I recently
sort-of praised Rep Bennie Thompson for standing up for passengers' civil liberties with respect to SPOT. Turns out he was a
major beneficiary of Rapiscan lobbying prior to the scanner roll-outs.
Around [2006], Rapiscan began to beef up its lobbying on
Capitol Hill. It opened a Washington, D.C., office and, according to required
disclosures, more than tripled its lobbying expenditures in two years, from
less than $130,000 in 2006 to nearly $420,000 in 2008. It hired former
legislative aides to Rep. David Price, D-N.C., then chairman of the homeland
security appropriations subcommittee, and to Sen. Trent Lott, R-Miss.
It started a political action
committee and began contributing heavily to Price; Rep. Bennie Thompson,
D-Miss., then head of the homeland security committee; Rep. Jane Harman,
D-Calif., also on that committee; and Sen. Thad Cochran, R-Miss., the top
Republican on the Senate appropriations committee.
In addition, it opened a new North
Carolina plant in Price’s district and expanded its operations in Ocean
Springs, Miss., [Lott's state] and at its headquarters in Torrance, Calif., in Harman’s
district.
...But
with the 2009 federal stimulus package, which provided $300 million for
checkpoint security machines, the TSA began deploying backscatters as
well. Rapiscan won a $173 million, multiyear contract for the
backscatters, with an initial $25 million order for 150 systems to be
made in
Mississippi.
Has Rep Thompson had a change of heart and now cares about passenger rights, or is it just that SPOT doesn't benefit his benfactors?
It's the second one...
ReplyDeleteToo true, Bill!
ReplyDelete