"On May 6, 2002, Congressman Ron Paul stated, 'More than 20,000
airline pilots presented a petition to Congress last week, demanding the
right to carry guns in the cockpit to prevent future terrorist
hijackings."
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TSA: A Continuing Government Disaster!
CONTROLLING CONGRESS
Posted October 9, 2004
thepeoplesvoice.org
By: Ted Lang
In a week marked by no less than three separate official challenges to
President George Bush's reasons for taking the United States to war with
Iraq, including the posture offered by former Coalition Provisional
Authority head Paul Bremer by saying that the invading force was grossly
undermanned as had been suggested before the invasion by then-Army Chief of
Staff Eric Shinsecki, the Bush administration and Congress continue to be
bullied by an "armchair bureaucrat" who ignores reality, and both the will
and the safety of the American people.
It is hard to find a more astonishing and comparable bureaucratic incident
of domination of both the White House and the Congress on an issue so vital
as regards the safety and security of the American people. Perhaps a close
runner-up is the bureaucratic dictatorship of William Ruckleshaus, the
former EPA administrator who summarily banned the use of DDT without any
real meaningful debate or real fact-finding inquiry and analysis.
But the current Transportation Safety Administration issue is even more
pervasive, as is the threat of continuing terrorist airline hijackings. And
at a time when the Congress is introducing even more mind-numbing oppressive
legislative expansions of the PATRIOT Act to further crush and destroy
America's vital freedoms, the simple alternative of arming airline pilots
has now been virtually shelved by anti-gun Secretary of Transportation,
Norman Mineta.
Mineta's obstructionism has persevered over and above concerns of airline
safety, the very reason the TSA was brought into being by the Bush
administration. In their October 7th e-mailed newsletter entitled
"Arming-pilots amendment," The Liberty Committee offers: "We knew the
Transportation Safety Administration (TSA) would aggressively
oppose the amendment and do all it could to stop it from being accepted by
the House Rules Committee. TSA has deliberately dragged its feet on
implementing the Federal Flight Deck Officers (FFDO) program that Congress
approved and President Bush signed over two years ago. U.S. Secretary of
Transportation Norman Mineta, a former congressman who has a long history
of being anti-gun, fought against the FFDO program from the beginning."
The article goes on: "To satisfy some members of the House Judiciary
Committee and House Transportation Committee, some provisions of the now
Goode-Paul amendment
were removed. The most important provisions, however, were kept. We
thought
the revised amendment would then be accepted by the House Rules Committee
because of the active support of the Airline Pilots Security Alliance, along
with
your calls to Majority Leader Tom DeLay. Gun Owners of America also
actively
supported the Goode-Paul amendment. Unfortunately for the flying public,
the
high-level bureaucrats and well-connected special interests prevailed and
the
Goode-Paul amendment was rejected."
Even more astonishing than the powerful influence that Mineta and his TSA
special interest supporters exhibit, is the overall incompetence and
criminal negligence displayed by the agency itself. The agency's hiring
practices have become the subject of increasing scrutiny, focusing on the
criminal backgrounds of those hired to serve as screeners to search the
luggage of law-abiding air travelers.
Not surprisingly, many air travel patrons have been robbed of their
belongings and property. Of course, there are congressional probes and
investigations by other government agencies responding to these crimes, but
it would seem that Secretary Mineta should be paying more attention to these
failures in his agency than stifling the will of the president and the
Congress by commandeering Congressman David Dreier's [R-CA] House Rules
Committee. The Liberty Committee points out that Dreier's Committee blocked
the legislation from reaching the House floor for open debate and
discussion.
Perhaps Chairman Dreier supports arming pilots, but influential special
interests groups know how to throw money and influence around, thereby
frustrating continuously the will of the people and what's in their best
interest.
Quoting Congressman Ron Paul [R-TX], The Liberty Committee's founder, the
newsletter states "On May 6, 2002, Congressman Ron Paul stated, 'More than
20,000 airline pilots presented a petition to Congress last week, demanding the
right to carry guns in the cockpit to prevent future terrorist hijackings. Pilots from all of the major
unions, including the large Air Line Pilots Association, overwhelmingly
favor having
the choice to carry a gun when they fly. These pilots are the men and women
who
actually stand in harm's way in the event of future hijacking attempts, and
surely we
should trust their judgment over the judgment of armchair bureaucrats and
pundits
in Washington. Yet the Transportation department continues to ignore both
the
wisdom of pilots and federal law by refusing to implement rules allowing
firearms in the cockpit.'"
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© THEODORE E. LANG 10/9/04 All rights reserved.
Ted Lang is a political analyst and a freelance writer.
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