Texas lawmaker 'drawing the line at private parts'

TSA 'enhanced pat-down'

Airport screening rules imposed by the Obama administration are turning the country into a "police state," charged Texas Rep. David Simpson in a radio interview today.

Simpson is the chief sponsor of a state bill that makes it a criminal offense for public servants to inappropriately touch travelers during airport security pat-downs.

"Here in Texas, we're drawing the law at private parts," stated Simpson. "We're losing our dignity. But the government, instead of protecting our dignity and our privacy and our freedom, they are turning us into a police state and taking innocent travelers and making them into suspicious criminals."

Simpson was speaking to the host of "Aaron Klein Investigative Radio" on New York's WABC Radio.

The Republican lawmaker criticized airport procedures that require travelers to either pass through a scanner that images the entire body or submit to an intrusive pat down.

He said metal detectors are far more effective, noting instances in which the detectors caught banned objects while the body screeners missed them.

"Why they are promoting the scanners?" Simpson asked. "And the only alternatives to the scanners are these invasive pat downs, which is really a euphemism. It's really a rub down. They go up and down your legs. Inside your legs up to your groin. Twice.

"They go all over your buttocks. They touch women's breasts and lift them up and go all around," he told Klein. "It's just ridiculous."

Simpson recognized legitimate security concerns should promote increased airport screening, but, he warned, "We've moved from prudent caution to ridiculous excess."

The Texas House of Representatives on Thursday approved a bill that would classify any airport inspection that "touches the anus, sexual organ, buttocks or breast of another person including through the clothing, or touches the other person in a manner that would be offensive to a reasonable person" as an offense of sexual harassment under official oppression.

Transportation Security Administration agents could be charged with a misdemeanor crime, face a $4,000 fine and one year in jail under the measure.

The bill needs a final vote from the House before it would go to the Senate.