/ Mark Frauenfelder / 1:09 pm Mon Nov 22, 2010

Congress members exempted themselves from airport security screening

When members of Congress have to fly commercial with the rabble, they get to skip security. No pats downs, no detectors. NYT: "As he left Washington on Friday, Mr. Boehner headed across the Potomac River to Reagan National Airport, which was bustling with afternoon travelers. But there was no waiting in line for Mr. Boehner, who was escorted around the metal detectors and body scanners, and taken directly to the gate."

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      1. As far as I’m concerned his name is pronounced dick-head. Just like the overwhelming majority of Congress.

      2. The closest equivalent to the actual pronunciation with English phonemes sounds like the word “burner,” but if he, or you, wish to pronounce it differently, that’s up to him, and you.

  4. So what’s good for the hoi-polloi is not good for the ones who have imposed it upon us. How totally unexpected.

    I’ve long thought that elected officials should be forced to live in public housing, use public transit, and get their medical care through medicaid. But when i say this aloud, I get told I am a dangerous left-wing radical.

    1. How did you feel about Nancy Pelosi’s use of a USAF Gulfstream for her personal transport to and from her home?

        2. The link you post makes it clear that Pelosi has regularly used a C-20/C-37, which is the USAF version of the Gulfstream. Just as I said.

          Now, who is setting a better example? Boehner who flies commercial and bypasses security, or Pelosi who pops over to Andrews AFB for a personally assigned jet?

          And yes, I know that Pelosi’s predecessor, Dennis Hastert, did the same thing, and it was every bit as execrable.

          1. Boehner isn’t yet the Speaker of the House.

            He will be at the start of the next Congress. I hope you will revisit your judgement then.

  6. A few years ago a colleague and I watched as the Sen. Clinton and her entourage of 4-5 lackeys passed through security quickly, bypassing the entire process for the US Airways shuttle to NYC. I found her CBS News statement that she wouldn’t want to undergo the process a little incredulous.

  7. Reminds me of “Animal Farm” by George Orwell

    All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.

  8. The benefit of going through security faster does not compensate for the downsides of being in Congress like having to live in DC and the added scrutiny of every aspect of your life. I’m happy to let them have this little benefit. If Al Quaeda had a congressman they wouldn’t waste him in a suicide bombing.

    1. If Al Quaeda had a congressman they wouldn’t waste him in a suicide bombing.

      Wouldn’t they?

      I’m finding the idea of sending my own congressman on a suicide run increasingly irresistible.

        1. you must be from Texas, also.

          You take that back! Baseless calumny!

          Naw, I’m just a hyperbolic taxpayer from California’s Fightin’ 29th. I don’t actually wish ill toward Adam Schiff, but he’s more of a Blue Dog than I like representin’ me.

          Wonder how he likes going through the airport security measures he so enthusiastically showed off in Burbank back in November 2001? Wonder if his two school-age kids appreciate the choice between naked photography and the resistance-meeting rub-n-tug?

    3. Oh yeah, those poor, poor career politicians who give themselves raises every other year and fight tooth and nail for the pork of their PAC lackeys. Boo hoo. Give me a break. ANybody remember a time when holding an office was meant to be civil service for a short period, and not a career?

  10. I’ll be waiting impatiently for a terrorist to get through security by dressing as a congress person.

  11. Janet Napolitano should be groped in the genitals at every single airport she travels through.

    Alternatively, every single groped traveler should file sexual harassment charges with the city and county police of said offending airport.

  13. This kind of makes me think back to the whole reason we broke off from England. Taxation without representation. So Congress gets preferential treatment and is treated like an entirely separate society than the people they represent? Doesn’t that… basically destroy the values we were aiming for?

  14. I can hear the American people loud and clear. They’re saying, don’t make me go through security!

  16. There does not seem to be anything new about this:

    “Michael Steel, a spokesman for the Republican leader, said in a statement that Mr. Boehner was not receiving special treatment. And a law enforcement official said that any member of Congress or administration official with a security detail is allowed to bypass security.

