Texans Revolt Against TSA

December 17, 2010 By George Donnelly

Concerned individuals in Austin, Texas are resisting the TSA through the local government. Hats off to them! They actually convinced the airport advisory commission to take a stand against the naked body scanners. Their next target? Austin city council. Imagine if their efforts were replicated in every city across the nation? That’s where you come in.

Of course, local governments have no power over the TSA in the US state system. Only at the federal level can the TSA be reigned in.

Notice how the person representing the pro-scanner position says things like “I like to think it makes us safer” and “I hope that’s enough”. Clearly, passenger security requires a sounder foundation than “liking to think” and “hoping”.

Here’s a video of the Austin airport advisory council meeting itself.

Filed Under: Resistance Tagged With: Austin, revolt, scanners, Texas

http://www.karmajunkie.com Keith

Most people don’t realize that airports aren’t OBLIGATED to use TSA for security screening. A local government CAN kick the TSA out altogether. Here’s hoping Austin does just that!
- http://GeorgeDonnelly.com George Donnelly
  
  The airports can kick out TSA employees, but any corporate security they replace them with have to use the same machines, same procedures as the TSA employees. TSA still calls the shots. It is a fake opt out and not a real solution. It simply opens the way for crony privatization.
  - Steve
    
    Actually, no, we the TSA does not have the final say. All that people need to do is pretty simple.
    People come into the Airport, destroy the machines and physically drive the TSA employees out of the airport.
    Then if they are brought to court, the jury uses the right of Jury Nullification to acquit those charged of any crimes.
    Jury Nullification is precisely what was used to acquit people that resisted the British agents in the colonies before the American Revolutionary War, and there’s ample case law that validates the use of Jury nullification to strike down actions by the government that are deemed illegal by the citizenry. Prohibition being one such example. Many jurors flat outright refused to convict people under prohibitiion laws because they felt the laws were illegal and thus the people walked.
    Do the same with the TSA and it’ll cease to work.
    - concerned citizen
      
      To “Encourage” people to violence is to overthrow any cause.
      And it’s immoral and it’s illegal.
      That “does not fly” at least with me.
      Violent behavior *always* discredits a cause. Period.
      Revenge begets revenge, and peaceful but effective measures are the best way to go.
      The pocketbook, for one.
      - Tim
        
        “Violent behavior *always* discredits a cause”?
        So all those people, 234 years ago, were discrediting their (and now our) cause, when they carved this nation, out of the British Empire? So all the GIs that had to violently fight their way across Europe discredited their cause, long before they made it far enough to rescue the living remnants of Nazi concenration camps? So soldiers, from all over the world, fighting under the UN, to push N Korean and Chinese soldiers back across the 38th parallel, discredited their cause? So Union soldiers, doing violence all across the CSA, in order to force seceded states back into the USA, discredited their cause? (OK…I’ll give you that last one.)
        Take the time to think, before letting your knee jerk, at the mention of violence. Saying “pretty please” doesn’t always work.
      - Jack Nauti
        
        Yeah, Jefferson, Paine, Franklin, Washington and all those other thugs: Immoral and illegal.
        
        What do YOU celebrate on July 4th?
      - concerned citizen
        
        Hello friends
        We are all on the same page. I agree that the founding fathers won our freedom based on revolution and yes, unfortunately on violence.
        However, I have seen this in watching blogs/articles, that protests based on violence are the ones that have always failed.
        Further, it frankly may be FBI agents who stir people up to violence in order to discredit a cause.
        Remember when the Tea Party member spat on a Congressman? What happened to the Party’s image from then on? I don’t believe that event was any accident at all.
        What about the violent protests when Amy Goodman was falsely arrested? Did this succeed in the mission, or did the mission fail as a result of the violence?
        Think, my friends.
        Again I agree with you about our founding fathers. But I never condone violence, just the same. Especially where protests are concerned. Violent protests only stain the image and name of the party involved, and thus the cause itself falls. Think about it.
      - solatic
        
        Sorry dude but violence IS a solution. What the hell do you think the 2nd Amendment is for? I want to see a Marine who’s well versed in martial arts try to exercise his 2nd Amendment rights and bring a gun past TSA. When it’s discovered, teach those fat bureaucrats what it means to defend yourself from a tyrannical government. When he finally gets arrested (note: not having killed anyone), if the People really agree on this then the jury will nullify and refuse to convict.
        
        That’s the supposed beauty of a Trial-by-Jury system. You may have career politicians who want to take away your freedom but in the end, it’s the people on the street who decide whether or not to actually do so.
        
