This weekend the TSA saw fit to invade a man’s privacy at a train station in Charlotte, North Carolina. I kid you not, these TSA agents suspected the man was carrying materials for the creation of a nuclear weapon. Right, since nuclear bombs have been going off on American trains all over the place.
It turned out that the TSA’s german shepherd actually just liked the dog smell on the man.
As the Charlotte Observer reports:
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 sites 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.”
Great. These pests don’t know when to quit. Since they either have not read the United States Constitution or are willfully ignoring it, let’s read the 4th Amendment again:
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
Airport and railway harassment—I mean “security”—also don’t appear in Article 1 Section 8.
To make the illegality worse, President Obama is using the TSA’s activites as a ploy to raise taxes—an additional $100 on each plane and a tripling of the current per-passenger fee of $2.50 each way to $7.50. As though that will do anything to close the deficit.
How about a better idea, one that Ron Paul has championed. Eliminate the TSA, with its naked scanners and groping, and let airlines, airports, and passengers provide for their own security.
