While you’re struggling to pay your taxes and mortgage, the Feds are handing $1 billion of their infernal “stimulus” to the Transportation Security Administration (TSA). Among other evils, this bureaucracy controls the airport checkpoints at which screeners grope you and rifle your belongings without a warrant or even the faintest suspicion of criminality, let alone “probable cause.”

TSA is part of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). The latter’s secretary, Janet Napolitano, holds no degree in economics, nor has she ever managed a company or started a business. Yet that didn’t keep her from burbling that “the money is a ‘great opportunity’ to improve security while stimulating the economy” because the TSA’s wasting it will “create more than 3,000 jobs and will continue our security strategy of risk-based application of assets and funds…” Miss Napolitano has leeched off taxpayers in one government post or another for most of her career. So we might expect her to have noticed the TSA’s shameful history of squandering money. Blowing another billion on it is like asking Illinois’ former governor, Rod Blagojevich, to appoint a few more senators.

Prior to 9/11, the entire screening industry cost about $700 million for a year's operations. Yet the fledgling TSA spent $741 million merely recruiting personnel – not training them, not outfitting them, just attracting applicants and hiring them. And no wonder, when recruiters in New York City lived for weeks on our dime at the fabled Waldorf-Astoria. Taxpayers should be that lucky: the Waldorf is a “grand” hotel “combin[ing] luxurious elegance with a myriad of amenities and services.” So grand, in fact, that it scared off prospects: Susan and Joseph Trento report in their book, Unsafe at Any Altitude: Exposing the Illusion of Aviation Security, that “many potential screeners failed to show up for interviews because they were intimidated by the location.”

Other recruiters spent almost two months at the splendiferous Wyndham Peaks Resort and Golden Door Spa in Telluride, Colorado. Apparently, its “championship golf course, jeep tours, mountain biking, horseback riding, hiking, fly fishing, cross-country skiing, snowmobiling, dog sledding and snow shoeing” kept them too busy to work. After $375,000 and seven weeks, they had filled only 50 positions. Recruiting is thirsty work, too. "Beverage breaks" at the Millennium Broadway Hotel in New York City cost us $7,920. But that’s pocket change compared to the TSA’s consumption at the Sheraton in Reston, Virginia: agents and applicants there consumed 833 gallons of coffee, tea and hot chocolate for $28,420. Yep, that’s $34.11/gallon, making Starbucks or even gasoline at last year’s peak price a comparative bargain.

How about $461,745 for the party the TSA threw itself on its second anniversary? It held the festivities at Washington DC's posh Grand Hyatt, where the cheese display alone ran $500. We paid $200,000 for guests’ travel and lodging. We also bought plaques honoring 543 employees, including one who received a "lifetime achievement award" after a whopping two years of employment, for $81,000.Then there’s the TSA’s headquarters. With $19 million of our taxes, the agency transformed an “undeveloped office building” into 55 offices – 45 of which included “television monitors with commercial cable service” – and workstations “larger than TSA or federal standards permit.” This facility also boasts all the latest paraphernalia for catching terrorists: seven kitchens, a 4200-square foot gym, and $500,000-worth (yes, you read that right: half a million dollars’ worth) of artwork and silk plants.

The TSA actually exceeds even this dismal record when purchasing equipment. And that's especially infuriating because it plans to lavish $300 million of its billion on new gizmos for checkpoints, among them cameras that photograph all us terrorists naked and scanners that supposedly detect explosive liquids. But the TSA usually buys machines without so much as kicking the tires first. Time and again, its contraptions don't work as promised or have never been tested for the heavy use they receive in airports. One of many examples: the TSA spent almost $32 million on "explosive trace portal machines" that "sniff" passengers for bombs. Then it exiled over half the things to a warehouse because "they took too long to screen passengers, and they often broke or were unreliable because they could not withstand the dust, grime and jet-fuel fumes in airports," according to the Washington Post. They also gave false alarms with exhausting regularity: "We all laugh about it now because we never know if it's working or not," one anonymous TSA supervisor told the Seattle Times.

