TSA Full Body Scanners: Where The Money Is Going
Listen up MOOS! You are a revenue stream one way or another. If they cannot get your money using the Federal Reserve, QE and inflation, and the IRS right out in the open, they get it using District of Criminals’ appropriation bills.
The Washington Examiner nailed the story of the where the $338 Million behind the TSA full body scanners went, with names readers are going to recognize. Among many DC lobbyist leeches, the names of Michael Chertoff, George Soros, and Chad Wolff who happens to be a former aide to Kay Bailey Hutchinson (Ranking Member of the Senate committee that has called for a TSA oversight hearing on the 17th) appear. (Yeah! The hearing on Wednesday is really going to accomplish something, doncha feel it? Mooooooooooooooooooooooooooo……………)
‘Naked scanners’: Lobbyists join the war on terror
If you’ve seen one of these scanners at an airport, there’s a good chance it was made by L-3 Communications, a major contractor with the Department of Homeland Security. L-3 employs three different lobbying firms including Park Strategies, where former Sen. Al D’Amato, R-N.Y., plumps on the company’s behalf. Back in 1989, President George H.W. Bush appointed D’Amato to the President’s Commission on Aviation Security and Terrorism following the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103. Also on Park’s L-3 account is former Appropriations staffer Kraig Siracuse.
The scanner contract, issued four days after the Christmas Day bomb attempt last year, is worth $165 million to L-3.
Rapiscan got the other naked-scanner contract from the TSA, worth $173 million. Rapiscan’s lobbyists include Susan Carr, a former senior legislative aide to Rep. David Price, D-N.C., chairman of the Homeland Security Subcommittee. When Defense Daily reported on Price’s appropriations bill last winter, the publication noted “Price likes the budget for its emphasis on filling gaps in aviation security, in particular the whole body imaging systems.”
An early TSA contractor for full-body scanners was the American Science and Engineering company. AS&E’s lobbying team is impressive, including Tom Blank, a former deputy administrator for the TSA. Fellow AS&E lobbyist Chad Wolf was an assistant administrator at TSA and an aide to Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, who sits on the Transportation and Defense subcommittees of Appropriations. Finally, Democratic former Rep. Bud Cramer is also an AS&E lobbyist — he sat on the Defense and Transportation subcommittees of the Appropriations Committee.
Bush’s Homeland Security Secretary flacking for nudie-scanners, too
The companies that make the airport nudie-scanners have high-priced lobbying teams that include former congressmen, top Capitol Hill staff, and former TSA brass, as I reported in my column yesterday.
But because I focussed on registered lobbyists, I left out the highest-profile revolving-door character in the pay of the nudie-scanner industry: George W. Bush’s Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff. After the undie-bomber attempt on Christmas 2009, Chertoff went on a media tour promoting the use of these scanners, without disclosing that he was getting paid by Rapiscan, one of the two companies currently contracted by TSA to take a nude picture of you at the airport.
George Soros also profiting off controversial new TSA scanners
Then this morning Carney also noted that former Homeland Security secretary Michael Chertoff was flacking for Rapiscan.
As for the company’s other political connections, it also appears that none other than George Soros, the billionaire funder of the country’s liberal political infrastructure, owns 11,300 shares of OSI Systems Inc., the company that owns Rapiscan. Not surprisingly, OSI’s stock has appreciated considerably over the course of the year. Soros certainly is a savvy investor.
There aren’t any criminals, double-dealing, or insider trading happening inside the District of Criminals. Move along now, nothing to see here.
