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Alan, I’d also like to see a serious discussion about national security issues and airplane travel.

But what happened with a sitting United States Senator is multiple orders of magnitude worse. I agree with very little of what Rep. Ron Paul says, and I probably agree with very little of what Sen. Rand Paul says, but it has been a precedent in Anglo-American jurisprudence dating back to the **ENGLISH CIVIL WAR** in the 1600s (actually it was an established rule even before then) that sitting members of legislative bodies cannot be detained, arrested, or otherwise interfered with in their official duties or en route to perform them.

If detaining a sitting United States Senator and barring him from using his cell phone to contact anyone isn’t a violation of Constitutional principles, I don’t know what possibly could be. Yes, I know it was probably a mistake, but the mistake needs to get fixed -— PRONTO!!!!

The last time something like that was tried by a chief executive, it was King Charles I and the violation of parliamentary immunity involved in his attempt to arrest MP Oliver Cromwell was one of the incidents that touched off a war betwee the king and parliament.

The issues really **ARE** that serious. A republic cannot function if the chief executive can detain members of the legislative body.

I’m sure we’ll learn more in the future, but I don’t care who the senator was or what he believed — TSA needs to be told to make sure this never happens again. The only possible exception I can see is if Sen. Rand Paul didn’t identify himself as a senator and just appeared to be an obnoxious passenger, in which case his privilege from arrest would not apply because it was never invoked.

71 posted on Tuesday, January 24, 2012 3:15:26 AM by AlanGreenSpam: “I’m so totally for personal liberties, but given the threats of terrorism and using a 747 as a large fuel bomb to take out a building, what are you suggesting in place of our current Airport Security? Nothing? Personally, losing some privacy/personal liberty in boarding flights doesn’t bother me as much as being hijacked. I’d like a serious discussion on how you (or anybody here) would improve the system or do you guys think airport security is completely unnecessary?”