I’m reading the Constitution and I do not see a “Grope or Scan” clause. The TSA is unconstitutional. Let’s eliminate the TSA. Posted on 10/22/2012 4:26:48 AM PDT by Kaslin
I’m reading the Constitution and I do not see a “Grope or Scan” clause. The TSA is unconstitutional. Let’s eliminate the TSA.
If you read my columns regularly, you know that I consider the TSA to be a carcinogenic petting zoo. I nearly always opt out. I object to the scanners on principle of their unconstitutionality. And I am concerned about the possibility of a scanner malfunction (thousands of service calls have been made to the backscatter X-ray machines)—which medical experts warn can result in extremely high radiation exposure.
Last week, I was traveling to New Jersey to speak at Americans for Prosperity’s Defending the American Dream Summit. I nearly missed my flight. And it was not because I overslept.
I arrived early to the Minneapolis-Saint Paul International Airport and already had my boarding pass. I’m thinking, “I’m golden. I have some extra time to grab breakfast and then relax before my flight.” No such luck.
After placing my luggage on the conveyer belt, I informed the TSA agent (a female) that I would be opting out. She said: “OK, well, you’re going to have to wait a while. Step over there and wait.”
I waited approximately 10 minutes and she never called for an agent. I reminded her that I needed to opt out. Her supervisor came over to her and said: “We are short on female staffers. I need you to do the pat-down and I’ll have another agent take your place up here.” She responded: “No. I don’t want to. I want to stay up here. Can’t you get another female agent to do it?”
He did not reprimand her for refusing to do her job. (This is not the private sector.) Instead, he made me wait until a different female staffer became available, further delaying me.
After my pat-down, the agent’s gloves set off the alarm. So, she did a second, more invasive pat-down in a back room. Her gloves still set off the alarm, so she said they needed to take apart my luggage and individually re-send everything through the X-ray machine.
Two TSA agents and four supervisors (it takes a village) unfolded all my clothes and even tore through my undergarments. They slowly sent small piles of my things through the X-ray machine, using about 15 bins, even though I only had a carry-on suitcase, a purse and a laptop. This process took about 45 minutes and I kept looking up at the clock, thinking: “I’m going to miss my flight!” I asked a TSA agent: “So what happens if I miss my flight?” He said, “You’ll have to work that out with your airline.”
I asked a TSA supervisor to call my airline and let them know I was on my way and see if they could hold the plane a few minutes for me. He said, “They are a separate company and we don’t know their phone number and cannot call them.” I said: “So you’re in the same building and you don’t know their number? And you can’t find their number on Google?” His eyes bulged, like a child caught lying.
I literally had only five minutes to catch my flight when the TSA agents finished scanning my luggage. I threw everything into my suitcase, wrinkling my suit. Then I tossed my laptop and cell phone cables into my purse and started running full speed for my gate.
Clothes were peaking out of my half-zipped suitcase and cables were flying out of my purse. Everyone was staring at me. I don’t blame them; I’m sure I looked like a riot.
The only reason I made my flight was because I spotted a courtesy transport (they look like golf carts) and begged the driver for a lift to my gate. He saved my day.
I now know that “opting out” is only an “option” if you arrive insanely early to the airport or you enjoy tossing cash into the gutter.
If you are a businessperson rushing to make a meeting; a bride and groom heading to a destination ceremony; a parent with unruly young children or a caretaker traveling with an Alzheimer's patient, you cannot endure the hassle and delay of opting out.
And the TSA apparently does not take responsibility for re-booking flights missed due to its security delays. So, opting out could mean paying $500-plus out-of-pocket to rebook if the TSA delays you.
My story is just one among many. I’m sharing my experience in hopes that doing so encourages more Americans to publicly voice their own incidents. The squeaky wheel gets the grease; we all need to express our outrage at the unconstitutional and unhealthy treatment we endure from the TSA.
..It looks like it was put up there by a six year old. Details matter, and to me, the sloppiness and slap dash matter that flyer was put up with, knowing that it was there for the traveling public at large, says a lot about the attitudes the TSA has for those passengers.
Do away with the TSA and let the airlines pay for their own security. The customer flying should be the one to bear the cost burden for that security and should expect a quality product.
I will not fly because the airlines depend on the useless TSA and are glad to let the taxpayer pay for their business to operate. The market is perverted, and the product sucks.
Easiest would be to re-assert/re-allow the 2nd Amendment; but you must load with frangible ammo.
