TSA Enhanced Pat Downs : The Screeners Point Of View
In the past few weeks since the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) implemented its new “enhanced” pat down procedures there has been considerable backlash from the traveling public. This backlash has been loud and angry … but what is not heard or seen in the media is the quiet resentment of this new policy within the TSA.
A few days ago I contacted 20 TSA Transportation Security Officers (TSO) to ask their opinions of the new “enhanced” pat downs. Of the 20 I reached out to, 17 responded. All 17 who responded are at airports where the new “enhanced” pat down is in place … and the responses were all the same, that front line TSOs do not like the new pat downs and that they do not want to perform them. I expected most to not like the pat downs … but what I didn’t expect was that all 17 mentioned their morale being broken down.
Each of the 17 TSA TSOs that responded to me detailed their personal discomfort in conducting the new pat downs, with more than one stating that it is likely they are more uncomfortable performing the pat down than passengers are receiving them.
Some comments from these TSOs include:
“It is not comfortable to come to work knowing full well that my hands will be feeling another man’s private parts, their butt, their inner thigh. Even worse is having to try and feel inside the flab rolls of obese passengers and we seem to get a lot of obese passengers!”
“Do you think I want to go to work and place my hands between women’s legs and touch their breasts for a few hours? For starters, I am attracted to men, not women and if I was attracted to women, it would not be the large number of passengers I handle daily that have a problem understanding what personal hygiene is.”
“Yesterday a passenger told me to keep my hands off his penis or he’d scream. Is this how a 40 year old man in business attire acts? He’ll scream? My 3 year old can get away with saying he’ll scream, but a 40 something business man? I am a professional doing my job, whether I agree with this current policy or not, I am doing my job. I do not want to be here all day touching penises.”
“Being a TSO means often being verbally abused, you let the comments roll off and check the next person, however when a woman refuses the scanner then comes to me and tells me that she feels like I am molesting her, that is beyond verbal abuse. I asked the woman if she thought I like touching other women all day and she told me that I probably did or I wouldn’t be with the TSA. I just want to tell these people that I feel disgusted feeling other peoples private parts, but I cannot because I am a professional.”
“I was asked by some guy if I got excited touching scrotums at the airport and if it gave me a power thrill. I felt like vomiting when he asked that. This is not a turn on for me to touch me it is in fact a huge turn off. There is a big difference between how I pat passengers down and a molester molesting people.”
Aside from the issue of TSA TSOs being required to physically touch passengers in places they do not want to be touching them during the ‘enhanced’ pat down, morale is decreasing for front line TSOs, due in part to an increase in verbal abuse. Each of the 17 TSOs who responded to me detailed a new level of verbal abuse they are experiencing at work.
The TSA has experienced a high level of turn over since its inception, however its turnover rate has decreased recently. With this decrease in morale, caused directly by a change in TSA policy, it is likely to begin experiencing a higher than average turn over again … which will further decrease the effectiveness of airport security.
Some comments from these 17 TSOs include:
“Molester, pervert, disgusting, an embarrassment, creep. These are all words I have heard today at work describing me, said in my presence as I patted passengers down. These comments are painful and demoralizing, one day is bad enough, but I have to come back tomorrow, the next day and the day after that to keep hearing these comments. If something doesn’t change in the next two weeks I don’t know how much longer I can withstand this taunting. I go home and I cry. I am serving my country, I should not have to go home and cry after a day of honorably serving my country.”
“I come to work to do my job. It is not up to me to decide policy, it is up to me to carry out my duties as dictated by the Transportation Security Administration. When a person stands in front of me and calls me a pervert or accuses me of molesting them it is disheartening. People fail to understand that neither of us are happy about the intrusive pat down I am carrying out. I am polite, I am professional and while someone may not like what I have to carry out, they came to me because they choose not to utilize the alternative and less invasive method of security at my airport.”
“I served a tour in Afghanistan followed by a tour in Iraq. I have been hardened by war and in the past week I am slowly being broken by the constant diatribe of hateful comments being lobbed at me. While many just see a uniform with gloves feeling them for concealed items I am a person, I am a person who has feelings. I am a person who has served this country. I am a person who wants to continue serving his country. The constant run of hateful comments while I perform my job will break me down faster and harder than anything I encountered while in combat in the Army.”
