Showing posts with label TSA. Show all posts
Showing posts with label TSA. Show all posts

TSA: Parking At Airport Grounds For Warrantless Search

Bureaucratic dictate trumps 4th Amendment.             The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) has now expanded its intrusive searching protocol to include the interior of parked cars left at the airport.  Reports of vehicle searches have been reported at multiple airports since this summer. Since roughly June, airports have    ... MORE

Crony Capitalism Drives Airport Security

from The Dollar Vigilante Blog.     There is yet another reason not to fly into or within the US. “Nazi-style detention pods” – that's what opponents of the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) have called the new “exit pods” being tested at the Syracuse (NY) airport. But the pods are not primarily a rape of civil rights. Their import       ... MORE

TSA Spent Nearly $1 Billion To Detect 0 Terrorists

So much for behavior detection officers.             Transportation Security Administration (TSA) spent approximately $900 million over the last 5 years for behavior detection officers to identify high-risk passengers but, so far, according to the General Accountability Office (GAO), only 0.59% of the passengers flagged were arrested and among those   ... MORE

Susan Stellin: Security Check Starts Long Before You Fly

New scrutiny for air travelers.         The Transportation Security Administration is expanding its screening of passengers before they arrive at the airport by searching a wide array of government and private databases that can include records like car registrations and employment information.  While the agency says that the goal is to      ... MORE

Niels Gerson Lohman: Why I Will Never Return To The U.S.

America has become an ugly place to visit.      After a year of travelling, I had planned a last, short trip. I was going to take the train from Montreal to New Orleans. The travels I had been undertaking earlier this year had brought me to places that were meant to form the background of my second novel. This trip, however was for my  ... MORE

Emily Goff: The Top 10 Ways Washington Wastes Money

Lawmakers have lost control.      Whether it’s negotiating over how much to spend on government operations or the government’s borrowing limit, we hear a familiar refrain in Washington these days: There is absolutely no room to cut federal spending. This is not the case. Many people remember the millions spent on the infamous “Bridge     ... MORE

Katie Kieffer: AWESOME! TSA Creepers Just Got Creepier

Government gropers to become ubiquitous.   Janet Napolitano’s TSA agents won’t keep their blue, latex-covered paws to themselves. The TSA is now expanding its grope to rodeos, sports stadiums, music festivals and train stations. The TSA’s signature move is like the signature move of a guy who “accidently” brushes his hand against a woman’s   ... MORE

Steve Chapman: TSA's Inept Bureaucracy Mindlessly Grows

Just like its close relative, the cancer cell.        If you're an air traveler who feels the urge to pull your hair out every time you enter a security line at the airport, you may have considered taking Amtrak or even the bus instead. If so, you may want to scratch that idea. The Transportation Security Administration, you see, is showing up in ... MORE

Ron Nixon: TSA Expands To Railroad Stations And Beyond

Government expands its warrantless search program.     As hundreds of commuters emerged from Amtrak and commuter trains at Union Station on a recent morning, an armed squad of men and women dressed in bulletproof vests made their way through the crowds. The squad was not with the D.C. Police Department or Amtrak’s      ... MORE

Mark K. Matthews: TSA Misconduct Is On The Rise

Luggage theft. Drug use. Sleeping on the job.    These are just a handful of nearly 10,000 reports of misconduct involving employees at the Transportation Security Administration from 2010 to 2012, according to a new watchdog report.  As disturbing, wrote federal investigators, is that these allegations are on the rise: increasing from 2,691 reports  ... MORE

Walter E Williams: Profiling

Understanding probability is useful.   Police Capt. Louis Renault, played by Claude Rains in the 1942 movie "Casablanca," in the wake of the shooting of a Nazi officer, ordered his men to "round up the usual suspects." Was Renault engaging in some sort of profiling? He may have been, but what is profiling? Let's look at it. We can think of    ... MORE

TSA: Pay More And We Will Grope You Less

Purchase exemption from warrantless airport searches.   The government is expanding the ways airline passengers can enroll in an expedited screening program that allows travelers to leave on their shoes, light outerwear and belts and keep laptop computers in cases at security checkpoints. Under the Transportation Security Administration's  ... MORE

TSA Conducts Searches On Valet-Parked Cars At Airport

More warrantless searches from the feds.     The Transportation Security Administration is directing valet attendants to search parked cars for explosives at a New York airport, according to a report by local television station News10NBC.  Traveler Laurie Iacuzza recently flew out of Greater Rochester International Airport and upon returning    ... MORE

4 Ways the Fourth Amendment's Already Being Pummeled

by Ed Krayewski.   Last week The Guardian and The Washington Post reported that the National Security Agency collects information on the phone and Internet habits of millions of Americans. Since then we've seen President Barack Obama argue against the strawman of combining “100 percent privacy and 100 percent security.” We've seen the      ... MORE

David Bittle: TSA = Thousands Standing Around

The enormous apparatus isn’t making us safer.    Not long ago while walking through the airport, the following announcement caught my attention: “Will the person who forgot their hearing aids please return to the Transportation Security Administration security checkpoint to reclaim them.” It took me a moment to absorb entirely the irony of the   ... MORE

Steve Chapman: When In Doubt, Do Nothing

Credo of the government bureaucrat. Once in a while, a government agency adopts a policy that is logical, hardheaded, based on experience and unswayed by cheap sentiment. This may be surprising enough to make you reconsider your view of bureaucrats. But not to worry: It usually doesn't last. In March the federal Transportation Security Administration  . ... MORE

DHS Explains Plans To Buy 1.6 Billion Rounds Of Ammo

It is all about saving taxpayer money.      The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has responded to a letter dated November 13, 2012 from Senator Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) regarding the agency's ammunition purchases. Sen. Coburn published the response on the U.S. Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs      ... MORE