        “I often wonder whether we do not rest our hopes too much upon constitutions, upon law and upon courts. These are false hopes, believe me, these are false hopes. Liberty lies in the hearts of men and women; when it dies there, no constitution, no law, no court can save it; no constitution, no law, no court can even do much to help it. While it lies there it needs no constitution, no law, no courts to save it. -Judge Learned Hand
      - Thanatos
        
        In the end, it will amount to violence or lose everything. The government has no qualms about using violence on you and it should be likewise used against them when needed. The founding fathers recognized that it would eventually come down to this and that is why they adapted a 2nd Amendment to begin with.
        
        This is not to say, however, that violence should be used to protest…..that’s not what I am talking about. I’m talking about a war with the Feds that will come eventually when enough people get fed up and rounded up and persecuted by the government as it gets even stronger and oppressive….and that day IS coming fairly quickly.
        
        Protest at the airports as peaceful as humanly possible, but when the time comes to put down the government dog who’s gotten too aggressive…..you will use violence, or you will die a losing coward and a slave of the government. Thanks, but I’d rather die fighting.
    - Cindy
      
      Viloence is never the answer. It is simple. REFUSE TO FLY.
      Unless and until the groperscand scanners are gone do not fly.
      - concerned citizen
        
        Hello everybody
        I usually make a point of not getting into heated arguments or responding to the heated messages such as here, but I do want to weigh in. This is very important:
        
        A) Sometimes it is FBI agents who agitate us to violence. They do so with a purpose in mind, to discredit a cause.
        I am *not* making any accusations here as I don’t know and have no basis on which to make such assumptions about the people posting here. However, I will repeat that for any protest to get violence, the end is usually being discredited and that applies not only to the protest, but the entire movement itself. Not funny in this case.
        
        B) Ludicrous! To count on jury nullification? To plant such hopes? Good lord. Anybody who follows such advice would be completely innocent and it’s unlikely that they would, but come on man, think about it.
        
        C) I don’t celebrate The Rocket’s Red Blare or Bombs Bursting in Air. That just makes me sick. I celebrate freedom.
        
        If you think about it, the greatest part of our founding father’s work was not founded in violence. It was founded in their geographical distancing from their British oppressors, and their Declaration of Independence.
        
        Since these wars of aggression based on lies started, I have concluded that war is almost never necessary. It is those celebrating The Bombs Bursting In Air that are just as bad as the terrorists we are supposedly fighting.
        
        “Funny” how the world perceives us as the menace while we go bragging about our terrorist chases and thumping our chests like a bunch of monkeys. It’s just plain sick and it’s the same mentality as the Holy Jihadists. National Pride, the killer! If that is what you celebrate, go ahead but you make me sick, to be honest.
        
        Here is a much better solution. I speak based on experience:
        
        Visuals work. The billboards which James and George came up with will get the message across alright. Let’s get the money raised and get them up all around the country. That is indeed the way to fight for your freedom. Peacefully, and above all, effectively, and morally.
- Charles Henderson
  
  I think most airport administrators are afraid of what would happen to them and their family if they tried to buck TSA rule.
  - MKEgal
    
    Why would they be afraid of the overwhelming gratitude of the public?
Julie

God Bless Texas!!!!!!!!!
Charles Henderson

Right on. I don’t fly either. I also won’t carry a cell phone because then the CIA can track my movements.
- Tim
  
  What are you doing, that would cause the CIA (who can’t legally conduct operations, within the US, BTW) to want to track your movements?
- MKEgal
  
  Take out the battery when you’re not using it.
  - Cindy
    
    It is not that he is doing anything wrong. It is this whole “Patriot Act” thing that has allowed the government to wire tap and intercept emails and texts without a warrant. It is creepy, big-brother-ish and makes me paranoid as hell.
    - NewYorkDan
      
      Tim, you honestly believe that because the CIA is not ALLOWED to conduct operations in the USA, that they don’t do it anyway? Oh, how quaint.
      - concerned citizen
        
        Tim, and friends here, I have posted this to other articles on this forum ad nauseum, and apologize for the repeat. But for anybody who hasn’t seen this, I urge you to please have a look. Anybody who believes that the CIA and FBI is genuinely after terrorists and not after people for the act of free speech is sadly mistaken. Yes , Cindy is right, this has everything to do with the Patriot Act.
        
