Ron Paul Owes TSA An Apology

January 24, 2012
By: David Silverberg
Yet again we have a Transportation Security Administration (TSA) incident in which an individual is complaining about seemingly arbitrary rules and procedures—but this time it has gone well beyond the normal bounds of such an incident.

This case involves a United States senator, Rand Paul (R-Ky.), who was stopped at the Nashville, Tenn., airport yesterday on his way to Washington, DC. When he set off an alarm in a screening machine, TSA officers told him he would have to undergo a pat-down. He refused, was not allowed out of the screening area and missed his flight, booked another flight and this time did not set off any alarms.

Paul’s communication director stated that he had been “detained,” while TSA disputed that. “When an irregularity is found during the TSA screening process, it must be resolved prior to allowing a passenger to proceed to the secure area of the airport,” TSA spokesman Greg Soule said in a statement.

There the entire incident might have ended, except for Paul’s father, Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas), who is seeking the Republican nomination for president.

“The police state in this country is growing out of control,” the elder Paul announced in a statement. “One of the ultimate embodiments of this is the TSA that gropes and grabs our children, our seniors, and our loved ones and neighbors with disabilities. The TSA does all of this while doing nothing to keep us safe.”

The entire statement is overblown and untrue but it’s that very last sentence that cannot go uncontested. The whole essence of TSA, everything that it does, all the investment, the technology, the procedures, the intelligence and most of all the daily, unremitting effort of the people who serve at airports, in the air and in headquarters, is aimed at keeping the American traveling public safe.

Has Ron Paul completely forgotten Sept. 11, 2001 when 3,000 Americans died because the transportation security regime of this country was unable to stop 19 hijackers from taking over four aircraft? Has he forgotten that Al Qaeda, its affiliates and its sympathizers continue to plot against the American people and have a particular fixation on aviation?

For all the issues and frustrations that we all suffer as a result of the need for security, we have not had another incident like 9/11 in large part because of TSA and all the efforts of everyone involved in homeland security in this country. This is not a police state but it does have real enemies.

The White House issued a feeble defense of TSA. “I think it is absolutely essential that we take the necessary actions to ensure that air travel is safe, and I believe that's what TSA is tasked with doing,” White House Press Secretary Jay Carney told reporters.

That doesn’t go far enough. As though it needed to be stated outright, Ron Paul’s statement that TSA does nothing to keep the American public safe is outrageous, untrue and absurd.

Of course, Paul has called for the elimination of TSA in the past and a big yellow banner draped across his website demands “End the TSA now!” Nor was his declaration that TSA does nothing to keep the public safe sufficient. It continued: “That is why my ‘Plan to Restore America,’ in additional to cutting $1 trillion dollars in federal spending in one year, eliminates the TSA,” he declared.

Regardless of what Paul intends to do to TSA as a matter of policy, at the very least, he should publicly retract his completely false statement that TSA does nothing to protect the public and apologize to the men and women of TSA.

As for his policy prescription, eliminating TSA would leave the American people and especially the flying public far less safe and subject to acts of terrorism. It would return the country to its pre-9/11 vulnerability.

Al Qaeda could not wish for more from a presidential candidate.