“Do people know what a Nazi is? One can’t describe me as a Nazi because I am following a security procedure of designed to find prohibited items on a passenger’s body. A Nazi is someone with hatred and ignorance in their hearts, a person who carried out actions of execution and extermination of those based on their religion, origins or sexual preferences. I work to make travel safer, even if I do not agree with the current security procedures. Further more, I am Jewish and a TSA Transportation Security Officer, an American Patriot and to call me a Nazi is an offense beyond all other offenses.”
There are multiple sides to every story, and I think the point of view of those on the front lines of the TSA, those required to carry on the policy and procedures created by the TSA, are an import part of this story. I think those organizing efforts to change the TSA’s policy should also consider the impact to the TSA TSOs.
Rather than dehumanize the TSA TSOs, work with them, understand their views and opinions and work together to change the current TSA policies.
Happy Flying!
What kind of resume/and or backround checks do these perverts who do the TSA’s dirty deeds have.
The reality is that the TSA is no more about airline security than ObamaCare was about affordable health care. Both the organization and the bill are about the dehumanization — and control — of theoretically free Americans. Both are being FORCED onto the American people. Thus, it is critical that Americans win push back efforts against both, because if we lose on these two fronts, we have effectively lost most of our freedom. if we cannot defeat ObamaCare and the TSA’s “grope and change,” we won’t recognize America in the future.
Most Nazis were regular German soldiers “just doing their jobs”. TSA porno pictures of people and sexual assaulting people are gross violations of the US Constitution and Bill of Rights. I, for one, would quit my job, just as I will refuse to travel by plane if this is what I have to go through. I would be one to refuse the scanner and then to refuse the “pat down”.
They chose to get a job where they fondle little girls’ genitals. I don’t think there’s anything else that can really be said.
America is land of the free. I notice a lot of people talk about TSA employees having the option of walking out and they chose the job, blah blah blah . Well, turn about is fair play, some folks may have to fly for their job and have no options (which is not really true, people make decisions to quit their job every day), but by the same token they can choose to not continue to fly. WIth the exception of our military, no one HAS TO FLY. Ride a boat, drive a car, ride a train or a bus. If my safety is ensured by showing my a@@ (literally) It is what it is.
No I don’t work for the TSA I am a social worker and I find it absurd that everyone wants the country to do more to protect our citizens, but not when it becomes a inconvenience to them. Sexual molestation, give me a break. The idiot that said that obviusly does not know what this truly means and it is an insult to the folks who have dealt with that.
It would appear that this is once again a case of the haves feeling they are entitled and above the law. My guess is the folks raising the biggest stink are those that make the most money….hmmmmm….
I think it’s important that the TSA screeners get the flack because the immediate feedback might actually be heard by their supervisors and up the chain of command. Then there might be some changes in how we citizens are treated by our own government.
Firstly the whole airport security thing is a joke. The procedures that are used in the US are not the same that are used in the rest of the world. So domestic flights are safer, but international flights are not. So there is a GAPING hole in the whole in the system. It’s all about the illusion of safety and making the companies that make these machines very very rich. How much have the manufactures of these machines spent lobbying congress? How many millions? Joke.
If the tsa workers don’t like their jobs of touching other people, etc there is a really simple solution. QUIT! I can guarantee that if a tso grabs my junk there will be an incident.
Another thing….I haven’t flown in a few years and haven’t had the pleasure of going through this garbage. I notice that the tso’s are wearing gloves. Do they change the gloves after every search or are they just protecting themselves while cross contaminating everyone else?
1). the new scanners are the result of the former head of Homeland security, using his previous position to publicly push these very expensive machines as a standard screening tool for all travelers at airport. Then when he left homeland security, his consulting firm represents the larges scanner manufacturer and he regularly appears in the press to “lobby” for thier use. This is a red flag conflict of interest and highly suspicious.
2). Both the backscatter technology and the millimeter wave technology of these scanner is completely untested. There are professional opinions on their safety which state that the amount of xray exposure is minuscule and represents an amount of exposure of about the same whole body exposure as 2 minutes of flight time in the air. Other prominent experts disagree and charge that TSA is falsely distorting these facts to their own benefit. They point out that the back scatter system radiation cannot penetrate deeper than the skin layer (thus the highly detailed nude pictures generated), which means that a comparison to full body absorption is grossly deficient a comparison to that level of absorption only in the skin. This would raise the total skin absorption values significantly higher. In addition they warn that repeated xray exposure in this way would certainly translate into increased skin cancer incidents in vulnerable travelers: those who have already been exposed to medical xrays, dental xrays, cancer treatment and those who have a history of personal cancer or cancer running in thier family. The most vulnerable groups would be children, young people and people in puberty with damage to the testicles and ovaries.
