(H/T to Mike for the idea that is rapidly becoming very chic; defunding overblown federal entities.)


This morning I learned something else I did not know and will, no doubt, require us to go back in time and read certain key legislation.   Happy, happy, joy, joy.

According to the Washington Examiner, Rep. Mica who was an author of the original 2001 TSA bill has written letters to 150 airport heads requesting that they use a provision in the law that allows them to OPT-OUT of using TSA as their screeners.

I suppose we could allow the feds to ‘nudge’ us into collapsing the airlines by boycotting the TSA porno smorgasbord and letting Chairman Zero and his czars step in and nationalize the airlines, or we could push the airlines to do the job themselves, and push the new GOP controlled House to stop funding the airport gestapo. What say you?

Amid airport anger, GOP takes aim at screening

By: Byron York

Chief Political Correspondent
November 15, 2010

Did you know that the nation’s airports are not required to have Transportation Security Administration screeners checking passengers at security checkpoints? The 2001 law creating the TSA gave airports the right to opt out of the TSA program in favor of private screeners after a two-year period. Now, with the TSA engulfed in controversy and hated by millions of weary and sometimes humiliated travelers, Rep. John Mica, the Republican who will soon be chairman of the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, is reminding airports that they have a choice.

Mica, one of the authors of the original TSA bill, has recently written to the heads of more than 150 airports nationwide suggesting they opt out of TSA screening. “When the TSA was established, it was never envisioned that it would become a huge, unwieldy bureaucracy which was soon to grow to 67,000 employees,” Mica writes. “As TSA has grown larger, more impersonal, and administratively top-heavy, I believe it is important that airports across the country consider utilizing the opt-out provision provided by law.”

In addition to being large, impersonal, and top-heavy, what really worries critics is that the TSA has become dangerously ineffective. Its specialty is what those critics call “security theater” — that is, a show of what appear to be stringent security measures designed to make passengers feel more secure without providing real security. “That’s exactly what it is,” says Mica. “It’s a big Kabuki dance.”

Now, the dance has gotten completely out of hand. And like lots of fliers — I spoke to him as he waited for a flight at the Orlando airport — Mica sees TSA’s new “naked scanner” machines and groping, grossly invasive passenger pat-downs as just part of a larger problem. TSA, he says, is relying more on passenger humiliation than on practices that are proven staples of airport security.

Bad Behavior has blocked 2357 access attempts in the last 7 days.

%d bloggers like this: