| 
| Time | Text |
|---|---|
| I don't know about you folks, but I want my freedom and dignity back. | |
| The federal government is making it a prerequisite to travel that you have to be subjected to humiliation and sexual assault at the airports. | |
| They're taking the right to move about freely, and they're trying to change that into a privilege that's granted only if you submit yourself to unnecessary humiliation. | |
| But fortunately, here in Texas, we have some men with some backbone on this issue. | |
| And the leader on that is Representative David Simpson from Longview, Texas. | |
| Can you tell us a little bit about the bill that you've just put in? | |
| It's House Bill 80, I believe? | |
| That's correct. | |
| Basically, we're calling it the Texas Freedom Travel Act. | |
| It just makes it an offense to touch someone's private part as a condition of getting into an area, accessing public transportation or a venue. | |
| You have to have probable cause. | |
| You have to believe someone's committing a criminal act to treat them as a criminal. | |
| We basically lost our innocent-until-proven-guilty assumption here. | |
| Now we're all guilty until they prove that we're innocent. | |
| Is that correct? | |
| That's right. | |
| We're continuing to receive assault on the first ten amendments, the Bill of Rights, which our founding fathers were very concerned about. | |
| And the fourth amendment is one in particular that's under assault. | |
| Now, this brings up an interesting conflict between the federal government, and we're seeing this on a number of issues. | |
| There were a lot of states that passed initiatives that would limit the Obamacare mandate. | |
| There were states that passed initiatives on medical marijuana, even marijuana legalization. | |
| And we've seen over and over again, the federal government just disregards the wishes of the people and the wishes of the states. | |
| They completely disregard the Tenth Amendment, just like they do much of the rest of the Constitution. | |
| Now, you tried this two years ago. | |
| Tell us what happened at that time. | |
| Well, the bill received bipartisan support in both chambers. | |
| It passed unanimously on both second and third reading. | |
| Then the Department of Justice threatened to make Texas basically a no-fly zone, to shut down a flight or series of flights. | |
| And that's just an outrageous threat. | |
| We have planes coming in and out of Texas all the time. | |
| People are not being searched in this way. | |
| Then the bill was brought to the floor after that. | |
| The threat was made and the initial support that we had, which was nearly every senator, dissipated so that we couldn't overcome the procedural hurdle. | |
| But I do believe the people of Texas are behind the bill, and I've received encouraging words from some of the leadership of our state that the bill is going to move quickly, and that's encouraging to me. | |
| Well, that's great. | |
| You know, it's not just the people of Texas. | |
| There's people all over the country that were watching that last time and were supporting you on that. | |
| And as you said, it was a total outrage that the federal government would try to blackmail us over that. | |
| You know, if you remember, two years ago around Thanksgiving, right after they'd rolled these machines out, we organized an opt-out campaign for the busiest travel day of the year. | |
| And the TSA blinked. | |
| They shut the machines down. | |
| So, you know, we're coming back this time. | |
| Two years later, we've got an opt-out and film campaign, and this time we're doing it for a week. | |
| Because they tried to back down on that. | |
| You know, people are fed up with this. | |
| And all over the country, people are fed up with this. | |
| I really do hope that the Texas legislature, that all of them will get some backbone this time and call their bluff. | |
| There's absolutely no way they're going to be able to shut down all travel in and out of Texas. | |
| That's right, and we just should not submit to something that's unconstitutional. | |
| We should refuse to give them that right to touch us in that way unless we've committed a criminal act. | |
| And this bill too is a little bit improved in that it won't allow DSA or anybody to separate a child from a parent. | |
| There was one autistic boy that was separated from his parents. | |
| When he was being touched in this intrusive way, he began to cry out, man on boy, man on boy! | |
| If a young child who's taught that this is indignant and not supposed to be done can figure this out, why are we allowing our federal government to do this? | |
| And we shouldn't go along with it. | |
| That's right, that's right. | |
| That's why I said at the beginning, I want my freedom and my dignity back. | |
| You know, this is, I think this is just nothing more than just behavioral conditioning. | |
| If you look at B.F. | |
| Skinner, that's exactly what he was suggesting. | |
| Telling everybody they have to freeze in the airport. | |
| I mean, this is going beyond all reason. | |
| This is nothing more than just behavioral control. | |
| That's right, and they're not law enforcement agents. | |
| We should refuse to submit to those things. | |
| One of my favorite parts of our Texas Constitution is Article 1, Section 1. | |
| It says, Texas is a free and independent state, subject only to the United States Constitution. | |
| And then it goes on to talk about the importance of local self-government. | |
| And when it's impaired, it threatens the union, the perpetuity of the union. | |
| And so this is critical for not only our state, but for our whole nation, that we do not put up with tyranny. | |
| That's right. | |
| You probably have noticed these petitions that are going around at the White House. | |
| There's 50 petitions in every state saying that they would like to secede. | |
| That's right. | |
| And we must refuse as a state to carry out their business for us. | |
| One of the programs was Bus Safe in Houston, where they were going to randomly search people's | |
| handbags and interrogate them on municipal buses. | |
| And what was crazy about it is the Houston PD and our state law enforcement, they would never do that except under the color of the TSA. | |
| That doesn't give us any right to not follow the Constitution. | |
| We must refuse to follow those who would not uphold Well, Representative Simpson, I sure appreciate you talking to us. | |
| Thank you for taking the lead on this, and we are all watching you to see what happens, and we're all supporting you. | |
| Thank you very much. | |
| Thank you, David, and thank the people of Texas. | |
| They're going to be the ones to move it forward. |
Export Selection