No research at all is present for the potentially harmful effects of millimeter wave technology on humans.
3). The larger issue here is the trampling of our legal and constitutional rights as Americans and our right to privacy and unreasonable search and seizure. Pornographic pictures of ourselves, our sons and daughters, grandmothers and loved ones are not to be the standard price we must pay to our government to travel in this country or anywhere else. The government’s job is not primarily to keep us safe, it is to protect our rights and liberties. destroying our liberties to keep us safe defeats the purpose, because at this point the enemy has already won by forcing us to relinquish our way of life and trash our constitution in the process.
4). Those who refuse this intrusion of the scanners are therefore “punished” by the TSA by being forced to surrender themselves to a brutal, sexual assault by TSA agents, who then probe, touch and feel one’s testicles, penis and breasts. Anywhere in the civilized world this is a gross miscarriage of government power and would be looked upon in any circumstance as sexual assault and criminal prosecution and jail-time. Is this what you want for your 5 year old daughter, your 16 year old daughter, your grandmother, yourself?
5). Those who refuse this “Advanced Pat-Down” face criminal civil suits of up to $11,000. This is what it now costs to be “free”.
6). Do you really think it will all stop here? This procedure is being assembled as the standard procedure for all passengers. Do you really think that this will not soon be instituted in train stations and bus stations and highway check-points around the country.
7). What happens when the first suicide bomber uses an anal suppository to explode a plane? Will the TSA now be instituting body cavity searches on all travelers as a standard procedure?
8).This is how liberty and freedom have been traditionally dismantled throughout history with the eventual result that one day we all wake up in a police state controlled by the government. I say, the TSA’s new procedures have just introduced exactly that. lets be constantly vigilant and jealous of our constitutional rights, they are there for a reason….so that just this kind of thing can not take place.
The real lesson of the TSA and patdown | http://tinyurl.com/22ul732
Get in line sheeple, the gubberment is here to help you.
Not really, Face the facts folks. The real agenda here is to get you give up your rights. Once your comfortable with this they will go after something else. It’s all about control.
As for the terrorists, They have all ready won. They have our government enacting policies out of fear.
Flying is not, it’s true, a right. BUT, getting from place to place within the country in the most efficient way possible ought not to require that we give up all dignity.
IF the scanners and the molestation (and let’s be frank, that is what this is) made one damned bit of difference in the safety on an airplane, it might be worth it. But there is no evidence that it does, and even if it did, at what cost? I have not traveled a lot outside this country. But, when traveling between two other countries (England and Ireland, Netherlands and Italy) the security measures are significantly less physically invasive than when travelling within, or to the USA. Instead, the security screeners at those airports spend more time talking to people, and have been trained to note body language and inconsistencies in answers.
Those who choose to continue to work in jobs where they are ordered to commit immoral acts deserve the pain that they feel. Is that a harsh judgment? Yes. Is it a fair one? I believe so. If TSA agents are so upset by having to molest innocent passengers, then they need to, en masse, refuse to do it. And passengers need to stand up for their rights, as well.
Ben Franklin said, a long time ago: “Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” Those of you who think that anything goes so long as it looks like it makes us safer, need to think about those words. A lot.
“I go home and I cry. I am serving my country, I should not have to go home and cry after a day of honorably serving my country.”
Please, can you be a little more arrogant? Serving your country. You act like you are doing it out of a sense of moral obligation and not for a paycheck.
You are an embarrassment to the real men and women serving our country serving in our armed forces all over the world.
The terrorists have won. We have given up many, personal freedoms in the name of “security”. The terrorists are sitting around their caves laughing at what we have become.
If the TSA agents don’t like their job they should get a better skill and find a new job! “Because they told me to” is not justification for violating someones rights!
Thanks for this. The only thing worse than airline travel is the repulsive conduct of some airline travelers. If TSA doesn’t change its policies soon, it’s going to have to hire illegal immigrants to do the screenings.
Who told these agents that they have the right to abuse our 4th amendment rights. Sorry if the morale is low, but I’m not really interested in your morale. I guess if there is one thing that is showing here, is that the terrorists are winning the battle here. They are getting us to turn on ourselves.
You don’t like groping people all day? Then quit. I don’t like being groped, so I’ll not fly. I would rather die a free man, than live in tyranny.
