Rand Paul Has a Quick Fix For TSA: Pull the Plug

suraj.sun quotes from Politico: "Rand Paul has a reform plan for the Transportation Security Administration: Scrap the whole thing. A personal message from Paul (R-Ky.) came atop emails this week from the Campaign for Liberty Vice President Matt Hawes, asking for readers to sign a petition in support of Paul's 'End the TSA' bill. A Paul spokeswoman said that legislation is being finalized next week. 'Every inch of our person has become fair game for government thugs posing as "security" as we travel around the country. Senator Rand Paul has a plan to do away with the TSA for good, but he needs our help,' reads the petition, which also asks signers to 'chip in a contribution to help C4L mobilize liberty activists across America to turn the heat up on Congress and end the TSA's abuse of our rights.' 'The American people shouldn't be subjected to harassment, groping, and other public humiliation simply to board an airplane. As you may have heard, I have some personal experience with this, and I've vowed to lead the charge to fight back,' Paul wrote at the top of a C4L fundraising pitch, according to blogs that received the email. 'Campaign for Liberty is leading the fight to pressure Congress to act now and restore our liberty. It's time to END the TSA and get the government's hands back to only stealing our wallets instead of groping toddlers and grandmothers.'"

Comments

Can't tell if trolling or stupid

[jfengel]

There's a saying that everybody has a plan that is simple, easy, and wrong.

Nearly everybody thinks that at least some kind of security measures are necessary for airplanes. Israel's security system is highly regarded, for example, and many people think we should switch to that. Maybe we should, but it's still going to be "The Agency that handles Security for Transportation" implementing it. You can shuffle the deck chairs and rearrange the acronyms, but it's still going to fall to the government to handle security on a national-scale operation like airplanes.

"End the TSA" has a nice populist ring, and Paul gets to glom onto it, knowing that there's absolutely zero danger of actually passing it. You don't get to just end the TSA; you replace it with something else. Pretending it's what you want is either political showmanship, counting on everybody else to find political cover for when they ignore your bill (which is never getting out of committee), or it's complete and utter ignorance of how government works.

For most politicians, I'd say it's the former. In Rand Paul's case, it could be either.