scanning and groping
passengers at the airports, I’m afraid the situation will only continue to get
worse. In the past, we’ve been warned about the TSA’s plans to expand its
scanning beyond our nation’s airports – to our highways, train stations, and bus
stops. Unfortunately, this is already happening. Last month in Tennessee, the
TSA’s VIPR teams were deployed to conduct random searches of vehicles on the
highways.
This
has to stop.
And you and I are the ones who can fight back. Members of
Congress may think this issue has blown over, but it’s up to WE THE PEOPLE to
remind them that we’re more outraged than ever at what’s taking place every day
in our airports.
Please, as soon as you can, call Congress at
202-224-3121 and demand they rein in their Frankenstein creation. Don’t let
them sell you a bill of goods, either. They can force the TSA to abandon their
policies of scanning passengers (in what amounts to a virtual strip search) or
groping them (in a manner that would constitute sexual assault were it coming
from a regular individual). Ultimately, Congress should abolish the TSA
altogether and return the responsibility for security to the private sector!!
Just like other federal government
overreaches, the TSA believes telling us this is necessary for “our safety”
allows it to do whatever it wants, including shredding our Fourth Amendment
rights. We must expose this lie. The responsibility for airline security lies
with the airline industry in the first place.
Since 9/11, only alert passengers and
flight crews have thwarted additional terrorist attacks on airplanes, not the
TSA!
Tell
Congress to pass appropriate, common-sense legislation like H.R. 2438, the
“American Traveler Dignity Act,” and to cut off funding for the maintenance of
existing scanners and implementation of new ones. Even the European Union has
banned the use of these scanners because of the possible health risks!