NO. You have chosen to do this and so you must let others be heard. You can always get another job just as I am told I don’t have to fly… reap it.
I am aghast at the presumption and scorn coming from people clearly in a place of privilege to the people who have the least power in this situation. Does no one comprehend blue collar work? People who do skilled labor (and yes, if it takes training, it is skilled labor) have been making the trade-offs that TSA employees have to make since the existence of a working class (dating back to roughly 10,000+ years ago).
Facts of blue collar work and to some extent, all kinds of paid and unpaid work:
1) You have to implement policy you don’t agree with.
2) You have to take abuse from people who think you are responsible for the policy.
3) People with the power and means to confront the policy makers directly abuse you instead.
4) You have no guarantee that another job will be better.
5) It is unlikely you can merely return to your own job if the new one is worse. Companies expect loyalty from employees even if they show no loyalty in return.
And the presumption that people should “have stayed in school”, are “complicit”, or “lazy except for the ex-soldier (because I can comprehend and approve of that blue collar work)”. There are people in the TSA with two and four year college degrees. There are people in the TSA who poured years of their lives into learning other skilled trades. There are ex-soldiers, ex-police officers, and people from all classes of security personnel, many with years of experience. Doing this work does not make them inferior to you. They are no more complicit in this policy that you are for giving money to the airline industry in the first place. Think the airlines are draconian? Trains, boats, and automobiles await your moral superiority. Be aware, those infrastructures are also built, maintained, and operated by blue collar workers, so prepare your scorn, hypocrisy and judgment for them.
Federal Employee Oath of Office
I, do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God.
Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
To TSO’s: The enemy is you. Honor your oath. Defend the Constitution!
Of course you cannot judge an entire group by the actions of some, but I have seen nothing to indicate that enough TSOs have the training or professionalism you would expect for such a position. All too often they seem to be enamored with their power over the citizens who choose to fly, and exercise those powers in the most aggressive and demeaning ways they can think of, much like a preening local deputy fresh out of the police academy drunk on the new-found power. Simply put, there is a right way and plenty of wrong ways to conduct a pat-down, but TSOs seem to be doing far too much of the latter either due to a lack of instruction or an improper personality. If they object to being called molesters and perverts, then maybe they need to learn the proper way to do their jobs. To behave in such an obnoxious manner and then cry about it when people criticize is just pathetic. Moreover, none of this is necessary to keep Americans safe. Napolitano should be fired immediately, and TSA procedures need to be thoroughly revised.
“I am a professional doing my job, whether I agree with this current policy or not, I am doing my job. I do not want to be here all day touching penises.”
“I come to work to do my job. It is not up to me to decide policy, it is up to me to carry out my duties as dictated by the Transportation Security Administration.”
Really, folks, this sounds so much like the “I vuz just followink orrrrderz” excuse of the SS guards that I feel like I’m in an episode of The Twilight Zone. At least they had the implicit or explicit threat of being shot or being hauled off to the Russian Front as a moral fallback position. What’s your excuse?
Oh, you might lose your job? Well, guess what: those of us being either subjected to radiation and a porn scan, or molested by you apes, don’t give a damn. If you are really the decent people that you think you are, you’d go out on strike or quit. You treat the rest of us like crap, in complete violation of the 4th Amendment to the Constitution, and you expect sympathy from us? Get bent!
Look, all of you TSA employees ENABLE this crap. REFUSE TO PARTICIPATE. Sue the government if they fire you. DON’T BE PART OF MAKING THIS A POLICE STATE.
Either that, or get used to the abuse, its just starting. Right now its mostly verbal, but as YOUR actions continue, many people will get physical. That’s what a free people do to protect their rights and their dignity in the face of overbearing and self-righteous tyrants.
CHOOSE: be on the right side of things, be a hero and stop enabling tyranny and perversion – either that, or reap the consequences of YOUR choices.
The argument “I was just following orders” and “I was just doing my job” didn’t wash at Nuremberg after WW2 – why should it wash here?
People don’t like it when I assault them:( People need to understand me:( People call me names:( Boo Hoo! Just like you tell people “they do not have to fly”, you do not have to work for the TSA. Oh, and just like the Nazi’s the “I was just following orders” does not cut it when it comes to moral decency. Shame on your union for supporting the surrender of our civil rights. You all know this does not make us one bit safer but you also know that the TSO that tells the emporer he is naked will be out of a job. Well put you idiot direct out of a job first! Then we will all be safe from this idiocy.