        See this declassified FBI document on the ACLU’s website. Note who it cracks down on, and why:
        
        http://www.aclu.org/pdfs/tmcterrorismmemo.pdf
        
        See also this list of ACLU clients defended from FBI spying, you won’t believe it. Look at the very clear pattern, it’s undeniably a crackdown on free speech and peacefully vocal people in particular:
        
        http://www.aclu.org/cpredirect/18706
        
        Who’s on the watchlist? Mismatched names, infants, and those listed based on incomplete information, writes the ACLU: http://www.aclu.org:80/technology-and-liberty/watch-lists
        
        Does this have anything to do wtih wrong-doing? Does this have anything to do with terrorism? You had better believe that it does not. If anything, being on the FBI’s watchlist has to do with doing the RIGHT thing. CIA? Most likely, ditto.
d

Go Texas!
Bonnie

Local governments don’t have any sway over TSA, but they do have the ability to pressure the airline businesses. Airlines have had the choice to lose TSA services and opt for private security since 2003. They choose to let federal government with TSA handle things as that allows taxpayers to fund security as well as allows Big Gov to be the ‘bad guy’ in any security measures. So keep up the pressure and aim a lot of it at the airlines!
- http://GeorgeDonnelly.com George Donnelly
  
  Do you have anything to substantiate that claim that airlines can opt out of the TSA?
  - concerned citizen
    
    How about state nullification, for starters?
    We can also start by asking our County Supervisors to call for State nullification, in written statements. And contact grassroots leaders asking them to collect signatures and plug for the same.
    We can start an internet campaign to this end.
    
    Am I wrong? Maybe there are even simpler ways? THese are only ideas, for whatever they are worth. Success is the most important thing here.
- Charles Henderson
  
  Mexicana tried to get rid of the TSA. Now they are bankrupt and haven’t flown since August. What most people don’t know is that the union problems that caused the bankruptcy were started by the TSA. Remind you of anyone else? That’s right. The MAFIA has used unions for decades too.
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concerned citizen

It’s absolutely very exciting to see the success of this group and above all, the outcome. BRAVO!!!!!!

Suggestion: I think to study the talking points used in this film, and what the TSA or Federal rebuttals are, and what their arguments are in absence of rebuttal, is key to success.

We need to know their talking points and how to override them with talking points of our own.

Very important.

It would be cool to have a blog where such talking points, based on personal experience with and observations of the TSA, are logged and recorded. Then rebuttals can be formed, by groups individually.

I would suggest that such rebuttals *not* be posted to the Internet until proven successful, on film. Because to post such rebuttals prior to a filmed and publicly documented success, is to give the Feds the opportunity to overcome the rebuttals, in advance.

When filmed and posted and successful however, then it becomes the 100th monkey.

My two cents, for whatever it is worth.

This is an exciting victory and a cause worth celebrating! Thank you all!
- Anonymous
  
  Great idea, but I don’t think the TSA is particularly interested in deviating from the party line or adjusting to our arguments: they simply think they are right. I would rather see us crowdsource to develop the absolutely best rhetoric.
  
  For example, it was probably good that they had a physicist there to express their expert opinion about the safety of the radiation. But for any efforts that don’t have a scientist handy, a pretty good argument is that while some scientists say it’s safe others say it’s dangerous and it’s common knowledge that radiation can lead to cancer, so it’s a risk.
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concerned citizen

“Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants, it is the creed of slaves”. Paul Revere, Jr, House of Commons

I have news for anybody who thinks that such drastic measures as public molestation of people in airports “keeps us safe”. The man in the film who met with the Austin Airport personnel is right: What is next is being frisked by TSA if we leave our own doorsteps. I am not kidding. I lived next door to the Iron Curtain in the 70s and know what I am talking about. Dictatorships close the borders to keep people and the economy under tight control, for reasons of profit and power. When people in Iron Curtain countries left the country without government permission, their family members were taken hostage. It’s not a joke.

Think this wouldn’t happen here? I know most people on this forum “Get it” and am so grateful to all of you. But many, most Americans out there, are really *innocent* when they say “conspiracy theorist” or “Paranoid” and they don’t “Get it” at all.

When people say “this is necessary to keep us safe”, they don’ t know what they are asking for.

Power corrupts, but absolute power corrupts absolutely.

Tianenmen Square in America? Folks, this was the norm in dictatorships, not the exception. Ask anybody who has escaped from under the thumbs of dictatorial rule. Dictatorships control free speech by shooting people who are vocal. It’s no laughing matter and nothing to play with.

FYI Obama already has claimed the right to shoot Americans off the battlefield based on his own unilateral designation of YOU as “enemy combattant”, in absence of any judicial review. Unilateral, unchecked power, and secret too. Doubt it? Go to the ACLU’s website and read about it, and it was reported by the Los Angeles Times and the Washington Post.

