Rand Paul Has a Quick Fix For TSA: Pull the Plug 1051
suraj.sun quotes from Politico:
"Rand Paul has a reform plan for the Transportation Security Administration: Scrap the whole thing. A personal message from Paul (R-Ky.) came atop emails this week from the Campaign for Liberty Vice President Matt Hawes, asking for readers to sign a petition in support of Paul's 'End the TSA' bill. A Paul spokeswoman said that legislation is being finalized next week. 'Every inch of our person has become fair game for government thugs posing as "security" as we travel around the country. Senator Rand Paul has a plan to do away with the TSA for good, but he needs our help,' reads the petition, which also asks signers to 'chip in a contribution to help C4L mobilize liberty activists across America to turn the heat up on Congress and end the TSA's abuse of our rights.' 'The American people shouldn't be subjected to harassment, groping, and other public humiliation simply to board an airplane. As you may have heard, I have some personal experience with this, and I've vowed to lead the charge to fight back,' Paul wrote at the top of a C4L fundraising pitch, according to blogs that received the email. 'Campaign for Liberty is leading the fight to pressure Congress to act now and restore our liberty. It's time to END the TSA and get the government's hands back to only stealing our wallets instead of groping toddlers and grandmothers.'"
Petition link (Score:5, Informative)
Since all the submitter could be bothered to do was pump up Politico page views, here's the link to the > petition> [chooseliberty.org].
Re:Yes! (Score:5, Informative)
Rand Paul != Ron Paul
The Campaign for Liberty Platform (Score:5, Informative)
Bear in mind that the Campaign for Liberty is about a lot more than opposing the TSA [campaignforliberty.com], some of which some people may not find all that palatable (e.g. free market fundamentalism, scrapping the Federal Reserve, dismantling most of the federal government, withdrawing from most international organizations).
Re:Some people seem to forget... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Some people seem to forget... (Score:5, Informative)
that air travel is a privilege, not a right
Oh, that is why we bailed out the airlines a few years back? You know, to ensure that people have the "privilege?"
The TSA has no jurisdiction over you in a private car
You do realize that the reason they cannot just demand that you open your car for an inspection is the same fourth amendment that should make nude scans and pat-downs unconstitutional, right? Your rights are not supposed to disappear just because you are in an airport.
Re:Some people seem to forget... (Score:4, Informative)
http://www.prisonplanet.com/tsa-invades-roads-highways-with-vipr-checkpoints.html [prisonplanet.com]
Do not send money to the "Campaign for Liberty" (Score:3, Informative)
Although ending the TSA is an admirable goal, please do not send money to this group.
This group also has goals / ideas which are not as logical as the removal of the TSA.
Push your own congress critter to move forward on this, and work on legal petitions, not these fake online ones.
Re:Some people seem to forget... (Score:5, Informative)
If you don't like the TSA, you can travel a different way
Sure, as long as you also don't want to travel by car [youtube.com] or train [aol.com] or subways or ferries [cleveland.com]
I guess that still leaves by foot (as long as you don't go in a subway tunnel) and maybe horse. I guess we really shouldn't complain.
Re:Every problem looks like a nail (Score:2, Informative)
True, it's RAND Paul, but he seems to be following in his father's footsteps - do something dramatic, but totally unfeasible (shut down the TSA).
Now, if he had just suggested that we take all the TSA staff and make them dress up like actors in 'Pirates of the Penzance' or something, then we could have some real Security Theater. I could fly with that....
Re:Some people seem to forget... (Score:2, Informative)
"The TSA has no jurisdiction over you in a private car.."
"You are welcomed to opt not to travel by air."
Or train, bus, or car.
http://articles.latimes.com/2011/dec/20/nation/la-na-terror-checkpoints-20111220
http://www.tsa.gov/what_we_do/tsnm/highway/index.shtm
http://autos.aol.com/article/tsa-screening-drivers-in-tennessee/
TSA freaked out over a roll of raffle tickets (Score:4, Informative)
MEH (Score:3, Informative)
I signed the petition (once I FOUND it, thanks Slashdot for not actually linking to the thing). I was then immediately hit with a "GIVE MONEYS PL0X" page. It really didn't feel right.
If I do give moneys, I'll also be supporting the campaign to repeal Obamacare (the petition for which I am intentionally not linking to), so no thanks.
Re:Even a broken clock (Score:5, Informative)
No, he only has an issue with it because he finally got accosted like the rest of us.
Senator Paul has been complaining and fighting against TSA abuses for years along with his father. He did not just started having an issue with them.
Re:Even a broken clock (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Even a broken clock (Score:5, Informative)
Well then get the shears because I'm in the herd ... for this.
I'm not sure how I can support this thing while giving him the absolute minimum power in the future, it's certainly not worth getting him re-elected unless it's practically certain he can pull it off, and probable it won't happen without him, but man he's right about this one, and any help I can give to this specific endeavor, I will. His views on abortion, civil rights, and other libertarian nuttiness are unconscionable, but if there's a way to work with an enemy toward a common goal without getting too fucked over by the cooperation ... well, the TSA is enough of a threat that it's worth working with an enemy to get rid of it. I'd say the same about the wiretap insanity and data sharing with other countries. I imagine Paul sees people like me the same way--an enemy, but with a common goal. Maybe we can use each other.
If he handles it well, pulls it off, and doesn't turn it into a power-grab, I'd probably be ... less ... skeptical of him in the future. I think there's about a 2% chance he does any one of those things, let alone all three, but I wholeheartedly agree with simply scrapping the TSA and I'm willing to hear him out on this.