To those “professionals,” who claim to be just doing their job and serving their country: How do you like being the tools that implement the violation of our 4th amendment rights? You may not like being told that you’re molesting people, but that’s exactly what you are doing (both with the patdowns and the naked scans) so maybe it’s time to admit to yourself just how low you’ve sunk. And then maybe when you all realize that you’ve left your self-respect and conscience at the door when you arrive at work, all the TSOs will flatly refused to carry out such a completely villainous policy. But until you all rise up and refuse to scan or grope airline passengers, then each and every one of you deserves exactly what you are getting.
I work at LAX, and although I have never personally experienced a pat down myself, I have seen many administered and they seem to be extremely intrusive and dehumanizing.
I have only been asked to take a full body scan once, and being that it was an unusually slow day made it seem all the more unnecessary and a complete waste of time and resources. When I asked the TSO if I was being chosen at random, he explained that everyone must pass thru the body scan, but since they were always busy it was nearly impossible. As I proceeded to the body scan, I had to wait about a minute because the 2 nearby TSO’s were engaged in a conversation. Their supervisor had to remind them I was waiting for a scan. It was quick and painless…and pointless.
As an airport employee and a regular smoker, I pass thru the security checkpoint several times a day during my shift. TSO’s are ALWAYS standing around chatting, laughing, wasting time. If luggage needs to be re-screened or checked more thoroughly, it seems like they take forever to make their way over to the passenger line.
At the end of the night when I’m heading out, they are ALL gathered around laughing and joking and having a good time.
No sympathy here.
I actually didn’t mind having the pat down. The gentleman who screened me was kind of cute. Any other circumstances and we might have exchanged numbers. Having to remove my shoes was way more annoying.
@ John (#3)
“I’m not a big fan of the security theater, but taking it out on the front line officers who have to carry out the policy enacted by someone else who sits in an office all day is like blaming the clerk at the gas station for the price of the gas.”
That’s nonsense, patent nonsense. One guy just posts a price. There’s no moral choice there, just pure economics. The other guy ACTS. No, strike that…he CHOOSES TO ACT, THEN ACTS…and the action is to sexually molest innocents. Passengers who refuse the porn scan and its attendant radiation (which MIT’s Technology Review has reported can literlly unravel your DNA) are subjected to what could only be called a sexual molestation. In fact, in any other circumstance other than a police stop where there is probable cause to believe that the person is hiding a weapon or critical evidence, such a search IS ACTUALLY a violation of the law. Worse yet when you do it to a kid. When you CHOOSE to do it to a kid, that is.
“Perhaps it’s time to start communicating to the people further up the line of command that we believe that their needs to be security but that we would like it to be reasonable and proactive instead of intrusive and reactive.”
No, start the heat on those who do the actions. Get them to STOP. Then, and only then, will the out-of-touch (and immune from this kind of search) bureaucrats and politicians pay attention. Being “reasonable” when you’re under threat of being sexually molested (or, worse yet, when your little girl or boy is about to be sexually molested) is not on the table for me or most other people.
TSA people CHOOSE to obey their orders to violate the Constitution, CHOOSE to molest people and then get upset when the average person gives them a piece of their mind. Too damned bad. Leave the job or organize a strike. DO THE RIGHT THING, don’t just say “I vuz just followink orrrrrrders” – because that defense went out the door about 65 years ago.
I am surprised at all of the backlash against TSOs for doing their jobs as dictated to them by the powers-that-be in D.C. I am equally surprised at the numbers of folks who believe it is ok to verbally/physically abuse TSOs merely because they are employed by TSA. Comments like, “it is their job”, or, “if they don’t like it, leave”, or, “they chose their profession so deal with it” make little sense to me. And, comments that the TSOs are dumb have no merit. It may surprise most the numbers of folks with degrees, including one TSO I heard about who was a scientist and quit his job right after 9/11 and joined TSA.
Should they get testy with passengers? Of course not. But, I am not sure I could handle the numbers of people like those making the idiotic comments on a daily basis and expect to keep my cool. And, like any profession, when you deal with idiots on a daily basis, you tend to become jaded. It is the human factor that will permeate even the best of them. But, the meritricious comments made about the TSOs really just shows a lack of class on the commentors part.
I for one will remain as understanding as possible when going through the lines at airport checkpoints. They help in preventing a possible attack whether folks believe that or not. They work hard, just as I work hard, and deserve my patience and respect.
