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!
To all the ‘it is a privilege to fly’
No, you paid for a ticket.
Do you know how to boil a frog? Start it low, and slowly raise the temperature. The frog will not even notice the difference. People drop the term Nazi in where it is not appropriate but the Nazis did the same thing – a little here, a little there. My goodness, we are only protecting you from ‘them’.
Next thing you know, the cattle car door closes and you are left standing, wondering ‘when did it become my turn?’
To those who believe the TSOs should quit their jobs (out of principle for YOUR feelings), why don’t YOU fucking quit YOUR job so you don’t have to travel?
I mean, yannow … if your job requires you to travel, and the whole TSA issue upsets you so much, why don’t YOU take a stand and quit your job?
That way, those who don’t particularly give a shit about pat-downs or Body Image scans can still travel without having to deal with whiny, bitchy morons like you guys. And the TSOs can still make a living and feed their families. And you guys can just stay home and bitch and whine to your heart’s content.
Win-win for everyone. 🙂
Like I said earlier, it’s fucking easy to have lofty principles when it’s NOT your family that has to suffer. *rolls eyes*
Every Nazi at Auschwitz was just doing his job, following orders. My question of the TSA (terrorist support agency) is, “Now that you have my shoes, belt, wallet, and passport, do I go to the gas chamber or directly to the oven? Answer, “This is America, the land of choice, once the barber is done with you, take your pick.”
Hey, don’t get me wrong, I know several TSOs, but I wouldn’t want my kid to marry one.
No one’s saying you should quit if that’s the only job you can find.
But maybe you should understand why being felt up by strangers who are often insensitve to medical problems (“you can’t bring breast milk without a baby”, that guy with the bladder problem) causes us to lash out at you. If you’re doing something YOU are responsible. Don’t say you were just given orders. If it’s your responsibility we can blame you.
And if you have to feed your family, tell that to yourself and you won’t hear the complaints (assuming you think this is an okay thing to do). Otherwise, it’s conscience telling you you’re doing something wrong.
To everyone who says you have a choice between the scanner or the pat-down, that’s not entirely true. Not all airports have the scanners yet, or have them functioning, or have the trained employees to operate them. I flew out of Las Vegas/McCarron on Nov. 3rd and wasn’t given a choice when the metal detector went off because of my underwire bra and wedding ring. I was told that I had to submit to the pat-down because they didn’t have a scanner. The woman doing the pat-down apparently had just been trained on it that day and kept forgetting how she was supposed to do it and in what order. That led to open-handed grabs of my breasts and groin before another agent reminded her she was supposed to be using the back of her hand on my genitals and only using her palm and fingers if she felt something suspicious. Then she did it all again because she got flustered and forgot where she was at in the procedure and couldn’t remember if she’d checked everything.
I won’t be flying in the future, and if that makes me a whiny baby then so be it. I’d rather whine than sit by and keep quiet. I’m driving from Georgia to Pennsylvania for Christmas this year to be with family, and I’m actually looking forward to the 750-mile trek. I can leave when I want to, stop where I want to, and I can do it for less than the cost of an airplane ticket. I get to see the gorgeous Smoky Mountains, the Shenandoah Valley, the Blue Ridge Mountains, and the rolling hills and farmland of my home, the lower Susquehanna Valley. For all the other road warriors abandoning the skies for the highs this holiday season, see you on the road! Keep on truckin’!
I too am a public servant for unemployment insurance. I hear comments like “How am I supposed to feed my kids?” That’s not fair to me. I’m not a congresswoman so I don’t write the laws. I’m just the one on the front line delivering the news.
The bottom line here is, you have a choice. You can either go through the safe (safer than flying thank you) scanner or you can tolerate the invasive patdown. YOU put yourself in the position of the patdown, not the screener. YOUR choice does not give you the right to traumatize the person conducting the patdown. If they had a clumsy, not so gentle robot conducting the patdown would this make you happy?
Get over it. Make your bed and lie in it. Personally, I’ll take the scanner and if they need a secondary screening I’ll cooperate. I don’t have the right to wreck the day of every person in that line and the scanner because I want to be a dumb jerk. Why should I hurt a fellow human being just because his boss asked him to do something I find objectionable.
