The Good, the Bad, and Hannity

First the good before we get to the bad and the ugly (i.e., Mr. Sean Hannity).

American innovation comes to the rescue of people who don’t want their junk viewed by the TSA scanner operators.

Jeff Buske says his invention uses a powdered metal that protects people’s privacy when undergoing medical or security screenings.

Of course, if you do wear a pair, you might get the touchy-feely treatment instead:

It’s unclear whether it would lead to an automatic, more intrusive pat down by federal Transportation Security Administration officials.

Unclear. Oh, I think not. What’s funny about this is the other day I caught Sean Hannity bitching on the radio about these x-ray body scanning machines and their health risks, the intrusive pat downs, why don’t we adopt the Israeli security procedures which are less intrusive, and how evil and incompetent the Obama administration is for allowing these intrusive pat down searches, blah, blah, blah, and I had to laugh.

Those are my objections also, and the objections of many of the people in the liberal blogosphere. Hey, look, that Obama loving, left news organization MSNBC did a story about the TSA overreach and Keith Olbermann did a segment on it (scroll down) with Israeli security expert Isaac Yeffet on November 17, 2010. Gosh, Hannity and Olbermann agree full body scans are a waste of tax dollars. Hell must have frozen over.

Yet, a little bird tells me Sean wouldn’t care so much about these concerns if Bush or McCain were president. In that case, he’d be all over the whiny liberal moonbats for objecting to these scanners and body searches that are so essential to foiling Islamofascist terrorist plots to destroy our freedoms.

I mean, from the man who said torture was compatible with Christianity and that massive federal government’s warrentless wiretapping was no big deal, to see him all upset about body scanners and pat down searches simply because we now have a black Muslim loving Democratic president in office is amusing. Imagine what he would have said if Obama had not increased security measures after the failed underwear bomber plot last Christmas.

Yet now he’s incensed about the overbearing government bureaucracy at TSA:

Funny, but where was Hannity, et alia, when George W. Bush created the TSA? Did they object back in the good old days of Bush and Cheney? Of course not:

The TSA was created as part of the Aviation and Transportation Security Act passed by the U.S. Congress, and signed into law by President George W. Bush on November 19, 2001.

And as for the claim that the Federal government prevents the use of private companies as security screeners guess what? It’s a lie. The TSA still allows airports to employ private contractors! What a shock:

The Screening Partnership Program, or SPP, manages the use of qualified private vendors to perform the screening of passengers and baggage at airports participating in the Program. The Program was designed to meet the requirement for the “opt-out” provision established in the Aviation and Transportation Security Act of 2001, commonly referred to as ATSA. Since November 19, 2004, airport authorities have been eligible under SPP to submit an application to TSA to use private contract screeners. […]

There are currently 16 airports participating in the Screening Partnership Program: San Francisco International Airport; Kansas City International Airport; Greater Rochester International Airport; Sioux Falls Regional Airport; Jackson Hole Airport; Tupelo Regional Airport; Key West International Airport; Charles M. Schultz-Sonoma County Airport; Roswell Industrial Air Center; and seven airports in Montana: Frank Wiley Field; Sidney Richland Regional; Dawson Community; L.M. Clayton; Wokal Field; Havre City County; and Lewiston Municipal.

So, Hannity lied about the fact that private contractors are not used to screen passengers at US airports? What else did he fail to mention? Oh, just the fact that Michael Chertoff, former head of the Department of Homeland Security under Bush, was the lobbyist largely responsible for the current Rapiscan full body x-ray scanners (the source is this article by the Washington Examiner) that the government now uses:

On Christmas Day 2009, just before the “attempted bombing incident” on board flight 253, there were a total of 40 body scanners in use in 19 airports in the U.S. […]

* After the ‘bombing attempt’ Chertoff made a flurry of media appearances suggesting that the “attempted bombing incident” could have been avoided if all airports were using full body scanners.

* The Washington Post printed an article on January 1, 2010, calling Chertoff out for using his government credentials to promote a product that benefits his clients. It was revealed that Rapiscan Systems, the manufacturer of the naked body scanner Chertoff was recommending, was a client of Chertoff’s security consulting agency.

* Rapiscan has since received over $250 million in scanner orders.

Considering Hannity is all obsessed by the horrors of full body scanners and intrusive pat downs more than a year since they were first introduced at American airports, and that he is a bought and well compensated shill for Fox News, I am tempted to call his sudden opposition to body scanners “faux outrage.” Aren’t you?

Author: Steven D

Father of 2 children. Faithful Husband. Loves my country, but not the GOP.