Re:It's about damn time (Score:4, Informative)
The problem is that Rand Paul isn't suggesting that the groping stop. He's suggesting that it be *privatized*, with no government oversight or accountability at all (even less than there already is). So the only thing that will change is that the person grabbing your balls will wear a different logo on his shirt--and answer only to a private company.
Re:Sad Day (Score:5, Informative)
Then why didn't it solve the problem when it had a chance and before legislation had to be involved?
If the free market can solve all problems why do so many go unsolved for so long?
Because state governments would not let them. Jim Crow Laws were exactly that: Laws passed by state governments.
Separate facilities for whites and non-whites didn't exist because the business owners wanted them necessarily (though I'm sure there were some who did want them). They existed because the various state governments mandated it.
The free market was not allowed to function because of government coercion.
Re:Do not send money to the "Campaign for Liberty" (Score:5, Informative)
Example: I used to receive emails from them (via "Paramount Communications"). One day I started getting anti-gay-marriage emails (also via Paramount Communications) which I had never signed up for. I clicked the link and unsubscribed from those. Mysteriously, that seems to mean I unsubscribed from the C4L list. I fail to see how stopping gay marriage is a liberty-enhancing goal.
Re:How is that inaccurate? (Score:2, Informative)
So uninformed. The SA have:
- stripped an old woman naked
- stripped another old woman naked (same airport)
- stripped an old man naked
- jailed a mother in a glass cage for an hour, because she was carrying breast milk (causing he to cry, miss her plane, and eventually dump the milk which was meant to feed her newborn at home)
- forced a mother to demonstrate what her pumping equipment was for (in a public restroom)
- stolen property
- "lost" property
- included a taped note on a woman's dildo which said, "Get your freak on girl"
- included a taped note on some marijuana saying, "Come on son. Stop this."
- dumped a handicapped person's colostomy contents all over the floor, because they insisted he "must remove it or not be able to fly"
- touched women's boobs
- touched men's penises
- been charged with sexual assault
- been charged with running prostitution rings
- caught asking women to walk through a scanner 4-5 times in order to capture the nude images
- captured and jailed a Ron Paul supporter because he was carrying $5000 in donations from St. Louis to Reagan Airport in D.C. (Note: carrying cash is not a crime worthy of being arrested... especially on an internal flight)
- and on and on.
I'm too tired to continuetyping, but maybe you should get off your lazy ass and READ THE NEWS once in a while. The SA is in every way deserving of being called "thugs" or "east german stasi" or other epithets.
Re:It's about damn time (Score:5, Informative)
I think the BOFH was their training manual. I can't say that the recent news that agents were arrested for facilitating drug smuggling in exchange for a cut of the profits did anything to improve my opinion. Stories from way back, for example one story on Slashdot where a former TSA agent claimed that their instructions were to allow guns through to avoid holding up the lines, also diminished what little regard I had for them. (The Slashdot claim mirrors claims by journalists at around the same time that around 30% of attempts to get a gun through screening succeeded, so I'm inclined to take the claim as more than just fluff.)
This is perhaps the first (and probably only) time I'm going to agree with R.P. on anything, he's normally 52 cards short of a full deck (all that's left are the jokers) but there really is no benefit in a security apparatus that offers no security but does offer a great deal of insecurity and hardship. The TSA has failed to demonstrate that it is competent or capable of dealing with any actual threat. Rather, it has an worryingly high failure rate and an even more worrying tendency to fix the wrong problem when something does go wrong - and usually badly.
There has been ONE attempt to put Semtex in a shoe, and the attempt could not have succeeded. It is extremely doubtful that passing the shoes through the scanner would have detected it. Compare that to the total number of hijacks that have succeeded due to firearms. Tell me, which of the attack vectors is a genuine threat more likely to pursue? The one that might work or the one that's stupid? So which does the TSA attempt to close? Yes, the one that's stupid. Yay. And "attempt" is about as far as it has probably got. I don't trust the TSA's competency at detecting Semtex, either in terms of finding a bomb detector that will spot it (it's notoriously difficult, which is why the IRA used it extensively) or in terms or recognizing that the detector has spotted anything at all.
No security is perfect, but if we're to believe (even a little bit) the Slashdot claim and the recent news stories, then it suggests that the TSA is not accidentally insecure but knowingly insecure. The people at the top probably didn't intend it to be that way, but the people at the top don't seem eager to fix the problems either. As such, it may not be their doing but it is their responsibility and they're failing.
Re:It's about damn time (Score:5, Informative)
The box-cutter thing is likely a myth. Also, it's "Trade", not "Trace".
"No one on United Flight 175, which crashed into the World Trade Center, reported anything about weapons or tactics. One flight attendant on American Flight 11, which also crashed into the World Trade Center, said she was disabled by a chemical spray, while another flight attendant said a passenger was stabbed or shot. On the Pentagon plane, American Flight 77, Barbara Olson reported hijackers carrying knives and box cutters but did not describe how they took the cockpit. And on United Flight 93, passengers reported knives but also a hijacker threatening to explode a bomb. The box cutter-knives story isn't demonstrably false, but it serves to divert attention from the other weapons and to mask the fact that we don't have any idea how the hijackings happened. "
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/hey_wait_a_minute/2003/09/what_you_think_you_know_about_sept_11_.html [slate.com]
And there is reason to be skeptical about the Barbara Olson story, since the only source is her husband, Ted Olson, who at the time was U.S. Solicitor General to a notoriously mendacious and criminal White House.