My bet is 99% of those who complain about the scanners and the patdowns would be the first to blame and sue if something happened to them or their loved ones because a terrorist or psycho got on board!
This is all a very simple plan hatched by the new body scanner lobby: Make the pat downs uncomfortable enough and people will submit to them, and the body scanner companies will make millions, with the bureaucracy getting their cut.
Sorry TSOs, you’re just pawns in this battle.
TSA admin & body scanner companies vs. travelers:
Companies 1, TSOs 0.
asking these people to quit their jobs is the same as expecting them to cut their contract with the military short because of DADT.
both policies are beyond my cognitive abilities and both are a disgrace, in my opinion, but the only thing that is going to happen by the TSO’s losing their income is that they’ll be easily replaced.
and, equating (or comparing) this situation to Nazi Germany is absurb. You are mocking the people who went through the most extreme physical and emotional pain ever. shame on all of you.
Next time I fly, I’m going to bring a cupcake for my TSO and say “thank you” for protecting me.
… because cupcakes are delicious.
Fuck the TSA. Pop a Viagra before you fly, and don’t shower for as long as you can stand.
You really think people are going to leave their jobs just because they don’t like them, the way jobs and finances are now? Come down out of your ivory towers people.
Also: Every time someone or something is compared to the Nazis, it makes what they did that much less horrific, if it’s just used so casually. Bottom line: they’re not rounding people up and killing them, QED they’re not Nazis.
The real sad thing here is that the world has come to a point where people even think we NEED this level of security. Now we have to worry about suicide bombers and other crazies. Where will it stop?
If you were a pilot with a license to fly the big jets, now would be the time to start a private service though, eh? I wonder if people would pay extra. But, then, maybe that would be an invitation to the crazies. Gods, there’s no solution is there?
That said, I see lots of complaining but no solution. We have two problems:
1. We need some way of stopping would-be terrorists from enacting their foul deeds.
2. the current security system is pretty sucky.
I personally have no solution, so until I come up with one, if I have to fly I’ll be polite (as usual, they are still humans after all) and hope brighter minds find an answer that pleases at least most of the people, most of the time.
From the TSA job listing:
TSOs must be able to maintain focus
and awareness and work within a stressful environment. The position
requires employees to make effective decisions in both crisis and
routine situations. Necessary skills include visual observation and
x-ray interpretation. The work environment includes noise from
alarms, machinery, and people, distractions, time pressure,
disruptive and angry passengers,
and the requirement to identify and
locate potentially life threatening devices and devices intended on
creating massive destruction.
LOL at the TSO’s comment, “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.”
HOW DOES ANYTHING THE TSA DOES SERVE OUR COUNTRY? The TSA has served to turn this country into what the terrorists who attacked us on 9-11 wanted us to become. The TSA is the embodiment of modern American cowardice, the attitude that we should give up numerous important freedoms to protect us from the astronomically-small chance of being physically harmed in a terror attack.
I would get on an airplane knowing there were men with knives and guns on board. But I will not fly (as I usually do) this Christmas Season, because I understand what the American Spirit is… TO OPPOSE TYRANNY.
I can feel for the individual TSO, I am sure it hurts to be called a molester… but if you’re molesting people, that’s exactly what you are. I know the job market is rough right now… selling drugs is always a possibility? Less morally reprehensible to say the least.
“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.”
Painful and demoralized? How do you think the passengers feel? I haven’t had an opportunity to read the “American Traveler Dignity Act” introduced into Congress by Representative Ron Paul, so I can’t exactly endorse it yet; but something needs to protect the American people from those poor TSA folks who have it so rough!
funny israeli experts say they do zero pat downs and that profiling is the only way to go any comments?
I travel a great deal with my job, and it’s not as simple as saying TSOs can just quit. Highly technical people who could write their ticket two years ago are getting laid off and can’t find anything.
However, I can’t believe people are complaining about the abuse from a TSO…certainly, I think the search is unreasonable, and undoubtedly doesn’t really add to our security (like the 3-1-1 rule).
However, the real issue are the individuals working at the major airlines when you need to actually check a bag, get assistance, etc. They are the first line of screening, and with their attitudes a mile long and complete ignorance about customer service, I’m surprised our issues aren’t greater.
