Alaska Legislator Objects to "Pat Down" by TSA

State Rep. Sharon Cissna, a breast-cancer survivor who had a mastectomy, refused to submit to what she termed as "an invasive, probing pat-down".

Cissna sent out a statement late Monday saying the body scan showed scars from her breast cancer. She said she knew that meant there would be "invasive, probing hands of a stranger," and that a similar incident had happened three months earlier.

"Facing the agent I began to remember what my husband and I'd decided after the previous intensive physical search. That I never had to submit to that horror again!" she said. "It would be difficult, we agreed, but I had the choice to say no, this twisted policy did not have to be the price of flying to Juneau!"

~ snip ~

"She's standing up not just for her but other people, particularly women ... What's really, really terrible and just scandalous is that these procedures do little or nothing to enhance security of our flight, and really are nothing more than security theater," said Scott McMurren, an Anchorage-based travel marketing consultant.

What he said, and good for her.

Rep. Cissna elected to drive part of the way, and then take a boat for the remainder of the journey. I wish more Americans would stand up to the unconstitutional invasions of privacy being imposed on the innocent citizens of what used to be a free country.

Read more at the link.

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In other news, thanks to federal imposition on free enterprise here (and elsewhere; let's be honest), south-central Alaska is being threatened with a natural-gas shortage again.

Next winter, Southcentral Alaskans will face a greater risk of needing to turn down their thermostats, switch off their lights or take other emergency measures due to a new setback for the region's gas supply.

The region's electricity and gas providers will lose one of their backstops for avoiding gas delivery disruptions during extreme cold snaps and equipment breakdowns. 

The problem may last for only a year or two, but in the meantime, the utilities are worried about the loss of their stopgap: the oil-company-owned gas export plant in Nikiski.

It's a cruel irony: The decision to close the export plant later this year could provide billions of additional cubic feet of gas for Southcentral Alaska, but the utilities can't absorb it. The utilities can't purchase any more gas than what they can use immediately because they have no place to store it.

Officials say the problem will be remedied in a few years due to a multimillion-dollar project under way to store gas in a depleted gas reservoir under the Kenai River.

So who needs heat & light? Read more at the link.