Republicans speak out against new TSA security procedures

Natalie Gonnella

President Obama this weekend confirmed that although invasive, new TSA guidelines for airport security would remain in place for the time being (CSM).  Reiterating the President's position today on CNN’s State of the Union, Head of the US Transportation Security Administration, John Pistole admitted, “Clearly it’s intrusive. It’s not comfortable.” Pistole defended the current security protocol commenting that “it really comes down to what is that balance between privacy and security.”

Many Republicans, however, are not impressed with the Administration's implementation of the new screening policies or the slow response to citizen's frustration, and several used this weekend's political news shows to highlight their concerns:

• Florida Representative-elect Allen West, commented on this Sunday’s Meet the Press said: "We should have put out some type of feelers and talked to the American people about this before we implemented this type of plan" (MSNBC).
• Speaking about the ongoing escalation of violence along the US-Mexico border, Texas Governor Rick Perry suggested “How about we take all those TSA agents and put them on the border with Mexico where they can do some security there?...That's where we need security substantially more than in our airports and what we're seeing out of this bunch" (The Hill).
• Representative John Mica of Florida, who will chair the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee when the 112^th Congress starts in January, told CNN’s State of the Union “I don’t think the roll-out was good and the approach was even worse” (Bloomberg).
• Louisiana Governor, Bobby Jindal called on the Administration to reevaluate their priorities, commenting on Meet the Press, Governor Jindal said "I think the American people are worried when they see an administration worried about reading Miranda rights to the underwear bomber…[They're] so worried about rights of the terrorists, what about the rights of innocent American travelers?”  Jindal went on to say that although he understands the security needs of the country, intelligence and common sense should not be overlooked and as a nation we can’t keep playing simply a defensive strategy: "I'm concerned out of political correctness we're screening people that don't need it…Luck is not a strategy. We need to be rooting out these networks, we need to be killing these terrorists…The bottom line is yes we need to secure our country, but simply playing defense isn't enough.”

Additionally, although Secretary of State Hillary Clinton supported the measures during her Sunday 'round robin' of the morning news shows, when asked on CBS News's Face the Nation if she would actually submit to new airport security measures  Secretary Clinton responded "Not if I could avoid it. No, I mean, who would?" (CBS News) 

With peak holiday traffic kicking off this week in the midst of continued security concerns for air travel, further comment and critque of the new TSA system is likely to continue for the foreseeable future.