The Feds may be laughing – but those of us paying the bills sure aren't. The Government Accountability Office regularly cites the TSA for its reckless waste of our money. But nothing changes. Congress with its annual appropriations continues squandering our money on this silly agency – though the TSA hasn’t found a single terrorist anywhere after seven years of pestering passengers. So it portrays folks who’ve misplaced a bread knife or who object to the agency’s delaying them as a threat to American aviation. After all, the TSA has to justify the $42 billion it’s cost us thus far; since it’s not protecting us from terrorists, it protects us from each other. But that comes at an exorbitant cost – and money is the least of the price.

Not only has the TSA killed a man, the government is also imprisoning passengers and ruining lives based on contraband screeners unearth during their warrantless searches. Paul Francis Smith, 22 and a naval veteran, is one of the most recent victims. Cops arrested him at John Wayne Airport in California “after a security screener found cocaine packages strapped to his legs underneath his baggy pants.” There have been plenty of others, including Americans exercising their right to keep and bear arms. And there will be many more as the TSA expands its warrantless searches from airports to transit systems, Super Bowl games, and, chillingly enough, political rallies.

Rather than rewarding this tyrannical, profligate, absurd agency with even more of our money, Congress should abolish it. Meanwhile, the TSA accounts for only a billion of the stimulus’ $787 billion. Imagine the waste in the other 786.

Becky Akers, an expert on the American Revolution, writes frequently about issues related to security and privacy. Her articles and columns have been published by Lewrockwell.com, The Freeman, Military History Magazine, American History Magazine, the Christian Science Monitor, the New York Post, and other publications.

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MarkGlen said:

	Libertarians are crazy I don't like to fly, but if I did fly I would most surely want to know that no one had a means to sabotage the airplane.
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March 18, 2009 | url
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Airline Pilot said:

The most dangerous thing on board an airplane is the human mind. As an airline pilot based at a large airport, I can tell you that TSA's screening is just a smoke-screen, a facade to make the passengers and the public feel safer. If you want to down an airplane, there are ways of doing it with virtually no military training. The minute we forget about freedom in deference to some illusion of safety, we demand the loss of freedom. Just because today's world seems different "after 9/11" doesn't mean that freedom has changed one bit. The upshot of all of this is that Americans don't want freedom. I am saddened by it, but hey, unlike all you work animals on Animal Farm, I get to take liquids through security. They just ask me to put it in the suitcase so none of the other less equal animals know it.

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March 18, 2009 | url
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That's Pelosi, Lowly rated comment [Show]

Facade said:

Believe it or Not What was the weapon that was used to cause 9/11? Was it a box cutter, an airplane, or an Islamo-fascist? I have a true story and the answer right here: A man who has had a couple of drinks already, goes through TSA, gets to his flight and once up in the air (this takes place after 9/11) flirts with the flight attendant and says to her "Hey honey, do you know that the TSA is a bunch of bull...I am able to make a weapon with this soda-pop can." He takes the can, downs the contents, flattens the middle, tears it in half and now has a blade to work with. He was taken away once on the ground... point being that the single most dangerous weapon that kills is truly the human mind. One can not wait till TSA comes and helps us. We must be able to help ourselves without Uncle Sam being our sole protector. TSA is not alone what has stopped any further attacks. As for the Islamists, they are content with killing our boys overseas, why would they want to mess with our airlines any more?

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March 18, 2009
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rjacobs said:

Fascists are crazy. The point about TSA is not that we should not have secure air travel, but rather that paying the government to provide the service is terribly wasteful. I agree that TSA should not be "in power" as Mr. Whitehead suggests, but I think the punishment should be a bit more solution oriented - they should be employed by the airlines. Airline security and safety should be the responsibility of the airlines and the individual airport authority. There should be no protection from lawsuits for safety and security violations, as is currently the case for airlines that "meet government safety guidelines." If safety and security were the responsibility of the airlines, people would only fly on airlines that were safe and secure. You would probably find that the screening is at least as rigorous as the current TSA practice, but they would likely need to implement some additional measures to ensure safety while on board, such as having armed guards that can take out a threat if necessary. Would all of this be more or less intrusive to the passenger than the TSA? Who knows, but at the very least it would be done in a manner that is many times more cost effective than the TSA can do it.

