Sign the Petition to Congress to Investigate the TSA; Welcome to the police state

Are you flying this week? Know someone else who is? Download our “Know Your Rights at TSA” flier and make sure you and your fellow passengers know the risks and rights while dealing with TSA.

Sign the Petition to Congress to Investigate the TSA

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By Jane Hamsher, Firedoglake.com

It’s the busiest week for air travel – and the biggest week yet for TSA to abuse our rights. More than 25,000 people have already signed our petition to Congress to investigate the TSA.

Here’s how else the TSA has abused its power since then:

• Made a breast cancer survivor flight attendant remove her prosthetic breast¹
• Dislodged a urostomy bag of a bladder cancer survivor, spilling urine all over himself²
• TSA screeners themselves have come out against the aggressive patdowns³

This is insane – and it’s all just security theater to protect the TSA’s corrupt, ineffective porno scanners.

We need to stop TSA’s porno scanners and groping – sign the petition to Congress to investigate the TSA. Click here to add your name.

Thanks for standing up for dignity in our airports.

P.S. Are you flying this week? Know someone else who is? Download our “Know Your Rights at TSA” flier and make sure you and your fellow passengers know the risks and rights while dealing with TSA.

E-Mail from Jane Hamsher
Subject: FWD: Welcome to the police state

John Tyner had two options when he got to the airport:

1. Go through TSA’s expensive new “porno scanners” unprotected, which the Airline Pilots Association tells pilots to refuse.¹
2. Get an aggressive groping by a TSA agent that one woman described as being “sexually assaulted by a government official.”²

Tyner chose the latter option. But when he objected to the TSA’s plan to fondle his genitals, the agents refused to let him board his flight. Tyner recorded the incident in a now-famous video in which he told the TSA to “don’t touch my junk.”³

Now the TSA says they are “investigating” Tyner, threatening him with prosecution and $11,000 in civil penalties.⁴ It should be obvious why the TSA is investigating Tyner: to intimidate the rest of us.

Investigate the TSA, not Tyner. Sign our petition demanding Congress investigate the TSA’s porno scanners, aggressive groping, and abuses of power. Click here to add your name:

http://action.firedoglake.com/page/s/tsa

These new aggressive “pat downs” started on November 1, to punish people like Tyner who refuse to go through the scanners. Neither the scanners nor the aggressive pat-downs make us any safer.

Experts call it “security theater,” to insure the market for this new, expensive boondoggle doesn’t dry up when the public refuses to participate.

The House of Representatives voted against funding the scanners because they are incredibly invasive and don’t keep us safe.⁵ So the Department of Homeland Security flipped them the middle finger and used $25 million in stimulus funds to buy machines anyway – creating just one job in the process.⁶

Now the TSA is further abusing its power, threatening a citizen’s most basic rights to intimidate the rest of us.

Say no to TSA’s intimidation, and demand Congress investigate TSA’s new porno scanners and aggressive groping. Click here to sign the petition.

There should be no question: the only thing the TSA’s new “groping” policy is meant to impact is people’s willingness to go through these machines, which render images of people’s naked bodies so graphic one mother called it “child pornography.”⁷

And the TSA’s decision to prosecute Tyner is nothing but an attempt to intimidate the public from following his lead and resisting this outrageous invasion of their personal freedoms. They want us to give up our rights for their latest abuses of power.

This has nothing to do with keeping us “safe.” It’s the product of outrageous government corruption and an invasion of our most basic ideas of privacy.

Time to shut down TSA’s abuse of power. Sign our petition to Congress demanding an investigation of TSA’s porno scanners and groping policies.

Thanks for taking action on this important issue.

Jane Hamsher
Firedoglake.com

References (part 1)

1. “TSA Makes Cancer Victim Remove Prosthetic Breast.” CBS News, 11/19/2010
2. “TSA pat-down leaves bladder cancer survivor covered in urine.” The Political Carnival, 11/20/2010
3. “TSA Enhanced Pat Downs : The Screeners Point Of View.” Boarding Area, 11/18/2010

References (part 2)

1. “President’s Message.” US Airline Pilot Association (USAPA), 11/8/10
2. “TSA – Sexual Assault.” Our Little Chatterboxes, 11/12/10
3. “TSA Encounter at SAN.” Johnny Edge, 11/13/10
4. “TSA May Prosecute ‘Don’t Touch My Junk’ Guy.” Firedoglake, 11/16/10
5. “TSA to the White House on Whole-Body Scanners: Shove It.” Consumer Traveler, 10/2/09
6. “Project Summary: Rapiscan Systems, INC.” Recovery.gov.
7. “TSA Child Porn or Protection?” WMAR ABC2 News, 7/22/10

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