Yesterday morning word spread very quickly that Kentucky Senator Rand Paul was being detained by TSA in Nashville. The full story was told by Paul in an interview with CNN later in the day. He had gone through the security scanner and was told that there was an anomaly on his leg. He refused the full pat down they were demanding, and his resistance earned him a 90-minute detention.
What Paul learned during his detention was that the scanners produce false positives randomly to push people through the invasive pat downs. Of course, the irony of the fact that the person randomly chosen for further search was one of the few rational minds in Washington who see that role of the TSA in our lives violates the Fourth Amendment is hilarious.
Paul is calling for what should be common sense when it comes to airport security. He advocates things like a frequent passenger program and an option for people to submit to a thorough security check as an alternative to the intrusive searches. I really like Senator Paul, but I think he’s wrong on this issue. We shouldn’t be calling for programs from the TSA; we should be demanding the outright dismantling of the whole agency.
The TSA does nothing to make people safe. It is an agency of bureaucrats pushing ridiculous policy and invasive procedures on Americans under the guise of security. We should replace the TSA presence with private airport security and remove these government employees pretending to be police officers. Replace them with security officers from companies that will compete against each other, driving down costs while actually raising security.
Only then will we stop hearing the stories of invasive and humiliating demands on our children, our wives, our loves ones, and our senators.
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