Body Scanner Companies Poured Cash into Lobbying Efforts

Body Scanner Companies Poured Cash into Lobbying Efforts

They say the new TSA procedures are purely about safety. But it's also about money.

Over the past five years, the companies that make the controversial body scanners which travelers will be boycotting this week doubled the cash they were putting into lobbying efforts, and hired personnel who could help them in their efforts to win over government officials and get installed in airports. USA Today reports:

L-3 Communications, which has sold $39.7 million worth of the machines to the federal government, spent $4.3 million trying to influence Congress and federal agencies during the first nine months of this year, up from $2.1 million in 2005, lobbying data compiled by the Center for Responsive Politics show. Its lobbyists include Linda Daschle, a former Federal Aviation Administration official.

Rapiscan Systems, meanwhile, has spent $271,500 on lobbying so far this year, compared with $80,000 five years earlier. It has faced criticism for hiring Michael Chertoff, the former Homeland Security secretary, last year. Chertoff has been a prominent proponent of using scanners to foil terrorism. The government has spent $41.2 million with Rapiscan.

http://www.alternet.org/newsandviews/ar ... paragraph5


About MONEY?!?!? Chertoff involved?!?! Who knew?!?! :VeryScared:

:Koolaid: :bash :Koolaid: :bash and: rofllol rofllol rofllol rofllol

LadyJazzer wrote:

Body Scanner Companies Poured Cash into Lobbying Efforts

They say the new TSA procedures are purely about safety. But it's also about money.

Over the past five years, the companies that make the controversial body scanners which travelers will be boycotting this week doubled the cash they were putting into lobbying efforts, and hired personnel who could help them in their efforts to win over government officials and get installed in airports. USA Today reports:

L-3 Communications, which has sold $39.7 million worth of the machines to the federal government, spent $4.3 million trying to influence Congress and federal agencies during the first nine months of this year, up from $2.1 million in 2005, lobbying data compiled by the Center for Responsive Politics show. Its lobbyists include Linda Daschle, a former Federal Aviation Administration official.

Rapiscan Systems, meanwhile, has spent $271,500 on lobbying so far this year, compared with $80,000 five years earlier. It has faced criticism for hiring Michael Chertoff, the former Homeland Security secretary, last year. Chertoff has been a prominent proponent of using scanners to foil terrorism. The government has spent $41.2 million with Rapiscan.

http://www.alternet.org/newsandviews/ar ... paragraph5


About MONEY?!?!? Chertoff involved?!?! Who knew?!?! :VeryScared:

:Koolaid: :bash :Koolaid: :bash and: rofllol rofllol rofllol rofllol

Proving that the Obama administration is more corruptible than the Bush administration.

Proving that yet another Bushie is corrupt as the day is long...and if it hadn't been for Bush's failures, the TSA wouldn't have been created in the first place.

LadyJazzer wrote: About MONEY?!?!? Chertoff involved?!?! Who knew?!?! :VeryScared:

:Koolaid: :bash :Koolaid: :bash and: rofllol rofllol rofllol rofllol

Let's see...

One company hires Chertoff and spends $271,500 on lobbying. Another company hires Linda Daschle (wife of Tom) and spends $4.3 million lobbying. But it's all about Chertoff??

I didn't know Linda Daschle was into body-scanners?!?!? ...or that she was a Bush cabinet-secretary?!? Who knew?!?!?

Should have known it was more about lobbyists than new terrorist intelligence.

One of our test products we sell in Canada increased sales thirtyfold because the goverment now requires daily testing instead of monthly. This time it was our competitor who got the goverment to "increase the public safety."

Science Chic wrote: I wouldn't say that this has anything to do with either Obama or Bush - it's the corrupt lawmakers in Congress, several of whom have been around prior to either president.

wOW, who knew.
As long as government has the power to legislate economic winners and losers, economic players will try and influence them.

As long as polititians are not saints they will continue to be influenced.

Anyone who thinks that tweeking, reforming or changing campain finance regulations will change how it works is naive, blind or a moron.

Unless or untill we can devolve the power of government to control every aspect of our lifes, it is just a shell game.

who knew....