The Patriot Act and the TSA

"Obama has overseen the most intrusion by the federal government into people's personal lives, ever."

While President Obama is the acting President today, he isn't responsible for federal screeners being allowed to feel people up and molest some airline passengers.  That was done by the previous administration, and the passing of the Patriot Act.  That said, the current President seems disinterested in addressing or acknowledging that current pat-down standards are growing far more intrusive.

Americans lost big on 9-11.  We lost because we abandoned that which makes America great- "Freedom". Our Constitution is supposed to safeguard certain rights of citizens as inalienable, such as the right to be free from government intrusion into or onto your person.  The 4th Amendment was meant to protect citizens from 'unreasonable' searches and seizures, by the government or law enforcement officers.  The Supreme Court has in recent decades allowed for government to more easily access people's persons and property.  However, none of their decisions were as broad or as debilitating to citizen privacy as the Patriot Act and the creation of the Transportation Safety Administration.

The TSA is the FBI of the sky.  If the TSA wants to fondle your genitals before you board an aircraft, you'd better pony up, or you could face a $10,000 civil suit.  Recently, I've seen videos of parents being separated from their children, and some being forced to let a complete stranger physical molest their child, as the child screamed "Stop touching me!"  The shoe bomber led to us taking off our shoes, the underwear bomber brought about the overly-familiar pat downs.  What will come when one of these guys sticks a bomb up their bum?

It has been said that those who would sacrifice freedom for security would soon have and deserve neither.  Well people, we are there.  Your person is no longer 'free' from intensive searches, if you are going to board a plane.  Now, I understand that we are in uncertain times, with terrorists hiding in every shampoo bottle over 3 oz., but does that make every 80 year old man with an artificial joint subject to a strip search?

These might all sound funny, if they weren't true.  Except that these are not puns, or plays on words at all.  When the very mention of Constitutional rights, can get you detained at an airport, one must wonder who are we fighting, with such tactics.  And where is our elected leadership, among all this?  Silent, as though anything 'they' said might be used against them, as them being weak on terrorism.  My fellow Americans, I beg you stand up, and say enough is enough.  We should all be willing to have our genitals left alone, without probable cause.

Terrorists can't make us less free, only we can do that to ourselves...