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TSA Broke the Law, Must Take Public Comment on Body Scanners

July 15, 2011 By
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Kudos to EPIC on their hard work here. The TSA should roll back all scanning and groping until such time as we have a chance to scream their heads off about this in a public comment period. Oh, I can’t wait to see this. Let’s do something special when they finally open up the public comment period. Any ideas?

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: EPIC, public comment, supreme court, TSA
  • http://comcastissue.blogspot.com u235sentinel

    The TSA has the same attitude as Concast cable. That is, they DON’T care….

    Yeah. I think that about captures it.

  • Mark in Pittsburgh

    Since the TSA broke the law, what will be the punishment? Will the government fine itself? Will it fire, or at least reprimand, a bureaucrat for not following the law? This is a question to be put to Congress, in particular, someone like Rep. John Mica (Chair of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee).

    More importantly, how can the public comment on scanning and groping? That’s an important question to ask loud and often. I think we all know that they simply didn’t forget to have a period of public comment. In no way did they want to open themselves to that level of public anger.

    Incidentally, if public comments show the public as overwhelmingly objecting to scan and grope, then one could argue that any traveler who was detained, fined or punished in any way for objecting to scanning and groping should be able to seek compensation.

    • http://GeorgeDonnelly.com George Donnelly

      Great questions, Mark. Thank you.

  • http://www.robsama.com Rob Sama

    Kickstarter campaign to fund a national poll to determine where the pu lic really stands on this issue. Submit poll resuts as comment during comment period.

    • http://GeorgeDonnelly.com George Donnelly

      Sounds interesting. It’s not just an issue of whether it’s popular or not tho …

      • http://www.robsama.com Rob Sama

        Legislators respond to popular pressure. Make it clear that our position is the popular one, and they’re more likely to move in our direction. The Comments period provides the venue to make our voices heard.

        • http://GeorgeDonnelly.com George Donnelly

          I suspect a scientific poll would reflect a lot of indifference and tacit support tho.

  • Robert

    Where and when will be the hearing? What about the rapes, assaults and murders the TSA has committed? Will there be a hearing about those? Will Pistole stand trial for rape, assault and the violation of various laws?

  • Jim Babb

    If they determine that the public prefers not to be violated at the airport, then what?

    We can make some hay with this, but we’ve never needed a court to award the public an opportunity to comment.

    I can’t see this going anywhere except some more bad PR for the TSA.

    • http://GeorgeDonnelly.com George Donnelly

      I agree, and we should use the opportunity to put maximum corrective pressure on these folks. We must be civil and loving, but firm.

  • Steve Van De Bogart

    someone @ the TSA circumvented the law. Don’t bother trying to prosecute them, hit them where it hurts, in the pocketbook,revoke their government pension! I think this will stop all this funny business if these government employees know that they could lose their pension for bad / illegal decisions they make!

  • Gus in New York

    If in fact the TSA has violated administrative law by evading due process, then the next step would be to seek an injunction against the use of body scanners until the public consultation period has ended and a response has been issued. The Electronic Privacy Information Center and American Civil Liberties Union need financial support to pursue this issue.

  • Pingback: TSA Has Refined Insecurity - Notes From the Road

  • http://wewontfly.com/tsa-broke-the-law-must-take-public-comment-on-body-scanners#comments Jamie

    No offense I read this and am really taken by how many people seem to not care that anyone can put you seriously in harms way. I don’t have an issue with any protocols that are done necessarily to protect me and my family when I travel. I look at old news reports of some individuals trying to blow up groups of people with thier bra or underwear. Get real people we are dealing with real time and I want to know confidently that I am protected when i am flying. If you don’t like it ride in your car to get where you need to go. This is really petty to me and truly unfortunate especially when my hysband is in Afghanistan fighting for the very reason we are doing this in the first place.

    • http://GeorgeDonnelly.com George Donnelly

      TSA is putting us in harm’s way. TSA makes us less safe. Wake up. Do your research.

      Also, and it pains me to tell you this, your husband is not fighting for anything other than to preserve US hegemony in the region. That’s it. Everything else is propaganda.

      http://www.ivaw.org/

      • jamie

        No offense to you, but you have got to be living on some other planet. I have done my research and very thoroughly and don’t insult my intelligence over your ignorance. My husband as well as many others no matter the consequence preserve for you to sit here and bash this “in harm’s way attitude”. TSA should have had this stuff implemented ages ago and then maybe 9/11 may have not happen and lives would have been spared. You do your research buddy nothing is ever free obviously, and if you think it is ok for boob and underwear bombers to come on your flight and blow you up be my guest it means you are not human, but for me i would rather have the protection which is why these things are in place. You my friend make it a lot worse than it really is since I travel quite frequently. You are entitled to you opinions as I am entitled to mine. At least i won’t ever have to worry about flying next to you since you insult my husband and his service “since it pains you so much”. Get a life dude.

