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!
So the TSA agents are uncomfortable? The TSA agents _should_ be uncomfortable. Thank God for Ron Paul and HR 6416, the American Traveler Dignity Act. The TSA agents need to have their names and addresses listed on molester lists to be distributed throughout the communities in which they live. Americans deserve to know it when this ilk lives among them. The citizenry needs to be videotaping and photographing the TSA at every American airport, since the powers-that-be seem to imply that the only one capable of monitoring the TSA is the TSA, as if no other oversight is necessary or possible. Enough is enough, and the way to let the TSA know that enough is enough is NOT through niceties and political correctness.
You won’t find me feeling sorry for the TSOs.
They say that they are unhappy with the searches, but can’t quit right now because of the economy. They also say if you don’t like flying, don’t.
Guess what? I’m in the same boat. If I refuse to fly, I lose my job.
@ Gail
It was blind submission to government instructions that allowed the terrorists to accomplish their goal.
Sit down, comply, shut up, do what the terrorists (TSA) tell you, relax, it will all be over soon.
It was only until the people of Flight 93 stood up as free people and responded, that more lives on the ground were saved and the terrorists stopped.
If I absolutely had to fly (I won’t for personal travel until the TSA is abolished, but I have to travel some times for work) I figured out the perfect t-shirt to have printed up for our TSA agents who apparently failed history:
The Nazis were just following orders too.
Gail: if someone tries to take a plane with box cutters, they won’t make it to first class. We passengers will deal with them. We now know better. Recall that there were a couple post 9/11 flights where the passengers engaged hostiles (the shoe and the undie bombers), not to mention people who behaved suspiciously.
The fact is that the TSOs know what they are doing is mostly theatre. I suspect that a few feel dirty about it. But I have certainly noticed a couple who had power kicks both with the current theatre measures and those preceding it. The comments made by TSOs in the story above also show contempt for passengers. Fatties? (Hey, I exercise and will do strolling laps on layovers), Smellies? (uh see the former, and also see how you smell after flying international) and of course, Business Travelers. (AH! Now I get it. No class warfare there. Do you THINK we like to be separated from our families for several days per month and then be subjected to this complete show of contempt and distrust?) They are making the case against themselves there.
It’s hard for me to join them in their pity party. If they are as good a they claim to be (and some of them are, I know that as a fact from flying a lot), they know the vulnerabilities in the system. And they know this kabuki does little more than was done before 9/11 beyond more mundane evolutions of the pre-9/11 metal detectors and baggage/carryon scanning. The body scanners wouldn’t catch the pants bomber. The manufacturer admits it.
Also, as a frequent flyer who’s also been to Israel and flown El-Al, I grudgingly agree with Hana: the El-Al formula is effective. However, it means that we must take flying very seriously. Get to the airport early. Very early. Your travel day and in-transit time will get longer. 30 minute connections? Honestly, I wouldn’t miss them. There will be even less tolerance in coping with loss connections. Flying standby to be reunited with your family earlier than you thought will be less feasible. Rude Yanqui travelers, as well as European sophisticates won’t stand for it.
In response to public outcry, a new TSA logo has been developed:
http://bit.ly/9EAPFt
The following comment made me sick to my stomach…. You guys are Nazi’s. Your kidding yourselves. No doubt the Nazi’s that led the Jews to the gas chambers were doing it for their country and it was just their job. If you don’t like what your doing then get another job with moral value.
“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.”
@Gail I don’t parade around in almost nothing on beaches or anywhere else why should I be forced to at the airport.
as for the scanning equipement not storing or transmitting the pics? they already have been stored and transmitted as they are erased/wiped off the remote viewing machine.
Yes fight back against those sexually assaulting you. Be it verbally or physically. Just because the TSO was told to sexually assault you doesn’t mean it’s not sexual assault.
Just because I will be subjected to radiation while flying doesn’t mean I should sign up for more preflight, it’s not like it will provide extra protection from the inflight radiation.
