TSA Article by TX Congressman Ron Paul

[atrdriver]

My personal belief, with no hard evidence to back it up, is that the TSA and their endless hassling of law-abiding citizens is at least partially to blame for the airlines' collective loss of business traffic. Airlines can't seem to afford to pamper them enough to make up for the gauntlet they run on the way to the airplane.

And it's the Wal-Mart passengers who don't mind (all that much) getting felt up after that hour wait. Business travellers avoid the hassle of having to empty their briefcases of all their computer items, PDA's, etc. Why on earth would they go through the cr@p if they can go to an FBO. walk straight to the airplane, and have it operate on their schedule.

 

[apache]

Propjockey:

Thank you for making this post. More people need to read this so I will bump it up to the top.

A couple of things that the congressman should have touched on is that much of the airline industry has been bribed into silence with the bailout money. The airlines (and their insurance companies) were also saved from most of the lawsuits as a result of 9/11.

Any business owner would raise heck if the local cops put up a checkpoint that all of his customers had to pass through to patronize his business. The remaining customers would endure the strip search if they perceived that there was a real bargain on the other side. This might explain the resistance to any price increase that is taking place right now. Most people that I know will ride the airlines only when going out of the country or when someone unexpectedly dies on the other end of the country.

I think that we are seeing the beginning of the police state. If you don't go through the checkpoint at the airport, you will have to go through the "sobriety"checkpoint on the highway. I would like to be able to blame the Republicans or the Democrats for bring this on, but it appears to me that they are both in a race to see who can destroy the Constitution first. Only a handful of hardcore Republicans and liberal Democrats are crying foul on all of this crap. The future doesn't look good.