TSA: Tyrannical, Silly Agency

Becky Akers
Campaign For Liberty
Wednesday, July 8, 2009

Whatever your definition of tyranny, the Transportation Security Administration probably met it last April when it harassed Steve Bierfeldt, the Campaign for Liberty’s Director of Development. Steve was catching a flight home after C4L’s conference in St. Louis with $4700 in proceeds when federal screeners “detained” him for carrying too much cash. They interrogated Steve, yelling and cursing at him, forcing him to justify his affairs to their satisfaction as though he were a slave rather than a taxpayer footing their salaries.

Steve coolly and courageously withstood their intimidation. He also recorded the encounter on his cell phone — evidence of abuse that even a bureaucracy as fond of denial and deception as the TSA can’t dispute. That evidence and Steve’s heroism made national headlines.

Steve is now suing the agency with help from the American Civil Liberties Union. Larry Schwartztol, an attorney there, explained: “Mr. Bierfeldt’s experience represents a troubling pattern of TSA attempting to transform its valid but limited search authority into a license to invade people’s privacy in a manner that would never be accepted outside the airport context.”

True — but why are such invasions accepted inside the airport context? And just how “valid” is the TSA’s “limited search authority”? After all, screeners search every passenger boarding a commercial flight in the US without the slightest suspicion that any of them plans to commit a crime, let alone that he already has. Doesn’t the Constitution prohibit precisely that?

“The right of the people,” says its Fourth Amendment, “to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated. . . ”

That command is so clear even politicians can understand it. The Amendment recognizes no limits to our freedom from unreasonable searches, not even in national emergencies or airports. Nor may government act as if potential victims of terrorism are terrorists themselves and abuse them accordingly.

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The Amendment continues, “. . . and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.” The Founding Fathers simply assumed and then implied that no search will ever happen without a warrant. And no warrant happens without suspicion so strong it’s “probable” that the subject committed a crime. Claiming he could commit one, as is the TSA’s habit, doesn’t fly. Warrants must also specify the search’s who and what and why. This eliminates the fishing expeditions so beloved by the TSA, which “detains” people not only for weapons and too much cash but for illegal drugs, immigration papers of the wrong color, fake ID, and other belongings irrelevant to terrorism. It also makes the agency’s harassment of two million passengers each day logistically impossible: cops and courts can’t file that many warrants, let alone pretend to suspect that many individuals.

The Fourth isn’t the Constitution’s only salvo against the TSA. It also prohibits the agency’s mere existence. Nowhere among the Federal powers it delegates are “delaying, pestering, and occasionally even killing passengers.” The Ninth and Tenth Amendments reserve such mayhem to the states and the people.

Yet in aviation’s case, as in so many others, the Constitution is a waste of good parchment for all the homage government pays it. Leviathan’s authority over aviation is nigh absolute and has been for decades. For that we can thank judicial decisions and an accident of history.

Modern judges seem to measure their professional skill by how ingeniously they circumvent the Constitution. And so they invented an “interest” for the State in “safe” aviation. Where that interest comes from is anyone’s guess — certainly not from the Creator Who endows on us our inalienable rights. Meanwhile, the Constitution never concerns itself with or even mentions governmental interests. But that doesn’t faze the judiciary. It has repeatedly conjured interests from thin air when the Constitution prohibits the Feds from doing as they please. For instance, in the 1870’s, the Supreme Court found that the government had an “interest” in controlling immigration though the Constitution never empowers it to interfere with people’s movements. Likewise with “safe aviation.”

Courts have also cooked up a monstrosity called “administrative search” that annuls the Fourth Amendment. When a government official sticks “administrative” before the word “search,” he magically frees himself from the Fourth Amendment’s restrictions and requirements because he’s no longer conducting a real search. Try that on the next cop who stops you for speeding: tell him you were only “administratively” speeding. “Administrative searches” legalize such Constitutional assaults as health inspectors raiding restaurants without warrants and building inspectors trespassing on construction sites.

These judicial hijinks collided with the Progressive Era to produce the gulag that is today’s airport. Like automobiles, aeroplanes got off the ground around the turn of the twentieth century, when politicians and intellectuals were convincing Americans who had formerly distrusted government that it was in fact their best friend. Newfangled flivvers and Fokkers were playthings of the wealthy at first, with other folks greeting the contraptions skeptically or even fearfully. And so enthusiasts encouraged the State’s interest in their hobbies: not only were people learning to equate government’s regulation with safety, but subsidies and grants salved regulation’s sting. Millionaires might own cars, but where could they drive them? There were few paved roads in 1900. Ditto for planes and the infrastructure they require. Rich, politically connected pilots and drivers wanted everyone paying for that infrastructure, not just themselves and their cronies. The Constitution’s inconvenient enumeration of powers was small change compared to the dollars involved here.

