Thread: Sen. Rand Paul ‘detained’ by TSA in Nashville, TSA denies

Sen. Rand Paul: TSA pat-downs represent disservice to liberty
By Keith Laing - 01/23/12 08:27 PM ET

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) refused a pat-down from the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) on Monday, touching off a back-and-forth over the controversial agency’s airport security techniques.

Paul, who has been critical of TSA in the past, said security officials at Nashville International Airport made him miss a flight to Washington on Monday morning after he refused to agree to a hand search.

The freshman senator said during an interview with a Kentucky radio station that he offered to go back through an X-ray machine after security officials said an item on his leg triggered alarms. But he said was told, “No, you must do as you’re told or you’re going to miss your flight.”

Paul refused the pat-down, exited the security area, booked a later flight to Washington and returned to the security area, where he went through the X-ray machines without incident. He noted he flies through that airport at least once a week and had been allowed to go back through the X-ray machines on previous occasions when he set off an alarm.

He said that security at airports was necessary, but TSA’s pat-downs went too far.

“We need security and everybody should go through some,” he said during an interview with Lexington, Ky., radio host Leland Conway. “But I think there’s a breaking point where we’re invading people’s privacy and we’re invading their dignity.

“The pat-down is not [catching] anybody, and I think it’s a disservice to our liberty,” he said.

Sen. Paul’s father, Republican presidential candidate and Texas Rep. Ron Paul (R), agreed Monday. The elder Paul said that the TSA incident pointed to a “police state,” and he reiterated his call for eliminating the agency.

“The police state in this country is growing out of control,” Rep. Paul, who confirmed the incident Monday morning on his Twitter page, said in a statement released by his presidential campaign.

“One of the ultimate embodiments of this is the TSA that gropes and grabs our children, our seniors and our loved ones and neighbors with disabilities,” he continued. “The TSA does all of this while doing nothing to keep us safe. That is why my ‘Plan to Restore America,’ in addition to cutting $1 trillion in federal spending in one year, eliminates the TSA.”

TSA defended its treatment of Sen. Paul, saying that its employees in Nashville followed normal procedure with the senator, who has often sharply criticized the agency’s pat-downs.

“When an irregularity is found during the TSA screening process, it must be resolved prior to allowing a passenger to proceed to the secure area of the airport,” the agency said in a written statement. “Passengers who refuse to complete the screening process cannot be granted access to the secure area in order to ensure the safety of others traveling.”

Original reports said the senator was detained. Rep. Paul tweeted that early Monday morning, writing: “My son @SenRandPaul being detained by TSA for refusing full body pat-down after anomaly in body scanner in Nashville.”

But U.S. security officials denied that Sen. Paul was held by the agency. Instead, they said, the senator was escorted out of the security area following his refusal to accept a pat-down.

TSA’s statement noted that “the passenger,” Paul, was “rebooked on another flight and was rescreened without incident.”

Both Pauls have been vocal critics of the TSA, calling for the controversial agency to be disbanded.

“This kind of gets back to this whole idea of what we are willing to ... give up as a country,” Sen. Paul said of pat-downs last summer during a hearing in which TSA Administrator John Pistole appeared before lawmakers.

“Ninety-five-year-old women humiliated, children molested, disabled people abused,” Rep. Paul said of TSA last summer, during one of his weekly “Texas Straight Talk” audio addresses. “Men and women subjected to unwarranted groping and touching of their most private areas, and involuntary radiation exposure.

“If the perpetrators were a gang of criminals, their headquarters would be raided by SWAT teams and armed federal agents,” Rep. Paul continued. “Unfortunately, in this case, the perpetrators are armed federal agents.”

On Monday, Sen. Paul said that he did not take issue with his treatment by TSA owing to his status as a member of Congress.

“I don’t want any special treatment,” he said during the interview with the Kentucky radio station. “I won’t introduce any legislation to make me get special treatment [as a senator].

“But I would like to see everyone have the ability to go back through the screener,” he said.

Rep. Paul agreed there needed to be changes, saying that as a presidential aspirant he was “deeply committed” to restoring “the freedom and respect for liberty that once made America the greatest nation in human history.” The Texas lawmaker is one of the four remaining candidates for the Republican presidential nomination.

However, the White House defended TSA in the standoff with the Kentucky senator.

“I think it is absolutely essential that we take necessary actions to ensure that air travel is safe,” White House press secretary Jay Carney said.
— Posted at 4:07 p.m. and updated at 8:27 p.m.




Sen. Rand Paul: TSA pat-downs represent disservice to liberty - The Hill's Transportation Report

If The TSA Will Treat Senator Rand Paul Like A Scumbag, What Will They Do TO YOU?



