Jaunted

Sen. Rand Paul said his misunderstanding with the TSA Monday morning could have been avoided if he would have simply been able to go through a body scanner in Nashville again. After missing his original flight because he would not submit to a pat-down, Paul told reporters...that “it would be so simple and people would be less offended by the pat-downs if they were given the chance to go back through the screener.”...He said he tried to show TSA officers that there was nothing hidden in his leg that would set off the scanner, “but they didn’t really care about my leg too much.”

This argument is, with due respect...oh, let's go with "silly." And it's silly for a bunch of fairly precise reasons. We've discussed this issue in the context of everyone from grandmothers to baby strollers. Lawmakers have told TSA officials that, as an absolute ironclad rule, if an alarm goes off a pat-down is required. Those lawmakers were reflecting a democratic consensus, which we know is a consensus because Paul has been trying to change the rules for years. Thus far he's failed, for all that we think some of what he's suggesting is reasonable. But he can't get enough people to agree and, until he does, what do you expect TSA agents to do? Not do their job?

Also silly—and a little hypocritical—is the idea that TSA should have used "common sense" and let a sitting Congressman go through. People are always complaining that politicians make regulations about TSA that they don't have to obey. They insist that if politicians had to submit to the same searches the rest of us do, they would change things. For examples see here and here and here and this 202-comment Reddit thread.

Now there's a member of Congress being treated like everyone else, and suddenly TSA should have used a different standard? You can be quite sure that if the agents had let Paul through, people would be complaining about the double standard (and how it proves, proves, proves that the regulations are silly). It's almost as if people are looking for an excuse to complain about TSA.

There's an entirely separate post to be written about how Paul complained that TSA is committed to a "one-size-fits-all" approach to airport security, which is the exact opposite of true.

Listen. We do our share of TSA criticism. We've complained about their bloated inefficiency again and again and again. Their personel management is suffocated by unthinking bureacracy - their firings have involved witchcraft accusations - which is what you'd expect from an organization that recruits via promises of superpowers printed on the backs of pizza boxes.We've even poked fun at their opposite of charming public outreach efforts, for no other reason than to let it be known that they suck.

Substantively, we've outlined—quite strongly—how their VIPR teams are beginning to to raise genuine non-crazy 4th amendment concerns (if you don't think so, riddle us this: what mode of mass travel is left where you aren't automatically subject to "suspicionless searches"?)

But if you're going to attack the agency, it helps not to be hypocritical and/or demonstrably wrong. If you're going to be either—and the people rushing to condemn TSA over the Paul incident are both—then at least don't also put on a show of righteous indignation.