ALG Editor’s Note: In the following featured editorial, The Augusta Chronicle quotes Americans for Limited Government on the controversial TSA nominee.
A serious trust issue
The “T” in TSA doesn’t stand for “Trust.” But it might as well.
If we can’t trust the Transportation Security Administration or its chief, how can we trust the agency to keep us safe in the air?
Matt Lauer of the Today show seemed to be miffed at South Carolina Sen. Jim DeMint this week for singlehandedly holding up confirmation of President Obama’s nominee to head the TSA, Errol Southers. Referring to the Christmas Day attempted airliner bombing in Detroit, Lauer pointedly asked DeMint, “In light of Flight 253, are you still gonna hold out on that nomination, or are you maybe gonna come around?”
So in Lauer’s world, we’re supposed to drop all questions about the nominee because of the Christmas Day attack and just blindly “come around.”
Never mind the fact that the Democrat-led Senate didn’t try to confirm Southers prior to Christmas. Or that Obama waited eight months to nominate him.
But now DeMint is the problem? Yeah,right.
Nor does it bother Lauer at all that Southers won’t answer simple questions about whether he’ll support unionization of airport security screeners — a very significant concern. Many of us believe the inflexible union mentality would make us less safe in such a setting. As Americans for Limited Government notes, unionization of security screeners “weakens security and has already been rejected by the CIA, the FBI, the Secret Service, the Coast Guard, and by every previous TSA administrator.”
Yet, Southers won’t say what he’ll do. Odd.
Moreover, as The Washington Post has reported, “The White House nominee to lead the Transportation Security Administration gave Congress misleading information about incidents in which he inappropriately accessed a federal database, possibly in violation of privacy laws ….”
As reported by Web site polijam.com, Southers, a then-FBI agent, “reportedly used his office in the 1980s to access a federal database in order to look into the background of his then-estranged wife’s new boyfriend. In a sworn affidavit on Oct. 22, Southers gave certain details about the incident to the Senate homeland security committee, only to later notify the committee on Nov. 20 that his first account was incorrect after the committee had already approved his nomination the day before on Nov. 19.”
So, he’s fudging the facts to Congress even before he’s confirmed. But we’re just supposed to come around.
Doesn’t exactly put the “Trust” in TSA, does it?
From the Friday, January 08, 2010 edition of the Augusta Chronicle
