TRI In The News
TSA Gone Wild
7/20/2011
TRI IN THE NEWS: TSA GONE WILD
From iNEWP.com
Original blog post available here.
"Uncontrolled search and seizure is one of the first and most effective weapons in the arsenal of every arbitrary government… Among deprivations of rights, none is so effective in cowing a population, crushing the spirit of the individual and putting terror in every heart." – Justice Robert Jackson, chief U.S. prosecutor at the Nuremberg Trials
In recent months, TSO's (Transportation Security Officers – commonly called TSA Agents) have made headlines for molesting 6 year old children (in Seattle & New Orleans), removing the diaper of a 95 year old woman, breaking the seal of a man's colostomy bag, and even looking in the diaper of an infant. One woman even screamed for help as she was receiving a "pat-down." The TSA has defended their actions with statements such as, "we have reviewed the circumstances involving this screening and determined that our officers acted professionally, according to proper procedure."
Another woman was recently arrested for NOT allowing an invasive search of her daughter. The TSA responded by saying it "will instruct screeners how to make repeated attempts to screen young children without invasive pat-downs. The instructions should reduce the number of pat-downs on children." The TSA doesn't plan on eliminating the number of molestations on children, simply reducing them.
In an effort to prove that TSO's are molesting passengers, the Texas legislature introduced a bill that would have outlawed TSA searches without a warrant and included a provision to charge any agent in violation with sexual assault – the bill failed to pass. When TSA gropes a woman's breasts, it's called security, when an agent in uniform gets the same treatment the groper is charged with a felony count of sexual abuse. Yukari Mihamae is accused of grabbing, squeezing and twisting the left breast of a female TSA agent in Phoenix Sky Harbor Airport.
Sadly, the TSA will not go away anytime soon and has even expanded into bus & train stations. Soon, you will see the TSA at every AMTRAK & Greyhound bus terminal, just as you see TSA at every American airport.
John Whitehead of The Rutherford Institute writes,
"The transition to a police state will not come about with a dramatic coup d'etat, with battering rams and marauding militia. As we have experienced first-hand in recent years, it will creep in softly, one violation at a time, until suddenly you find yourself being subjected to random patdowns and security sweeps during your morning commute to work or quick trip to the shopping mall… VIPR is the first major step in the government's effort to secure so-called "soft" targets such as malls, stadiums, bridges, etc. In fact, some security experts predict that checkpoints and screening stations will eventually be established at all soft targets, such as department stores, restaurants, and schools."
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia voted 3-0 to uphold the government's right to use full-body scanners.
Justice Douglas Ginsburg wrote, "That balance [between privacy and security] clearly favors the government here." The court also noted that passengers may avoid the scans by opting to undergo a pat-down by a screening agent. Aren't you glad they give you a "choice"? Unfortunately "freedom" is not one of the choices.
