Friday, October 28, 2011

Time to get rid of the TSA

We haven't flown for a long time.  I am not willing to subject my daughters to the TSA agressive pat downs.  I follow Boycott Flying on Facebook.  It constantly reports abuses by TSA agents, but the sad thing is they rarely get punished.

TSA Creator Says Dismantle, Privatize the Agency is a good article, which starts:

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They’ve been accused of rampant thievery, spending billions of dollars like drunken sailors, groping children and little old ladies, and making everyone take off their shoes.

But the real job of the tens of thousands of screeners at the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) is to protect Americans from a terrorist attack.

Yet a decade after the TSA was created following the September 11 attacks, the author of the legislation that established the massive agency grades its performance at “D-.”

“The whole program has been hijacked by bureaucrats,” said Rep. John Mica (R. -Fla.), chairman of the House Transportation Committee.

“It mushroomed into an army,” Mica said. “It’s gone from a couple-billion-dollar enterprise to close to $9 billion.”

As for keeping the American public safe, Mica says, “They’ve failed to actually detect any threat in 10 years.”

“Everything they have done has been reactive. They take shoes off because of [shoe-bomber] Richard Reid, passengers are patted down because of the diaper bomber, and you can’t pack liquids because the British uncovered a plot using liquids,” Mica said.

“It’s an agency that is always one step out of step,” Mica said.
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2 comments:

kat said...

My SIL asked the other day if when the children were older if we would be willing to send them down to Maryland from Maine for a vacation. I said, "Absolutely not! I'm not subjecting my children to groping TSA agents." If she wants to see them, she can subject herself to the harassment involved.

Henry Cate said...

I am a bit surprised that there hasn't been more outrage.

It is sad. We have family in Virginia. We don't plan to fly back until the TSA changes their policies.