Yours for Liberty,

Sharon

***
 

Ex-TSA Agent: "We Laughed at, and Abused, American Citizens"

"Dear America, I Saw You Naked. And Yes, We Were Laughing." 

That's the title of a damning expose of the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) in Politico Magazine, subtitled "Confessions of an ex-TSA Agent" and written by former Transportation Security Officer Jason Harrington.

And yes, what ex-TSA agent Harrington reveals is probably exactly what you thought was going on. 

Some excerpts:

"Just as the long-suffering American public waiting on those security lines suspected, jokes about the passengers ran rampant among my TSA colleagues… All the old, crass stereotypes about race and genitalia size thrived on our secure government radio channels."

"We knew the full-body scanners didn't work before they were even installed. …the machines were good at detecting just about everything besides cleverly hidden explosives and guns. The only thing more absurd than how poorly the full-body scanners performed was the incredible amount of time the machines wasted for everyone."

"[W]e would also sometimes pull a passenger's bag or give a pat down because he or she was rude. We always deployed the same explanation: 'It's just a random search.'"

"It was a job that had me patting down the crotches of children, the elderly and even infants as part of the post-9/11 airport security show." 

 "In private, most TSA officers I talked to told me they felt the agency's day-to-day operations represented an abuse of public trust and funds."

"I was even required to confiscate nail clippers from airline pilots — the implied logic being that pilots could use the nail clippers to hijack the very planes they were flying."

Racial profiling was standard, he says: "The thought nagged at me that I was enabling… government-sanctioned bigotry…" 

His summing up: "As I saw it, $40 million in taxpayer dollars had been wasted on ineffective anti-terrorism security measures at the expense of the public's health, privacy and dignity."

One more thing: After the article appeared, Harrington tweeted this follow-up: "One thing I left out of that Politico piece: HELL YES airport employees often drink those bottles of alcohol you surrender at the checkpoint."

Your government at work...

(Hat tip to: Tim Shoemaker's article at Campaign for Liberty's blog.)

Libertarian Party Response to 2014 State of the Union Address: "Americans' Rights Violated Like Never Before" 

Perhaps you heard President Barack Obama's State of the Union address and the GOP responses. 

The Libertarian Party responded as well, lambasting the Big Government policies of both parties and offering a pro-liberty alternative in a hard-hitting statement from Executive Director Wes Benedict. 

Naturally the mass media declined to carry it, but don't let that stop you from encountering a genuine libertarian State of the Union address. Some excerpts: 

"Thanks to unprecedented levels of government interference and government coercion, Americans' rights are violated like never before. We are harmed by taxes, regulations, prohibitions, and shocking privacy intrusions. …

"Our Libertarian hope is that we can convince enough Americans to change their minds. We hope voters will come to understand that government is force, and force is unjust.

"Here are some of the problems we see.

* The government debt situation is atrocious. Government debt is a terrible thing, because it forces future generations to pay off debts they never agreed to incur. From 2001 to 2008, George W. Bush doubled the debt, mostly with the support of a Republican Congress. Since 2009, Barack Obama and the Democrats (and Republicans) have nearly doubled it again. It doesn't matter whether Republicans or Democrats control the government. Libertarians would quickly balance the budget by cutting spending on everything, including entitlements and the military.

* The employment situation is still pretty bad. Why? Because government gets in between employers and employees, and tries to dictate everything. Minimum wage laws, hiring laws, firing laws, subsidies, and business taxes all make it harder to create jobs and find jobs. These laws are supported by both Republicans and Democrats. Libertarians would eliminate the minimum wage, employment red tape, and business subsidies and taxes. …

* If there's one thing we have learned since 2001, it's that we can't trust what government officials say. They lie. Bush and Cheney said there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. James Clapper (Director of National Intelligence) said under oath that the NSA does not collect data on Americans. Those are a couple of the most outrageous lies, but there have been many others. The more power government has, the more government officials will have the opportunity and incentive to lie. Libertarians would greatly reduce government power. …

* How about the military? The Libertarian attitude is pretty simple: the U.S. military should leave other countries alone, even if their governments are unstable, and even if there are people living there who hate Americans. We need to cut military spending a whole lot. Try getting Republicans or Democrats to support ANY cuts to military spending. …

"All in all, the state of our union is a big mess created by Republicans and Democrats. Libertarians offer a path forward to peace and prosperity." 

