Former DHS Chief Routinely Detained By TSA
Former Homeland Security Department Secretary Tom Ridge told a roomful of lawyers on Friday that despite his prior post within the Bush administration, he has been pulled aside for secondary screening at airport security checkpoints two dozen times.
"You ought to see the expression on the [faces of the] people at TSA when they put me in that plexiglass lane," he said during a morning keynote at an American Bar Association conference. "Some think I'm a plant and that I'm testing their procedures out." Ridge said fellow passengers have stopped to gawk (and laugh) when they see him being detained.
After a 25-year government career, adjusting to life as a public citizen has been difficult, he joked. The morning after Ridge left his DHS job, he recalls waking up to find that his kids took one car, his wife took the other and he had no way to get around. When he asked to borrow his son's vehicle, Ridge was advised: "Watch where you park it and don’t forget to fill it up with gas when you bring it home."
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