The problem with TSOs predates the scanners.
1 – At Dulles, a TSO pulled my shorts off during an aggressive patdown.
2 – Also at Dulles, at TSO yelled at me to come back to the magnetometer after picking up my bags at X-ray, claimed that I did not walk exactly through the center of the gateway, and forced me to walk through it repeatedly, while rocking on his heels and chewing gum.
3 – In Orlando, a TSO took three minutes to do an exhaustive, slow and sensual grope after I silently glared at him.
Many TSOs really are defective perhaps not so much in training as in morality, character, and knowledge of American traditions and values.
All I hear are a bunch of spoiled Americans crying as usual.
P.S. Great advice from those who urge others to quit their jobs.
This issue has so many factors involved, you cannot blame any one thing.
1. Complete use of guidelines with little to no reliance upon logic when following the guidelines (when they are followed… I thought children below 12 were exempt from at least the body scanners.) A 3 year old with a teddy bear being taken away may be agitated.
2. Minimal requirements of TSOs upon hiring (I checked the job postings and saw no requirements for education.)
3. Paying TSOs based upon the minimal requirements which causes those with higher education and more skills to bypass these jobs.
4. Rude people: this includes both TSOs and customers.
5. Misinformation (purposefully or not) distributed to the public, concerning both scanners and pat downs.
I know there are plenty more things which all add up to the mess this has become. Calling people names is not helpful. I am sure there may be some TSOs who do take advantage of their position, but I would guess most find the new policies as distasteful as the customer. Those who do abuse their position will not be fired if everyone is called molester, pervert, etc.
There has to be a better term than Nazi to use as the implications in this are astoundingly inappropriate. As someone who visited East Berlin (when there was still such a thing), the communists also were following orders and micromanaging everybody. Still, communist is not an apt description.
As a military brat, veteran, current military spouse, sane and generally peaceful person, I know I am not someone who will do anything harmful to my country; however, how would the TSO know that? They do not know me personally. This does not mean I agree with the body scanner which I believe has been lied about continually (“It does not take or store pictures” and “It is not harmful”.) Nor does it mean I want to undergo an enhanced pat down. Although I would be more than willing to undergo a pat down rather than to have my 16 year old son or 14 year old daughter have to.
Flying is not a right. It is not a privilege. It is a business transaction. I do believe those who purchased their tickets prior to this new policy should be allowed to receive a refund if they do not want to comply with the new policies.
I also think it is funny there was an uproar when people thought profiling was being used. Now, people are complaining about holding military IDs and still having to undergo the same procedures as everyone else. You cannot assume because someone has or is serving their country they have not undergone some mental problem or personal issue which causes them to do something violent.
Wow. The jack-booted thugs have sad, sad feelings about being called child molesters, just because they molest children. I don’t care how you or your fellow thugs feel. I care about the Constitution. Read it. And then go shoot yourself.
As a combat and peacekeeping vet let me explain to the TSA employees the following
YOU ARE A WILLING AND PAID PARTICIPANT IN TAKING AWAY THE RIGHTS OF INNOCENT PEOPLE.
You are less adding to our safety than you are conditioning the public to accept the trampling of the hard won rights that are enshrined in the constitution. You have failed at EVERYTHING other than wasting our money and pissing us off.
You are part of the problem, that you fail to understand that confirms it.
They came first for the terrorists,
and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a terrorist.
Then they came for the tea party,
and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t in the tea party.
Then they came for the whites,
and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a whites.
Then they came for me
and by that time no one was left to speak up.
You are choosing your side in a epic test of what freedom means
Well, I hate to break this to you TSA folks, but “It Gets Worse”. If you think that things are bad now, wait to you see what happens when ordinary folks go through this process this holiday season and start to talk about it. Grandmas, breast and skin cancer survivors, people with incontinence, and people who are just plain afraid of “radiation” are going to be opting out, and you will go through this process clearly designed to degrade them (to get them to go through the scanners) and you will make enemies of the people you supposedly “serve” *forever*.
When opt-out day comes, this issue is going to be on every news channel. It will be discussed in high school civics classes, it will be discussed over a game of bridge, it will be discussed by the water cooler. And while there will be a significant number of people who feel that *any* degrading process is perfectly OK as long as it makes us “safer” and the government tells us we must, others will point out the clear conflict of interest at the top, the questions about x-ray safety, the fourth, ninth, and tenth amendments, the basic indignity of a strip search or invasive pat down for US citizens who are not accused of any crime, etc.
