John Mica Quotes

We want to be sensitive to people's concerns about privacy about their personal being and things, while ensuring that everybody on every flight has been properly screened.

I believe the public's confidence would be increased if the federal government took over the functions of airport security screening for all passengers.

TSA needs to be totally changed. I would like them to be privatized.

Our pat-down approach is very similar to what is being utilized in Europe and, as we know, around the world. It's even much more thorough in other parts of the world.

Why do we go through all the nonsense with security at our airport? It's not because the Catholic Church is falling apart.

The TSA's airport body scanners have been shown to be so ineffective, the Homeland Security chairman suggested using traditional metal detectors. While LaGuardia will continue to just have a scarecrow dressed as a cop.

In June 2002, airport security searched Al Gore. There's a lot not to like about Gore, but he's not a terrorist. Gore said he was glad he was searched. Why? To spare a terrorist the trouble? This is a serious national issue; why must liberals lie? Searching Al Gore is purely a religious act. It is the purposeless fetishistic performance of ritual in accordance with the civic religion of liberalism.

Oh my God, Kennedy Airport - what a mess - all over you with those dopey security questions. 'Did you receive any gifts from any unknown persons?' Buddy, the last thing I got from an unknown person was in the 80's.

We're not trying to harass the average American. We need to convert this now to a risk-based system, with TSA concentrating and focusing on intelligence, on security, setting up again the parameters of which we do this.

When the TSA was established, it was never envisioned that it would become a huge, unwieldy bureaucracy which was soon to grow to 67,000 employees. As TSA has grown larger, more impersonal, and administratively top-heavy, I believe it is important that airports across the country consider utilizing the opt-out provision provided by law.

Now we are using the body scanner to scan the pilots. They became the dangerous people of this country?

We need to put undercover security armed people at the curbside of the terminal with the uniform of policemen. We need to protect the terminal. We need to protect the security checkpoint, the gate, the aircraft, the perimeter.

The bottom line is, if somebody doesn't go through proper security screening, they're not going to go on the flight.

We measure very carefully what the positives are and I think it is less than one tenth of one percent, so we are very pleased with the accuracy of our biometric checks and we continue to monitor that.

The bottom line is how do we best provide for the security of the traveling public in light of a determined enemy who is adept at constructing well-designed, well-concealed devices which would not show up in a walk-through metal detector? We're trying to employ the best technology to identify any possible threat.

With existing technology, we can enforce airport security without sacrificing our personal privacy.

I don't like getting patted down and taking off my shoes at the airport.

I take four planes a week, honestly. You know, I am for intelligence screening.

Sometimes airport security people recognize me. I'll go through the whole screening process and at the end they'll go, 'Hey, man, I really like your work.' That's so cool.

You know what I've always wanted to do? I've always wanted to put a lung in a suitcase and send it through an airport security check. In effect, the guard would be looking at an X-ray of a lung.

I'm not a security-type person: I don't want to have bodyguards around me. I'm not into all that.

Security theater is the idea of putting on a big show of security in order to make people feel safe. That's why the TSA screens everything and takes your stuff away.

I fly every single week, sometimes up to four days a week, and I see incredible inconsistencies in TSA throughout our country.

Geraldo has returned to the states. See? I told you airline security was a joke.

Look at airport security now. What started out as definite racial profiling is now where the computer picks a name. That's why you get a seven-month-old getting a pat down. [Imitates a security officer.] "Check the diapers. They're full."