NH Bill Would Make Some TSA Workers Sex Offenders

New Hampshire lawmakers debated a bill last night that would classify airport security pat-downs and full-body scans performed "without probable cause" as sexual assault, and punish any TSA employees who conducted them. "Let’s put their name on the sex offender registry, and maybe that will tell them New Hampshire means business," one of the bill’s co-sponsors tells WMUR 9. A small but passionate crowd turned up at the criminal justice committee meeting to support the bill.

One man said he’d avoided a trip home for the holidays because of the invasive searches. “I cried on the phone with my mother that I did not wish to submit to enhanced pat-downs,” he said. But some committee members oppose the bill, saying that airport security is under federal jurisdiction. “If things need to be changed, they have to be done at a federal level,” said one rep. The TSA won’t comment on the proceedings. (More New Hampshire stories.)