To anyone feeling an onset pity and sympathy for TSOs after reading this: DON’T.
These people are all cogs in a piece of shit corrupt agency. Nobody is forcing them to stay. Anyone with self-respect and love for their country would’ve left the day these policies were put into place.
Choose to stay? Then you’ve chosen to endure the vitriol and hate of the innocent citizen. All the abuse you have coming to you, you deserve and more.
You know, I feel bad hearing these people’s perspective. The reality is, they have to continue being a tool of a messed up system because if they don’t, they lose their livelihood. Do you think some of these TSO’s joined the TSA specifically to touch sensitive parts of people’s bodies? That is something that just doesn’t make sense to me. How many of you would walk out on your job just because you felt uncomfortable with your job description? In theory, everyone says the righteous thing, that you’d walk out. But realistically, no one is going to give up their professional career because of a crappy policy. I think it’s valiant of them to continue to come back to work each day to make sure you ignorant passengers don’t explode at 30,000 feet. Better safe than sorry, no? And with this public outcry, i’m sure the TSA will be instating some new policies. So quit hating on people who are just doing their jobs. Yell at the agency making the policies.
I was in the air on 9/11 between the two flights that bombed our unexepecting country. Was actually flying out of NJ. That day will be in my mind as long as I live. Because my job required that I traveled by air, the next many months were challenging, at best. The few fliers who ventured to fly again and kept the airline business operational; stood in LONG lines, put their clothes in bins, turned on their laptops and were PATIENT. We were treated with respect and everyone knew this process was necessary to be safe. And, yes, as one responder said above, the pilots coached us on what we should do if we felt uncomfortable on the plan. Ban together! One flight out of Atlanta, I watched 10 people deboard a 737 and the
C concourse was so quiet you could have heard a pin drop.
Today, I still have the same job and fly 3 weeks out of the month. In recent years, I have observed the attitude of the TSO toward the passenger and there is no respect or willingness to help make the process run smoother. This job is another example of a large Government Bureaucracy, like the post office, that hires people willing to “do what they are told” and wait until they can retire and collect their pension. As I wait in lines each week, I count the number of TSO standing around, doing nothing and figure the minimum wage is $30K+benefits+pension. What a huge taxpayer expense and we are still not assured of safety, even as we are being groped. This is a job with people who have little power, feel VERY powerful during their day at work.
I’m not sure what I would do if I were in their position and needed a job, because I need my job and will have to cotinue to travel by air and deal with the abuse by this group. There has to be some way to PROFILE, Yes I said the word PROFILE, those who really want to hurt us. Abusing our bodies and our rights is not the answer.
What is happening right now is JUST NOT RIGHT!
They dehumanized themselves the moment they stepped into that uniform.
They are perverts. Period. No law enforcement training, and little education, and professionalism? PLEASE! You are as professional as homeless person asking for change for drugs. Thugs with a little power who flaunt it every chance they get. Don’t like the abuse? Speak up to your bosses, or get a new job. No sympathy here!
They choose what they do period. If they do not like their job then quit. Lets see I have been threaten by TSO’s for looking at them the wrong way. I see them just walking around the airport half the time or just holding up the walls at the airport. I travel sometimes with expensive camera gear and they do not respect the fact it needs to be handle with care. If you want respect from a passenger then it works both ways. You also need to treat passengers with respect. Most of the ones I have dealt with are under-educated and now they have power and are now abusing that power.
If these employees are so dissatisfied and uncomfortable with what their employer is requiring why do they not take it up with the employer and/or quit? None of them seem to mention what they personally think about the security measures, just that they are “following orders”. I find the “just following orders” mentality to be disturbing. It implies that one will do what is told out of fear of repercussions regardless of what they believe to be right or wrong. That one will not question the why behind the orders. It disappoints me that there are not more TSA agents letting their employer know that this is NOT okay to require of them as employees. If in any other job my employer asked me to touch a customer in this manner and I refused on the grounds that I felt it was sexually inappropriate and made me uncomfortable and was subsequently fired, penalized, or subject to any other type of retribution I’m sure that would be grounds for a sexual harassment suit. So, I can’t help but wonder…. how the hell is it NOT sexual harassment to require employees to touch customers in a way that is physically demeaning and embarrassing to BOTH parties??? As a passenger who will not fly as long as these measures are in place I ask anyone working for the TSA who disagrees with these new security measures to PLEASE speak up!! Stand up for what you believe, stand up for your rights. The right to privacy is as much yours as that of the passengers and any other US citizen.
“Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.” -Benjamin Franklin
Paycheck or not, patting my breasts is molestation and I have had too much of that to feel any sense of security from the fact that it’s for my own sake.
Great! Insult them enough and maybe they can get their bosses to change things from the inside. I for one am not going to stand by silently while someone sexually molests me and violates me as a human being without my consent and under threat or arrest.
The next time I travel I am going to be saying pervert, molester, violator, traitor and every other such word that comes to mind for as long as the hateful immoral and traumatic act lasts!
All you bleeding hearts out there singing the whoa is me for these TSO’s….have you had your crotch grabbed and fingered today? Have your children been checked between their legs and hands ran over their little breast today? Oh and did you tell them it’s for their own protection? Then continue to teach them that no one touches you there except Mommy or Daddy when cleaning them from toileting or drying them off after a shower or when dressing them. TSO’s you ARE contributing to the moral decay of this country and you are WRONG in doing so. If all people would for 3 days NOT fly ANY airline…wonder what would happen if we ALL BOYCOTTED the airlines and the governement. I think OBAMA and his cronies should go thru a TSO feel down. Wonder how Obama and his misses would like to feel their balls and penis felt up and the curve of HIS butt felt up. Perhaps his misses would like to see what it feels like to have her breast felt and have a strangers hand up her dress feeling her. Then watch as thier sweet little girly girls get the SAME treatment….yeah….This is BULLSHIT!!
“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.”
TO GET RESPECT YOU HAVE TO GIVE IT FIRST!
SERVING YOUR COUNTRY MEANS RESPECTING THE RIGHTS OF ITS CITIZENS! MAYBE THE DESCRIPTIONS ARE VALID? NO?
“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.”
YOUR DUTY IS TO RESPECT THE RIGHTS OF AMERICAN CITIZENS NOT TAKE THEM AWAY BY FOLLOWING TSA POLICY. YOU ARE NOT A PROFESSIONAL, YOU ARE A USEFUL IDIOT IN SERVICE OF THE STATE.
“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.”
HAVING SERVED HONORABLY, YOU SHOULD KNOW THAT WHAT YOUR DOING NOW HAS NO HONOR!
ASK YOURSELF IF IT IS HONORABLE “FEELING” PEOPLE ON A DAILY BASIS!
“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.”
A NAZI WAS A MEMBER OF THE “NA”tionalso”ZI”alistische DEUSTCHE ARBEITERPARTEI AND THEY WERE JUST FOLLOWING ORDERS LIKE YOU ARE NOW. PATRIOT OR OBERKAPO?..MAYBE YOU SHOULD RECONSIDER…
Every 4 weeks I fly to or from Africa. We as in America’s should take a look at what other countrys are doing. If I get a pat down in Dubai I’m not groped. You would think that the Middle East would be worse than us. I have emaild the goverment. It did no good. It was a month before I got an auto responce.
Mela, please don’t ever represent me in a court of law, thanks!
Recently I traveled from LAX to SFO and was patted down because I had on baggie clothes, and the lady in front of me, was patted down as well because she had on a dress. I found it odd that we were searched. I found it even odder the same procedure was not followed at SFO when I flew to LAX in the same dress attire. The TSA is making stuff up as they go; furthermore, TSA is out of control, and they know it. We are no safer now than before 9/11! In case some of you have not noticed, people and illegal contraband is still making it aboard the planes and into airports. The American people are upset because they have not committed a crime, nor suspected of committing a crime, and yet, are forced to submit to unlawful search and seizure. Why are TSA agents allowed to conduct pat downs that law enforcement can’t even do; maybe because every American citizen residing in the USA is now a suspected terrorist? A full body scan is beyond intrusive, and where is the led cover pad, so a person does not get a dose of radiation. My doctor and dentist offer it to me when I get an x-ray, why doesn’t the federal government. But wait, body scanners are perfectly safe, and so are certain FDA approved drugs being recalled due to people having adverse and detrimental reactions to the drug. The TSA is failing the American people, just as the USA government is failing its people.