    “’The appropriate security procedures for all Congressional leaders, including Speaker Pelosi and Senator Reid, are determined by the Capitol Police working with the Transportation Security Administration,’ Mr. Steel said.”

    So this does not seem to be a change, and it does not seem to be anything that members of Congress have decided to exempt themselves from. I’m upset about the new procedures as well, but let’s try to get things straight.

    1. It’s not new, but it explains why they aren’t too interested in doing away with onerous security theater. And they sure did exempt themselves. They could wait in line with you if they wanted to set a good example.

      1. When has Congress ever been a place where anyone wanted to set a good example? Preston Brooks has always seemed the furthest extent of how bad they get, but I’ve never known that place for exemplary behavior to admire.

  17. To clarify, it’s not all members who are exempt, only those who, because of their particular roles, have armed security details assigned while travelling. This includes the leaders of both caucuses in both houses, and a few others, but does not cover rank-and-file members. The original article in fact notes that Alan Boyd (D-FL) was subjected to screening simultaneously with Boehner’s wave-through.

  20. I was waiting to board a Delta BOS-SLC flight several years ago when a car pulled up to the jetway. Then Governor Romney stepped out, walked up stairs that are generally used to gate check luggage, into the door at the elbow of the jetway and then onto the plane. When I boarded he was in first class.

  21. How is this even news? Doesn’t anyone remember the bygone days of 2002 when things like Homeland Security and PATRIOT ACT were new? Congressmen were all lining up for photo ops, posing with “Freedom Fries” and at airport scanner lines, and then within a year of 9/11 they were all exempting themselves from scans and security checkpoints etc etc etc.

  22. As someone who once worked in a Congressman’s office, I can tell that they also have (or at least had) the ability to call Reagan National and get flights held if they’re running a little late. I saw it done.

  23. As Twainish as I can be, I actually don’t begrudge our Congress folks their perks. But it does smack of ‘Let them eat curies.’

    1. I actually don’t begrudge our Congress folks their perks.

      I don’t mind if they get free postage and cabfare, or tickets to Nationals games. But this here’s an instance where tonedeafness would be worse-received than usual.

      If I were duly elected to Congress, and I were convinced that the current TSA policy was genuinely necessary (or even mostly helpful), then I’d make a point of using it at every opportunity.

      Few current policies sound more obnoxious than saying, “This policy is essential to Keep America Safe. So let’s all come together, Nation, for the sake of our safety in these insecure times, and each and every one of us submit to these searches, no matter how invasive or intimidating they may seem, since it’s for the betterment of everyone. And the only way it’ll be 100% effective, you see, is if everyone submits to it. Oh, except for me. ‘Cause I’m in Congress, and thus a part of the very institution that the terrorists want to overthrow. So I couldn’t possibly be a threat. But the rest of y’all, hell, who knows what riffraff might be disguised as one of you American-Idol-watchin’, iPod-listenin’, HFCS-drinkin’ McRib lovers? So spread those cheeks in the name of Liberty, while I just duck through here real quick on my way to First Class. Can’t keep my constituents waiting. In case you needed reminding, I’m Important And Above All This.”

      1. Well, I’m of the mind that Congress circumventing security lines – as is their wont – only serves to add another nail to the firestorm that’s inundating our national anger.

        (√) Do not filter my metaphor results

  24. I’m fine with the Speaker, and Secretary of State, and shortly airline pilots getting to skip the virtual porn scanners or the unwanted explicit gropings at the Thousands Standing Around / Thousands Squeezing @$$es ‘security’ lines. I don’t think there should be a double-standard so I think the rest of us should be able to live by their standards too.

  25. Talking about Congressmen circumventing airport security is a little like talking about how a rapist cheated on his taxes.

