DHS Gets Public Comment, Whether It Wants It Or Not

OverTheGeicoE writes "The motion to force DHS to start its public comment period is still working its way through the court (DHS: 'We're not stonewalling!', EPIC: 'Yes, you are!'). While we wait for the decision, Cato Institute's Jim Harper points out another way for the public to comment on body scanners, tsacomment.com. Even before this site existed, of course, the government was receiving public comment anyway in the form of passenger complaint letters, which they buried in their files. Even so, the public can get a chance to view those comments as the result of Freedom of Information Act requests. An FOIA request about pat-downs by governmentattic.org yielded hundreds of pages of letters to the government from 2010, including frequent reports of pat-down induced PTSD and sexual abuse trauma."

Comments

Re:This is going to get ugly

[Lucas123]

It hasn't worked so far. By comparison, as you can see by the number of attempted airline bombings after 9/11 -- all thwarted by observant passengers -- and security test failures (journalists and security experts smuggling weapons past airport security) technology and pat downs have failed.

Re:What good is public comment

[Anonymous Coward]

Let's have two classes of airline - one with TSA fully funded from ticket fees and another that has no TSA and standard security. Let the market decide.