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Rep. Paul Broun, M.D. (R-GA) of the House Committee on Homeland Security, today sent a letter to Transportation Security Administration (TSA) Administrator John Pistole demanding his immediate resignation. As he explains in his letter ( Rep Broun May 9, 2012 TSA Letter.pdf), the Georgia congressman had previously contacted Pistole regarding disturbing reports about the TSA in his home state: “I last contacted you in November of 2011 in response to a news report featured on WSB-TV, Atlanta's local ABC affiliate, which detailed potentially lax security standards at Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport.” Broun tells Pistole that “over-the-top behavior” by TSA agents has...

Patdowngate thrust this little-known agent-turned-bureaucrat into the glare of cable lights. Sitting down earlier this week, Mr. Pistole offers good and bad news for America's frequent travelers. The former first: There will be no additional tortures. Cavity searches or other more expansive body checks are out at least as long as terrorist body bombs require, as today, an external initiator or trigger. "As far as the intrusiveness and the invasiveness of the person, based on what we know, I don't see us going further than" current policy, he says. "I don't think we can, frankly. I think we've probably reached...

<p>Grammy-winning musician Steve Vaus has used an Oceanside man's experience with airline security as inspiration for a new parody he released Friday, "Help You Make It to Your Flight."</p> <p>Like the classic country song "Help Me Make It Through the Night" the song starts off romantic.</p>

Poking back at the TSA

Jesse Ventura, announced he will no longer use commercial airlines due to the egregious abuses of the TSA and the government. Ventura said he made the decision to avoid public aircraft after he found himself becoming too comfortable with being routinely searched. He said he was subjected to pat down and search three or four times a week when he traveled for his television show. Ventura had hip surgery and the metal in his body invariably sets off airport metal detectors. Jesse said he will no longer be forced by the TSA to prove he is not a criminal or...

From the Examiner via Gateway Pundit, another TSA outrage from this weekend: the defendant, Sam Wolanyk says he was asked to pass through the 3-D x-ray machine. When Wolanyk refused, Transportation Security Administration (TSA) personnel told him he would have to be patted down before he could pass through and board his airplane. Wolanyk said he knew what was coming and took off his pants and shirt, leaving him in Calvin Klein bike undergarments. “It was obvious that my underwear left nothing to the imagination,” he explained. “But that wasn’t enough for the TSA supervisor who was called to the...

Cathy Bossi, an experienced flight attendant for U.S. Airways, was forced to show a TSA screener the prothesis she wears after losing her breast to cancer. Bossi, who lives in Charlotte, N.C., opted out of the full-body scan due to radiation concerns. During her pat down, Bossi was told by the TSA screener, "Well, you'll need to show me that [prosthesis]," reports MSNBC. Several other cancer survivors have been embarrassed during the TSA pat downs as well. Musa Mayer, who has worn a prothesis for 21 years, told MSNBC that she's used to alarms going off, but she wasn't prepared...

When I went to the airport today, I was put in the uncomfortable position of a so-called “naked” full-body scan. Today’s experience was very different from the last flight I made, nearly two weeks ago; at that time I only had to go through a magnetometer. Today there was no option — it was either the full-body scan, a humiliating pat-down or no flight. All passengers flying out of Washington, DC were subjected to the new procedures. So, like confused cattle, our uneasy line of air travelers was herded through the machine. But my experience today was nothing compared to...

One of the common themes that people keep mentioning in talking about the new TSA pat down procedures is that those involved must "enjoy" the groping they're giving people. But, of course, most TSA agents are normal every day people who don't actually want to grope random people. Chris Tolles points us to a post from BoardingArea.com, who reached out to some TSA agents and found that many TSA agents hate the new rules and find it to be sapping morale to have to grope passengers. Some of it appears to be the verbal abuse they're getting from travelers, but...

I wonder if the TSA has a Don't Ask Don't Tell (DADT) policy for their screeners? Or can a openly gay TSA screener do pats downs (of children, ugh)? Inquiring minds what to know....

Here's one I don't get.If you opt out of the TSA backsplatter x-ray for whatever reason, and are directed into the aggressive (genital pat included) physical examination, it would seem you are automatically governed to a TSA screener of the same sex. First, someone correct if this is an incorrect understanding. As far as I have been able to research, the TSA states in its "Head-to-Toe Screening Policies": "It is TSA's policy that passengers should be screened by an officer of the same gender in a professional, respectful manner." Now, there can be only one plausible and logical explanation for...

New TSA Screening Procedures The stories are now legion: A cancer survivor forced to remove her prosthetic breast.A man with a urostomy bad left covered in urine.A 12 year old girl forced to submit to being naked in a scanner.A rough search into her crotch leaves a woman in tears.Pants pulled down because of artificial knees, nipple rings removed, TSA agents screaming "I have power!" I have had enough. Barack Obama should be impeached and removed from office. He appointed the most inept and ignorant Attorney General in the history of this country. Both Holder and Obama have nothing but...

Clinton would avoid 'pat down' Secretary of State Hillary Clinton says she'd avoid a security pat down at an airport if she could. Asked in the closing moments of an interview airing Sunday on CBS's "Face the Nation" if she would submit to "one of these pat-downs" that has caused a national outcry among travelers, Clinton replied, "Not if I, not if I could avoid it." "No, I mean who would?," she said with a chuckle. The nation's top diplomat said while there's a need for some of the Transportation Security Administration's screening policies, there may be a way to...

Get ready for a political Twilight Zone. In this clip from Huckabee on Fox News, The View co-host Whoopi Goldberg tries to convince former Governor Mike Huckabee that we live in treacherous times that justify the current “police state” security measures at the airport. Wonder if it was President Bush, and not Obama, who instituted the TSA pat-downs whether Huckabee’s uneasiness and Goldberg’s compliance would be reversed? In response to Huckabee saying he is not happy about a government employee going into people’s pants at the airport, Goldberg reminds him “no it’s not comfortable and it’s not the way I...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Air travelers buoyed by President Barack Obama's request for his national security team to consider less intrusive airport screenings shouldn't expect anything different at airports soon. "No, we're not changing the policies," the head of the agency responsible for airport security said Sunday.

Heeding a sudden furor, John S. Pistole, administrator of the Transportation Security Administration, said in a Sunday afternoon statement to POLITICO that airport-screening procedures “will be adapted as conditions warrant,” in an effort to make them “as minimally invasive as possible, while still providing the security that the American people want and deserve.” Read more: TSA chief: Screening may evolve

At a hearing Wednesday on Capitol Hill, TSA chief John Pistole defended the airport screening procedures and said they were necessary in, "the face of a persistent and evolving terrorist threat," according to a report by Joshua Norman of CBS News, but acknowledged the pat-downs were invasive. After submitting to a pat-down himself, he said they were, "more invasive than what I was used to." In an article at the Boston Herald, Michael Graham decribes the ordeal experienced by a mother travelling from Dayton, Ohio to Texas: “The TSA agent felt along my waistline, moved behind me, then proceeded to...

SNIP Representative Jane Harman, a California Democrat on the House Homeland Security Committee, said Friday that the packages seized in Britain and Dubai contained PETN, the same chemical explosive contained in the bomb sewn into the underwear of the Nigerian man who tried to blow up an airliner over Detroit last Dec. 25. That plot, too, was hatched in Yemen, a country that is regarded as one of the most significant fronts in the battle with extremists. Ms. Harman, who was briefed by John S. Pistole, administrator of the Transportation Security Administration, said that both packages contained computer printer cartridges...