There is a new lobby in Washington--born after 9/11 and committed to sacrificing your individual rights for the illusion of safety. Like any other industry, there is now a big brother lobby consisting of high tech equipment with the promise of security and the total disregard to freedom. They are selling the foundations of this country out, and while this lobbying group is still small, it is growing.
To add insult to injury, there is a huge Republican name pushing the naked body scanners in an airport near you. While no party gets a pass, since it was the Bush administration that created the Department of Homeland Security and the TSA and the Obama administration for pushing large amounts of stimulus money to create a bigger badder, more intrusive Department of Homeland Security, a unique look into one of its main lobbyists should provide more insight that the Republican party is full of deceptiCONS who care nothing for our Constitution and the freedoms and rights it provides.
If you've seen one of these scanners at an airport, there's a good chance it was made by L-3 Communications, a major contractor with the Department of Homeland Security. L-3 employs three different lobbying firms including Park Strategies, where former Sen. Al D'Amato, R-N.Y., plumps on the company's behalf. Back in 1989, President George H.W. Bush appointed D'Amato to the President's Commission on Aviation Security and Terrorism following the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103. Also on Park's L-3 account is former Appropriations staffer Kraig Siracuse.
The scanner contract, issued four days after the Christmas Day bomb attempt last year, is worth $165 million to L-3.
Oh, there are Democrats too lobbying for naked full body scanners to, but after Obamacare, we expect them to have a total disregard for the Constitution. It's the Republicans who are pledging to America to follow the Constitution, yet one of the GOP longtime establishment insiders is pushing this Constitutional killing technology in our airports, and were are the Republicans on this issue? They didn't come out swinging against it in the general election. No, rather they encouraged to increase the powers of the Department of Homeland Security to fight terrorism in their Pledge to America. Would you like to consider which party isn't fighting for the Constitution either? Let me give you a hint: they have a big elephant as their mascot.
Here's another member of the Big Brother lobby with Republican ties:
An early TSA contractor for full-body scanners was the American Science and Engineering company. AS&E's lobbying team is impressive, including Tom Blank, a former deputy administrator for the TSA. Fellow AS&E lobbyist Chad Wolf was an assistant administrator at TSA and an aide to Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, who sits on the Transportation and Defense subcommittees of Appropriations. Finally, Democratic former Rep. Bud Cramer is also an AS&E lobbyist -- he sat on the Defense and Transportation subcommittees of the Appropriations Committee.
While millions of your tax dollars are going to fund this humiliating technology, the Washington Examiner writes:
There's good reason to doubt these scanners significantly reduce the chance of a successful terrorist attack on an airplane. Deploying these naked scanners was a reaction to Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab's failed attempt to blow up a plane on Christmas 2009, but the Government Accountability Office found, "it remains unclear whether [the scanners] would have been able to detect the weapon Mr. Abdulmutallab used."
