Government Bullies: How Everyday Americans Are Being Harassed, Abused, and Imprisoned by the Feds

by Rand Paul

  I will address many of your specific points now.

  First, you fail to acknowledge news reports dated June 22 in which a TSA spokesperson was quoted as stating the following: “As part of our ongoing effort to get smarter about security, Administrator Pistole has made a policy decision to give security officers more options for resolving screening anomalies with young children, and we are working to operationalize his decision in airports. This decision will ultimately reduce—though not eliminate—patdowns of children.”

  This statement was widely described by news reports as a “change” in TSA policy regarding patdowns. Again, however, I see no acknowledgement of any such change in your June 30 letter. You also do not acknowledge concerns expressed by parents around the country who now—as a direct result of TSA’s policies—are forced to instruct their children that it is acceptable for government agents to touch them inappropriately.

  Second, while I am relieved to hear that TSA is “in discussion” to establish a new “Known” or “Trusted Traveler” program, I remain concerned that—a decade after 9/11—these types of programs are still only at the “discussion” level.

  Third, you mention Supreme Court rulings on the right to travel, and you state that you do not believe these rulings apply to travel by aircraft. This precise issue is, of course, a question of law that the U.S. Supreme Court has yet to directly address. However, nothing in the Court’s jurisprudence regarding the right to travel supports your argument that government-mandated strip searches are somehow justified because travel by air is only a “privilege.”

  The right to travel has a firm basis in our nation’s history. As far back as the eighteenth century, Sir William Blackstone, the great legal scholar and jurist, declared the following in his Commentaries on the Laws of England:

  Next to personal security, the law of England regards, asserts, and preserves the personal liberty of individuals. This personal liberty consists in the power of loco-motion, of changing situation, or removing one’s person to whatsoever place one’s own inclination may direct; without imprisonment or restraint, unless by due courts of law.… [Travel] is a right strictly natural… the laws of England have never abridged it without sufficient cause… in this kingdom it cannot ever be abridged at the mere discretion of the magistrate, without the explicit permission of the laws.

  As you may be aware, Blackstone’s Commentaries strongly influenced many of our nation’s formative documents, including the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Federalist Papers.

  In United States v. Guest, 383 U.S. 745 (1966), the U.S. Supreme Court states:

  The constitutional right to travel from one State to another, and necessarily to use the highways and other instrumentalities of interstate commerce in doing so, occupies a position fundamental to the concept of our Federal Union. It is a right that has been firmly established and repeatedly recognized.… [F]reedom to travel throughout the United States has long been recognized as a basic right under the Constitution.

  Id. at 757–58 (internal citations and footnotes omitted).

  And in Saenz v. Roe, 526 U.S. 489 (1999), the Court reaffirms this right:

  The word “travel” is not found in the text of the Constitution. Yet the “constitutional right to travel from one State to another” is firmly embedded in our jurisprudence. Indeed, as Justice Stewart reminded us in Shapiro v. Thompson, the right is so important that it is “assertable against private interference as well as governmental action,… a virtually unconditional personal right, guaranteed by the Constitution to us all.

  Id. at 498 (internal citations omitted).

  You argue that travel by aircraft is a “privilege.” But this begs the question as to why this so-called “privilege” should be limited to travel by aircraft? If travel by aircraft is a government-bestowed privilege, does it not follow that travel by buses, trains, cars, subways, etc., should also be considered a “privilege”? According to your logic, shouldn’t the government be allowed to subject each and every citizen to a strip search prior to entering a bus, train, subway, or even a car, with no probable cause or even reasonable suspicion that a particular individual presents any type of threat? Sidewalks are public property. Does this mean that the TSA should be allowed to set up “strip-search checkpoints” at the end of each sidewalk? While this would arguably make our country a “safer” place, it would also make it a place devoid of liberty, and of all the freedoms which have historically made this country great.

  Simply, such logic is the logic of totalitarianism. It is incompatible with our Constitution, which was established to protect citizens from their government, not the government from its citizens.

  Finally, I wanted to make sure you saw the enclosed blog post, which presents a question similar to my own inquiry during the hearing. Its author wonders why the TSA regularly stops and subjects young children, the elderly, and the handicapped to “enhanced” patdowns, while a Nigerian man with no ID, carrying expired boarding passes, is somehow able to slip through?

  Thank you for your consideration of my concerns.

  But no one should have been astounded. Government agencies will never do anything on their own to alter or correct absurd policies. Only the political reality of a public backlash could force them to change. One way to change these draconian TSA policies is for people to tell their stories. One story is bad news for the TSA. A dozen is worse. A hundred becomes a problem.

  A thousand becomes an outcry.

  I want to share some TSA horror stories, but, in telling them, also urge action. Stand up for your rights. Do this every day. Don’t let mere convenience silence you. Always be polite, but firm, in knowing what your government can and cannot make you do.

  Going through security at the airport in Nashville in January 2012, I was detained for not agreeing to a patdown after an irregularity was found in my full-body scan. I refused the patdown.