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March 18, 2009
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MarkGlen said:

Fight smart Islamo-Fascists would love to down our airplanes, but they have not been able to because we are alert. Work with the screeners at the airports. They are doing a great job. Don't let the crazy libertines tell you any different. Stewardess are more alert now than they were before 9/11 and lawmen and lawwomen ride along with the passengers now. Libertines are wasting their time and energy fighting airport screeners. They should go after the Fed, border control, inflation, defending the Second Ammendment. But they are too dumb. So, we will have to do the job without them.

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March 18, 2009 | url
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danwhitehead1 said:

	rjacobs is right - - - - - - as usual, I got carried away by emotions. I'm just soooo sick and tired of these arrogant, unelected, unaccountable, fedgov power hungry bully types. It's just gone too far. They must be stopped.
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March 18, 2009
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MarkGlen said:

	Libertines just hunt arguments A libertarians just like to argue. They are like tits on a boar hog.
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March 18, 2009 | url
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danwhitehead1 said:

	Word error? Mark Glen I think the word you want is libetarian rather than libertine. It's been my experience that it's the left wing "liberals" who like to argue or to cause arguments and/or confusion. Perhaps they falsely believe that it makes them look more intelligent than they really are.
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March 19, 2009
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danwhitehead1 said:

I notice - - - - - - that the editor removed my opening comment about the TSA and Homeland "Security". It's just as well. The comment was written in anger and frustration and neither of those has ever solved anything. I still maintain, however, that these two fedgov agencies are evil and dangerous to the core and have no legitimate Constitutional place in the Republic of the United States of America.

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March 19, 2009
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danwhitehead1 said:

Thomas Jefferson said - - - "The best government governs least" and "The natural progress of things is for government to gain ground and for liberty to yield." I wonder if Mark Glen would accuse Thomas Jefferson of being "a dumb libertine" ( to use Mark Glen's own word: I'm pretty sure he meant "libertarian"). The "lawmen" being put in place by the fedgov today are more in the line of common high school bully types, which is exactly the type a rogue government always employs (take a close look at Nazi Germany). If we were to put the fedgov back under the restraining chains of the constitution, most of these nightmares would disappear in short order. The Constitution MUST be restored to its proper position as the supreme law of the land.

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March 20, 2009
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archtoplee said:

markglen regurgitating hannityisms and "el rusbo" catch phrases MarkGlen skips over the thrust of the article and focuses on regurgitating talk show host drive. TSA is wasting millions on itself on lavish meals, elaborate gynasiums,staying at posh resorts, buying $MILLION OF DOLLARS WORTH OF expensive "security equipment" which doesn't work. Address these abuses markglen. Anyone who thinks that the TSA is doing a good job is either an idiot or is insanely in love with dictatorship. Ms. Akers says that " ..recruiters spent almost two months at... Wyndham Peaks Resort and Golden Door Spa in Telluride, Colorado" interviewing applicants for airort screeners. How is it ok for taxpayers to foot the bill for TSA recruiters to kick up their hills for seven weeks at a Telluride, Co. resort "interviewing " 50 applicants at the cost of $375,000? It seems that all that supporters of DHS and TSA can come up with is to regurgiate Shawn Hanittyisms. Maybe the "Islamo Fascists" will discover the high life at TSA and apply as TSA recruiters! It doesn't make me feel safe knowing that the TSA recruiters are using my tax money to take "'Beverage breaks' to the tune of of $7,920." Does it make you feel safe, Markglen to learn that the pigs at TSA wasted $28, 420 on beverages? Do TSA bureaucrats deserve ONE HALF MILLION DOLLARS of artwork and silk plants to do their job properly? What does living the high life have to do with fighting "terrorism" MarkGlen? Nothing! And you can't justify this waste of tax dollars nor dictatorial control of local police and city airports under the excuse of "fighting terrorism." If your want to fight terrorism then you arrest the terrorists hi-jackers before they board the planes; you arrest them at the pilot training schools! You don't let them hi-jack planes and then impose a gestapo-like agency over our airports, subways, and ports of entry to control land offend American citizens after you allow this treachery to occur right under your stupid noses!

