Posted on 01/23/2012 9:33:20 AM PST by for-q-clinton
Kentucky Republican Sen. Rand Paul’s press secretary Moira Bagley tweeted on Monday that Transportation Security Administration officials were detaining her boss in Nashville, Tenn.
“Just got a call from @senrandpaul,” Bagley tweeted at about 10 a.m. on Monday. “He’s currently being detained by TSA in Nashville.”
Texas Congressman and current Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul – Sen. Rand Paul’s father – placed a post on Facebook about the news as well. “My son Rand is currently being detained by the TSA at the Nashville Airport,” Ron Paul posted. “I’ll share more details as the situation unfolds.”
Ron Paul adds, via Twitter, that the TSA detained his son “for refusing full body pat-down after anomaly in body scanner.”
Sen. Rand Paul’s Facebook page has a post about the incident too. “Senator Paul is being detained at the Nashville Airport by the TSA,” Sen. Rand Paul’s Facebook post reads. “We will update you as the situation develops.”
Sen. Rand Paul’s chief of staff Doug Stafford told The Daily Caller the Senator “was detained by the TSA after their scanner had an ‘anomaly’ on the first scan.”
“He offered to go through again,” Stafford said in an email. “The TSA said he could only have a full body pat down. He would not consent to it. He offered to go through the scanner again. The situation is ongoing.”
Sen. Rand Paul has previously referred to the TSA’s use of full body pat downs as the “universality of insult,” and he called on the agency to end the tactic.
“I think you ought to get rid of the random pat-downs,” Sen. Rand Paul said in June 2011. “The American public is unhappy with them, they’re unhappy with the invasiveness of them.”
Spokespeople for the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees the TSA, have not returned requests for comment.
UPDATE 11:35 a.m.:
The TSA says Sen. Rand Paul “was not detained at any point” but “triggered an alarm during routine airport screening and refused to complete the screening process in order to resolve the issue.”
“Passengers, as in this case, who refuse to comply with security procedures are denied access to the secure gate area,” the TSA adds. “He was escorted out of the screening area by local law enforcement.”
“The passenger was screened by millimeter wave imaging technology using automated target recognition,” the TSA continues. “This technology uses the same generic image for all passengers to further protect passengers privacy. When an alarm occurs a yellow box indicates where an anomaly is. A targeted pat down is used to resolve the alarm.”
TSA spokesman Michael McCarthy told The Daily Caller that “when an irregularity is found during the TSA screening process, it must be resolved prior to allowing a passenger to proceed to the secure area of the airport. Passengers who refuse to complete the screening process cannot be granted access to the secure area in order to ensure the safety of others traveling.”
UPDATE 12:10 p.m.
Sen. Rand Paul’s chief of staff Doug Stafford responded to the TSA’s claim that the senator was “not detained at any point. “Well, I don’t know what bureaucrat manuals call it, but: an innocent American citizen who was offering to cooperate while also attempting to stop an invasive search was not allowed to proceed without complying,” Stafford said in an email to TheDC.
Rand was probably carrying a portion of his daddy's brain....
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Off topic - FR is a total, total slug AGAIN today....just got in after trying for the past five hours. Post time clock is now twelve minutes fast -- FR usually implodes once it creeps up to ten or eleven.
Rand’s statist colleagues in the Senate are no doubt gloating.
“He was escorted out of the screening area by local law enforcement.”
That is detained. That is not held, but it is detained.
I always opt for travel by automobile;)
“...cannot be granted access to the secure area in order to ensure the safety of others...”
Yeah? Really? And what are you doing with wide open borders then? Safety of others my ###!
There ARE problems with TSA personnel in Nashville. I had two of them lie to me outright last summer by trying to tell me that the X-Ray machines did not use x-rays.
To add insult to injury they are calling him a liar.
Maybe I missed it but did they know it was Rand and if so did they even know who/what he stands for/against?
I’m no fan of the TSA but it looks to me like he got caught up in ‘normal’ intrusive proceedure. No evidence it was politically motivated as far as I can tell.
It’s still an outrage, however.
I had one tell me something happening right in front of us was not actually happening. I asked him a second time, and got the same answer.
They're very very "well trained" not to acknowledge anything, and to stick to the rehearsed lines and procedures.
Welcome to Gulag America, comrade.
I’m willing to bet they knew he was a sitting US senator on his way to do the gov’t business by the time they detained him. This is a clear violation of the US Constitution. They aren’t allowed to keep a senator from doing his job except in case of treason and stuff like that.
Another trick they try when you opt out of the xray...they say it will be a long while before they have someone available.
They told that to one guy in front of me and so then he chose to do the xray. I was traveling on business and my colleague and I opted out (AFTER the other guy changed his mind). They told us the same thing and we both replied I am several hours early so don’t mind waiting here. We were inspected and on our way BEFORE the other guy made it through the xray machine line!
ps. I bet Senator Rand had cupcakes hidden on him.
The only thing we can be certain of is that whatever TSA says is a lie.
Janet Napolean and other minions in the obamma adminstration never have to be searched. They get a pass to exempt them from having to go through these scanners. They write the law, then exempt themselves. Shameful!
“Another trick they try when you opt out of the xray...they say it will be a long while before they have someone available.”
*****
They do this every time I travel because I always opt-out. To add joy to the occasion, I then tell the TSA agent before he begins the frisk that I’m an attorney and would like a full description of what he is about to do and my rights to public versus private screenings.
We are becoming a police state. While the Supremes fritter away debating the constitutionality of GPS tracking, and Congress golfs with the Fuhrer, the building of the Reich continues in the interest of “homeland security.”
That exemption from search would seem to make congressmen open to having some of their family held hostage and being controlled by terrorist.
If a machine "has" an anomaly, it is an internal defect.
If it "found" an anomaly, it may be working properly, or also has a defect.
Clearly, TSA operators are the product of our government educational system, and not from the better end of the IQ curve. They seem unaware of the definition of "detained." Senator Paul was trying to get to his aircraft; he was prevented from doing so.
Stand by for further news.
"An individual is then patted down" and that is the problem! Why not just check the area where the "yellow box" indicated an anomaly? But no! They give you the full monty! Screw the TSA.
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