        • http://GeorgeDonnelly.com George Donnelly

          Jamie, I already did my research. And I already spoke to media and their audiences on multiple continents about it. I co-founded We Won’t Fly and have written most of the articles you will find on this website. Have you read this page?

          http://wewontfly.com/why/

          Have you heard from the leading Israeli security expert who says he can get enough explosive through a scanner to take down a large jet?

          Have you been watching the news? Are you aware of the constant stream of TSA screwups, of letting pistols, stun guns, knives, etc on board? Do you know that cargo is hardly screened? That non-passengers are hardly screened?

          You’re not thinking rationally, if you think the choice is between having the TSA and having airplanes bombed. That’s a false dichotomy and logical fallacy. There are many other options.

          I would rather have protection as well. But the TSA doesn’t give that. They make it worse.

          I hope your husband comes back from the empire’s war of aggression in Afghanistan safely. But don’t kid yourself. Before you swallow the propaganda, do some research.

        • terre tulsiak

          This does not sound like the reaction of one who is living with her husband in danger every day . Why get into a stress-inducing pissing contest with Anyone?

  • Monica47

    jaimie: My husband served his country for 20 years so I respect the service of yours. When my husband took his officer oath in the Marine Corps he promised in that oath to defend the Constitution of the United State of America. What the TSA is doing is not Constitutional. They violate the 4th Amendment every day by demanding that American citizens submit to radiation and/or groping. And if you complain they attempt to violate your 1st Amendment by telling you to shut up. We pride ourselves in being a free country – something your husband and mine took an oath to protect. The minute you walk into an airport your basic freedom from being searched, groped or virtually strip searched without probable cause is gone.

    On 9/11 the terrorists hijacked those planes – they didn’t blow them up. If the airlines and the aviation community and the government had installed reinforced cockpit doors as pilots had requested for years those planes would never have been flown into those buildings. The shoe bomber and the underpants bomber were not American citizens and did not get on planes in this country. Passengers diffused both these incidences. Since instituting all these new “security measures” the TSA has had 25,000 security breaches and when tested have never gotten 100%. They are NOT effective, are not trained well and have no idea who and what they really should be concentrating on. The TSA can’t tell the difference between a credible threat and a dirty diaper or breast prosthesis. They allowed a Nigerian man without a passport with an outdated boarding pass not in his name on a flight from NY to LA. A flight attendant discovered this not the TSA. They punish passengers who refuse to go through the scanners with unknown amounts of radiation by molesting them. Some of them are stealing your electronics while you are otherwise occupied being screened. This is NOT professional security. It’s there to make you feel safe when in fact you are not. If you want to believe you are then go ahead and submit to this insult and violation. My husband didn’t spent 20 years defending this country so that his wife could be groped by someone in rubber gloves because they work for the government. I won’t be flying until this country finds a sane, dignified and professional way to secure our airspace.

  • Michael

    The real question is how much freedom are you willing to give up to feel ‘safe’? You aren’t ever totally safe, anything can happen at any time. You could be blown to bits by a terrorists detonating a bomb in the TSA security line. There, now do you feel safer? And to be honest, we would probably be considerably safer if we weren’t sending our troops all over the world for endless wars, wars that are now the longest we as a nation have ever been engaged in. Longer than WWII, which I think was far more of a threat to our future than a handful of dumbass terrorists who got lucky due to our failed intelligence. Hell, had we had locked cockpit doors before 9/11 it wouldn’t even have happened. Think about that. Think about the lives that could have been saved in the past 10 years, not to mention the money that wouldn’t have been spent on fighting 2 wars while giving out massive TAX BREAKS, which puts us where we are now, totally screwed.

  • Anon

    Where are the LINKS to the stories??? Most of your posts are like this, and it is very irritating.

    • http://georgedonnelly.com/ George Donnelly

      A few of our older posts use a piece of software that we’re transitioning away from and they’re incomplete while we’re doing that. Please accept my apologies. The latest posts are fine tho.

  • terre tulsiak

    Just a word- can’t you relink the story so that people who may want to stay involved can refer to what sounds like a significant piece? If we have to go elsewhere to find it we may not come back-(everyone isn’t totally fluent in web surfing)

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