Man, I've been busy.

Over the last couple of weeks, I've been running a little ragged.

It started with helping out with a float for the Atlanta Pride Parade.  The Libertarian Party of Georgia made its third annual appearance in the parade and also hosted an outreach booth in Atlanta's Piedmont Park.  The parade was on Sunday and took about 12 hours out of my weekend.  Totally worth it, though.  We gathered a few hundred new subscribers to our weekly online newsletter "Georgia Libertarian Online".  The LP Float had the world's largest QR code on either side that took the scanner directly to the LP Georgia sign up page.  I think we had about 125 people scan the code while we eased on down the road.

Monday morning following the Pride weekend, I hopped on a flight from Atlanta to Harrisburg, PA to visit a customer.  The outbound airport experience was nothing out of the ordinary.  I fly so much that I know most of the TSA agents by name, all 300 of them.

I ended up working in my client's manufacturing plant about 70 hours over the next 4 days.  My feet and back are still sore a week later.

My return trip started out ok, but as I approached the TSA screening area, the agents stopped using the magnetometer (walk through metal detector) and fired up the Microwave Oven Naked Body Scanner. Now, I have no use for the security theater that goes on in airports these days and have no intention of having my DNA scrambled in a Jiffy Pop popcorn cooker, so I "opted out" and had an "enhanced pat down".

This was no "pat down".  I am a former Federal Law Enforcement Officer and have been trained in the art of searching suspects as part of an arrest.  I truly thought a cavity search was coming. I asked Barney Fife how he liked poking and prodding the genitals of complete strangers.  That got a smirk.  I then recited the 4th Amendment of the US Constitution to him.

"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."

This only pissed him off.  He attempted to tell me that it didn't apply, since I was not under arrest. Hmm, I think he confused that pesky Constitutional Amendment with the Miranda Act.  Obviously, pointing out his mistake led to a little Constitutional Convention of our own with the TSA agent, his supervisor and local law enforcement. I offered all of the participants a parting gift from my briefcase (Campaign for Liberty Pocket Constitutions with a foreword by Congressman Ron Paul) and made my way to the gate.

The following Saturday, I was honored to take part in a round table discussion for television on "We Speak".  The subject matter for the show: Constitutional Powers - Expressed Vs. Implied.  It was a ton of fun teaching the Executive Director of the GA Democratic Party a few things about why her interpretation of the General Welfare clause is just plain wrong, but that will have to wait for another post.

I spent this week catching up, so I apologize for my absence.