On Monday, U.S. Senator Rand Paul was detained by the TSA for about two hours at an airport in Nashville. By doing so, TSA officials directly violated the U.S. Constitution and they demonstrated once again why the rest of the world is coming to regard us as a bunch of disgusting, arrogant "pig people". Do we really want to get such a bad reputation that virtually nobody will ever want to visit this country? We are going to absolutely destroy our tourism industry with this nonsense. Yes, we all want to fly safely, but other countries get the job done without their security officials running around acting like a bunch of Nazi prison guards. The TSA should be shut down, but if Congress wants it to continue to exist it should be given a dual mandate. It should be directed to protect the dignity of the American people first, and the safety of the American people second. If those running the TSA don't believe that this is possible, then they should be immediately replaced, because there are a whole lot of good people out there that could get the job done. Right now, TSA officials are treating American citizens like they aren't even human. The truth is that Rand Paul got off easy compared to what has happened to many other Americans. As I have written about previously, some elderly Americans have been strip-searched, some have had their adult diapers removed, and some have even been left covered in urine by invasive TSA searches. If the TSA will treat Senator Rand Paul like a scumbag, and if they will brutally strip-search elderly women, than what do you think they are going to do to you when the time comes?

I don't know about you, but I did not sign up to live in North Korea.

I signed up to live in America.

But the country we are living in does not look much like America anymore.

It is as if the U.S. Constitution does not even matter anymore.

When TSA thugs detained Senator Rand Paul, they directly violated the U.S. Constitution, and nobody in the mainstream media seems upset by this.

Fortunately, many in the alternative media have taken note of this constitutional violation. The following is from an article by Steve Watson....

The Constitution specifically protects federal lawmakers from being detained while en route to Washington DC.

Article I, Section 6 states:

“The Senators and Representatives…shall in all Cases, except Treason, Felony and Breach of the Peace, be privileged from Arrest during their Attendance at the Session of their respective Houses, and in going to and returning from the same….”

Rand Paul was travelling from his home in Louisville to attend a session in the Senate today.

The TSA is publicly saying that "normal procedure" was followed during the episode involving Senator Rand Paul. He was detained in a small cubicle for approximately two hours after he inadvertently set off a scanner alarm.

A Daily Caller article described what happened to Senator Paul when he attempted to leave the cubicle that he was being held in....

“I tried to leave the cubicle to speak to one of the TSA people and I was barked at: ‘Do not leave the cubicle!’ So, that, to me sounds like I’m being asked not to leave the cubicle. It sounds a little bit like I’m being detained.”

That is how TSA agents are trained to behave. They are trained to bark orders at us. It doesn't even matter if you are a U.S Senator apparently.

TSA agents on the scene wanted to subject Senator Paul to an "enhanced pat-down" during which his genitals would be touched. Understandably, Senator Paul did not want to submit to such a humiliating inspection....

“For an hour and a half, they said ‘absolutely, I would have to [accept a pat-down],’” Paul said. “And, because I used my cell phone, they told me I would have to do a full body pat down because you’re not allowed to use your cell phone when you’re being detained.”

Thankfully, Senator Paul was eventually allowed to go back through the original scanner and it did not beep the second time through.

Other travelers have not been treated so nicely.

When informed about this incident, the Obama administration was quick to defend the TSA.

White House press secretary Jay Carney said the following about the incident....

"I think it is absolutely essential that we take necessary actions to ensure that air travel is safe."

Of course that is a bunch of nonsense. Dozens of other countries have a far better air security record than we do and yet they do not subject their citizens to this kind of abuse.

Rand Paul's father, presidential candidate Ron Paul, issued a statement which strongly condemned the actions of the TSA....

"The police state in this country is growing out of control. One of the ultimate embodiments of this is the TSA that gropes and grabs our children, our seniors, and our loved ones and neighbors with disabilities. The TSA does all of this while doing nothing to keep us safe."

Hopefully this will become a major issue during the race for the Republican nomination.

Instead of spending all of our time discussing Mitt Romney's taxes or Newt Gingrich's "skeletons", we should be spending a lot more time talking about how the United States of America is rapidly being transformed into a totalitarian police state.

It is absolutely disgusting what some Americans are being forced to endure just to get on a flight.

During a Congressional hearing in 2011, Senator Paul expressed outrage over the fact that TSA agents are feeling up the private areas of little girls in the name of "national security"....

"You’ve gone overboard and you’re missing the boat on terrorism because you’re doing these invasive searches on six-year-old girls."

And you know what?

What the federal government does sets an example for the rest of the nation.

Over in Stark County Ohio a couple of years ago, it was documented that police strip-searched female suspects until they were fully naked, recorded them on video and then left them naked in their cells for up to six hours.

Of course all of that was done in the name of "keeping us safe", right?

Some example we are setting for the rest of the world, eh?

Our country is going downhill so fast that it is hard to find words to describe it.