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March 20, 2009
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MarkGlen said:

	P.S. What happened to great men like Dr. (Dentist) Laningham and Reverend C.H. Grover? Both of Colorado. By the way archtoplee how did you post using as many words as you did? I couldn't post that many words. archtoplee you need to get your mind off of swimming pools and get to work on real issues.
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March 20, 2009 | url
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Thomas Paine said:

Well done Becky Akers, TSA a joke Once again JBS proves it can rise above the right wing left wing commentary. As the Neo Con New World Order believes in Divide and Conquer. They have the little people like us hating each other so they can take total control. The War on Terror is a Fraud! See Architects and Engineers for Truth and the Aaron Russo interview. The NWO is moving so quick through the banking and deficit collapse that total control is only a few years away, via collapse of the dollar and the new Amero to emerge. TSA is a joke, and they know it. The crooks at the top are raiding all of our bank accounts.

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March 20, 2009
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MarkGlen said:

Seek the face of God in prayer The U.S. economy is going belly up because leftist politicians didn't try to fix the problem, the crash of 1929. They chose rather to buy votes with government handouts. I think we all knew this day would come. The only hope we have of saving the Republic is a revival of true Christianity. Because only a change of heart can cause a mass exit of people from Hollywood leftists, media leftists and University leftists circles. When Christians get revived they can move mountains. We are going to experience tough times ahead, but a godly people can hold out and rebuild America. Yes, rebuild America the way it should have been rebuilt after the crash of 29. We have put off the inevitable for 70 years and now we have no choice but to get to work.

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March 20, 2009 | url
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archtoplee said:

	Mark won't answer any of my questions but wants me to answer his Mark, have you ever heard of "casting pearls to swine?"
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March 20, 2009
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danwhitehead1 said:

	Thank you - - - Thomas Paine and archtoplee. Let's think Constitution and deep six all the other hogwash.
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March 21, 2009
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MarkGlen said:

	Just checking archtoplee, are you "swine"?
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March 21, 2009 | url
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MarkGlen said:

A good place to start John 3:14-18 14 And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up: 15 That whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life. 16 For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. 17 For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved. 18 He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.

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March 21, 2009 | url
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MarkGlen said:

	Name the swine in this room archtoplee you ask "Mark, have you ever heard of "casting pearls to swine?"" Are you a swine and what about danwhitehead? Is he one? Name the swine in this room and I want address them.
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March 21, 2009 | url
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archtoplee said:

	Casting pearls and pearls of wisdom It's a metaphor. Don't allow it to bother you.
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March 21, 2009
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MarkGlen said:

	"metaphor...swine" archtoplee who is the "metaphor...swine" that I'm suppose to be casting pearls to?
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March 22, 2009 | url
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MarkGlen said:

When will America fall When will America fall? Answer: When the sins of the people demand it. (Genesis 16:15) God will most surely bring certain things down upon us to get more people to repent and turn to Him through Jesus. A couple of examples: New Orleans was, and maybe still is, a very wicked city. A hurricane all most wiped it off the map. And number 2: We are faced with a monetary crises and it is a result of the leftist establishment “trying” to solve the original crises, the crash of 1929, by socialist monetary policy. And most people went along, for the money, “For the love of money is a root of all evil…” 1 Tim 6:10, Amplified Bible. Soon our dollar will not be worth a red cent. Also, U.S. foreign policy people are committing the sin of trying to divide the land of Israel. Conclusion: Get close to God and hang on to your hat for tomorrow we go broke. Are you ready? And… If troubles don’t bring America back to God then we will fall never to get up again. And you can take that to the bank. Well, maybe we should come up with a better figure of speech.

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March 22, 2009 | url
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