Those Convicted Would Be Required To Register As Sex Offenders
CONCORD, N.H. — Lawmakers and residents engaged in heated debate Tuesday over a bill that would make random airport security pat-downs and body scans criminal in New Hampshire.
The bill (HB628-FN) “makes the touching or viewing with a technological device of a person’s breasts or genitals by a government security agent without probable cause a sexual assault,” according to the introductory text of the bill.
“Let’s put their name on the sex offender registry, and maybe that will tell them New Hampshire means business,” said bill co-sponsor Rep. Andrew Manuse, R-Derry.
“That is a crime in this state, and we should charge them every single time,” said bill co-sponsor Rep. George Lambert, R-Litchfield.
It wasn’t a large crowd in support of the bill, but the support was passionate. Concord’s Darren Tapp said security procedures cost him a trip home for the holidays in December.
“This time, the news is talking about enhanced pat-downs,” he said. “I cried on the phone with my mother that I did not wish to submit to enhanced pat-downs.”
Transportation Security Administration officials would not comment on the proposed legislation except to say that security checkpoints are under federal jurisdiction. Some members of the Criminal Justice Committee said that it is a federal issue.
“We have to understand that if things need to be changed, they have to be done at the federal level, not the state level,” said Rep. Laura Pantelakos, D-Portsmouth.
Some backers of the bill said TSA needs to do away with random screenings altogether and instead search only those passengers who look or act suspicious. But others said that would raise the problem of profiling.
Boston-Manchester Regional Airport does not have the controversial body scanners that can see through a person’s clothes.
Source: WMUR 9
See also:
– Police State Update: TSA Pat Downs, Bag Searches AFTER Passengers Get Off Trains (Video)
– TSA Source: Undercover TSA Agent Successfully Smuggled A Gun Past Full-Body Scanners
– The TSA’s State-Mandated Molestation
– Inside TSA Body Scanners: How Terahertz Waves Tear Apart Human DNA