Mises Wire

The TSA Is a Fraud? We’re Shocked, SHOCKED!

The TSA Is a Fraud? We’re Shocked, SHOCKED!

So the TSA finally has been officially outed by one of its former employees. Yes, the agency is a joke, and everyone working there knows it. The TSA has not prevented any terrorist attacks, nor are TSA agents “on the front lines of fighting terrorism” no matter what rhetoric we hear from Washington and members of Congress, as well as from the sycophants working for President Obama.

No, Rape-a-Scan was little more than a radiation-spewing device aimed at making the public believe that the TSA was Johnny-on-the-Spot when everyone from the executives at the company (officially called Rapiscan, but we know better than to dignify this outfit) to the TSA drone who was stuffing his hand into someone’s crotch in the name of “national security.”

To put it another way, the TSA has been little more than a government PR scam and it is hilarious to watch the same “Progressive” people who mock business advertising as “propaganda” line up to defend this idiotic agency. As I wrote shortly after 9/11, the government’s show of force (and the TSA is exactly that) actually makes us less safe. I also wrote the following about a year later:

In this new atmosphere, one can expect a number of things. First, searches will be slower and more cumbersome, since the fewer people who actually get through, the lower the probability that a plane can be hijacked. Empty seats on flights will not matter to federal employees whose paychecks will come courtesy of the taxpayers.

Second, it is quite likely that screeners and other government security personnel will be more rude toward passengers than they are at present. While some of us have suffered through some brutal searches, I fear the worst is to come. Again, airline employees, while they can be disagreeable, do have at least some incentive to treat their customers with some decency. Federal employees will have none.

When my family and I went through security lines, there was some grumbling, although I could tell that many of the screeners at least were trying to be as fair and helpful as possible, given the difficult situation all of us found ourselves. However, I suspect that when the government takes over all security, anyone who makes even the slightest complaint quickly will be banned from their flight. Look for airport workers to become more surly and less helpful, as their government status will give them power to harass people.

No doubt, we can look forward to congressional hearings when airline passengers will tell of airport horror stories perpetrated by federal security workers. Sympathetic members of congress will listen attentively, just as they listened when citizens told of being harassed by Internal Revenue Service agents. Those same members will excoriate whoever is head of the security agency, just as they did the IRS administration, then give the agency even more power to harass people.

I think it is safe to say that the TSA has met all of my expectations, and then some.

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