Denied

From a Slate article:

Former Rep. Helen Chenoweth-Hage, R-Idaho, experienced the existential horror of being governed by secret laws last month while attempting to board a United Airlines flight from Boise to Reno. When pulled aside by security guards from the Transportation Security Administration for additional screening, including a physical pat-down, Chenoweth-Hage requested a copy of the federal regulation authorizing such searches. Her request was denied.

A reporter asked the TSA director for that airport why the TSA would not show Rep. Chenoweth-Hage the statue authorizing the extended screening. He replied, “Because we don’t have to.”

Nice, I have to obey laws that I don’t even know about and which, in this case, my elected representatives in Congress didn’t even write. These “laws” are actually written by Executive Order, i.e. by the President of the United States. These “laws” are based on something called “sensitive security information.”

A May 2004 Federal Register notice spelled out 16 categories of information that may now be designated as SSI. These include not only airport security plans (as before) and threat assessments, but also records of security inspections and investigations, names of security personnel, and training materials. More problematically, “security directives” such as the one that Chenoweth-Hage requested are exempt. And for good measure, the 16th category is a catch-all exemption for “other information” that TSA may at its discretion determine should be withheld.