Within a few decades, the Feds controlled most aspects of aviation. They owned outright such operations as control towers while regulating things like the design of aircraft so heavily they might as well have nationalized the factories. When hijacking planes as a political stunt became popular in the 1960’s, most Americans expected the Federal Aviation Administration to subsume aviation’s security, too. It gladly obliged, publishing myriad rules that governed everything from the metal detectors it began requiring in airports to a flight crew’s response when hijacked (sit tight and comply with the criminals’ demands — cooperation that contributed to the success 19 terrorists enjoyed on 9/11).

The FAA emphasized its liability for passengers’ safety in April 2001 when it described its “mission” in “A Commitment to Security”: “FAA provides a safe, secure, and efficient global aerospace system that contributes to national security and the promotion of US aerospace safety.” It also provided minute and extremely detailed orders to airport screeners. These employees were still private, if by “private” we mean that a company rather than the Feds issued their paychecks. But such companies prior to 9/11 were little more than personnel agencies: they supplied the staff for airport checkpoints, but the FAA dictated in detail everything that staff did, down to the wanding of passengers who set off metal detectors. Blaming “private” screeners for 9/11 is like blaming a secretary for the boss’s nasty letter.

Yet that’s exactly what politicians did after terrorists easily penetrated the FAA’s “safe, secure, and efficient global aerospace system.” Most of the Democrats who condemned “private” screening had long hoped to nationalize airport searching and add tens of thousands of members to the American Federation of Government Employees, one of the nation’s largest labor unions. Most of the Republicans excoriating “private” airport security were trying to deflect attention from the Bush Administration’s failure to prevent 9/11 despite ample warnings. Between them, they capitalized on the day’s tragedies to foist yet another bureaucracy on us.

That makes the TSA a political rather than a practical response to terrorism. And it shows in its slapstick “security.” For 35 years, the Feds have operated on the assumption that disarmed passengers are safe passengers — but absolutely no research substantiates this. In fact, both research and common sense tell us that it’s just the opposite on the ground, so why would it be different at 35,000 feet? It’s the same for checkpoints: presuming that disarmed passengers are a good thing, no one has tested the TSA’s methods for finding weapons. There may be less expensive, more efficient ways to secure planes, but no one knows because Congress unilaterally slapped a security system on aviation (with the industry’s enthusiastic cooperation: when taxpayers fork over $7 billion annually for the TSA, airlines don’t have to).

To this toxic brew you can add employees who are as incompetent as they are surly. TSA screeners are tested frequently on their job skills, whether by the TSA and its parent bureaucracy, the Department of Homeland Security, or the Government Accountability Office or even by the occasional college student. Typically, screeners who never miss your bottle of Chardonnay or Chanel fail to find 65%, 75%, even 90% of the weapons undercover investigators smuggle past them. And they fail this overwhelmingly even though they cheat! Turns out a bureaucrat in the TSA’s headquarters was alerting “Federal Security Directors” at airports so that they could inform screeners what the undercover agents looked like and what tricks they’d pull.

Screeners’ scores plunged further, to 0%, when a guy completely unaffiliated with the Feds whose plans couldn’t be leaked ran his own tests. Nathaniel Heatwole was a 20-year-old college student in 2003 when he spirited packages containing box-cutters, matches, bleach, molding clay, and a note aboard six planes. Nat then emailed the TSA and told them what he’d done; he considered himself a civic-minded hero who’d helped the country by showing the TSA its vulnerabilities. He must have been pretty disillusioned when the TSA ignored him. In fact, his packages would still be aboard all those flights — except that the airline’s maintenance crews found them and snitched to the Feds.

Nat had made an utter fool of the TSA, so the government charged him with a felony. That could have put him in prison for a decade. It eventually settled for fining him $500, putting him on probation for two years, and requiring him to perform 100 hours of community service. Revealing the TSA for a total sham apparently doesn’t count as “community service.”

But we ought not allow the TSA’s failures to obscure its successes. It’s a champ at making work: it enables 50,000 screeners, let alone the layers of management that abound in any bureaucracy, to leech off our taxes. And it enormously enriches the corporations that manufacture its gizmos and accessories: its newest toys, millimeter-wave machines that peer through clothing so that passengers appear naked on screeners’ monitors, cost $170,000 each — and the TSA plans to install these pornographic scanners at all 2800 checkpoints nationwide. No wonder corporate America and its media love the TSA.

But the agency’s greatest success lies in training formerly free Americans to cringe and kowtow to their rulers. And that endangers us far more gravely than any terrorist.

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17 Responses to “TSA: Tyrannical, Silly Agency”

1. Alicia Says:
   July 8th, 2009 at 9:08 am

   Don’t forget that these same incompetents get quarterly “bonuses” off the taxpayer dole even if they FAIL their competency testing on things such as “hand wanding” or “pat downs”….if they FAIL they receive a 500 dollar quarterly bonus. Whoever heard of any federal agency giving out bonuses? In the airport where I work, several TSA employees who were issued federal credit cards abused them with personal purchases at stores. One even used it to get cash advances at a casino and not only was she NOT disciplined she was promoted twice in a six mth period to a supervisory position. When is this failed welfare program going to end?

