Rand Paul Of Kentucky Promises Legislation
Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky has gone public with an op-ed
contribution in the Washington Times, detailing an encounter with
TSA Monday in Nashville, in which he paints the TSA as intrusive,
yet ineffective. The agency has responded with its side of the
story in the official TSA blog.
In his op-ed, Senator Paul says an "irregularity" was found in
his full-body scan, which he says he has learned is an intentional
and misleading tactic to trigger random pat-downs of travelers. He
continues, in part, "Despite removing my belt, glasses, wallet and
shoes, the scanner and TSA also wanted my dignity. I refused.
"I showed them the potentially offending part of my body, my
leg. They were not interested. They wanted to touch me and to pat
me down. I requested to be rescanned. They refused and detained me
in a 10-foot-by-10-foot area reserved for potential
terrorists."
Paul says he was traveling to address 200,000 people at the
March for Life in Washington, DC, and while he missed his flight,
he's not expecting special treatment for US Senators. "Let me be
clear...This is about every single one of us and how we are sick of
the intrusive nature of our government.
"While sitting in the cubicle, I thought to myself, have the
terrorists won? Have we sacrificed our liberty and our dignity for
security? Finally, the airport head of TSA arrived after I had
missed my flight. He let me go back through the scanner and this
time the scanner did not go off. The only comment from TSA was that
some of the alarms are simply random.
"So passengers who do everything right, remove their belts,
remove their wallets, remove their shoes, their glasses and all of
the contents in their pockets are then subjected to random patdowns
and tricked into believing that the scanners actually detected
something...
"Every time we travel, we are expected to surrender our Fourth
Amendment rights, yet willingly giving up our rights does not make
us any safer. It is infuriating that this agency feels entitled to
revoke our civil liberties while doing little to keep us safe."
TSA blogger "Bob Burns" drew the short straw again, and on
behalf of the agency posted a response which says, in part, "When a
passenger or bag alarms in screening technology at a TSA
checkpoint, the alarm has to be resolved before the passenger can
enter the secure area past the checkpoint. Passengers who refuse to
complete the screening process can’t be granted access to the
secure area...This isn’t done to punish the passenger–
it’s done to ensure that every person who gets on a plane is
screened appropriately."
Paul concludes relating his experience with the promise, "I will
further push for the reinstatement of traveler privacy and rights.
I will be proposing legislation that will allow for adults to be
rescreened if they so choose."
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