John Mica Quotes

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

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

There has to be so many other ways of approaching airline security than demeaning ourselves by giving up a lot of our dignities and our liberty to do this.

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

If anyone wonders why the airlines are not doing well it is because flying has been made such an unpleasant and degrading experience.

It does not make sense that we are allowing known potential weapons, not unlike those the 9-11 hijackers used to overcome the crews of four airplanes, to be taken aboard passenger aircraft.

Developing countries often have hypertrophied bureaucracies, requiring businesses to deal with enormous amounts of red tape.

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.

Well, you could take several stories off the buildings of most U.S. government agencies and we'd all probably be better for it too.

I'm confident that the terrorists are aware that from the curb to the cockpit we've got additional security measures that didn't exist a couple of years ago.

The episode of the 'shoe bomber,' Richard Reid, has suddenly meant more feet being bared at airports than at the average Hindu temple. My solution has been to replace my customary lace-up Oxfords with a pair of slip-on loafers when I fly. Generals are always fighting the last war, and security screeners are the same.

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

You can't imagine a world, quite frankly, without a safe and secure aviation system. And so our job is to really focus on that, and what we need to do to keep it safe and secure.

I've got a lot of folks who want to get rid of TSA, a bunch of them.

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.

It's not an Israeli model, it's a TSA, screwed-up model. It should actually be the person who's looking at the ticket and talking to the individual. Instead, they've hired people to stand around and observe, which is a bastardization of what should be done.

Well, what did we buy? Instead of a leaner, smarter government, we bought a bureaucracy that now tells us which light bulbs to buy, and which will put 16,500 IRS agents in charge of policing President Obama's health care bill.

When I visit local communities, people often complain that they need the approval of several dozen government departments to get something done or to start a business, and people are quite frustrated about this.

Everything TSA does is reactionary - first they ban the box cutters, then of course you have to take your shoes off, then you have to take the liquids out, now we have to be patted down in our private areas because of the diaper bomber.

Why we cannot build a system like El Al to be proactive. Why do we have only to react? The shoe bomber - reaction? Take off your shoes. The Nigerian - the body scanner is a result of the Nigerian guy.

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

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.

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

Should bureaucratic ways prevail and paper reign supreme? Should red tape and the Status Quo become our nation’s dream?