Tianenmen Square in America? Loss of free travel? That is what’s next, and no kidding around.

How can we wake these innocent people up without their dismissing us as nutcases? They are innocent, that’s all I can say. And they are spelling OUR doom with their consent to US being molested by Federal officials. Good god. What fools these mortals be!
- MKEgal
  
  “Power corrupts, but absolute power corrupts absolutely.”
  Like the New Orleans police (& associated other law enforcement) after Katrina… they didn’t help people, they didn’t protect people, they took away people’s means to protect themselves & beat them up if they resisted. I think that pretty well fits the definition of “jack-booted thug”.
Joel

The individual states could sue based upon the 9th and 10th amendments, at least to impose their own regulation. Problem is, the federal government does actually have control over interstate commerce (so the lawsuit wouldn’t go anywhere).

Like it or not, this is a federal issue. So the only reasonable solution is to contact our congresspeople on the federal level and get them to enact federal laws against the TSA. The dissolution of the TSA and their regulations begins and ends with the federal government (or citizens enacting their 2nd Amendment rights, which was provided as the end-all protection of all other rights; but we’re not even close to that alternative at this point).
- Tim
  
  Interstate Commerce, or the TSA violating the 4th Amendment, to interfere with it, is the only other legal argument that will stand up in court. TSA telling us to submit or not fly, is interfering with interstate commerce, in cases where people, such as myself, are engaged in time-sensitive commerce.
Heather

Austin is able to do this at the city level because the airport is owned and operated by the city. ABIA is built on the old site of Bergstrom AFB, which was one of the bases closed in the 1990′s during the downsizing of military bases. The land that Bergstrom encompassed was given back to the city and Austin decided to build a new airport to replace the much smaller, centrally located Mueller facility.

I don’t think all airports are owned by the respective municipalities that they’re located in. This may be just more than complaining to city councils. It’s a matter of complaining to the actual owners/operators of the airports about the TSA. In Austin’s case, we can complain to our city and that gives us a lot of leverage because, in theory, the council listens to the wishes of its citizens (not that Austin’s council has a good track record of doing that, but the principal is there).

I urge everyone to figure out who owns their local airport and start voicing their concerns to that entity. I pray that Austin serves as a good example of the wishes of the people being heard.
SDMike

Local authorities CAN prosecute TSA employees for sexual assault. Let the courts figure out if federal rules NOT federal LAW trumps city, county, state LAWs. If the courts decide that federal agencies can make up RULES that supersede state LAW then our freedom is already lost!
- http://www.ontodayspage.blogspot..com Denis Drew
  
  My opinion on that:
  
  How can TSA administrative regs — composed with delegated Congressional legislative power – overwrite an explicit Congressional prohibition of naked child imaging: a legislative house divided against itself? Said prohibition passed First Amendment muster due to the harm done the imaged child. Viewing of (especially opposite-sex*) naked child images by either TSA or non-airport security personnel constitute the same legal offense.
  
  (An artist’s rendering of what a child’s naked scan image would look like could not be shown legally on TV — yet real female children are being viewed by male TSA viewers all over our landscape, all day and all night, with incalculable damage to many. Stop it right now!)
  
  Without TSA regs for legal cover (the government made me do it) male TSA agents (one viewer per scanner) viewing the kind of naked images of adult females which scanners transmit could be prosecuted under the same federal and/or state laws that would make such viewing illegal at any high school or skating rink entrance.
  
  Ditto — most especially! — for TSA males physically “meeting the resistance” of female genitalia or brushing hands over their private (all!) areas, every bit as much as at any department store entrance. How can mere airport regs authorize — nay, mandate! — male stranger upon female stranger attractive part-touching just because, for example, TSA may short handed on female employees (many small airports?) — instead of merely refusing boarding of same (crackpot but not criminal)?
  ******
  Both same-sex naked viewing and same-sex private part touching conflict with the justification previously cited by courts for okaying so-called administrative (warrant-less) searches: relatively limited invasion of privacy (sobriety checkpoints as far as it’s been stretched). 17 out of 17 TSA employees out of the 20 who answered a query from a travel site survey proclaimed their disgust with being forced to perform overly personal pat-downs (at last count drawing 824 mostly disgruntled comments).
  
