Lawmakers seek consumer advocates to protect travelers from TSA abuses

Madison Ruppert, Contributing Writer
Activist Post

United States Senator Charles Schumer and New York state Senator Michael Gianaris of Queens have proposed that the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) create a consumer advocate to quickly act on passenger complaints over security screenings.

This comes after three elderly women have reported being strip searched at the JFK International Airport in New York, although the TSA has a long history of abuses.

Yesterday the TSA claimed that they were in the planning stages of launching their own advocacy service, but having the offending agency also act as the advocacy agency seems quite absurd.

Kristin Lee, a spokeswoman for the TSA, said that after speaking to advocacy groups for individuals with medical conditions that require equipment like colostomy bags, the TSA is planning to establish a toll-free hotline for passengers requesting assistance during a screening.

This telephone hotline would be launched in January, although their “solution” is far from anything resembling a solution in any regard.

How exactly will someone be able to call a hotline when they’re being harassed and strip searched by out of control TSA goons?

Well, they won’t, because the hotline is to be called before going through the humiliating search procedure.

The TSA stated, “This hotline will give passengers direct access to guidance and information specific to persons with disabilities or medical conditions, which they will be able to call prior to flying.”

“Additionally, TSA regularly trains its workforce on how to screen travelers with disabilities and medical conditions and has customer service managers at most airports to answer questions and assist passengers,” although it is clear that these so-called customer service managers cannot stop TSA agents from strip searching and harassing innocent people.

“The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) strives to provide the highest level of security while ensuring that all passengers are treated with dignity and respect,” the agency stated Saturday night. “TSA has programs in place for the screening of people with all types of disabilities and medical conditions and their associated equipment.”

This is laughable to anyone remotely familiar with the TSA’s actions in the past, especially when it comes to those with disabilities.

Among the countless abuses committed by the TSA, some glaring examples of this are the harassment of a 95-year-old terminal cancer patient and the mistreatment of a man with the mental capacity of a two-year-old.

If TSA agents were actually properly trained in order to ensure “that all passengers are treated with dignity and respect,” none of these incidents would occur in the first place.

It is clear that the TSA’s proposed hotline will do little if anything to stop these abuses, as it is only designed to inform passengers before they go through the security screening process, it is not designed to assist passengers who have been or are being abused.

The program proposed by Schumer and Gianaris would at least allow passengers to summon an advocate in person if they felt they were being searched in an inappropriate manner.

However, this does not explain how exactly someone would summon an advocate in a case like the 85-year-old woman who alleges she was brought into a private room and strip searched, something which the TSA vehemently denies.

Schumer and Gianaris made some statements which make them out to be advocates of the people and their Constitutional rights, however Senator Charles Schumer voted for S.1867, so he clearly is a traitor and an enemy of the people of the United States.

Sorry Charlie, you’re not fooling anyone by saying, “While the safety and security of our flights must be a top priority, we need to make sure that flying does not become a fear-inducing, degrading, and potentially humiliating experience,” I think we all know you couldn’t give less of a damn about the American people if you tried.

While the Schumer-Gianaris proposal sounds great, there are a lot of problems that remain unsolved by their plan.

I believe that the only thing that could really stop these abuses is the total abolition of the TSA.

Employees of a private company would not have the false sense of entitlement held by these TSA goons who think that just because they are employed by a government agency they have some special rights of some kind.

Private companies would be much more accountable and I believe that we would see far fewer of these horrific incidents if we just eliminated the TSA completely.

After all, they’ve failed to catch a passenger with an invalid passport and another passenger with a loaded gun in his bag, and have overall been such a massive failure that even John Mica, a Representative who participated in writing the legislation that created the TSA, says it is a failure and should be dismantled.

The solution is not some ceremonial consumer advocate as the traitorous Schumer would have you believe, but instead it is a total and complete abolition of the TSA as anything short of this will just allow the abuses to continue. 

This article first appeared at End the Lie.

Madison Ruppert is the Editor and Owner-Operator of the alternative news and analysis database End The Lie and has no affiliation with any NGO, political party, economic school, or other organization/cause. He is available for podcast and radio interviews. If you have questions, comments, or corrections feel free to contact him at [email protected]