GOP to TSA: Don’t touch our junk
House Republicans have asked the TSA to reduce the number of pat-downs at the nation’s airports.
A report called "Rebuilding TSA into a Smarter, Leaner Organization," issued by the Subcommittee on Transportation Security, Committee on Homeland Security to the TSA said: "The unpopular pat-downs are an example of an agency that needs to change because of public dissatisfaction with its tactics and how much it spends."
It says that "in many ways the TSA has become its worst enemy by underestimating the privacy impact of its operations."
The report also says that while the TSA is busy conducting invasive pat-downs on innocent American travelers, flight students in the U.S..are not properly vetted and explosive-detecting canines are under-used.
In April, GOP lawmaker Francisco Canseco (R-Texas) accused a TSA official at San Antonio International Airport of touching him inappropriately during a pat-down.
"He was patting me down where no one was supposed to go," Canseco told Texas TV station, KENS-5. Canseco said that he was targeted for another invasive pat-down after reporting the first one.
The media has been barraged with stories recently about unnecessarily humiliating pat-downs or pat-downs enacted because of traveler’s "attitudes" or clothing preferences and pat-downs of children, the elderly and the handicapped.
The TSA’s website says it will currently conduct pat-downs of children on a "modified basis if required." It states that the vast majority of passengers will not receive a pat-down.
Gretchen Kelly
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