Paul Joseph Watson
Infowars.com
December 16, 2010
Austin has joined the nationwide rebellion against naked body scanners by resisting plans on behalf of the TSA to install the devices at Austin-Bergstrom International Airport next year, while the TSA has still failed to respond to a FOIA request filed by former Congressman Bob Barr demanding information about whether the agency is keeping a list of “domestic extremists” who have opposed invasive airport security measures.
“Austin’s Airport Advisory Commission approved a resolution on Tuesday night advising the city council to oppose airport body scanners and invasive body searches,” reports KXAN.com.
“What we need to do is let them know it is not acceptable in Austin,” said Texans for Accountable Government’s Heather Fazio. We don’t have body scanners here. We don’t want body scanners here. We don’t need them here.”
The TSA has signaled its intention to install the scanners at Austin, but the date has continually been put back, with the agency identifying next year or even as late as 2012 before the devices will be activated.
The city joins a number of other lobby groups, state and local authorities around the country that have resolved to either block the body scanners or kick the TSA out of airports altogether, including New Jersey, where Republican state Senator Mike Doherty has vowed to introduce legislation that will ban both the scanners as well as invasive groping techniques.
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“It is with great sadness that I have come to recognize that one of our greatest threats has been presented by officials of the TSA who have begun to implement intrusive searches of law abiding Americans who are traveling within our borders.” “I am drafting new legislation that will make it perfectly clear that in New Jersey, our Constitutionally granted civil liberties are treasured and will be protected. I am calling upon my colleagues in the Legislature to step up and co-sponsor legislation that will protect the rights of citizens in New Jersey,” Doherty said.
With the Christmas travel period now in full swing, there seems little doubt that more cases of TSA abuse will emerge over the next two weeks, unless the organization repeats its Thanksgiving ploy of restricting use of the scanners and reducing the invasiveness of pat downs.
The fact that the TSA reversed its supposedly imperative security procedures in order to score political points and deflate the opt out day protest last month proves that the measures are nothing more than security theatre.
The TSA has still refused to respond to a FOIA request by former Congressman Bob Barr’s Liberty Guard organization demanding to know why the procedures were reversed and also whether the TSA and Homeland Security is keeping lists of prominent media personalities who have spearheaded the campaign against TSA abuse, such as Matt Drudge and Alex Jones.
Liberty Guard requested that any such documents be released under the Freedom of Information Act no more than 20 working days after TSA received their letter, which gives the TSA only about another week within which to release the documents or at least claim that their release would cause “foreseeable harm” to an interest protected by that exemption.
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No matter how the TSA responds, the timing couldn’t be worse for the agency, as the slowing news cycle and increasing numbers of Americans traveling will once again combine to re-focus attention on the issue – just as it did during the Thanksgiving period.
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Paul Joseph Watson is the editor and writer for Prison Planet.com. He is the author of Order Out Of Chaos. Watson is also a fill-in host for The Alex Jones Show. Watson has been interviewed by many publications and radio shows, including Vanity Fair and Coast to Coast AM, America’s most listened to late night talk show.
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