The TSA is Out Of Control

This stink going on with the TSA doing their body scanner/aggressive pat-down thing truly is ridiculous, if only for one reason: the 4th Amendment.

The 4th Amendment, part of the Bill of Rights in the US Constitution, states:

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

Since when did wanting to fly on an airplane constitute probable cause to have breasts and genitals groped in search of explosives?  I totally understand the safety concerns surrounding terrorism and air travel, but this situation is ridiculous.  The new policies were put into place because of last year's underwear bomber, but that situation could have been avoided had they given this type of increased screening to each and every passenger who was on a terrorist watch list.  Doing this to random people just doesn't make any sense at all.

Personally, I fully support National Opt-Out Day.  The government does not have the right to perform these searches solely based on the fact that people purchased airline tickets and want to fly on a plane.  I know there has been a lot of hysteria over "racial profiling," but "no profiling" is not an acceptable alternative.  Is it too much to ask to have some expectation of competency for the people expected to keep our airports safe?  They should be able to use at least some basic profiling criteria to differentiate between potential terrorists and innocent civilians.

But then, to add insult to injury, the TSA is threatening $11,000 fines for people who opt-out of the body scanners and then leave the airport without going through the groping pat-down.

On the one hand, I can understand the TSA's mentality: if they automatically assume that everyone who flies is a terrorist, they will be more likely to catch the terrorists...but what the Department of Homeland Security and TSA seem to be ignoring is the fact that Americans have rights, and their current policies violate the US Constitution.  When President Bush's warrantless wiretapping program became public knowledge, the bottom line was that, whether it helped to catch terrorists or not, it violated the Constitution, and it could not be used.  The same message needs to go out about the TSA's new policies: while these aggressive new policies might help the TSA to catch terrorists (emphasis on the might, because it'll only help if the terrorists get chosen for random screening), they have already violated hundreds, if not thousands of American's 4th Amendment rights.  It may be inconvenient for the TSA to have to work around the 4th Amendment in order to do their job, but the right to be secure against unreasonable search and seizure is a fundamental right for all American citizens.  It was written into our Constitution for a reason, and the TSA, as an agency of the US government, is bound by US law to abide by it.

 

Restoring Sanity? Not So Much...

Speaking as a reasonably sane individual, I have a hard time taking political sanctimony from a comedian seriously.

Judging from these first glimpses, it doesn't look like the Stewart/Colbert rally really accomplished anything productive.

And The Fun Continues...

It isn't even election day yet, and the "voting irregularities" have already begun.

Voters in Las Vegas have reported that, when they went to vote for Republican Sharon Angle, Harry Reid's name was already selected.

A voter in Craven County, NC has reported that when he selected to vote for all Republican candidates, he found that all of the Democrats had been selected.

This will only get worse come election day; be vigilant and pay attention when you vote.

The Obama Implosion

It's kind of fun watching the Democratic Party collapse in on itself as they continue to realize just how slim their chances are in next month's elections.  They've gone into full-fledged panic mode, because all indications now show that they face monumental losses in the House, and if they manage to hold on to their majority in the Senate, it will be by the slimmest of margins.

But as the pressure on the Democrats increases, their campaign rhetoric becomes more and more dangerous.  While their recent attack on the Chamber of Commerce has absolutely no basis in fact, President Obama is sticking with it, offering more and more baseless speculation as to where the GOP's campaign funding is coming from.

Now, you would think that if the GOP is doing something illegal in funding their campaigns, and the President knows about it, he would start an official investigation into the matter.  The fact that there is no investigation is telling: there is no wrongdoing, just more and more ambiguous accusations by the President of the United States.

This is just one more instance of President Obama making accusations against unnamed "special interests."  Before, his only complaint was that "they talk about me like I'm a dog."  But now that they're truly threatening his ability to push his corrupt socialist agenda onto America, he is calling them "a threat to our democracy."  Think about that: that's quite an accusation for a sitting president to make with absolutely no evidence to back him up.

See the video on RealClearPolitics

As much as I would love to see the GOP run roughshod over the Donkey Party next month, if they're taking illegal campaign contributions, it should be investigated and the perpetrators prosecuted.  If, on the other hand, President Obama, his administration and his party are just making up false accusations in the hopes of whipping up their base and maintaining power, then it becomes a question of whether President Obama should be impeached.  He is, after all, making a very serious accusation - he's right on the edge of accusing the GOP of treason.  High crimes and misdemeanors?  Possibly.  It's already come to light that the First Lady directly violated Illinois election law by campaigning at a polling place in Chicago, and Illinois elections officials and the Obama administration have made it abundantly clear that they plan to do absolutely nothing about it.

It seems that there are no depths to which the Democrats will not go in order to maintain power.  All citizens should definitely be vigilant come election day.

A New Conservative Joins The Fold

Announcing the birth of Emma Claire Cleveland, born on October 6 2010 at 12:46 am.  She weighed 8 lbs, 2 oz at birth and measured 20.5 in.