TSA "chat down" program

Passengers
stand in line to go through security checks at Gerald R. Ford
International Airport. Our columnist shares his experience wieth the
TSA.I came face-to-face with Big Brother the other day, and it was a frightening experience.
He
actually presented himself in the deceptive form of a young, attractive
female officer, working for the Transportation Security Administration
at Detroit Metropolitan Airport.

At first she simply
seemed chatty and friendly. She looked at my airline boarding pass and
noted that I was coming from Denver. Then she mentioned that I was
headed from Detroit to Grand Rapids.

Steve Gunn"That's a pretty short flight," she said.
"Talk to my travel agent," I grumbled.

At that point she asked me what my business would be in Grand Rapids.

"I'm headed home," I replied.

Then
she wanted to know where home was. That's when the mental alarms went
off and I realized I was being interrogated by Big Brother in drag.

I
asked her why the federal government needed to know where I was going
and what I would be doing. She explained that the questions were part of
a new security "pilot program."

I then told her I am an
American citizen, traveling within my own country, and I wasn't breaking
any laws. That's all the federal government needed to know, and I
wasn't going to share any more.

Not because I had anything to
hide. It was because we live in a free country where innocent people are
supposedly protected from unwarranted government intrusion and
harassment.
At that point the agent yelled out, "We have
another refusal." One of my bags was seized and I was momentarily
detained and given a hand-swab, which I believe was to test for residue
from bomb-making materials.

I passed the bomb test and was
told I could move on, but I hung around a moment and told everyone
within listening range what I thought about this terrifying experience.

So,
this is what we've come to. The federal government now has a need to
know where citizens are going and what they are doing before they are
allowed to peacefully pass. I'm starting to wonder what separates us
from Russia or Cuba.

Of course, I went home, got on the
computer and learned more about this "pilot program." I discovered that
it's been going on for a few years now at selected airports around the
nation.

TSA officers, being the brilliant people they are,
are given the responsibility of picking out airline passengers "whose
facial expressions, body language or other behavior indicate a security
risk." They are then subjected to a "chat down," where officers
interrogate you and decide if you are indeed a terrorist.

Hmmm. So what did I do to make them label me a security risk?

Well,
it was 9:30 in the morning, and I was just coming from a three-day
music festival in the Colorado mountains, so I probably looked pretty
groggy as I stood in the half-hour line to reach the TSA security
checkpoint.

Perhaps it was my odd facial expressions. For
the past few weeks I've been suffering from a condition called "Bell's
palsy," which includes temporary paralysis of all the muscles on one
side of my face. I can't smile, and the condition makes me look even
grumpier than usual.

I suppose the government figures that
grumpy looking people with droopy faces are potential terrorists. God
help any stroke victims who try to travel. If they suffer from paralysis
beyond their face they may be detained and questioned for weeks.

This program is a bizarre and outlandish violation of the Fourth
Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which is supposed to protect us from
"unreasonable search and seizure" by agents of the government, unless
they have probable cause. I doubt any judge would have considered my
droopy face as sufficient cause for harassment.

I lived
through 9/11 and I understand the need for tight security at airports. I
put up with the ritual of taking off my shoes and belt and standing in a
machine that shows TSA agents physical details that are really none of
their business.

The idea is to keep dangerous materials
that could be used in a terrorist attack off commercial airliners. Fair
enough. But stopping people because they look sort of funny to security
agents, and probing into their personal business, is going too far.

What's
next? Check lanes on city streets, where jackbooted thugs from
Washington, D.C., will stop everyone every morning to ask them where
they're going and what they're up to? And if our answers are not what
the government wants to hear, perhaps we'll be sent home and put under
surveillance, to make sure we're not involved in anything that Big
Brother doesn't approve of.

Our freedom is severely
compromised when government is allowed to do this sort of thing. We are
supposed to be presumed innocent and able to come and go as we please,
as long as we don't break any laws or give authorities reason to believe
we may have.

The "chat down" program has been a
failure, by the way, at least according to a recent editorial published
in USA Today. TSA officials interviewed about 725,000 travelers at Logan
International Airport in Boston over the course of one year, and none
of them turned out to be terrorists. A small percentage were arrested on
outstanding warrants for other crimes, but that's not the purpose of
the

To make matters worse, some TSA agents have told civil
rights attorneys that they were instructed to target minority passengers
at airports, to increase the odds of finding criminals and build
justification for the program.

There is no justification for
this type of unwarranted harassment in America. Even people who look a
little different should be allowed to move about as they please, unless
they give authorities a specific reason to stop them.

I
urge everyone who cares about freedom to call their elected
representatives and tell them the TSA "chat down" program goes way too
far and should be iced, before any more innocent citizens are subjected
to humiliating and unconstitutional interrogations.
Steve Gunn,
a former Chronicle staff writer, is the communications director of
Education Action Group. Write: Muskegon Chronicle, 379 W. Western, Suite
100, Muskegon, MI 49443.




Source:-

http://www.mlive.com/opinion/muskegon/index.ssf/2012/08/steve_gunn_37.html