Los Angeles, CA—What to you call a sinking boatload of TSA
bureaucrats and screeners? It’s an
excellent beginning! Do I absolutely
abhor the TSA? That’s an understatement
at best. When I see them in their quasi
police costumes I always view them as nasty Nazis. They are simple minded, poorly trained goons
that lack minimal tolerance for anyone or anything. Too many of them are
thieves stealing valuable passenger’s property every day.
Factually, the TSA’s totally tyrannical mission is a
violation of travelers Civil Rights under the Fourth Amendment to the
Constitution. The courts have wrongly
held that travelers “voluntarily submit” to the searching and that somehow
justifies the privacy invasion and seizures of property.
I say there is nothing voluntary about most people traveling
by commercial airlines. Americans must
travel in order to earn money to feed themselves and families. There really is no alternative. Millions of people do avoid flying whenever
they can because of this government tyranny and I’m one of them.
I’d rather drive up to eight hours each way on highways to
avoid the indignity of being X-Rayed, fondled and frisked by these low rent TSA
thugs.
My biggest beef with the TSA is the 1,700 times a year or
more that they cause the wrongful arrest people that simply forgot they had
legal handguns in their carry on bags.
Before you say these forgetful people are stupid or criminal
consider the millions of dollars of lotions and potions seized from passengers
that forgot they had their expensive liquid cosmetics in carry on bags.
We all forget especially when we must fly at the last minute
and become preoccupied with serious business or personal matters like traveling
because of the deaths of loved ones. We are humans and humans forget.
We place our bags on the conveyer belts knowing they will be
X-Rayed and inspected. Nobody would
knowingly leave any item in such a bag that would cause distress to fellow
passengers or anyone, especially themselves!
Often our bags are shared with or packed by our close family
members increasing the likelihood that a gun could be left in some carry on
bag.
When the TSA discovers a gun they contact police who are
forced to arrest, the poor forgetful soul and what follows is never
pretty. They confiscate the gun that can
easily cost upwards of $1,100.00 and then the arrestee is fingerprinted,
photographed and jailed until they see a judge and post bail. They must then hire a lawyer that can cost
$10,000 or more. If they have a business
license that face more trouble after they are placed on probation or pay
fines. The criminal record in most
jurisdictions is forever. All for just
being forgetful!
The late actor and retired police detective Dennis Farina
was handcuffed and jailed on a Sunday for over eight hours until he could
gather $35,000 in cash for bail with the banks being closed! His record was eventually expunged but he was
treated like a common criminal that had committed some dreadful offense.
Celebrity chef
Paul Prudhomme, NBA legend Bill Russell, actor
Christian Slater and the wife of Rocker Ted Nugent, Shemane Nugent just to name a few more victims were all arrested
and manhandled because of the outrageous TSA Zero Tolerance policy.
TSA
head, John Pistole (no pun intended) recently conceded to ABC News that people
arrested with guns in carry-on luggage are not terrorists or people trying to
do harm. He went on to say that, “ It’s
just a matter of people not thinking about what they’re carrying… These are
people who have simply forgotten and go through security checks and realize
their mistakes.”
If
the TSA is well aware that there is no criminal intent than why don’t they
simply ask the passengers to remove the guns and place them in checked baggage
the proper way? Why subject the forgetful passenger to the horror of jail and
criminal prosecution? Why waste so much
taxpayer money on this tyranny?
Should
a few guns turn out to be stolen, have obliterated serial numbers or are being
carried by felons, that is an entirely different matter. Arrests under those circumstances are good
public policy.
In
short if the TSA could show simple reasonableness and respect I would not want
to see them all on a sinking boat. They
must realize their mission is to protect passengers from actual
terrorists. Instead the TSA itself has
become a terrorist organization. If they
ever expect to gain my tolerance and respect they must first learn that
forgetful passengers are not America’s enemies.
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