Homeland Security: Finally gone nuts?

If you as an airline passenger ever thought it was somewhat ridiculous to remove your belt and shoes and turn in your water bottles while wading through a security lane at your local airport, perhaps you are just a normal person. Especially if you consider the latest news from US security watchdogs who are moving to new offices.

The DHS (Department of Homeland Security) and their thousands of administrators are moving into the very room used by the director of the US’s first major federally run psychiatric instituion, says travel commentator Christopher Elliott who adds this is not a joke and he is not making it all up.

“You probably already suspected that the idea of a Department of Homeland Security in general, and the Transportation Security Administration, specifically, was a little crazy. Last week, all doubts were removed,” Elliott writes.

Administrator Janet Napolitano’s new office will be in the very same room used by the director of the nation’s first major federally run psychiatric institution.

DHS Secretary Napolitano and the rest of the Homeland Security team, including parts of the TSA, will soon move to a renovated castle-like structure opened in 1855 as the Government Hospital for the Insane.

But even crazier is the notion the nation would be better off without the TSA.

“Only fringe politicians and pundits seriously suggested that the country should disband the agency,” Elliott writes.
But there are desperate groups who are advocating just that. Nearly 20,000 Americans have signed a petition to get rid of the agency designed to make American flyers safe.

The petition is titled "Abolish the TSA, and use its monstrous budget to fund more sophisticated, less intrusive counter-terrorism intelligence. The petition says the TSA has “been one of the largest, most expensive and most visible blunders of post 9-11 homeland security information.”

“It has violated countless constitutional rights of average Americans, caused miserable and expensive delays in an already overburdened air travel system, and allowed multiple instances of harassment, theft, extortion and sexual abuse by its employees.
Furthermore, the petition says, it has failed more than two-thirds of undercover efficacy tests. “And for all its excesses, has been unable to catch even a single terrorist since its creation.”

The group calls for investing in “saner, more effective solutions.”

No one, of course, give it any chance of winning.

 Perhaps that is no surprise. Not at a time, anyway, when Americans continue to fear even modest terrorists threats.

The TSA has earned the dubious distinction of being the only federal agency to be repudiated by a US presidential candidate who suggested it be eliminated and replaced with a “real privatization of security.”

"The press reports are horrifying," wrote the Texas congressman and presidential candidate Ron Paul in an op-ed published online by The Hill. He added:

"Children molested; disabled people abused; men and women subjected to unwarranted groping and touching of their most private areas; involuntary radiation exposure. If the perpetrators were a gang of criminals, their headquarters would be raided by SWAT teams and armed federal agents. Unfortunately, in this case the perpetrators are armed federal agents. This is the sorry situation ten years after the creation of the Transportation Security Administration."

Recent examples of continuing TSA “abnormalities:”

• In Atlanta, TSA officials chased down a woman with long hair after screening. Security officials ran through the terminal shouting “The lady with the big hair, stop.”
• A former lead transportation security officer at Newark Liberty International Airport who could have been sentenced to ten years in prison for taking $30,000 from travelers received a slap-on-the-wrist sentence of probation and home confinement.
• In a related case, TSA agents who failed to check bags in Honolulu were suspended or allowed to retire after their negligence was discovered.
• The TSA top officials stood by its security officers after a Florida woman complained that her cancer-stricken, 95-year-old mother was patted down and forced to remove her diaper while going through security.” One blogger called the TSA “an embarrassing abortion….federal authority, arrogance and incompetence on a scale heretofore unprecedented.”
• The latest, however, involved security officials warning that militants may try to use a surgically-implanted bomb to blow up a commercial flight, according to various reports. Some commentators call the idea ridiculous or even a case of “government fear-mongering.”

By David Wilkening