EPIC Cooties
by Becky Akers
He seems like an OK guy.
Sure, he’s a lawyer – in fact, he
"chairs the ABA
Committee on Privacy and Information Protection" (pssst,
shysters: failing miserably here). Worse, he consorts with politicians
and bureaucrats. But otherwise, Mark Rotenberg is innocuous:
"…Executive
Director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) in
Washington, DC.[, h]e teaches information privacy law at Georgetown
University Law Center." He’s also "testified before Congress on
many issues," as he did earlier this month to the Subcommittee on
National Security, Homeland Defense and Foreign Operations.
Formerly known as the National Security and Foreign Affairs Subcommittee,
Rep.
Darrell Issa [R-CA] updated the group for our brave new Amerika last
December when he descended to chairmanship of the Oversight and
Government Reform Committee (yeah, riiiiiight). But even with the
requisite "Homeland" in its title, the subcommittee seems deaf.
Who among us hasn’t heard the shrieks and cries of the violated echoing
from airports nationwide as the Transportation Security Administration
(TSA) sexually assaults passengers? And yet the subcommittee held
hearings March 16 on this grotesque evil, as if either the Constitution
or simple decency allow a response other than immediate abolition of the
TSA, with swift and severe punishment for its criminals.
You probably suspect by now that Congress has absolutely no intention of
pulling the plug on this agency or even of reining it in. Indeed, it
cannot: its power is as weak as its will. After years of incubation at
the intelligence agencies, the totalitarian, homeland-security
government-within-the-government has metastasized for a decade; it’s now
as unbeatable as the most virulent cancer; the rest of Leviathan either
joins it or is devoured by it. And the TSA knows this. It has
openly defied Congress with the same impunity with which
it
flouts the law.
So why bother with a hearing? Photo ops and whitewash, among other
benefits. Congress wants us to think it’s still in charge, that it has
the TSA under control rather than vice versa. And it doesn’t hurt for
voters to see their representatives whaling away at the national
laughingstock everyone hates. Plus, these cowards now have an excuse when
constituents complain about gate-rape: "Yes, we feel your pain, so
acutely we’ve held hearings." How many Americans still own enough
savvy and gumption to ask, "So what?"
Ergo, this month’s charade. Various experts pontificated as did one of
the TSA’s victims: Sharon Cissna, the state representative from Alaska
who famously travelled via small plane, ferry, and car rather than submit
to the TSA’s molestation. Her story is horrific, something out of Nazi
Germany or the gulags of Soviet Russia – and
it’s
tragically typical, too:
"
Heading into security [at Seattle’s airport,]… I suddenly found
myself directed … [to the] full-body imaging scan. … A female agent
placed herself blocking my passage. Scan results would again
display … my breast cancer and the resulting scars [the TSA had
irradiated and then sexually assaulted her 3 months before]…. I
would require [sic for ‘the TSA would exploit my illness with the’]
invasive, probing hands of a stranger over my body. Memories of violation
would consume my thoughts again … I began to remember what my husband and
I'd decided after the previous intensive physical search. That I
never had to submit to that horror again! … this twisted policy did not
have to be the price of flying to Juneau! … as more and more TSA,
airline, airport and police gathered, … I repeatedly said that I would
not allow the feeling-up and I would not use the transportation mode that
required it. … The freedom to travel should never come at the price of
basic human dignity and pride."
"Sharon Cissna TSA" turns up some
40,000 hits on Google;
AOL News featured the story as did
MSNBC,
NPR, the
Los Angeles Times, and the
Miami Herald, among many others. So while sewers are a
congresscritter’s natural habitat, it’s likely even they reverberated
with news of the TSA’s assault on this citizen. Why listen to it all over
again? Yet Our Rulers did – without rushing to horsewhip the TSA’s
degenerates. Only in government do wusses call themselves men though
thugs assail women and children on their watch.
Riding to the rescue were Mr. Rotenberg and EPIC, which has filed no less
than
five lawsuits against the TSA. At the hearing,
"EPIC urged Congress to suspend the
use of airport body scanners for primary screening. EPIC said the devices
were not effective and were not minimally intrusive, as courts have
required for airport searches" – even if the Constitution demands a
warrant. "EPIC cited TSA
documents obtained in EPIC's FOIA
lawsuit which showed that the machines are designed to store and transfer
images, and not designed to detect powdered explosives."
No hearing is complete without a defendant. But at the
"
last minute" the "TSA declined to testify – despite
previously confirming through both verbal and written confirmation that
they would appear," Jason Chaffetz (R-UT), the subcommittee’s
chairman, complained.
Who knew such appearance was optional? Yo, Jason: subpoena. Then again,
Mr. Chair is no doubt uncomfortably aware that the TSA would have snubbed
that, too, and in front of the whole country. He eventually capitulated
to the agency’s orders for a session by itself.
But more astounding than this further evidence of the TSA’s contempt for
Congress was its excuse: because of EPIC’s "multiple lawsuits"
against the agency, its administrator, John "The Pervert"
Pistole sniffed,
"
I have strong concerns over the Subcommittee’s intention to seat [the
TSA’s assistant administrators] Mr. [Robin] Kane and Mr. [Lee] Kair
alongside a non-governmental witness [Mr. Rotenberg]…" What, do
non-governmental witnesses who dare to sue The Pervert’s fiefdom have
cooties?
So far as I can tell, Mr. Rotenberg boasts a clean record aside from his
lawyering and hobnobbing with Congress. He’s never sexually assaulted
anyone. He doesn’t electronically strip unwilling victims to leer at
their nakedness. Nor does he
rob passengers, brutalize
old
ladies and
survivors
of cancer, or torment
handicapped children.
No gentleman voluntarily rubs elbows with the TSA’s savages. If anyone
objected to the seating, it shoulda been Mr. Rotenberg.
http://www.lewrockwell.com/akers/akers148.html
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