Abolish the TSA

This latest outrage just reminds us of the folly of government airline security. Supposedly there to protect us against terrorists, the TSA works with police and law enforcement agencies when it detects behavior it deems suspicious—which in many cases can lead to crackdowns on victimless crimes or invasions into the private lives of travelers. Kathy Parker for Maryland was scrutinized, and her checks questioned by police, all because they were allegedly almost sequential. Accusing her of fraud and embezzling and then calling her husband to warn him of a “divorce situation,” these government officials had no compunctions about overstepping the boundaries of Parker’s family and financial life. She felt “humiliated.” Well of course she did, and bigger and smaller incidents of humiliation occur many thousands of times a day in America’s airports, thanks to the Bush administration and Congressional Democrats who pushed for nationalizing airport security in the aftermath of 9/11.

Meanwhile, the new X-ray scanners appear to subject passengers to 20 times the radiation previously estimated, which could cause problems for up to 1/20 of the population — children and those with gene mutations, especially. Government, as always, is hazardous to your health. Yet another reason to let airline security, as with everything that’s important, be handled by the private sector.