Rand Paul, the young and articulate son of Republican nominee Ron Paul, was detained today by TSA agents in the Nashville Airport. Rand Paul believes that a glitch caused the alarm to go off. When he asked if he could go through the monitor again he was denied and refused the full-body pat-down. Now, Paul has different rights that other people don’t have. Rand Paul, as a Congressman, could have invoked his Constitutional right to speedy travel to the capitol. To quote the Constitution, from Article I, Section 6, “Senators and Representatives…shall in all Cases, except Treason, Felony and Breach of the Peace, be privileged from Arrest during their Attendance at the Session of their respective Houses, and in going to and returning from the same…” Paul didn’t invoke this right, but he raised a question that I think needs to be raised: Why, ten years after the September 11th attacks, are we still doing the same checks, the same random screenings? Why don’t we have frequent travel programs? Or other identifying programs that allow our identity to be known? Why are three-year-olds being subjected to pat-downs and diapers being checked? Some things don’t make sense to me.