And there's lots more good stuff. You can read the rest of the statement at the Libertarian Party's website. 

VIDEO: Get Rid of the U.S. Department of Un-Education

"The Department of Education should be closed and its programs terminated," says the Cato Institute. "Federal intervention into the nation's schools has consumed great deals of taxpayer money and created large bureaucracies to administer the funding and regulations. It has produced little, if any, improvement in academic results."

Shutting down the Dept. of Un-Ed would also cut a whopping $50 billion badly-spent dollars annually off the federal budget. That's about $400 per household – every year. Most people can probably find something better to do with that money. 



In just two minutes and 20 seconds, this video from the Cato Institute provides some genuinely shocking figures about the U.S. Department of Un-Education, and introduces the powerful case for eliminating it altogether. 

Share it with friends. Open some minds. 

And if they (or you) want more info, Cato's got it right here.

GOP Denounces NSA Spying as Unconstitutional; Calls for Repeal, Investigation

Hey: the Republican Party National Committee has gone all Edward Snowden on us.   

In what TIME magazine calls "the latest indication of a growing libertarian wing of the GOP," the Republican National Committee (RNC) passed a Resolution on January 24 calling for Republicans in Congress to conduct a public investigation into the "gross infringement" of Americans' rights by National Security Agency programs and to repeal much of the NSA's PRISM surveillance programs on Americans. 

The "Resolution to Renounce the National Security Agency's Surveillance Program" denounces what it called the "largest surveillance effort ever launched by a democratic government against its own citizens... the surveillance of U.S. citizens on a vast scale and [the monitoring of the] searching habits of virtually every American on the internet..." 

The remarkable document, while not binding on any GOP member, passed by an overwhelming majority voice vote. 

The Resolution boldly declares that "the mass collection and retention of personal data is in itself contrary to the right of privacy protected by the Fourth Amendment of the United States Constitution" and says "unwarranted government surveillance is an intrusion on basic human rights that threatens the very foundations of a democratic society and this [PRISM] program represents a gross infringement of the freedom of association and the right to privacy and goes far beyond even the permissive limits set by the Patriot Act..."

Further, the Republican National Committee "encourages Republican lawmakers to enact legislation to amend Section 215 of the USA Patriot Act, the state secrets privilege, and the FISA Amendments Act to make it clear that blanket surveillance of the Internet activity, phone records and correspondence — electronic, physical, and otherwise — of any person residing in the U.S. is prohibited by law and that violations can be reviewed in adversarial proceedings before a public court..." and they urge Republican lawmakers "to call for a special committee to investigate, report, and reveal to the public the extent of this domestic spying..." 

This committee, says the RNC, "should create specific recommendations for legal and regulatory reform to end unconstitutional surveillance as well as hold accountable those public officials who are found to be responsible for this unconstitutional surveillance..."

Good stuff! And there's more. You can read the whole Resolution at TIME's web site. 

However, you'd also be wise to be skeptical, as journalist John Glaser astutely notes at Reason.com's blog. After all, reminds Glaser, this is "the party that stood by President George W. Bush when he secretly (and illegally) ordered the NSA to spy on the domestic communications of Americans without any warrants at all."
 

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Intellectual Ammunition is written by Liberator Online editor James W. Harris. His articles have appeared in numerous magazines and newspapers, and he has been a Finalist for the Mencken Awards, given by the Free Press Association for "Outstanding Journalism in Support of Liberty."