Then there will be the celebrities that show up – Kanye West or Britney Spears or Billy Ray Cyrus will have a bad encounter with your process and talk about it on every talk show he/she appears on. And SNL and the late night talk show hosts will make you the butt of more and more jokes.
Then there is the issue of airports opting out – since the TSA seems unwilling to listen to US citizens who say enough is enough, many of us will try a different approach – pressuring local governments and airports to replace TSA personnel with contractors. This is explicitly allowed by the ATSA. While some might feel that this is a step backwards, I believe that this would give airports some level of accountability in getting rid of the most abusive screeners – something that the TSA seems incapable of doing. And, of course, it will put even more pressure on TSA employees, who will basically become expendable pawns in a game of political one-upmanship. So, by going along with this abuse, you may find your job is at risk – but hey, you might get a contractor job with lousier hours and poorer health benefits. If you’re lucky.
To many of us, it seems obvious that TSA management adopted the more aggressive pat downs to “punish” those who refuse to use the scanners. This “double down” approach to passenger intimidation appears to have backfired in a rather spectacular way, and it will take years, if ever, for the TSA to recover the respect of the flying public. And you guys take the fall.
Thanks to your leadership, you will never be trusted or respected again.
*Every* enhanced security method, even sensible ones, will be viewed with a jaundiced eye. People will begin to compare the IRS favorably to you. You will be ashamed to say you are a TSA agent, because in your heart you know that what you are doing is shameful and wrong, and that people have every right to be offended by what you do on a daily basis. And even if you don’t feel that way, the fact that you work for the TSA is likely to trigger at least one loudmouth bully at any social gathering who will be happy to take his last degrading TSA experience out on you, because you’re not so big without a badge on, are you?
Yours was never an easy job, but it has just been pushed over the edge. Thanks to a bunch of lobbyists (including the former head of DHS) who wanted to make a few billion on these scanners. They sold you down the river. It isn’t the American public’s fault. They are responding in the only effective way they can to completely unreasonable behavior by their government – they are taking it out on the one target that is accessible to them – you.
This isn’t necessarily fair, but that’s the way it’s going to be.
Get used to it.
Having worked in the airline industry for six years as a ramp agent for US Airways, I can honestly say that the TSA walks a thin line between being an effective deterrent against a terroristic act occurring on flights originating from our county, and blowing smoke up the collective rear ends of the traveling public. Granted, in order to work at the airport, I did have to have a background check done, but after that, short of not having suicidal tendencies, what was there to keep me from smuggling contraband onto ANY aircraft on the ramp? NOTHING. No TSA idiots checking me going through any doors my SIDA badge would allow me ingress and egress through. But keep in mind, if I attempted to go through the checkpoint WITH my SIDA badges clearly presented, they want to examine me as well. Either they check everyone regardless of how they have access to aircraft, or they publicly admit that all their efforts are not fully though out. And in regards to the pat downs and scanners, the two most recent attempts to bring down aircraft originated on flights from outside the country.
It’s refreshing to hear the other side of the story. However, they are not in the military, they have civilian jobs. They do not have to ‘take orders’ and can (and should) get together and contact whatever workers rights organization is in charge of TSA and explain that, as workers, they do not feel comfortable touching peoples’ private parts.
I do feel sorry for the TSA agents, however that doesn’t make what they’re doing acceptable. They have a responsibility as workers to express concerns to their supervisors about whatever is making them uncomfortable. It is against the law to fire a worker for expressing concern and discomfort and asking for changes to the workplace.
Clearly it’s time for profiling. We shouldn’t be screening kids traveling with parents, old folks over 70, or US servicemen. Screening everyone is a colossal waste of time, money and an insult to the intelligence of the American public. The TSA SHOULD be trained in psychological profiling, be professional, suspicious and always err on the side of caution. We SHOULD be screening anyone a TSA offier deems suspicious at a glance – in their sole, educated discretion. Anyone has the right to refuse screening, get out of line and take a bus to their destination. I am a white American and I would be glad to be scanned or patted down if it meant safer air travel. But my 78 year old father? My 10 year old daughter? That’s sheer stupidity. Enough already. What kind of morons are running this operation?
TSA employees AND people who fly, AND state officials AND ANYone with a brain, a conscience and a working knowledge of the Constitution should band together in fighting these RIDICULOUS, OFFENSIVE AND ILLEGAL tactis and refuse to work or travel until they are banned. Israel does not need them and neither do we. All it is is a way to intimidate people, violate their persons, their freedoms and their privacy, and make that Soros fella more money.
