The incoming chairman of the Republican Governors Association recently proposed transferring over-eager TSA agents to the Mexican border.
“How about we take all those TSA agents and put them on the border with Mexico where they can do some security there?” Texas Gov. Rick Perry asked rhetorically in a statement quoted by The Hill.
“That’s where we need security substantially more than in our airports and what we’re seeing out of this bunch.”
According to Perry, individual states should step up to the plate and “push Washington back into that box” we call the United States Constitution.
“[You know], just in the last two weeks, I’ve had five of my citizens who’ve lost their lives on that border with Mexico,” said Perry.
“And that is [clearly] an irresponsible lack of focus by our federal government.”
Meanwhile, House Democrats have asked the TSA to “reconsider” controversial and invasive pat-downs of airline passengers.
“While we agree that security measures should be enhanced in the wake of recent attempted terrorist attacks on the aviation system, we are concerned about new enhanced pat down screening protocols and urge you to reconsider the utilization of these protocols,” Reps. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.), chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee and Shelia Jackson Lee (D-Texas) wrote in a letter to TSA Administrator John Pistole obtained by The Hill.
“Before implementing this new more invasive pat down procedure, as a preliminary matter, TSA should have had a conversation with the American public about the need for these changes. [Of course], even before that conversation, TSA should have endeavored to ensure that these changes did not run afoul of privacy and civil liberties.”
