Look out, or the politicians hustling to rescue us from the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) and its sexual assaults at the airport may run you over. Of course, these liars and hypocrites could simply abolish the TSA, either by introducing legislation to do so or, more easily, by refusing to re-authorize — and raise — its budget every year. That would guarantee that the agency never again molested a young woman, killed a missionary, or endangered an expectant mother and her baby. It could no longer violate the Constitution with its warrantless searches nor sic cops on us because of the “evidence” those fishing expeditions yield. The Feds would lose some of their power over us — and they can’t have that, can they?
No wonder politicians love the TSA. They’d sooner sell their souls, presuming they have any, than abolish it. For starters, there’s all that unconstitutional power it grants them. Then, too, the TSA helps them look tough on terrorism while also masquerading as good guys, defending us from the agency’s crimes.
First up is Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah). Newly elected to the sewer on the Potomac in 2009, he proposed a bill that April restricting the TSA from using the porno-scanners as “primary screening.” That’s TSA-speak for irradiating everyone rather than reserving the gizmos to “resolve issues” when a magnetometer beeps. So Jason wants the TSA to ogle us occasionally rather than all the time.
Some protection, huh? Screeners are notorious for kicking the magnetometer until its alarm rings when they want to pester some poor passenger. Or, if that’s too much exertion, they can simply order him through the porno-scanner on any pretext whatever: they enjoy enormous discretion so long as they claim to be acting on “national security’s” behalf.
Yet wishy-washy as Jason’s law was, Our Rulers refused to pass it. It still languishes in a pigeon-hole somewhere; Jason occasionally mutters about pulling it out and trying again.
Next we have Rep. Rush Holt (D-N.J.), a “senior member of the House Intelligence Committee” and one of the exceedingly few Congressmen who actually worked for a living before degenerating into a federal sponge. This former physicist damns the porno-scanners as “an unnecessary health risk.” Pretty compelling reason to immediately suspend their use and abolish the TSA. But Rush isn’t in one. Instead, he “hosted a briefing” last year and then “[wrote] to the TSA Administrator and called for Congressional hearings about the need to look more closely at the privacy issues and effectiveness of the screenings.” How many passengers will succumb to cancer while those hearings drag on and on?
Also posing as our savior is Sen. Tom Udall (D-N.M.). He’s “offered an amendment to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) Reauthorization bill that would require … software [that produces a generic image rather than one of our naked bodies] to be installed on existing scanners nationwide within a year.” Seems Tom is no more conversant with computers than he is with the Fourth Amendment: what’s installed can be uninstalled, and easily. Wanna bet the TSA’s deviants break all records for rebooting their porno-scanner when a luscious lady joins the checkpoint’s endless line?
More fake salvation comes from Senators Ben Nelson (D-Neb.) and Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.). Last week, they “proposed an amendment to an aviation spending bill that would prohibit anyone with access to the scanned body images from photographing or disseminating those images.… violators could face fines of up to $100,000 and a prison term.”
Hey, bozos: while you’re at it, why not exempt private pedophiles and rapists from punishment for their original crimes, too? Wait until they “photograph” their wickedness and “disseminate those images” to throw the book at ‘em.
Slimy Schumer lost no time preening himself on how thoroughly he’s scamming us. “This law sends a loud and clear message to the flying public,” his website brags, “not only will we do everything we can to protect your safety,” except abolish the TSA, “we will also do everything we can to protect your privacy,” except abolish the TSA.
He also alleges that his “new law would mirror privacy rules already enacted for the Social Security Administration and the Internal Revenue Service Those laws make it a crime for employees to disseminate or otherwise misuse personal data.” But all the regulations in the world can’t keep bureaucrats from peeking at and exploiting information on celebrities, relatives, enemies, or anyone who catches their interest.
Schumer’s co-sponsor, Ben Nelson, assumes taxpayers are as imbecilic as he: “Nebraskans and all Americans understand that every step needs to be taken and every resource needs to be used to ensure the safety of our citizenry.” Yo, Ben: here’s one American who doesn’t understand that at all. We live in a world of scarcity; neither resources nor “steps” are plentiful. Squandering all of either on “ensuring the safety of our citizenry” will bankrupt the country. It will also enslave us. But then you knew that, didn’t you?
Meanwhile, only the tiny fraction of resources that Ben and his cronies have legitimately earned belong to them. They have absolutely no right, Constitutional or moral, to determine how the rest of us will spend ours. That’s the beauty of the market: it topples these tyrants and puts us in charge. We’d never patronize an airline that sexually assaulted us while charging an extra $100 per ticket for its abuse; instead, we’d fly its competitors. It takes Congress and the TSA to strip us not only of our clothing but of our right to travel freely.
Ben hadn’t finished. He next laid the groundwork for expanding the TSA’s voyeurism: “Scanning individuals for hidden weapons is a necessary … aspect of making sure America’s airways and public buildings are safe.” (Emphasis added.) Of course, should anyone accuse him of enlarging the TSA’s pool of involuntary strip-teasers, he’ll claim he was merely referring to the courthouse in Florida whose employees stockpiled 35,000 pictures from a similar porno-scanner — even as the TSA insisted that its equipment “cannot store, transmit or print” images.
In the end, porno-scanners aren’t the worst of the TSA’s evils: rather, it’s the power the agency hands everyone associated with it, from Congressmen to the bullies staffing its checkpoints. An editor at TIME Magazine named Amy Sullivan “opted out” of the porno-scanners at Miami International Airport last week. “’Seriously?’ the first TSA worker [sic] asked [her] with a raised eyebrow.” Apparently, the agency’s sexual assaults are achieving their goal of coercing Americans to pose naked for government’s goons, with only those who are foolish enough to raise eyebrows “choosing” a “pat-down.”
Ms. Sullivan reports that a female screener “professional[ly]” groped her, (too much TIME on your hands will do that: it convinces you that atrocities are fine and dandy, that they can even be “professional,” so long as the government commits them). But then to Ms. Sullivan’s distress, “a male TSA agent walked behind us and hollered: ‘Hey, I thought she was mine! I was gonna do her!”
I can’t explain why this comment perturbed Ms. Sullivan when sexual assault didn’t. But I do know that until the TSA is abolished, not just its porno-scanners and not just as “primary screening,” it gravely threatens us all.
