ACLU urges Senate to Examine TSA’s Privacy Violations in Post-9/11 Record

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: media@dcaclu.org, (202) 675-2312

Washington, DC – As a Senate transportation committee holds a hearing today on the Transportation Security Administration’s implementation of the 9/11 Commission’s recommendations, the ACLU hopes Congress will examine TSA’s record of implementing security measures without sufficiently addressing their privacy implications.

Since 9/11, TSA has introduced virtual strip-search machines at airports, seized passengers in airports unjustly, conducted overly intimate pat down searches and perhaps most disturbingly, catalogued travelers into databases and ranked them according to their perceived risk.

The following can be attributed to ACLU Senior Legislative Counsel Tim Sparapani:

“TSA’s record since 9/11 has been a greatest hits of sacrificing privacy in the name of security – only we aren’t more secure and we have fewer rights. TSA has taken away our freedom as travelers by using virtual strip-search machines at the airport gate and listing Americans in databases like terrorists in a lineup. Being stripped of our privacy does not make any of us safer. Congress must hold TSA accountable to the American people to restore both our safety and our freedom.”