A few CT machines in a handful of hospitals exposed several hundred patients to an over-dose of radiation over the course of eighteen months.

One malfunctioning scanning machine at one airport will over-dose thousands in the course of one week.

Feeling safe yet?

In short, TSA rushed these things into operation without any evidence that they actually work, or what the impact would be of their new heightened “security” measures. Now, according to the 2011 Homeland Security appropriations request, TSA Chief John Pistole wants money for 500 more porno scanners.

Aside from being too little too late, consider what this situation says about TSA’s John Pistole’s relationship with the citizens who employ him. Regardless of his “risk based” assessment that he had to keep secrets from the terrorists, don’t Americans have the right to know what will happen to them at the airport?

Next thing you know, the FBI will stage a sting involving Disney World so it can justify strip-searching children before they see Mickey.

Mica stepped up his criticism against John Pistole, the TSA Administrator, but he became one of the first prominent Republicans to basically take the side of the security state against the public.

Chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee Bennie Thompson sent Transportation Security Administration Director John Pistole a letter on Friday expressing concern that the TSA did not review privacy and civil liberty concerns before implementing the new “gate rape” procedures at airports. The letter demands additional information on the pat-downs and calls on Pistole to reconsider them.

Maybe going around Congress and spending $173 million on Joe Lieberman’s cherished porno scanners wasn’t the absolute best idea.

TSA chief John Pistole went for the big lie yesterday in his testimony before the Transportation and Commerce Committee. . . .

Maybe some are blasé about these changes, but I think it goes to a larger stripping of civil liberties protections for Americans. This is a real and substantive fight over a signature issue, and it’s astonishing to see it waved away in such a cavalier fashion.

You’ve probably heard of the “Don’t Touch My Junk” guy who chose to miss his flight rather than have TSA touch his genitals in its brand new “aggressive pat-downs” strategy. As if the experience wasn’t humiliating enough – and expensive, for missing his flight – the TSA has decided to make an example of John “Don’t Touch My Junk” Tyner. The TSA announced yesterday it would investigate, and may prosecute, Tyner for declining the porno scanners and groping.