Problem solved.
I recently returned from an out of town, work required, conference where the TSA dip-shit was INDIVIDUALLY going through a tin of change. I bet there was 1/2 the gate sitting there, watching the stupid radiate from the checkpoint.
end of
They've already reinforced the cockpit doors. Arm the flight crew, (and/or the passengers) and we could all get back on with our lives sans TSA.
[ I agree - it’s kabuki theater security ]
Maybe we should go through security dressed up as Kabuki actors?
Maybe then we could demostarte how dumb this kabuki thing is...
Who would you have do the profiling if not the same TSA drones you're currently complaining about.
TWA can't keep their seats bolted to the floor and I'm supposed to trust them with security?
That's probably the first reasonable suggestion I've seen yet. But how do we ensure that the private companies don't degenerate to a rent-a-cop level of service that's even worse than the TSA? You know that if it gets turned over to the airlines to fund and supervise then it'll go to the lowest cost vendor regardless of the quality of the product. And I think that the TSA has some sort of arrest powers that a private company wouldn't have, how do we back them up?
Apply consumer choice to your observation.
In other words, don’t fly with the airlines that do a poor job and treat their customers like crap.
There is agreement that the TSA should be eliminated. But what matters is the process to eliminate it.
To start with, the courts must be made to understand that profiling is *not* inherently bad. It is extensively used in Europe, and it works. America’s aversion to it dating to the Civil Rights era is “ancient history”.
Trying to create an illusion of “fairness” in security is just mind-bogglingly dumb. No, the odds of an elderly, Canadian Catholic woman in a wheelchair, traveling with her 5 year old granddaughter, being a terrorist, or being used by a terrorist, is infinitesimally tiny. Not worth it.
She is in no way comparable to a 30 year old Pakistani Muslim with a beard and turban, carrying a Koran, in a group of similar men. Stop pretending they are.
And stop pretending that “anybody” can look like a Muslim. While a minority of Muslims can look like non-Muslims, the vast majority of Muslims broadcast their beliefs clearly in their dress, luggage, language and behavior.
In practical terms, this means that instead of “fairly” oppressing *everyone* who wants to fly in aircraft, let the people of profiled groups know that they need to appear at the airport several hours early for a detailed examination.
As policy, they also can be restricted in how many of them can be on a particular flight, when and how they can conduct prayers in airports, etc.
It is *not* oppressive or racist. It just recognizes reality.
In any event, once the courts accept the new paradigm of security by profiling, *then* the TSA can turn over its function to private airport security.
And *then* the TSA can be dissolved.
I do not have experience with tons of different companies but I have worked in buildings / properties with private securities. Even Barksdale Airforce Base utilizes civilian private security.
Many are retired military, police, fire or prison guards. Some are even medics and have emergency medical training.
They are well trained and very professional. They have a clear chain of command and a firm grasp of their responsibilities. Most importantly, the men and women I met were always aware that public safety was the most important thing, but it was also important that visitors had a somewhat positive experience!
They were always very firm but polite. They would engage with visitors on the property that looked lost, confused, angry, loud, or were having problems. They would approach the person and offer assistance, using the conversation to quickly ascertain if the person was a threat, who they were and where they were headed on the premises. They worked as a team to cover very large properties and relayed information from officer to officer when they discovered a person they wanted to keep eyes on.
I only ever heard of one security officer being fired for bad behavior. I wasn't there but he apparently harassed his ex-wife's new boyfriend while on duty. :p
Anyway, you can't really compare the TSA mess to good private security. One is a wasteful, sloppy, abusive, government over-reach. The other is a well practiced, skilled, professional, and (most of the time) friendly asset.
Thanks to the Muslim 0zer0, Islam remains not only alive but now even more a threat to the West. Benghazi was but another one of many canaries in the coal mine of leftist delusion -another canary the pacifists and anti Americans attempt to bury and pretend away...
If the war is over WHY do we still staff TSA?
-Romney should ask these questions:
When is the TSA drawdown scheduled?
What date will TSA pullout from our airports?
Let us be real -IF the need that premises the existence of TSA continues THEN we are still at war. Killing Osama Bin Laden did not end the war BECAUSE the war was never simply against Osama Bin Laden -it was and remains a war against Radical Islam.
It is time to get rid of the TSA -not because the war is over BUT because the TSA is NOT screening for Radical Islamists.
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