TSA inspections despicable among travelers

The new measures enacted by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s Transportation Security Administration (TSA) at airports nationwide have become the talk of controversy over the last few weeks. Today, more than two million people will be traveling the day before Thanksgiving and will have to endure these new measures which include body-scanning machines and rather intrusive and intimate pat-downs by TSA agents.

I’d just like to say how thankful I am that I will not be in that crowd today.

Travelers are not happy with the new body-scanning machines because TSA agents are allowed to basically see people on “this side” of being completely nude; and the pat-downs they are finding as a simple violation of privacy rights.

Some of the outrageous and embarrassing stories among travelers that have surfaced recently include a breast cancer survivor having to remove her prosthetic breast during a TSA inspection; a victim of sexual assault, felt the pat-down so intrusive she felt that she was being assaulted all over again; another TSA agent broke the bag of a bladder cancer patient, leaving him soaked in his own urine; a three year old child was forced to surrender her teddy bear, to endure a full body pat-down; and on the more comical front, a guy stripped all the way down to his boxer shorts to avoid even being touched by an agent. The searches by the TSA are beyond despicable.

Interestingly, Government officials are apparently exempt from having to endure any of this airport nonsense. But what is more interesting is the conflict of interest between Michael Chertoff, the former Homeland Security Secretary and his relationship with consulting to Rapiscan Systems, one of two companies designing the new body-scan systems at airports. Chertoff, and some of our top legislators including Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts and Congressman Mike Castle of Delaware have monetary stakes in Rapiscan. Senator Kerry apparently has a value between $500,000 and $1 million in the scanning corporation, while Congressman Castle has about $65,000.

One has to ask the question if our federal legislators are actually supporting national security, or simply just going with the flow to make a fast buck on the process? Maybe they should rename Rapiscan Systems as “Grab and Scan”.

During a breakfast meeting with the Christian Science Monitor, TSA chief administrator John Pistole is quoted as saying “if passengers don’t undergo screening, then they don’t have a right to fly. I see flying as a privilege that is a public safety issue.” Apparently Mr. Pistole has never read 49 USC Section 40103, Provision II which clearly spells out “a citizen of the United States has a public right of transit through navigational airspace.”

Now the TSA of course will continue to insist that it is simply enhancing safety in national security in airports, while taking into consideration privacy among travelers. Is that right?

Did the TSA ever take into consideration other alternative solutions? Maybe, adopting the same model that enforced airport security in Israel, which was profiling passengers? Or what about bomb-sniffing dogs at airports?

Oh, I forgot, we can’t have bomb trained dogs at airports because that would mean a TSA agent wouldn’t get a huge paycheck, benefits and a largely inflated pension fund, paid for kindly, with American tax payer money.

Nevertheless, a majority of Americans have found new measures from the TSA as too extreme, and today, people nationwide are revolting and will be voicing their concerns by boycotting many airports.