So says Tea Party Nation founder Judson Phillips in an interview with CAIVN.
CAIVN: What do you think about the TSA’s “nude” body scanners?
Judson Phillips: I am appalled by them. First is the radiation hazard which the regime does not even address. Second, I don’t want people staring at me without clothes or my wife or my teenaged daughter or my grade school sons. There are other and better ways to protect us.
CAIVN: The TSA’s new procedures allow it to give passengers a much more aggressive pat down if they refuse to submit to a body scan. What do you think about these new procedures?
Judson Phillips: Typical heavy handed government retaliation. You will submit or we will punish you.
CAIVN: The Tea Party generally seems to support enforcing the U.S. Constitution as a document that limits Federal power. Would you say that the TSA’s searches violate the Fourth Amendment right of people to be secure “against unreasonable searches and seizures,” which it defines as those which occur without a warrant, without probable cause, or without “particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized?”
Judson Phillips: I think it does. I think we can do a much better job of security without abusing law abiding citizens. I am reasonably certain a 2 year old child is not a terrorist and a 90 year old grandmother in a wheel chair probably isn’t either. Yet they are treated the same in the eyes of the government as some 25 year old man who just arrived from Yemen.
CAIVN: Conversely, do you think we’d see a lot more outrage from progressive groups right now if Bush were still president while these things were happening at airports?
Judson Phillips: No question about that.
Indeed, why has reaction from the liberal left been muted about this obvious and heavy-handed intrusion by government? God forbid they should agree with the Tea Party on something. That would just be so wrong. This is a perfect issue for the Left to mobilize on too. There are probable civil rights violations. The searches raises serious constitutional questions, and are abusive and demeaning. And no, I don’t feel safer now that TSA can grope or douse us with radiation.