  I showed the agents the potentially dangerous part of my body—my leg. They were not interested. These agents insisted they must touch me and pat me down. I requested to be rescanned. They refused and detained me in a ten-foot-square area reserved for potential terrorists.

  Let me be clear: I neither asked for nor expected any special treatment for being a U.S. senator. But my experience wasn’t really about me at all. It was about every single one of us. It was about how we are sick of our increasingly arrogant and intrusive government.

  Sitting in the cubicle, I thought to myself, “Have the terrorists won?” Have we—as Benjamin Franklin once famously warned we should never do—sacrificed our liberty and our basic dignity for security?

  Passengers who do everything right—remove their belts, their wallets, their shoes, their glasses, and all of the contents in their pockets—are then subjected to random patdowns and tricked into believing that the scanners actually do something.

  Random screenings not based on risk assessments misdirect the screening process. They also grossly and unnecessarily add to the already existing indignity of travel. Those passengers who suffer through the process of partially disrobing should at the very least be rewarded with less invasive examination.

  This agency’s disregard for our civil liberties is something we are expected to understand and accept. Americans increasingly neither understand it not accept it.

  The TSA was created in the aftermath of the September 11 terrorist attacks, but was it necessary? Has it overstepped its bounds? Is it respecting the rights of citizens?

  I certainly didn’t feel like my rights were respected when I was detained and harassed by the TSA. I’ve since heard from countless Americans who feel the same way. They, too, feel their liberties are being compromised every time they travel. My office is constantly inundated with countless stories of assault and harassment by the TSA.

  It is time for us to question the effectiveness of our methods. It is time for us to reexamine how much of our liberty we have traded for security.

  America can prosper, pre
serve personal liberty, and repel national security threats without intruding into the personal lives of its citizens. Every time we travel, we are expected to surrender our Fourth Amendment rights. Yet willingly giving up our rights does not make us any safer. It is infuriating that this agency feels entitled to revoke our civil liberties while doing little to keep us safe.

  Is the TSA looking at flight manifests? Are we researching those boarding the planes? Are we targeting or looking at those who might more potentially attack us? Apparently not. The TSA instead wastes its time patting down six-year-old girls.

  This blatant violation of the Fourth Amendment, which protects Americans against unwarranted search and seizure, has insulted many citizens, and rightfully so. I, along with many other travelers, do not view traveling as a crime that warrants government search and seizure. In fact, I view traveling as a basic right, in which Americans should be free to travel from state to state as they please.

  It is my firm belief that TSA should not have such broad authority to violate our constitutional rights with these ineffective and invasive physical searches. In my fight for these basic rights, I will further push for the reinstatement of traveler privacy and rights. I will be proposing two pieces of legislation: first, the Air Travelers’ Bill of Rights, which will be explained further in a later chapter, and second—and this is the ultimate goal—the privatization of the TSA.

  It is much easier to take away citizens’ freedom while wearing a government badge. It is just a fact.

  Many airports, including recently one of the busiest in the world in Orlando, have petitioned the federal government to get the TSA removed from their airports. Why? Because that is what the airports are hearing from their customers. Air travel, like most other things in our country, would be safer, cheaper, and more tolerable if the government and their armed bullies got out of the way.

  So we have the bullies. We have the Beseechers. We have corruption and greed mixed with the natural desire of government to make us feel safer and more secure at all costs, even if the methods don’t work.

  That’s the TSA. Let us now examine, in real, flesh-and-blood terms, the kind of outrageous behavior this out-of-control government agency regularly visits upon everyday Americans.

  14

  How the TSA Terrorizes American Citizens

  “The next time airport security tells you to put your hands over your head and hold that vulnerable position for seven seconds, ask yourself: Is this the posture of a free man?”

  —NOAH FELDMAN, HARVARD LAW PROFESSOR

  Since my ordeal with the TSA made national headlines, the phones in my office have been ringing off of the hook with calls from citizens who sympathize with my frustration. Many Americans feel their liberties are being compromised every time they travel. My office has been inundated with stories of assault, harassment, theft, and bullying at the hands of TSA agents. The agency’s utter disregard for our civil liberties is something we are supposed to simply expect, understand, and accept. But we are Americans. We are not supposed to be treated like this by government officials. We are tired of being insulted. We are tired of having our dignity compromised. It is fundamentally wrong that any government can force its citizens to consent to invasive searches anytime we want to travel. The Fourth Amendment is not simply some trivial piece of legislation to be ignored at government whim, but an integral part of all Americans’ constitutional liberties.

  These personal stories of physical and mental abuse by the TSA involve groping, bullying, harassment, theft, or even a combination of all four. Some of the stories include shocking privacy violations and literal molestation.

  In 2010, the TSA implemented new screening measures that further increased the invasive nature of the agency. One of these new measures required TSA agents to literally put their hands down people’s pants if they were wearing baggy clothing. Since this procedure was implemented, there have been thousands of reports of sexual molestation and related violations. New Jersey–based radio host Owen JJ Stone, known as “OhDoctah” to his fans, shared his horrific TSA screening experience with his listeners.

