Ted Poe (R-TX) was quick to attack former Bush administration official Chertoff. He accused Chertoff of being paid off to endorse the use of the naked full body scanners in the nation's airports.
"There is no evidence these new body scanners make us more secure. But there is evidence that former Homeland Security Chief Michael Chertoff made money hawking these full body scanners," Poe said.
Chertoff began pushing the scanners in 2005, but it wasn't until the Obama administrations stimulus money hit the Department of Homeland Security that his plan went into full motion. Really, this problem was created by both the Republicans and Democrats.
Predictably, Chertoff is denying accepting any compensation to push these naked full body scanners.
"The Chertoff Group played no role in the sale of whole body imaging technology to TSA," said spokeswoman Katy Montgomery. "Further, Secretary Michael Chertoff was in no way compensated for his public statements, in which he has consistently expressed long held beliefs in the deployment of effective technologies and techniques that eliminate security vulnerabilities such as those illustrated last year during the terrorist attempt on Christmas Day. Any statements to the contrary are false."
While it was exposed the security technology sector has a quickly growing lobby earlier this month, I have no doubt someone planted the seed with influence. This is further proof, if you are counting on the GOP to save your Constitutional rights, you are going to be sadly mistaken. While there are Republicans who are sincere in their efforts, the corruption of how politics works steer many other in the GOP the other way.
