Tuesday, June 21, 2011

Texas Lawmakers to Reconsider Criminalizing Airport Pat Downs


TSA Agent pats-down 6 year old girl

By Gary P Jackson

If you remember, a month ago Texas was working on legislation that would make invasive pat-downs by the TSA, without probable cause, a crime.

Like everyone, I'm all for making air travel safe, but the idea of patting down babies and grandmas, as well as groping hot chicks, just doesn't seem to be the best use of resources. Especially since we are told profiling is bad.

You understand profiling means you target those who are actually more likely to be up to no good. In the name of political correctness, we are now saying EVERYONE is guilty, until proven innocent. That pretty much violates the 4th Amendment protections against illegal search and seizure, as well as the very foundation our legal system is built on.

I often wonder why someone doesn't ask the Israelis to work with us on a real system to keep airline passengers and crew safe. They are quite effective.

Makes more sense than to have a bunch of government drones playing grab ass with everyone.


From the 10th Amendment Center:

It was less than a month ago at the Dallas, TX airport where former Miss USA Susie Castillo tearfully produced a viral video describing the molestation she had just then endured at the hands of a TSA agent. "I mean, she actually… touched my vagina," Castillo said through her tears. "They’re making me… choose to either get molested… or go through this machine that’s completely unhealthy and dangerous. I don’t want to go through it, and here I am crying."

Castillo isn’t the only person who would be protected under this Texas legislation. All other innocent travelers would likewise be shielded. That includes the six year old girl who made the headlines last month for being groped by a TSA agent (an action which the TSA defended as being alright since it "followed the current standard operating procedures"), as well as the eight-month-old infant subjected to a pat down while cradled in the arms of her mother.

The 10th Amendment Center also reports the Obama regime threatened to make Texas a "no-fly zone" if the legislation was passed, causing legislators to re-think their plan. You can read the whole report here.

WOAI out of San Antonio reports that Texas Governor Rick Perry has put this legislation on the special session's agenda:

Texas lawmakers will reconsider a bill that would criminalize ‘enhanced pat downs’ by Transportation Security Administration agents at the state’s airports, after Gov. Rick Perry placed the item on the agenda for the current special session of the legislature following intense pressure from conservatives and tea party groups.

"I am grateful that the governor heard the calls of the people demanding that lawmakers stand up for the liberties of Texans," said Wesley Strackbein, a conservative activist and founder of' TSA Tyranny.com'. Strackbein Saturday traveled to New Orleans to confront Perry at a book signing event and demand that the item be placed on the legislative agenda.

The bill would make it the crime of official oppression, a Class A misdemeanor punishable by up to a year in prison of a $4,000 fine, for a TSA agent to ‘touch the anus, sexual organ, buttocks, or breast of another person, even thought that person’s clothing’ for the purpose of ‘granting access to a building or a form of transportation.

The measure passed the Texas House during the regular session but was pulled off the floor without a vote during the regular session after U.S. Attorney John Murphy circulated a letter to Senators warning that the TSA has the authority to prevent airplanes from taking off from Texas airports if the agency cannot certify that they are safe.

The bill’s chief sponsor, freshman State Representative David Simpson, says he has the support needed to pass the bill, pointing out that 121 of the 181 members of the Texas Legislature, Democrat and Republican, have signed on as co sponsors.

"This is your opportunity to show America that you have what it takes to lead this state and the nation by enforcing the Constitution of this state and the United States which both protect innocent people from unreasonable searches of their person by their own government," Simpson said in an ‘open letter’ to Perry.

Murphy said in his letter to Senators that if this bill were passed, the ‘supremacy clause’ of the U.S. Constitution would require that the courts void it.

Under Texas law, only the governor can place items on the agenda during a special called session.

The issue has taken on greater magnitude as Perry is emerging as a potential Republican Presidential candidate who is speaking to GOP groups nationwide to criticize what he sees as the ’overreach’ of the Obama Administration into the affairs of states and of private citizens.

Strackbein confronted Perry about the issue as he was signing copies of his book, entitled, "Fed Up! Our Fight to Save America from Washington."

"Texans don’t want to see their wives and their mothers and their children groped without probable cause," Strackbein said. "In the name of safety, we have thrown liberty out the window. It’s a fool’s bargain, and we don’t want to play the fool."

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