Rush Limbaugh recently floated out the theory that the reason why the government is going so hard with these molest-searches is to force people to demand the alternative: body scans.
Since all this madness has started, I have been puzzled as to why the TSA has been going so hard lately with these searches without any warning of inement danger by the Department of Homeland Security? Why would the government run such a horrible PR campaign complete with images of little children being forced to remove shirts in public and the old and crippled being groped?
Then I read the following two articles.
#1
WASHINGTON — The companies with multimillion-dollar contracts to supply American airports with body-scanning machines more than doubled their spending on lobbying in the last five years and hired several high-profile former government officials to advance their causes in Washington, records show.
L-3 Communications, which has sold $39.7 million worth of the machines to the federal government, spent $4.3 million to influence Congress and federal agencies during the first nine months of this year, up from $2.1 million in 2005, lobbying data compiled by the Center for Responsive Politics show. Last year, the company spent $5.5 million on lobbying.
Its lobbyists include Linda Daschle, a prominent Democratic figure in Washington, who is a former Federal Aviation Administration official.
Rapiscan Systems, meanwhile, has spent $271,500 on lobbying so far this year, compared with $80,000 five years earlier. It has faced criticism for hiring Michael Chertoff, the Homeland Security secretary, who has been a prominent proponent of using scanners to foil terrorism. Officials with Chertoff’s firm and Rapiscan say Chertoff was not paid to promote scanner technology. It spent $440,000 on lobbying in 2009.
The government has spent $41.2 million so far on Rapiscan’s machines.
#2
HAWTHORNE, Calif.–(BUSINESS WIRE)– OSI Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ: OSIS), a vertically-integrated provider of specialized electronic products for critical applications in the Security and Healthcare industries, today announced that Deepak Chopra, Chairman and CEO, was selected to accompany US President, Barack Obama, to Mumbai and attended the US India Business Entrepreneurship meeting, which was held by the US India Business Council (US IBC). The goal of the meeting was to promote further trade between US and India.
This company is a major player in the naked body scanner biz.
So there you have it. Republicans and Democrats demonstrating bipartisanship under one banner: The almighty dollar.
My two favorite quotes are in order…again.
~There is only one party: The Washington party
~Government with a Black face is still government.