A lot of us are not flying anymore because we don't want the TSA examining our private parts, but now the TSA is bringing its own special brand of "security" to thousands of other locations across the United States as the Los Angeles Times recently detailed....

The Transportation Security Administration isn't just in airports anymore. TSA teams are increasingly conducting searches and screenings at train stations, subways, ferry terminals and other mass transit locations around the country.

"We are not the Airport Security Administration," said Ray Dineen, the air marshal in charge of the TSA office in Charlotte. "We take that transportation part seriously."

The TSA's 25 "viper" teams — for Visible Intermodal Prevention and Response — have run more than 9,300 unannounced checkpoints and other search operations in the last year. Department of Homeland Security officials have asked Congress for funding to add 12 more teams next year.

Who ever thought that we would see the day when "VIPER teams" were running around all over America setting up internal security checkpoints?

Even if you just sit home all day there is still a good chance that you will get the attention of the Department of Homeland Security.

The Department of Homeland Security has announced that it is now diligently watching the Internet.

According to a recent Fox News article, the Department of Homeland Security has decided that it is important for them to keep an eye on "forums, blogs, public websites and message boards"....

Though still in development, DHS is looking to establish a system for monitoring "forums, blogs, public websites and message boards." The idea is to gather and analyze publicly available information, and then use that information to help officials respond to disasters and other situations.

In case you were wondering, yes, they will probably read this article. Hopefully it will shame some of them into cleaning up their acts.

This country is being run by a bunch of psychotic control freaks that are obsessed with watching, monitoring, tracking and controlling virtually everything that we do.

Sadly, most Americans have bought into the lie that unless they give up huge chunks of liberty and freedom none of us will be safe.

But when we give these un-American control freaks an inch, they just keep trying to take a mile.

With our children, they are starting very early. As I have written about previously, most of our public schools are being turned into indoctrination centers and prison camps. Millions upon millions of Americans children are being trained to be good little slaves and most parents have no idea what is going on.

America is supposed to be about freedom and liberty.

It is supposed to be a place where we don't have control freaks on our backs 24 hours a day.

But instead we are becoming the exact opposite of what America is supposed to be.

No matter how much liberty and freedom we give up, the world is always going to be a very dangerous place.

In the future, there are undoubtedly going to be some very bad things that happen in our world.

But having TSA thugs touch the private parts of our women and our children is not going to prevent any of it from happening.

Instead of being an example for the rest of the world, we are becoming a bad joke.

Please wake up America.







If The TSA Will Treat Senator Rand Paul Like A Scumbag, What Will They Do TO YOU?

The article, If The TSA Will Treat Senator Rand Paul Like A Scumbag, What Will They Do TO YOU? posted above, was posted yesterday @ http://www.alipac.us/f19/if-tsa-will...do-you-248986/

To imprison us all…

Wednesday, January 25, 2012
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger
Editor of NaturalNews.com (See all articles...)

(NaturalNews) "To imprison us all" is a poem by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, written to counter the loss of liberty currently being witnessed across all levels of society:

To imprison our memories, they gave us revisionist history.

To imprison our present-day minds, they made us drink fluoride.

To imprison our biology, they gave us prescription medications.

To imprison our ideas, they created intellectual property laws.

To imprison our legal identities, they created social security numbers.

To imprison our children, they gave us vaccines.

To imprison our mental health, they gave us psychiatry.

To imprison our agriculture, they created genetically modified seeds.

To imprison our soils, they created chemical pesticides.

To imprison our sense of self worth, they created fashion and cosmetics.

To imprison our speech, they created SOPA.

To imprison our persons and effects, they created the TSA.

To imprison our protests, they created the NDAA.

To imprison our productivity, they created the IRS.

To imprison our money supply, they created the Federal Reserve.

To imprison our financial future, they created endless debt.

To imprison our consumption habits, they created television advertising.

To imprison our perspective, they created television news.

To imprison our medical professionals, they created medical schools.

To imprison scientific truth, they created science journals.

To imprison our teenage boys, they created violent video games.

To imprison our teenage girls, they created Gardasil.

To imprison our online interactions, they created search engine profiling and tracking technology.

To imprison our sex, they created sexual dysfunction diseases.

To imprison our foods and farms, they created the Health Department.

And then,

To secure the prisons against resistance, they passed gun restriction laws.

To quell dissent, they taught the masses to be dehumanized and dumbed-down.

To solidy their arrogance over the masses, they erected a scientific dictatorship.

To ensure blind obedience, they positioned government as savior.

But,

While the prisons were numerous and carefully constructed,

No matter how hard they tried,

They could not imprison our souls.

And once we recognized the prisons,

And identified those responsible for building them,

We rose up against them,

Setting free our minds,

Our bodies

Our children

Our productivity

Our liberties

And our futures.

We are Americans. To imprison us all...

Is inconceivable.

Learn more: To imprison us all…