I visited the Sachsenhausen concentration camp north of Berlin in the town of Oranienburg about ten years ago. It was, as you might imagine, a sobering experience. The town came right up to the walls of the concentration camp. I asked a guide if the town had expanded over the last sixty years or so and was now encroaching upon the camp. She looked surprised and told me that the town had been founded in the twelfth century and had always abutted the concentration camp.
I was left staggered and shaking as I realized that none in the town could claim that they were unaware of what was happening in Sachsenhausen (over 30,000 were put to death there). I realized then what a farce it was to say “I was only following orders” or “I was doing my job” or “I didn’t know”.
Everyone in America knows that what is happening daily at the TSA checkpoints is wrong. It violates the 4th amendment and there will come a time when Americans say “enough”. Will “I was only following orders” ring as hollow then as they do when we think of Sachsenhausen?
Amazing- I live in San Diego and we are all talking about is the Chinese ICBM missile launched 30 miles off our coast a few weeks back near Los Angeles. What about that threat? That ICBM can lift 7 multiple reentry vehicles (MERVS) into orbit, fly around and pick any target days later to drop down on.
Seems that is a huge threat to our security, and that ICBM entered FAA-DHS-TSA controlled airspace, and NO ONE, from Pentagon, Edwards Air Force base or NORAD wants to talk about that- they just said it was not their missile…
Seems like the Chinese are a little miffed that the fed is printing $600 billion dollars over the next 7 months. The exact amount we owe them in bonds.
I bet you we could use the TSA TSO’s as a new sensor package-just have them stand on the beach all the way up the coast-and next time the Chinese launch an ICBM, they can point at it and say “ooooooooaaaaa”. That way no one will mock them for being molesters and they can be at one with nature.
The real threat sits off our coast in $85 million dollar diesel electric subs sold by the Russians to the Chinese-oh and Iran. And Iran is mining Uranium in South America with Chavez in a “tractor factory”, but everyone is focused on TSA fondling our nuts.
TSO complaining is a sham, what they are doing is wrong and they know it… let them know congress will take their jobs away anyway-DA’s will put them up on charges-Americans will not tolerate their methods-and remember they all work for us, so if your employee is not performing the way you expect them too, let them know-then fire them.
Thank God the new congress.It is going to shut them down…hearings and investigations and independent oversight-its called CHECKS AND BALANCES, and elections-2012 is right around the corner. Watch them squirm.
Also- TSO crybabies-Wake up and do your homework. Guess who took the CEO from the xray company on his $200 million dollar a day world junket a week ago! I wonder if they used an xray to scan everyone when they got on Air Force One or the 40 other “support aircraft” or the 3,000 close friends who went on the trip! Nope, that scan is for the “little people” …wake up.
TSO- you all need to “opt out” and find a new profession-your current job is a crime against America and freedom. Go get or make a real job.
Reading nearly all of these comments (with a very few exceptions) has made me sad with the realization of what whiny, spoiled, b@stards, we Americans have become. You all wave flags and clap for firemen after 9-11, but b1tch and moan about having to go through a screening to board a plane. You’d all change your tune if the passenger a couple of seats away was carrying an explosive device. It only takes one incident. America has been insulated from the terrorist activities they’ve seen for years over-seas. Now, even AFTER we experienced 9/11, even AFTER highly motivated attempts to blow up aircraft in the US have been thwarted – you all STILL whine like spoiled brats. God help you all if one of your loved-ones is on a plane that has someone slip through these detection systems. Then you’ll be suing because they weren’t strong enough and the TSA didn’t do enough to protect you.
You whiner’s make me sick. Seriously…I wish they’d open up an airline with absolutely no screening on it for those passengers who feel like they are getting “molested”. I’d call that culling the herd.
Listen to all of you.
