by Geoffrey Churchman

Throughout its existence the Transportation Safety Authority has irritated a lot of travelers with petty restrictions and every time in the noughties that Islamists tried to hijack or blow up a plane, a new airport screening was added. The result has been long delays getting though checks at airports, and with international flights, the lines could look like those for shows at Disneyworld.

The TSA was launched with the passing during the George W. Bush administration of the Aviation and Transportation and Security Act on 19 November 2001 which nationalized passenger screening. Previously this had been the responsibility of the airlines.

It’s not clear why anybody saw a need for the TSA, since it’s unlikely that a federal agency would have been any more successful than private contractors at predicting terrorists’ unprecedented use of aircraft as kamikaze weapons, given the lack of cooperation between federal agencies which was to a large extent the cause of 9/11 happening in the first place. It’s especially unlikely that the federal agency that eventuated would have successfully diverted itself from confiscating play-doh to thwarting homicidal fanatics.

Some restrictions imposed in the noughties have been relaxed: they no longer seem to care about nail scissors or require shoes to be scanned, but the rest are in place. Men’s belts have to go through the X-ray.

The TSA is really a waste of time; this article from 2021 sets out further reasons why.

When it came to visitors from outside the US, in the past US officials were basically only concerned that your visit was temporary (an airline ticket to somewhere else was the way to show that) and if not wealthy, you were at least self-supporting.

But since 2007 non-US citizens from most First World countries who want to visit have also had to fill out Electronic System for Travel Authorization (ESTA) applications. Although ESTA only authorizes travel to a U.S. airport, border, or port of entry, but admissibility into the United States is determined by a U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officer upon arrival, it is effectively a Visa by another name. The ESTA application form has been steadily added to in the last dozen years and now runs to 7 pages (and involves a fee of $US 21). It has to be renewed every 2 years.

But its importance has been effectively discredited by the Biden administration’s policy of open immigration through the land border with Mexico. Around 21 million people are estimated to have flooded in during the last 43 months, and little if anything is known about most of them. Criminals are certain to have been among them, and terrorists too.

So, what to do with the redundant TSA? From the report below, the Democrat National Committee must have discussed this and decided to use it against internal political opponents. What did Tulsi Gabbard do? She ran for President in 2020 as a Democrat and is still a serving member of the US military. But the fact that she has since switched sides, endorses Republican candidates and attacks the Democrat Party leaders over their warmongering is probably the reason Biden, Kamala Harris, Hillary Clinton and Blinken have decided to pursue her. And who else in the Republican camp is being treated like this?

From Matt Taibbi at racket.news:

Placed on a terror watch list, the former Hawaii congresswoman and her husband were tailed by Air Marshals and bomb dogs. “Unconstitutional on every level,” she says. “And I’m not the only one.”

Tuesday night, while self-styled Democratic nominee Kamala Harris pledged to defend “freedom, compassion, and the rule of law” to cheers in Philadelphia, Hawaii’s Tulsi Gabbard described being tracked by teams of government agents in a surveillance regime more reminiscent of East Germany than a free country. Whistleblowing Air Marshals told Uncover DC Gabbard was singled out as a terror threat under the so-called “Quiet Skies” program, and the former presidential candidate says she noticed.

“The whistleblowers’ account matches my experience,” says Gabbard. “Everything lines up to the day.”

This story began two weeks ago, when the former Hawaii congresswoman returned home after a short trip abroad. In airport after airport, she and her husband Abraham Williams encountered obstacles. First on a flight from Rome to Dallas, then a connecting flight to Austin, and later on different flights for both to cities like Nashville, Orlando, and Atlanta, their boarding passes were marked with the “SSSS” designation, which stands for “Secondary Security Screening Selection.” The “Quad-S” marker is often a sign the traveler has been put on a threat list, and Gabbard and Williams were forced into extensive “random” searches lasting as long as 45 minutes.

“It happened every time I boarded,” says Gabbard. The Iraq war veteran and current Army reservist tends to pack light, but no matter.

“I’ve got a couple of blazers in there, and they’re squeezing every inch of the entire collar, every inch of the sleeves, every inch of the edging of the blazers,” she says. “They’re squeezing or padding down underwear, bras, workout clothes, every inch of every piece of clothing.” Agents unzipped the lining inside the roller board of her suitcase, patting down every inch inside the liner. Gabbard was asked to take every piece of electronics out and turn each on, including her military phone and computer.

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