On the recordNovember 17, 2010
I rise this evening to announce that I introduced some legislation today dealing with the calamity that we have found at our airports with TSA. Something has to be done. Everybody is fed up. The people are fed up, the pilots are fed up, I am fed up. I have come to this floor many times over the past many years and complained about the terrible foreign policy we have had, the terrible monetary policy we have had, the excessive spending and the debt, and also the tax policy. But what we are doing and what we are accepting and putting up with at the airports is so symbolic of us just not standing up and saying enough is enough. I know the American people are starting to wake up, but our government, those in charge, Congress, as well as the executive branch, are doing nothing. Yes, they are talking about maybe backing off and allowing the pilots to go through. But can you think how silly the whole thing is? The pilot has a gun in the cockpit and he is managing this aircraft, which is a missile, and we make him go through this groping X-ray exercise, having people feeling their underwear. It is absurd, and it is time we wake up. The bill I have introduced will take care of this. But we have to realize that the real problem is that the American people have been too submissive. We have been too submissive. It has been going on for a long time. This was to be expected even from the beginning of the TSA. And it is deeply flawed.
