Which Senator or Representative will be the first to take a stand against the TSA?
 

There is clearly a groundswell of popular opinion gathering against the actions and activities of the TSA. Although I write to encourage my congresscritters regularly, I somehow doubt that the elected officials of California have the spine to make the first move.

I would guess that a red-stater will be the first to make a move, but I don't know enough about them to venture a guess.

Where will the revolution begin? Place your bets.

Never.

On an issue of "security", they have 2 choices. Do something or do nothing. Doing nothing carries less risk, because if they do something and something bad happens, it will be their fault and used against them.

That is an outdated answer. The same thing could be said about Communism, yet McCarthy was eventually taken down.

someday soon the upside of doing something will outweigh the minimal benefit of doing nothing.

I'll bet on Texas.

You are partially correct. Representative Ron Paul of Texas in his weekly column Texas Straight Talk criticized TSA generally and specifically the gropefest that started around Thanksgiving 2004. Here is a link to that column -http://www.house.gov/paul/tst/tst2004/tst112904.htm

However, as far as a I know he did not follow up that column with any legislative action to defund TSA or even a resolution condemning the gropefest. It will take a brave member of Congress, risking the charge of soft on terrorism, to suggest abolishing TSA.

I don't think it's a stretch that Russ Feingold might stand up to the TSA nonsense. He certainly voted his conscience, for example, w/r/t the Patriot Act, even though everyone else was jumping on the bandwagon.

I think most would see it as political suicide to oppose the TSA. The TSA (and DHS) are taking great pains to spread propaganda to ensure that any elected official that opposes them will be un-elected.

To the sheeple, being "tough on crime" and "tough on terrorism" wins out every time over "protecting our constitutional rights" or "freedoms"

They (Congress and TSA) have PR-palatable way around this problem: stop doing something silly/stupid and retarget that effort at something useful.

For example, pre war-on-water, they admitted that explosives were the real threat, not small hand tools, and so they stopped forbidding small hand tools.

IMO they could easily justify ending the shoe carnival, war-on-water, laptops out policy, pointy-object search (i.e., small knives), and even aggressive ID-checking and retargeting all of that effort on using an ETD or puffer on at least one item (bag or person) from every passenger. Such a measure would massively increase security against explosives (liquid or solid), which are the biggest threat to commercial aircraft after guns and large knives.

I would fully support such a measure, as long as TSA articulated a clear and fair policy for dealing with false positives from the ETD/puffer that acknowledges that a false-positive followed by a negative hand search is not probable cause for excessive harassment, complies with the Privacy Act, and does not result in unreasonable detention or humiliation. (Oh, and false positive == passenger did not have bomb but machine alarmed; don't give me the BS that triggering on hand lotion isn't a false positive because the lotion actually contains glycerin)

When I lived in WI I wrote Senator Feingold more than once. It didn't seem important to him, but this was almost 2 years ago.

I'm betting on a state that is very dependent on tourism. Think Hawaii or Florida.

This course makes sense if tight security is the purpose of TSA. However, from the perspective of Congress, another goal of TSA is making tens of thousands of people into grateful employees of the national government. With the rumblings in Congress to grant collective bargaining rights to TSA rank & file, this purpose of TSA takes on added prominence.

Given this undercurrent, I think OP is correct that the first Congress-critter to seriously take a stand against TSA will be from a red state. Another poster also hypothesized that a rep. from a state with a lot of revenue from tourists will take the plunge. Combining those two thoughts, I could see Mica from Florida doing more than just criticizing TSA and actually doing something. Or perhaps a rep. from Nevada, with an eye to keeping Las Vegas a desirable international and domestic destination.

When the 527 group opens, I plan on reaching out to Feingold, Paul and Waxman - as well as test the waters with hopefully like-minded Reps from tourist-sensitive places like Hawai'i and Florida; but for that step, I need data showing a drop in tourism or a drop in pax counts at a particular airport.

They won't listen to opinion, but they might listen to facts.

The 527 will also reach out to airport directors and try to build a coalition from the industry itself.

If fund-raising is sufficient, and the website/ads/PR work gets some traction, I plan on extending things to a PAC, which would utilize funds to either support or go after Congressfolk running for (re)election.

Shouldn't Ted Kennedy be first in line?

Too polarizing and he lacks the same drive that Waxman, Paul and Feingold share.

Ok,

Don't know much about him more than that he was on the no-fly list so I thought he would be interested.

sadly, i think my hair's gonna grow back before it will happen :(