  Courts require a balancing justification for supposed-to-be not too intrusive administrative searches. If 1 in 10 million yearly US airline flights were going down to terrorism taking 300 souls with them, would saving them supply justification to subject the other 9,999,999 plane loads to (even same-sex, adult-only) naked imaging and and random private groping (scanner saw a hanky in your pocket; you can’t just take it out and go through again — you’re wearing a sanitary napkin; you may choose a private room for your ordeal) — even assuming $5 per passenger security actually worked? Not until we begin breathalyzing every driver at every checkpoint — which would be a lot less intrusive and save a lot more lives — than nationwide X-rated security theater.
  
  A Cornell University study claimed 242 more driving fatalities per month occurred post 9/11, attributing those to travelers driving instead of flying (commenter #770 says he will fly to Mexico and drive to the U.S. if necessary to avoid the TSA).
  
  [*Same Child (p.3); Exact Same Scanner; Software Detection Only (p.2)]
  See 8 info links at: http://ontodayspage.blogspot.com/2010/12/tsa-regs-not-passed-by-congress.html
RoadWarrior

I fly frequently out of ABIA for my job, and I’ve been greatly relieved at the absence of these “enhanced” TSA technologies and procedures.

It’s purely reactive theater, not actual security…certainly nothing I’m willing to abdicate my constitutionally-guaranteed rights for.
Stacey in TX

Great job to all the concerned citizens that made their voices heard in Austin. You Rock!!! To think that our government will trade killing people by causing cancer rates to rise for an unproven technology to stop an almost non-existent passenger-terrorist threat (to speak nothing of dehumanizing men, women and children of their most basic human dignity–remaining clothed and unmolested when traveling)–is ludicrous. Absolute insanity. I guarantee–somebody is making a killing on these machines at the expense (both monetary and loss of personal freedom) of we the people.
Argyn

The Mineta Airport in San Jose is city-owned I think. Folks in the San Jose, CA area should see if they can do the same thing that is happening with the Austin city government.
Susan

I love Texas! A few people there remember what freedom and liberty are all about.
concerned citizen

Dear friends:
Please help to keep this TSA subject on the public radar above and beyond on this site and those directly linking in.
I have visited other underground news sites and the silence about the TSA is deafening. YEIKS!!!!

Please cross-post articles, videos, etc about this important subject and help to keep the internet humming. As you know and appreciate, this is extremely important. And at the push of a button, we can help. That’s all it takes, with such a big ramification. Thank you all.
NewYorkDan

History will not be kind to the TSA, or to us for tolerating it.
- Atredes
  
  Franklin is right. We are trading Our liberties for safety and we will get neither.
http://www.ontodayspage.blogspot..com Denis Drew

Flash: Helena, Montana airport scanners will display stick-figures only — apparently without TSA objection.

http://montana.watchdog.org/2010/11/19/airport-scanners-may-turn-flyers-into-stick-figures/
rlm

I am a business owner and frequent flyer who is trying to avoid commercial flying, and a Southwest Airlines pilot I talked to this weekend about going in on an airplane together told me that the airlines ARE being impacted by the defection of their business travelers. Most of the reason is TSA. He said as best I can quote “Southwest still has full planes but we are having to target the non-business public at cheap ticket prices. The other airlines are hurting as much or even more, although Delta did something brilliant: it started a corporate jets division which is doing very well. And yes, TSA is a big part of the reason that airlines are losing some of their business customers”. In summary, TSA is negative for the airlines, whether they’ll admit it or not. The Southwest pilot also said that charter and corporate jet interest has skyrocketed in recent months.
Atredes

Quite simply until people put their money where their mouth is and stop flying and Bankrupt the Airlines nothing will change! There is actually an opportunity here for someone to open an airline/charter service that does not use TSA AND does not slap surcharges on everything. It’s just too darn expensive and too much of a PITA to bother flying anymore. Just Drive. One person pointed out that more people are dying on the roads because they are not flying and if another plane blew up flying would still be safer. I agree!

How come the Israelis don’t do this nonsense … because they profile and it WORKS!
- concerned citizen
  
  I have two responses to this. First, what of people who have loved ones overseas? They can’t drive there. (But I fully support the cause of stopping the TSA frisking nonsense, and if not flying is what it takes, so be it. But also wanted to point this out. This affects our freedom, let us please not forget it).
  
  Second, to profile is to practice what the Nazis did to the Jews. And we all know where that led.
  
  There is no under-estimating the seriousness of this right within our current post-911 American climate. The ACLU, Center for COnstitutional Rights, Amnesty International, Red Cross all agree: In my best recollection, it was about 75% of the Guantanamo detainees who have actually been PROVEN innocent!
  
  Talk about security theatre. And crimes built on top of crimes. This has to stop.
Xochitl

I just don’t get the TSA. Protect us, don’t just grope us!

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