Rep Ted Poe (R-TX): Full-body scanners violate Fourth Amendment

We agree that the full-body scanners violate our Constitutional rights. Coming from someone who doesn't like to fly on a good day, you can be assured that with this, will continue to drive and leave the flying to others. Hard enough to get through security sometimes but now this added full-body scan that Obama said was okay has complicated and made the wait longer. Recently they patted down a 3-year old going through security. This video comes from CNN:




This video is part of the CNN program "I Report" which maybe some more of us should be looking to send things like this to CNN which airs them on their website. If that was my child, I would have lost my cool.

In November of 2001, my youngest daughter and I had driven my oldest daughter to North Island NAS for her first duty assignment with the car and were flying back with a one-way ticket. Even with a Government ID, we were pulled aside along with the luggage to be searched. Man that was doing the search at the San Diego International Airport didn't speak English and kept gesturing with his hands what to do . Included in the search was my daughter and me, two women returning from overseas who had just cleared customs, three Marines, and a couple who would guess were in their late 70's with one of them in a wheel chair. They even searched the wheel chair that belonged to the airport taking it apart as her husband kept saying it says "property of SDI," but since the man doing the searching and his partner didn't speak English they didn't listen.

He made us lift our luggage on the table, open the luggage, and then he rummaged threw everything making the luggage hard to close. Absolutely no thought to anything in the luggage. Our luggage was finally cleared to proceed to be loaded on the plane. Then we we had to go through Security again and were pulled aside
again. Mind you we had already had this done and walked maybe 100 yards. When we finally got through that and got back to the plane, we were all pulled aside one more time and searched again with the carry-on that had just been searched a second time. We had gone from the normal security back to the plane all inside the secure area.

Next to us in the next gate were three Arabs who had breezed through security with no checks because they had a round trip ticket. I can still remember the Southwest person at the gate saying the security program was all messed up back then because not one of us fit the profile but the people who did got a pass right through security at the next gate with no problems.  It has not improved from limited time flying since then.

We landed in Phoenix and were told that they wouldn't be checking any of us any further as we had been through enough. When four of us boarded the flight to Oklahoma City right across from us was sitting a sky marshall who kept nodding his head in agreement when we were complaining that three Arabs were not even searched.

Southwest Airlines filed a complaint about what had happened in San Diego for all of us and why today if I have to fly, Southwest is my airline of choice.

With that background and knowing how they don't pick out people who should be profiled, I would have gone ballistic on the TSA screeners if it was my 3-year old. This idea that you don't profile people is ludicrous to be kind. Why not? Afraid to hurt some terrorists feelings and would rather almost make an American Mom with her daughter almost miss their plane when the Mom had a Government ID or three Marines, or two women who had cleared customs, or an elderly couple?

We thought that Michael Chertoff was a bad choice for Homeland Security Chief and did not have the right credentials when President Bush chose him for the position. Looks like we were not the only ones with reservations and now it is even worse. His company making money off of the full body search equipment makes your blood boil. We don't see where combining all the agencies has helped one bit to catch someone before they board a plane that wants to blow up the plane.

During a one-minute speech on the House floor, Rep. Ted Poe (Texas) also blasted former Bush Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff as a "political hack" and accused him of profiting from the proliferation of the devices.

"There is no evidence these new body scanners make us more secure. But there is evidence that former Homeland Security Chief Michael Chertoff made money hawking these full body scanners," Poe said.

We think the combining so many agencies under one Homeland Security Secretary may not have been the wise thing to do. Thought Ridge did a good job but never liked Chertoff from day one. Something about him bothered a lot of us. Time to take another long, hard look at the Department of Homeland Security because it obviously isn't working starting with our borders.

Rep Poe is doing all of us a service by making this information in public. We thank him for paying attention to what is happening with the full-body scanners.  We have said all along that we will continue to go after both parties on this site -- today Michael Chertoff who was appointed by President Bush is in that bullseye!  As for the current Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, Janet Napolitano she is so bad when it comes to immigration and terrorism, you can just say that she makes a horrible Homeland Security Secretary and has no business being in the job.  Her comments are really dumb sometimes, and she is way too quick to rule out terrorism.

More than ready to see the Department of Homeland Security go under the microscope!

GOP lawmaker: Full-body scanners violate Fourth AmendmentBy Elise Viebeck - 11/17/10 10:29 AM ET

A GOP lawmaker said Tuesday the full-body scanners now employed by the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) violate the Fourth Amendment to the constitution, which protects against "unreasonable searches and seizures."

....

He went on to explain that Chertoff, who served under President George W. Bush, had given interviews promoting the scanners while he was "getting paid" to sell them.

"[T]he populace is giving up more rights in the name of alleged security. These body scanners are a violation of the Fourth Amendment right against unreasonable searches and seizures ... There must be a better way to have security at airports than taking pornographic photographs of our citizens, including children, and then giving apparent kickbacks to political hacks."

Chertoff has advocated for the use of full-body scanners since he took his post at DHS in 2005.

His consulting agency, the Chertoff Group, counts among its clients one of the two companies that manufacture the machines according to federal specifications.

Excerpt: Read More at The Hill