  While traveling, Stone was motioned to approach TSA agents, who told him that because he was wearing sweatpants, he must undergo a patdown. When he asked what this patdown would entail, the TSA agent said, “I have to go in your waistband and I have to put my hands down your pants.” The agent offered to perform this in a private room. Understandably apprehensive about what was about to happen, Stone instead chose to have the search conducted in public view, fearful that the agent would be more aggressive and invasive in private. Stone described in stark terms what happened next—the agent put his hands inside Stone’s pants and directly patted down his testicles, penis, and backside.

  An ABC News producer had a similar experience involving TSA molestation. She chose to opt out of a full-body scan, so the TSA required her to stand aside and receive a patdown. She explained, “The woman who checked me reached her hands inside my underwear and felt her way around. It was basically worse than going to the gynecologist.” These invasive searches do not ensure our safety, but they do ensure molestation and embarrassment. Understandably, the producer said she found the entire process embarrassing, demeaning, and inappropriate.

  Many female travelers have been sexually victimized by this government agency. Eliana S. went through security at the Orlando International Airport, where she felt personally victimized by the male TSA agents. She felt objectified as two male TSA agents stared at her as she waited in the security line. They were pointing, whispering, and blatantly eyeballing her, looking her body up and down. These agents asked her to step aside after she walked through the scanner, informing her that they had to perform a patdown. She said it was very uncomfortable and she felt sexually violated.

  Actress and former Baywatch star Donna D’Errico had a similar experience while traveling. A male TSA agent told her she had been singled out for a patdown. When she asked why, the agent replied, “You caught my eye, and they [other travelers] didn’t.” While she was being patted down, other agents gathered around to watch. She felt objectified and violated by government officials and there was absolutely nothing she could do about it. D’Errico said, “The TSA decides for you that you will consent to being scanned or felt up, or you simply won’t be allowed your constitutional right to travel.”

  Former Miss USA Susie Castillo always opts out of the full-body scanner. She believes it is harmful to her health. So instead, she is routinely forced to undergo patdowns conducted by TSA agents. During one particular instance, Castillo said that the TSA agent “actually felt and touched my vagina.” Outraged, Castillo used social media to spread awareness of the TSA’s frequent sexual molestation and rampant abuse of the Fourth Amendment.

  The TSA’s invasive procedures are not always sexual, but they are most certainly always embarrassing. Thomas Sawyer, sixty-one, fell victim to the agency’s embarrassing and degrading practices while traveling out of the Detroit Metropolitan Airport. Sawyer is a bladder cancer survivor. Due to his health condition, he is forced to carry a urostomy bag. During a patdown, a TSA agent broke the seal of his bag, drenching Sawyer in urine.

  An elderly and ill citizen was humiliated by the TSA in northwest Florida. The ninety-five-year-old leukemia patient was traveling with her daughter when she was forced to partake in a random patdown. The agents claimed they found something suspicious around the woman’s leg and took her into a private room. While performing the screening in the private room, agents claimed they couldn’t perform a thorough search because her Depends underwear were “wet and firm.” The woman was forced to take off her undergarments, finish the screening process, and then walk through the airport without any underwear.

  Tammy B., fifty-two, was also publicly humiliated by the TSA while being screened. Tammy is wheelchair-bound and had often had problems with security during travel. After an uncomfortable and invasive search two weeks prior, she wore simply a trench coat and undergarments as a
means of avoiding any more invasive searches. Tammy was literally stripped down to her undergarments, while the TSA publicly searched her. This “routine” search lasted over an hour and left her in nothing but her underwear for all passersby to see.

  Mandi H., thirty-seven, was also publicly humiliated by TSA. While traveling out of the Lubbock airport in Texas, Mandi set off the metal detector with her nipple piercings. She explained this to the TSA agents, and they asked her to remove the piercings. Crying from humiliation, Mandi told agents that she could not remove them without pliers. Skin typically heals around the piercing and removing them is incredibly painful. The agents quickly supplied her with pliers, and as she removed her body jewelry, several agents looked on, snickering and whispering. She felt publicly objectified and humiliated for wearing personal jewelry. The last time I checked, body jewelry was not a dangerous weapon, nor is it a threat to the safety and security of the United States.

  Apparently, the TSA publicly humiliates new mothers as well. Amy S., a nursing mother, was boarding a plane in Hawaii with her newborn baby girl, Eva. As if traveling with a newborn isn’t hassle enough, the TSA was determined to make her journey even more difficult. The agents told her that she was not allowed to board the plane with her breast pump unless she pumped milk into empty bottles, to prove that the device was in fact a breast pump. Amy explained, “I asked if there was a private place I could pump and he said, no, you can go in the women’s restroom.” The only electrical outlet in the restroom was next to a sink, surrounded by a wall of mirrors. “I had to stand in front of the mirrors and the sinks to pump my breasts, in front of every tourist that walked into that bathroom,” she said. She said that the entire experience left her feeling embarrassed and humiliated. The TSA publicly humiliates travelers in this manner on a regular basis, while doing very little to actually keep us safe.