Former Minnesota Gov. Jesse Ventura is escalating the nationwide controversy over U.S. airport security – while President Obama, his team and their media apologists tried to quell criticism over the new full-body scanners and hand-searches.
Ventura, a Navy SEAL combat veteran of Vietnam, told broadcaster Alex Jones that he’d never fly again on a U.S. commercial airline under the new procedures, which are rolling out across the nation beginning this month. Ventura, elected as an independent in 1998 for one term as governor, said the indignities and what he described as increased cancer risk forced his self-imposed flight-ban even “if it means the end of my career” as a TV show host and commentator.
The crackdown includes potential for many arrests at airports for those who fail to submit to the unprecedented and unwarranted intrusion on privacy and health rights.
Such liability illustrates why our Justice Integrity Project (JIP) announced this month we cannot fully address legal reform without identifying decisive factors in national politics, media coverage and national security.
That’s especially true now that the security-intelligence sector has so greatly expanded beyond the mere “military-industrial complex” that President Eisenhower, the former World War II Allied European commander, denounced as too powerful in his 1961 farewell address.