None of you have ever lived the day in the life of a TSO, yeah? You are all judging them like that’s your place! Thanksgiving and Christmas are coming up and you say, “Oh, no big deal, walk away from your job if you don’t like it. I give you no sympathy.” I’m sure these people have families and you know that getting a TSO job is SO EASY right now.
Have NONE of you ever been put in the situation where you are asked to do something that you DO NOT want to do, but also want to keep your job?!
Anyone?!
Money. Controls. Everything. It’s impractical to say half of the things you are all arguing! Stop blaming the TSOs, blame their bosses and the idiots who ACTUALLY carry things in uncomfortable places so that you all have to go through this! I’m DEFINITELY NOT saying that I agree with the new pat-down policy, but sitting here and raving about it is not only severe homophobia, but color-blind racism! You can’t call them hobos and say that they’re thugs! You can say that you’re uncomfortable with it and HELP THE TSO’s change the freaking policy.
Whoever is complaining is NOT on the inside of the issue. The TSOs are, and if you want things to change.. support the TSOs who are asking for help to change things. They’re not perverts, they just want to support themselves.
I’m sure some nazis hated strip searching jews. Normal people feed their families without abusing people.
Im currently pregnant. If I were to fly somewhere I would not use the full body scanner because of this. So my Question is if I refused to go though the full body scanner because I am pregnant would a TSO agent have to give me the new harsher pat down? If so that is insane. I don’t want to take a chance on harming my unborn child so I have to be rubbed down by someone I have never met. Thats disgusting.
“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.”
No, you don’t honorably serve your country, you betray it. How dare you complain of mild verbal heckling when every day you trash the very foundations on which this country was founded.
“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.”
Unlike you, I do know what a Nazi was. The average Nazi was a humble bureaucrat and public servant, who served their country in a time of existential crisis and war, they did their jobs conscientiously, maintaining the machinery of state as it dehumanized, detained, tortured, and killed their fellow citizens. Of course, while they might not have agreed with the current security procedures, they worked tirelessly to make their country safer, after all it was their duty as a patriot.
So don’t pretend you are a patriot. You are a coward. A traitor to your heritage and your country. No, you are not a Nazi, but that is only an accident of birth—you would have guarded the train platforms of Auschwitz with the same dedication you man your current post. There is no scorn or verbal abuse that you do not warrant, you have already proven yourself more than worthy of their contempt.
@ Gerard. If you are going to sit here and say that America is not a free country anymore and that we show other countries what is it like to give into bulling. Maybe we should throw you on a boat and send you to… maybe China? North Korea? Perhaps somewhere in the middle east. You have more freedoms then you can probably count and you take them for granted. I for one thank the TSO’s for doing their job day in and day out. Everyone keeps saying that if they don’t like it they should find another job. I’m sorry but not everyone has the luxury to just get up and leave when things get uncomfortable. You try finding a decent job in this economy.
I can’t believe how many commenters think that if the airline workers don’t like the policy, they should quit their jobs. Put yourself in their position, and I mean really. They all have families to feed and a roof to keep over their head. Our economic climate isn’t too friendly to people who quit their job on principle.
For those of you who say you would quit your job if you were in their shoes, you are a liar. Or someone who obviously makes so much money that you don’t understand what’s it’s like to live month-to-month. I don’t care how bad my job got. I would stick with it so I could pay the rent until I had a solid job offer waiting for me.
These workers didn’t dream up the ridiculous protocol, and the passengers who verbally abuse them aren’t making any kind of different. You think the TSA cares that you abuse their workers? They don’t give a shit. Try to remember that they are fellow human beings that are just trying to pay the bills like you.
> You have one option that won’t touch you in the least, and you say no, I want to be “molested”, which, by definition, is consent.
Many people have said this but it isn’t true. If the alarms go off, or if you are “randomly selected” you get the enhanced grope regardless of your choice. By the way, the random selections are not random.
Some people should get their facts straight before flaming others.
GROPING PASSENGERS IN LINE (“Countin’ Flowers on the Wall”–The Statler Brothers)
COPYRIGHT N 2010 by Sam A. Robrin or whoever the hell it is who writes these things. Go ahead and use it (hey,I lifted the melody), but if you make a little money on it, I want some!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AE6W1Y25sZY
I get so furious, I want to shout and shake my fists
At rats who won’t protect America from terrorists.
