Barr on the TSA and mission creep

An excerpt:

Even as TSA continues to employ every scare tactic it can muster to justify its existence and large budget, it is extending its reach far beyond the airport checkpoints that have given rise to so many horror stories of invasive pat-downs and naked body scans. At TSA, mission creep has become an art form.

TSA and agents with its parent, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), now consider it their mission to stop private vehicles on highways and search them. They have also begun to search bus and train passengers, sometimes after they exit the carriers; and the feds believe also they have authority to search people at shopping malls and elsewhere, such as sporting events. It is only a short step from such expansive ideas, to the notion that to protect the country, TSA and DHS have to be able enter private homes and businesses in order to ensure there are no terrorist tools therein.