The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a
previous order of the House, the gentleman
from Texas (Mr. PAUL) is recognized
for 5 minutes.
2010 Ron Paul 54:1
Mr. PAUL.
Mr. Speaker, I rise this
evening to announce that I introduced
some legislation today dealing with the
calamity that we have found at our airports
with TSA. Something has to be
done. Everybody is fed up. The people
are fed up, the pilots are fed up, I am
fed up.
2010 Ron Paul 54:2
I have come to this floor many times
over the past many years and complained
about the terrible foreign policy
we have had, the terrible monetary
policy we have had, the excessive
spending and the debt, and also the tax
policy. But what we are doing and what
we are accepting and putting up with
at the airports is so symbolic of us just
not standing up and saying enough is
enough.
2010 Ron Paul 54:3
I know the American people are
starting to wake up, but our government,
those in charge, Congress, as
well as the executive branch, are doing
nothing. Yes, they are talking about
maybe backing off and allowing the pilots
to go through. But can you think
how silly the whole thing is? The pilot
has a gun in the cockpit and he is managing
this aircraft, which is a missile,
and we make him go through this groping
X-ray exercise, having people feeling
their underwear. It is absurd, and it
is time we wake up.
2010 Ron Paul 54:4
The bill I have introduced will take
care of this. But we have to realize
that the real problem is that the American
people have been too submissive.
We have been too submissive. It has
been going on for a long time. This was
to be expected even from the beginning
of the TSA. And it is deeply flawed.
Private property should be protected
by private individuals, not bureaucrats.
2010 Ron Paul 54:5
But the bill that I have introduced
will take care of it. It is very simple. It
is one paragraph long. It removes the
immunity from anybody in the Federal
government that does anything that
you or I canít do.
2010 Ron Paul 54:6
If you canít grope another person and
if you canít X-ray people and endanger
them with possible X-rays, you canít
take nude photographs of individuals,
why do we allow the government to do
it? We would go to jail. He would be
immediately arrested, if an individual
citizen went up and did these things,
and yet we just sit there and calmly
say, oh, they are making us safe. And
besides, the argument from the executive
branch is that when you buy a
ticket, you have sacrificed your rights
and it is the duty of the government to
make us safe.
2010 Ron Paul 54:7
That isnít the case. You never have
to sacrifice your rights. The duty of
the government is to protect our
rights, not to use them and do what
they have been doing to us.
2010 Ron Paul 54:9
Another suggestion I have that
might help us: letís make sure that
every Member of Congress goes
through this. Get the x-ray and make
them look at the pictures and then go
through one of those groping pat-
downs, and then I think there would be
a difference. Have everybody in the executive
branch, anybody—a Cabinet
member—make them go through it and
look at it. Maybe they would pay more
attention. But this doesnít work. This
is not what makes us safer. This is preposterous
to think that the TSA has
made us safer.
2010 Ron Paul 54:10
When you think about it, if you look
at whatís happened over the past 10
years, during this last decade, we lost
3,000 on a terrible, terrible day for
America. But since that time in this
last decade we have also lost 6,000 of
our military personnel going over there
and trying to rectify this problem. We
have lost 400,000 people on our government-
run highways. We have lost
150,000 individuals from homicides.
2010 Ron Paul 54:11
So I think thereís reason to be concerned,
reason to deal with this problem.
Weíre not dealing with it the right
way. Weíre doing the wrong thing. And
groping people at the airport doesnít
solve our problems. What has solved
our problems, basically, has been that
they put a good lock on the door, and
they put a gun inside the cockpit.
Thatís been the greatest boon to our
safety.
2010 Ron Paul 54:12
Safety should be the responsibility of
the individual and the private property
owner. But right now we assume the
governmentís always going to take
care of us, and we are supposed to sacrifice
our liberties. I say that is wrong.
We are not safer. And we also know
there are individuals who are making
money off this. Michael Chertoff,
hereís a guy that was the head of the
TSA, selling the equipment. And the
equipment is questionable. We donít
even know if it works, and it may well
be dangerous to our health.
2010 Ron Paul 54:13
The way I see this, if this doesnít
change, I see what has happened to the
American people is we have accepted
the notion that we should be treated
like cattle. Make us safe, make us secure,
put us in barbed wire, feed us, fatten
us up, and then theyíll eat us. And
weíre a bunch of cattle, and we have to
wake up and say, Weíve had it.
2010 Ron Paul 54:14
I think this whole idea of an opt-out
day is just great. We ought to opt out
and make the point. Get somebody to
watch. And take a camera. Itís time for
the American people to stand up and
shrug off the shackles of our government
at TSA at the airports.
