Rand Paul Of Kentucky Promises Legislation

Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky has gone public with an op-ed contribution in the Washington Times, detailing an encounter with TSA Monday in Nashville, in which he paints the TSA as intrusive, yet ineffective. The agency has responded with its side of the story in the official TSA blog.

In his op-ed, Senator Paul says an "irregularity" was found in his full-body scan, which he says he has learned is an intentional and misleading tactic to trigger random pat-downs of travelers. He continues, in part, "Despite removing my belt, glasses, wallet and shoes, the scanner and TSA also wanted my dignity. I refused.

"I showed them the potentially offending part of my body, my leg. They were not interested. They wanted to touch me and to pat me down. I requested to be rescanned. They refused and detained me in a 10-foot-by-10-foot area reserved for potential terrorists."

Paul says he was traveling to address 200,000 people at the March for Life in Washington, DC, and while he missed his flight, he's not expecting special treatment for US Senators. "Let me be clear...This is about every single one of us and how we are sick of the intrusive nature of our government.

"While sitting in the cubicle, I thought to myself, have the terrorists won? Have we sacrificed our liberty and our dignity for security? Finally, the airport head of TSA arrived after I had missed my flight. He let me go back through the scanner and this time the scanner did not go off. The only comment from TSA was that some of the alarms are simply random.

"So passengers who do everything right, remove their belts, remove their wallets, remove their shoes, their glasses and all of the contents in their pockets are then subjected to random patdowns and tricked into believing that the scanners actually detected something...

"Every time we travel, we are expected to surrender our Fourth Amendment rights, yet willingly giving up our rights does not make us any safer. It is infuriating that this agency feels entitled to revoke our civil liberties while doing little to keep us safe."

TSA blogger "Bob Burns" drew the short straw again, and on behalf of the agency posted a response which says, in part, "When a passenger or bag alarms in screening technology at a TSA checkpoint, the alarm has to be resolved before the passenger can enter the secure area past the checkpoint. Passengers who refuse to complete the screening process can’t be granted access to the secure area...This isn’t done to punish the passenger– it’s done to ensure that every person who gets on a plane is screened appropriately."

Paul concludes relating his experience with the promise, "I will further push for the reinstatement of traveler privacy and rights. I will be proposing legislation that will allow for adults to be rescreened if they so choose."

FMI: Senator Paul's Op-Ed ; TSA Blog Response