Daniel Rubin in the Feb. 8 edition of the Philadelphia Inquirer exposed another egregious example of a prominent federal agency’s absence of common decency and sense.
This involved a businesswoman who wound up facing felony charges after a dispute stemming from her objections as to how screeners for the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) handled her underwear during a private baggage screening at Philadelphia International Airport. She was acquitted of all charges.
Last month, Rubin wrote about how a TSA screener brought a 22-year-old female college student to tears after he had joked he had found a container of white powder in her luggage.
And this is on top of incidents such as the one where Newark Airport was thrown into massive turmoil after a TSA guard left his post allowing a student to sneak into a passengers’ only area to give his girlfriend a goodbye smooch or the one where a noted war correspondent was handcuffed by TSA officers after he refused to divulge his income.
The TSA is the federalization of baggage screeners that occurred after 9/11. It was not wanted by the Bush Administration nor recommended by security experts but was insisted upon by leading Democrats solely, some thought, to increase the federal workforce which is one of that party’s important constituencies.
Bush had to concede to the demand or the Democrats who controlled the Senate at the time would not have allowed other more critical security measures to be addressed.
It is time to return responsibility for baggage screening back to the airlines who want neither their planes to be blown up nor customers abused.