Everyone, please be quiet. Sit down and have a seat. Another Republican “Patriot” has something to say.
Ladies and gentlemen, your American “patriot” today is Bob Johnson of Savannah Georgia, who incidentally is running for Congress in the Republican primary.
Bob dislikes the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) so much, that he would rather see another terrorist attack in the United States than dealing with the airport security system.
“The TSA is doing something really profound. They’re indoctrinating generations of Americans to walk through a line and be prodded and probed by uniformed personnel, agents of the government, like sheep.
“Now this is going to sound outrageous: I’d rather see another terrorist attack — truly I would — than to give up my liberty as an American citizen. Give me liberty or give me death. Isn’t that what Patrick Henry said at the founding of our Republican — or, republic.
“People are saying, ‘Now everyone wants security before anything else. I want a perfectly safe flight.’ You’re not going to have it. We’re going to have jack-boot uniformed people in our backyards.”
TSA agents at Fort Lauderdale Airport in Florida came across a human skull in checked luggage last year
We may not all agree with some of the ways the TSA does its business, but it seems like they’re doing something right.
A shocking number of guns, weapons and explosive devices were pulled from checked luggage at airports by the Transportation Security Administration last year.
Some 1,813 firearms were seized at U.S. airports by TSA agents in 2013 – an increase of more than 16 per cent on 2012, according to the authority’s yearly report.
The weapons, discovered in carry-on bags at checkpoints, amounted to an average of five per day being found – and eight out of ten guns discovered were loaded.
Firearms were found by TSA agents at a total of 205 airports with Atlanta top of the list for the most firearms intercepted (111) in 2013.
After Atlanta, the top airports for weapon interceptions were Dallas/Fort Worth International in Texas (96 guns found); George Bush Intercontinental Airport in Houston (68 guns); Phoenix Airport (66 guns) and Denver International (51 guns).
Among the terrifying cache was a loaded .380 pistol with eight rounds, discovered on the lower left leg of a passenger at Bradley Hartford Airport in Connecticut.
In Pittsburgh, a loaded .45 with six rounds was found strapped to the ankle of a traveler.
But it’s not just guns that TSA agents come across – there have been a number of alarming weapons – including one or two that appear straight out of the history books.
At Chicago Midway, a mace was found in a passenger’s bag. The weapon is a spiked metal ball on a chain attached to a wooden stick used to bludgeon victims.
In Indiana, authorities were faced with an inert suicide vest which was a training aid used by an explosives instructor.
While searching clay pots in a checked baggage location at Fort Lauderdale, officers discovered human skull fragments. Although not a threat to security, the area had to be cordoned off as a crime scene.
Ten canisters containing 24-pounds of black powder were discovered in checked baggage at Chicago Midway.
A live blasting cap was found with an M60 fuse lighter in a passenger’s checked bag at the Manhattan Regional Airport in Kansas.
After an alarm went off at Anchorage airport in Alaska, officers found a 3.2oz flask of black powder, 22 feet of fuse, a large empty CO2 cartridge, and miscellaneous ammunition in a passenger’s bag.
According to a CBS4 report, police are investigating Transportation Security Administration (TSA) officers at Denver International Airport after a woman filed a criminal complaint claiming that her frisking was tantamount to sexual assault.
Jamelyn Steenhoek was frisked by TSA officers while escorting her 13-year-old daughter to her gate. She was not flying herself that day, but had acquired permission to accompany her underage child to her gate.
As she attempted to move through the TSA checkpoint, an alarm sounded. Steenhoek told CBS4 that she believes that metallic jewels sewn into her rear pants pocket were responsible for setting off the machine. She said she consented to have her hands swabbed.
“They told me I tested positive for explosives,” she said, and was then ushered into a small TSA screening room in with her daughter. She was told to spread her arms and legs, and when she told the female TSA agent that she needed to get her daughter to her plane, the agent’s demeanor changed.
“At that point she did a pretty invasive search. They are just areas of the body I’m not comfortable being touched in. On the outside of my pants she cupped my crotch. I was uncomfortable with that,” she said.
“The part of the search that bothered most was the breast search. You could tell it shouldn’t take that much groping . To me it was as extensive as an exam from my physician — full touching and grabbing in the front. I felt uncomfortable, I felt violated.”
When the search yielded no explosive materials, Steenhoek said, the TSA agent repeated it, only this time there was “more touching and grabbing than the first time.”
After successfully escorting her daughter to her flight, Steenhoek complained to TSA officials, but felt they were not taking her complaint seriously enough, so she filed charges with Denver police.
The Associated Press, quoting a law enforcement official briefed on the investigation, reported that suspect Paul Anthony Ciancia, 23, said in the note found in the duffel bag he carried into the airport on Friday that he wasn’t targeting a specific TSA employee.
“Black, white, yellow, brown, I don’t discriminate,” the note read, according to a paraphrase by the law enforcement official, who spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity.
Ciancia was charged Saturday with murder of a federal officer and commission of violence at an international airport. A federal criminal complaint said that Ciancia also shot at least two other uniformed TSA employees and a civilian passenger.
It was not immediately clear why Ciancia wanted to lash out at the agency, but a leading organization that tracks U.S. hate groups and extremist organizations reported Saturday that the suspect may have been influenced by propaganda of the antigovernment “patriot” movement and fringe conspiracy theories.
As reported Friday by NBC News, the suspect was carrying anti-government literature outlining an alleged conspiracy to create a single global government, possibly prepared by a group known as the “New World Order,” when he opened fire on workers with the Transportation Safety Administration, killing one and injuring several others.
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