      1. But that crapshoot, and its results, only persists for a little while, before the players are all once again leveled with the dust, and with each other.

        Naked we are born: and naked we die.

        2. All that counts is the in-between time, short as it is. I’m sure you know not to let “this too shall pass” become a shortcut to indifference.

  27. Throw these bastards to the TSA dogs. They above all should NEVER be exempt!

    I believe someone above said it. “Congress shall pass no law exempting Congress from said law”. Surely they can’t legally get away with this?

    But then I guess Iraq happened, and a lot else.

    Fondle these fuckers till they collapse in a heap and cry like the rest of the afflicted. And damn them all for their complacency. America has no royalty, and these assholes are acting like they are royalty. It’s about time someone made them face the genital groping gloves like the rest of us!!!

  28. Ummmmmmm, I’m pretty sure that this has been the case for decades. If we can’t trust that senators and congressmen won’t hijack airliners then I think we can be pretty sure we are screwed.

    1. It’s not very good for morale when the lawmakers glide right by the shit everyone else has to crawl through, though.

    2. Anon @ 44 “If we can’t trust that senators and congressmen won’t hijack airliners”

      (1) Maybe, but how many hangers-on bypass screening by reason of being the legislator’s remoras?

      (2) I can think of several senators and representatives who have done a great deal more damage to the USA sitting at their desks than any AQ recruit at the yoke of an airplane ever could.

    3. But that’s the whole *point* of this thing, they’re not supposed to profile because that’s illegal – it’s supposed to be everyone who is subjected to it. I’m pretty sure no one thinks that 4 year old boy they’re groping is going to hijack the plane. Nor do they think the 15 year old girl travelling with her soccer team is going to hijack the plane. It’s supposed to be everyone going through the security, *including* the congresspeople. Exempting them is just straight bs.

  29. So … all the Terrorists have to do is plant a bomb inside a robotic simulacrum posing as a Congressperson?

    Christ, what a world.

  30. Different members of the congress behave differently with TSA screening. I travel through DCA frequently and have seen the same (bypassing security) from Sen Dick Durbin, R, IL. and have seen other senators go through security with the rest of us. As the woman from TSA I was chatting with said (and to paraphrase Aldous Huxley) “some of us are more equal than others.”

    1. Not that it really matters but Senator Durbin in a Democrat. Though in reality there is little difference, so I can see where you got confused. R, D, doesn’t matter… they’re all, as I said above, dick-heads.

  31. This Congress we’re talking about. It’s not getting felt up that they object to; they just don’t want to have to wait in line for it.

  32. Good. I’ve exempted myself as well from the screening by scanners, and I encourage everyone else to exempt themselves from the TSA’s onerous procedures. In fact, in the spirit of Total Security Theater, let’s exempt ourselves from flying altogether. That will show those terrorists!

  33. Maybe this is Obama’s way of unifying the county…

    The left, right, and center are all outraged about this whole mess!

    1. Given the fact that, according to recent polls, over 80% of Americans actually SUPPORT the TSA’s new screening policies, it would be hard to argue that the country is in any way unified by outrage about this whole mess. Yes, there are voices of opposition coming from left, right, and center. But there are also, apparently, voices of support coming from left, right, and center. Sadly, most Americans are no longer committed to the principles of liberty that our nation was founded on. They’d rather, to paraphrase Ben Franklin, trade essential liberty for a little temporary safety; and, therefore, they deserve neither.

      1. Maybe I spoke too soon. A new poll was just released showing that support for the body scanners is now down to just 64%, with only 48% supporting the enhanced pat downs. So, maybe the recent media coverage has begun to change public opinion on the issue.

  34. The reason most Congresscritters bypass the scanners, is that they would reveal the awful truth that they are victims of colo-cranial connectivity (i.e. their heads are up their asses)

  35. All young children should be taught to opt out of the pornoscanner. I await the fun of hearing of creepy TSA goons touching children in the same manner.

    Where are these stories?

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