If they made HIM go thru this molestation every day, and all the Rapiscan and TSA officials and employees, we’dd see those freaking porn machines and molesters disappear faster than a pack of cigarettes up BOZO’s nose.
I will NEVER fly again. Not until these intrusive, perverted pat-downs and naked body scanners are no longer used. What’s the matter with the White House and the TSA? Don’t they realize that by subjecting the American public to such scrutiny that the terrorists they claim they’re trying to protect us from have already won! Look at how much we have to go through IF we wish to fly!
You said “Rather than dehumanize the TSA TSOs, work with them, understand their views and opinions and work together to change the current TSA policies.” What are you – a government shill? I’ll be damned if I will allow a TSA government pervert to molest me in the name of “security.” We the People do have rights, and judging by how the powers-that-be in Washington are reacting to this revolt, inc. the TSA, I think they’re well aware that the voters are angry.
Believe me – we will remember this come 2012, so those representatives (including our President and VP) had better start looking for other jobs. This is change I CANNOT and WILL NOT believe in!
I would encourage everyone to check out the following website:
http://www.facebook.com/optoutday
Even so, I would like to make on correction. I don’t think we should limit “opt out day” to Thanksgiving, but also for every other day until these ridiculous, intrusive security procedures are done away with!
Rick,
Read the post following this. I wrote about the legal rulings that give the TSA the authority they have to enact their current policies … and to circumvent the 4th Amendment.
There needs to be a court battle to make changes, and I am sure that is on the horizon.
Happy Flying!
-Fish
The TSA agent whining is hilarious to read. Really, they are not too far removed from the Nazi soliders that loaded the Jews onto the cattle cars. I urge every American to come at the TSA agents who approach you cussing and punching with all you have…and if you are in line and see a fellow American recieve abuse from the TSA, for God’s sake stand up to the TSA and start swinging! LIVE FREE OR DIE, people!
I am playing the world’s smallest violin right now. If you are being paid to cup your hands around someone’s testicles, you might not be a “pervert”, but you definitely are a “prostitute”.
We’re hearing, “If you don’t like it, don’t fly.” Well, I’m countering with, “If you don’t like it, find another job.”
Calling it your job doesn’t make it right.
Calling yourself professional doesn’t make it respectable.
Your personal distaste doesn’t dismiss that you continue doing it.
Your job is losing all respect and dignity, and deservedly so — please pass this sentiment on to the supervisors.
To all those who say I don’t have a right to fly: I have a right to go about in public, using public facilities, secure in my person and free from arbitrary, unreasonable /unwarranted search and seizure. Otherwise, you’ll say I don’t have a right to ride a bus, take a train, take a taxi, ride a bike … society’s rights don’t end at each person’s front door.
I’m baffled that comment #40 Erndog simultaneously wishes the TSA employees did more to defend their coworkers and show solidarity but derides a union. This is exactly what a union is for. Quitting a company in principle in this economy is meaningless. Giving employees the ability actually affect policy or for their ethical resignation to hurt the employer? That’s called “bargaining” and “striking”. Unions are a healthy and essential part of this idealogical capitalism so cherished among commenters here, and the fact the pilots’ union may exert some policy change (albeit for their membership only) is further proof.
I you don’t like it change it. Don’t blame others for their lack of superhuman abilities (especially as you mock possible tools of recourse) or deride their protestation as unjustified complaint in the midst of your own complaint.
This whole escalation is futile. The scanners and patters can only “see” through clothing. Once the bombers figure out how to make a bomb that fits nicely in a body cavity, it’ll up the ante and we’ll spend another few billion in tax dollars for full body xray machines – of course with another round of outrage from the moron contingent. Of course, once they catch on to that they’ll figure out other methods.
The bottom line is that the people whining about human rights violations wont shut up until they or their loved ones perish in an attack and the TSA will continue to learn the hard way that their methods are expensive, inconvenient and not very effective.
The bottom line for passengers is, if you don’t like the rules, don’t fly. And call your congressman to complain – if you even know who it is.
They may be complaining, but they still opt to return to work and feel people up everyday. PERVERTS!
A lot of Nazi soldiers said that they were just doing their jobs. “I’m just doing my job” is NOT an excuse! What these TSA officers are doing is still molestation. They should wake up and think about the implications of their actions.