Submit or Else, To The New American Gestapo

As the daily reports continue to reveal the extent of TSA violations of individual rights, the more that the seeming majority of silence by the American people continues to amaze me. Are Americans so cowed as to be prepared to completely abdicate their personal freedoms and allow unlimited access to their bodies without even so much as a whisper of complaint or indignation?

I am sorry, but I cannot understand why Americans by the millions are not screaming about this rape of the constitution and their personal liberties. Possibly because those that fly are a small minority of the over all population and the rest simply don't care. But there must at least be millions of those who should be up and arms over this lunacy. They fly and they fly frequently.

Read the latest........

$11,000 fine, arrest possible for some who refuse airport scans and pat downs

If you don't want to pass through an airport scanner that allows security agents to see an image of your naked body or to undergo the alternative, a thorough manual search, you may have to find another way to travel this holiday season.

The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) is warning that any would-be commercial airline passenger who enters an airport checkpoint and then refuses to undergo the method of inspection designated by TSA will not be allowed to fly and also will not be permitted to simply leave the airport.

That person will have to remain on the premises to be questioned by the TSA and possibly by local law enforcement. Anyone refusing faces fines up to $11,000 and possible arrest.
"Once a person submits to the screening process, they can not just decide to leave that process," says Sari Koshetz, regional TSA spokesperson, based in Miami.

Koshetz said such passengers would be questioned "until it is determined that they don't pose a threat" to the public.

Palm Beach Sheriff's Office spokesperson Teri Barbera said PBSO deputies stationed at the airport would become involved when requested by the TSA.

"We will handle each incident on a case-by-case basis," she said.

No one will be forcibly searched or arrested "just because they refuse to go through the security procedures," Barbera said. "That may rise to the level of suspicious behavior for the TSA, but it wouldn't rise to the level of suspicious behavior for a deputy," she said.

But Barbera said that if a person is judged to be a possible threat, deputies are legally permitted to detain and search that individual. "The deputies will do it at the airport just as they would do it anywhere else," she said.

Once cleared by the TSA and deputies, the people will be allowed to leave, she said.

My first questions would be these. A traveler (such as I) enters into one of these TSA checkpoints. This traveler has absolutely no metal on or inside their body and they pass through the magnotometer with ease. But they have previously been flagged at the ticket counter for a random search.

The traveler refuses to accept the full body Xray scan and they refused to be searched via enhanced pat down. So now, according to this report, they will not be permitted to continue with their flight. But more importantly, they will not be allowed to leave the security area. Unless and until the TSA has questioned them and determined that their freedom can no longer be impeded.

Unless of course they do not provide satisfactory answers or the traveler decides to refuse TSA questioning All together. At which time the local police are called. And this is the point that I find extremely bothersome.

Under what authority can TSA detain (arrest) any citizen and under what statute are these detentions permissible. Recently, the TSA has been issued badges and blue uniforms that are very reminiscent of police uniforms. And there is a movement afoot in Washington, to give TSA agents actually police powers and arrest authority.

In view of what is presently happening at these TSA checkpoints, every America should be worried that the government intrusiveness that we are witnessing presently, is only the prelude to their intent to pursue further invasions of individual rights. Again under the auspices of protecting us from the enemy of terrorism. An enemy that this president and this administration, absolutely refuse to admit exists.