Congressman Claims TSA Assault During Screening
On a recent flight from Texas’s San Antonio International Airport Congressman Francisco Canseco (R-TX) claims a Transportation Security Administration (TSA) Transportation Security Office (TSO) assaulted him during a random pat down.
During the screening process Rep. Canseco claims the TSO’s screening process became too uncomfortable causing him to move the screener’s hand to the side, triggering a response from Supervisors.
Rep Canseco claims to have been selected for a random screening again, the following week, on the 22nd of April, which he believes was retaliatory rather than random.
Following the second selection for pat down in a week the Congressman released the following statement, “I believe that TSA has become an agency without restraint, and its overzealous policies threaten people’s personal dignity and freedom. There are other ways of securing airways from terrorists without forcing people to make such sacrifices, which I believe we in Congress should look into.”
Much like when Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) had an incident with the TSA at Nashville International Airport, turning to the media rather than his position on the Senate’s Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee … Rep. Canseco should be turning to his seat on the House Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, which has oversight over the TSA.
Elected officials in the House and Senate need to use their positions of power to not only have their voices heard in the media, especially during an election cycle, but also from the elected seats which they hold the can effect a change.
There is no disagreement by the majority of ‘the people’ and elected officials in Washington D.C. that the TSA needs oversight … hopefully Rep Canseco goes back to the House Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, confers with fellow Texan committee member Randy Neugebaur (R-TX), the committee Chairman, and the gears of politics are set in motion to provide some oversight to the agency.
Happy Flying!
I have been on planes with Congressmen and Senators who think they are above all the rules we common folk need to put up with. This is nothing new when they act out thinking they are special.
Completely agree with his statement that TSA has gained too much power. It’s pretty ridiculous to go to an airport in the US and see some of the things they do, and then head into Canada, and realize that they don’t appear to be reactionary, like the TSA..
Although it’s not an end to the issues with TSA, I truly hope more airports exercise their right to have security screening conducted by private firms (FirstLine @ MCI, CAS @ SFO, as two examples).
It’s been a busy week for TSA. They molested three children, a ten year old with a diabetes pump, a four year old who hugged her grandma and a seven year old with cerebral palsy, twice! They also sexually assaulted a Congressman and four TSA screeners were arrested for smuggling drugs through LAX.
Let’s hear it from the TSA apologists who continue to say that this crime and abuse by TSA is somehow improving airline security. They seem to think these perverts are the good guys.
There were a total of 91 TSA workers arrested in the last 16 months including 12 arrested for child sex crimes, over 25 for theft, ten for smuggling and even one for murder. Crime, abuse and incompetence is so widespread in TSA that even Kip Hawley, the last TSA Director, has called for its overhaul.
This just demonstrates how stupid and sick the whole TSA approach is and why it needs to be overhauled. TSA has done more damage to our liberty, way of life and morality than Al Qaeda could have ever hoped to do.
It’s long past time to replace this agency with a sensible and effective system.
I am by no means an apologist for the TSA but from a statistical basis, Congress has a higher criminal rate than does the TSA. Let’s see, there are about 45,000 TSA workers and 535 in Congress. So assuming 91 arrests for criminality that’s a rate of .002. Actual criminality is harder to quantify in Congress, but Fox news documented 11 sexual scandals in a two year period. Cutting that in half to make it an annual, the result is a rate of .01, considerably higher than the rate for the TSA, so you’re asking the foxes to reform the chicken coup. TSA is pure compared to Congress.