TSA does not keep us safe

Transportation Safety Administration is an oxymoron. What the TSA does is not security.

The TSA serves to prevent the offending of those who should receive the strictest scrutiny from any transportation security system. Instead, TSA appears to be about harassment, intimidation and sexual abuse of anyone. With its new pat down policy, the TSA is a pervert’s dream come true.

One has to wonder if the individual doing the extensive, invasive and perverse — and illegal — pat down might be getting a thrill out of the situation. How many of the TSA’s agents are active pedophiles?

Even former Gov. Joe Foss of South Dakota, a Medal of Honor recipient for acts of courage in World War II, was forced to remove his medal because the TSA believed the points on the medal’s star could be used as a weapon. They actually wanted to take his medal from him.

Insane. And yet, Americans stood and watched this happen instead of reacting with outrage and shame. Same for the molestation of small children and older Americans in the name of “safety” while Muslims of military age continue unmolested.

Have we become so jaded that our most sacred rights can be abused without comment or protest? The leadership of every anti-Western jihadist group has to laugh at this absurdity.

Anyone who has been sexually or physically abused has to suffer serious trauma from this egregious violation of their persons and civil rights that is the TSA screening process. The same for women who have had mastectomies.

Further, the scientific community is now questioning the levels of radiation emitted by the full-body scanners. Exposure increases the potential for skin cancer.

So now we not only have to allow and to endure molestation suffered because of the illegal suspension of our civil rights in this “zone of the TSA” and in the name of a placebo practice instead of effective security measures, but we have to suffer additional risk of skin cancer so that Michael Chertoff can make a buck?

If emphasis was put where the problem is, 95-year-old women and small children would not have to be molested in the name of political correctness.

Travel by commercial air would be safer.

The traveling public would not have to be subjected to clear and egregious violations of their Fourth-, Fifth-, Ninth- and 14th-Amendment rights. These TSA practices are unconstitutional, perverted, idiotic and ineffective.

Muslims are a security risk by virtue of the tenets of Islam and should be the primary focus of any security efforts at our airports. It is the result of the acts of Muslim terrorists on Sept. 11, 2001, and after that caused the formation of the TSA.

It seems to me, that Rep. Sharon Cissna, who suffered indignities no individual should have to undergo at the hands of the TSA, should introduce legislation to end TSA’s role in Alaska.

This act of political courage would place Alaska at the forefront of the sovereignty issue and show federal lawmakers that our constitutional rights are valued above all at the state level.

There is absolutely no function of the TSA at our airports that cannot be replaced by the state’s Airport Police, or to make use of a very underused and available resource, even the Alaska State Defense Force could be used.

Eliminate invasive searches, keep metal scanners, use profiling and behavioral cues — in other words, adopt the proven and effective Israeli method of screening passengers.

Ted Stevens International Airport is state of Alaska property, not that of the federal government; the presence of the TSA is a violation of the 10th Amendment.

Were there to be state legislation introduced to protect Alaskans and to eliminate the TSA, would the feds cut off funding of any sort?

Did the federal Department of Transportation or Congress cut off funding for Montana’s highways after the enactment of the National Maximum Speed Limit? During this period, Montana maintained its 70-plus mph speed limits without penalty from the federal DOT.

There will be nothing beyond threats, as what is currently being done by the TSA to law-abiding Americans is to violate and abuse the many to avoid offending the few.

It is time this affront to the rights and dignity of the majority that is the TSA ends.

It is time that our state leadership acted where our congressional leadership and our president will not.

Larry Wood is a 57 year resident of Alaska and businessman living in Palmer.