I’d set those little traitors straight if I could get my way.
I felt so strong about it that I joined the TSA.
Groping passengers in line
Like an amateur ob-gyn,
Scanning children barely born
To sell pics of child porn,
Twitting Muslims to the point
They want to start a war–
Now don’t tell me
You don’t feel secure.
Inspecting lots of riff-raff as they’re heading for their flights,
I get a lot of lip on freedom and the Bill of Rights.
I teach those treason-mongers lessons that they won’t forget–
There’d be no country a’tall without folks like me, you bet!
Groping passengers in line,
Pinching cash and food and wine,
Holding grandmothers all night
Making sure they miss their flight,
Prison terms for asking
“What is this procedure for?”–
Now don’t tell me
You don’t feel secure.
This Free State punk shot off his mouth like some towel-head Islam,
And told me I’m no better than bin Laden or Saddam.
His ticket shows his address–Oh, boy, won’t he get a shock
When I fly over in my private plane and bomb his block!
Groping passengers in line,
Tasering those who decline,
Hiding smirks to drone the answer
“No, sir, it can’t give you cancer,”
Confiscating crutches,
Smashing faces on the floor–
Now don’t tell me
You don’t feel secure.
Talk back to me,
You won’t feel secure.
Does anyone here actually believe that Mr. Obama would allow a TSO to see the scatter-back image of Mrs. O’s booty and breasts? Or allow a TSO to “pat-down” his daughter’s genitals? How about Nancy Pelosi? If you want see a quick change in TSA approach, put out a call that all Senators and Congressman must be treated the same as any other citizen.
…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!”
Aw, those poor TSA people have to touch fat people! Truly, the TSA is suffering the most in this situation. (Not the rape victims, or the kids, or the people with medical devices who get groped no matter what they do…)
9.9
If I touch someone else’s genitals, without consent, I will be arrested, charged, convicted and sentenced.
If airport security touch my genitals, that’s ok, because it’s government sanctioned.
Two faced bastards! As usual, one rule for us and none for them.
TSA staff: You were not forced into sanctioned molestation of the travelling.paying public. You chose to do the work. If you don’t like it, leave! Don’t whinge to us how you want to puke whenever you have to touch an obese person’s folds, or someone threatens to scream. And please, don’t tell us how you are serving your country. You are serving your pay packet. Nothing more and nothing less.
Okay… I’ve read a whole lot of comments, and most of what I had to say has been said already. But there’s one thing that really hasn’t been responded to yet, that pretty much everyone speaking up in defence of the TSOs is saying.
‘But realistically, no one is going to give up their professional career because of a crappy policy.’
I’ve done it. Saw an employee being ill-treated as a matter of company policy, in a way I had no real expectation of being repeated on me – in fact, I personally benefited from it. (Guy got fined $100 because he had to leave in the middle of the day to visit his grandmother in hospital, and lost all his pay for the work he’d done that day – I got said pay, since I was called in to finish his work)
Then the supervisor started mocking him towards the end of the day.
I collected my pay, and never went back. Still feeling the burn on that, as it _is_ pretty difficult to get a new job without references.
Still. I’ve done it. Their turn.
And the people talking about the challenges and stresses of the job? I’m a licensed security guard. If I behave unprofessionally for five minutes on duty, I have the full expectation of losing my license (and thus my job) – and the gov’d be right to take it.
It’s their job to be professional. They are paid for it, and they are responsible for the well-being of millions of people. If they can’t handle the heat, and _consistently_ remain polite and professional so long as they are in the public eye, then they need a new job. They’re not qualified for this one.
I was kind of on the fence for a while. On one hand, they are honestly people trying to get by in life… on the other hand, they’re abusing people as direct instruments of policy, without protest.
It’s cute that they don’t like it. It really is. But distaste doesn’t count until they do something about it. And until they do, their moral core resembles the fungus growing in my basement fridge (I seriously need to clean that thing out, it honestly scares me). I wouldn’t call them perverts (at least, not as a group, I’m certain there are among them). Just cowards.
No sympathy here either. I’ve lived the standards they’ve failed to uphold. It ain’t hard. Just inconvenient.