   

   huh? Reply:
   July 11th, 2009 at 10:11 am

   Wow you seem to really be in the know! I seriously doubt anyone especially a TSA employee would discuss this this with you. How do you know all this? (By the way, I KNOW this is total BS.)

2. colt beavers Says:
   July 8th, 2009 at 9:39 am

   NONE of them coulld get a job at McDonalds. Laughable and sickening…like everything else that Washington has ANYTHING to do with. Every day further down the rabbit hole.

   

   huh? Reply:
   July 11th, 2009 at 10:14 am

   ANYONE can get a job at McDonalds (except you maybe) any better ideas on airport security? How about: “I’m not the bad guy check him, not me.” or how about “trust me”
   Such purist and self-serving attitides have proven disasterous throught history. Smart up moron

3. velovet Says:
   July 8th, 2009 at 10:57 am

   Be assured that TSA will do nothing but act in a more insane fashion as the police state progresses. Their behavior, the cost of flying, the reduced maintenance of passenger aircraft, the increase in canceled flights, may well solve the problem. Sometimes, the best way to control your enemy is to do nothing. (Avoid flying if possible).

4. Andy Says:
   July 8th, 2009 at 1:26 pm

   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tEJpzVPmih0

   part 1 of the TSA recording

5. dno7956 Says:
   July 8th, 2009 at 1:40 pm

   The last time I stepped of of an airplane was the day the air traffic controllers went on strike. The only recent experience I have had with the airlines involves taking my grand-daughter to the airport to fly home. I see nothing that makes me feel secure. Airport security only reminds people that they are under the watchful eye of their keepers. In fact, the last time I was there, I surrendered my lighter at the gate. I forgot to leave it in my vehicle. I told the person there “here take it”. The response was “don’t worry, keep it”. So much for airport security. Hello common sense. Airport security for the passengers is nothing more than window dressing to make people feel that the government cares. If I do ever fly again I doubt that I will be a very cooperative flyer. I avoid the problem.

   

   huh? Reply:
   July 11th, 2009 at 10:23 am

   dont fly, I dont want to sit next to you anyway. take a bus and bitch and complain on that

6. Andy Says:
   July 8th, 2009 at 2:09 pm

   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v.....re=related

   fucking crazy – TSA gone wild

   

   Steve Williams Reply:
   July 8th, 2009 at 9:32 pm

   Can we expecting a randy, naughty video out soon called TSAers Gone Wild where salacious TSA personnel, drunk with power, flash their little hitler complexes at us?

   

   Steve Williams Reply:
   July 8th, 2009 at 9:50 pm

   Dammit… I fergotz to put the correct close tag on the italic html tag after the word “Wild”. Oh well, too late now. I shall now slink away in shame and embarrassment after doing such an inexcusably html-newbie type of mistake.

   I do know how to do it correctly, though…

   TSAers Gone Wild

   See?

   Quickie html italic lesson:
   1) Before the word to be iltalicized put the left pointing arrow tip.
   2) Type a small i.
   3) Put the right pointing arrow tip.
   4) Type the word you want to italic.
   5) Put the left pointing arrow tip.
   6) Put the right leaning slash.
   7) Type a small i. Put the right pointing arrow tip.

   To make a word bold text, substitute the letter b for i. Yes, html can be fun and make you seem intellectually awesome. Assuming, of course, you don’t screw up like I did. I shall now slink away in embarrassment…

   

   Steve Williams Reply:
   July 8th, 2009 at 9:56 pm

   Well, ain’t that something. I forgot the emoticon for wearing sunglasses is the number eight then a right parenthesis. Well, something else for you to know when you want to use it.

   ;)

   Ok, I’m slinking, I’m slinking…

7. Notorious Kelly Says:
   July 8th, 2009 at 3:19 pm

   I’m willing to take my chances.

   Dismantle TSA, the federal building security and all those other dog & pony shows and let’s get on with life.

   Quit pretending!

   

   huh? Reply:
   July 11th, 2009 at 10:21 am

   I agree, no security ANYWHERE! You probably wouldn’t feel that way if you or a family member of yours were to be a victim of a terrorist act….or maybe you would

8. kebcreation Says:
   July 8th, 2009 at 5:33 pm

   It never ends…schemes like this are rampant and why we are broke. Another fine price we pay for incompetence.

9. Karen Says:
   July 8th, 2009 at 8:36 pm

   I flew from Atlanta, Georgia to Albuquerque, New Mexico a few weeks ago. In security I showed my ticket and drivers license to the TSA agent. She asked me if I had a passport. Confused, I said yes but it’s at home. She said don’t you need a passport to go there. Thinking maybe she mis-read my ticket I stated, “I’m going to the state of New Mexico,in the US”.Still not understanding New Mexico is not in another country, she shrugged her shoulders.

10. Steve Williams Says:
    July 9th, 2009 at 2:26 am

    Well, ain’t that something. I forgot the emoticon for wearing sunglasses is the number eight then a right parenthesis. Well, something else for you to know when you want to use it.

    ;)

    Ok, I’m slinking, I’m slinking…
    Oops…forgot to say great post! Looking forward to your next one.