Hey! Did you know TSA Administrator John Pistole’s email might be a little something like john.pistole@dhs.gov? Now you do.
You could email him something like this…
Dear Mr. John Pistole,
The TSA’s security procedures violate the constitution.
It will take many years and court cases to end them, but they will end. In the meantime, you have the power to stop them today.
I have written my congressmen. I have consulted airlines and airports. But because of your rules, I can’t get on a plane without the risk of 1) a stranger seeing my naked body, 2) a stranger handling my breasts and genitals, or 3) an $11,000 fine.
Invading my body makes no one safer. Since 9/11, reinforced cockpit doors and alert passengers have reduced the risk of terrorist airplane attack to the statistical equivalent of zero. New airport passenger procedures don’t stop terrorists; they make terrorists more creative. Our resources are better spent on intelligence and organization. Wasting resources by physically searching 1.6 million travelers a day is a guaranteed way to miss real terrorist threats.
If you don’t know what the TSA is telling travelers, please read their November response to my concerns about the new procedures:
[U]nder Federal law, when passengers place his/her baggage on the x-ray conveyor belt or walk through the screening equipment, consent to be searched is implied. This consent, once given, cannot be withdrawn until TSA security procedures are completed… Furthermore, travelers who refuse to cooperate with the screening process may receive civil penalties.
A right is a right. The Fourth Amendment’s protection from unreasonable search is mine as an American. It is not conditional. The idea that I give away my right to say “no” by stepping into a government-mandated queue is illegal, immoral and un-American.
Do you think it is right that, when I try to visit my family 3000 miles away, I may be jailed for refusing to be seen naked or handled?
I can protect the Constitution today by picking the right airline. Will you protect its future?