Ignore “American” they are a troll and probably a TSO.
All I can add is that after a few thousand claims against the TSA from ex employee’s on severe emotional stress – TSA might get the idea that no-one will want to work for them.
What actions can we as citizens take due to these policies?
1) Eliminate all discretionary flying. Vacation close to home where you can use automobiles or trains to get to your destination. Get your vehicles tuned up and get ready to drive. My household will never fly again while these procedures are in place.
2) Businesses need to invest heavily in videoconferencing tools and put them to use. Make goals to eliminate 50% of business travel this year. Increase that percentage next year to eliminate the unpleasantness of flying. Consolidate industry and offices in one place to eliminate travel.
3) I can’t believe any parent would allow these procedures on their children. The big losers may be those places like Disney resorts that rely on family visits. Don’t go to these resorts. How fast will the major corporations make congress move if they are losing big money? They are the drivers of policy, not citizens.
4) Contact your representatives, but dont’ expect much. They listen to money, not citizens.
Fish,
If we want the policy changed, then it will have to involve verbally abusing the TSA agents. They all should feel uncomfortable every single time they do it. They should hate having to reach down someone’s pants or wonder if the next person they get is incontinent and wearing soiled diapers. We should make their job miserable in order to effect change. I won’t just fill out a comment card or send a form letter to my congressman. I’m going to ridicule the TSA at every opportunity. I want them to hate going to work, hate being assigned to pat downs and hate listening to me. At some point they’ll refuse to go along and drive change from below.
I have no sympathy for them.
“We do what we’re told
we do what we’re told
we do what we’re told, told to do…” –Peter Gabriel, “we do what we’re told (milgram’s 37)”
Would a TSO ever consent to having their own kids subjected to an “enhanced pat down”? Could a TSO explain to me how, even before this, “randomly” targeting, molesting and traumatising women, people of colour, or people with disabilities, or people with young children makes flying safer? Many of us would chose not to fly at all except we have to, and struggling with kids/disabilities is not made any easier by ignorant, biased, and inconvenient (to say the least) public harassment and humiliation. TSOs HAVE been doing racial profiling (instead of the more intellectually-demanding BEHAVIOR profiling of the El Al) and EVEN SO have yet to catch a terrorist, just lots of bottles of water, sealed jars of jam purchased from gift shops in the SECURED area, toiletries, nail clippers, and cutlery that is issued on the plane anyway. And even for racial profiling, please explain to me why a slim Chinese girl has to be patted down before almost all her flights? Does she remotely fit the profile of a terrorist, or are TSOs just getting their kicks? I’ve been PO’d since the Bush administration, and kicking and screaming, but TSA’s abuses have only now been hitting the limelight because WHITE MEN now know what secondary checks feel like! I have no sympathy for TSOs, because the backlash they’re getting now, in my opinion, has been long in coming. “Don’t like it, don’t fly”? Don’t like your job? Quit. Speak to your superiors–you have even more room to act than the people you’re “patting down”–YOU won’t get a $11K fine for walking out! YOU don’t have an underaged kid being groped and held by a government agency to make you comply! YOU, for whatever messed up reason, do not need to be publicly and sexually touched for the choices you make, unlike your victims. And you SHOULD be demoralised. Whereas sex workers get consent from their clients, you’re touching men, women and children intimately against their will, using FEAR and intimidation. WHY should they quietly submit? So you’ll feel better about your assault?
The TSO’s “Nazi” comment got me thinking. While many Nazis and Germans may not have agreed with the policies of their government, they did nothing to speak up about the injustices they were asked to perform out of fear of reprisals.
Citizens of the USA (TSOs included) have the right to speak up. Is there fear of reprisals from our own government? If we just comply with the policies, are we any different? Rights only exist if we’re willing to speak up for them and defend them.
While I feel bad for the TSOs having to take the brunt of the verbal abuse, that is an immediate means for the common traveler to speak up and be heard. They don’t hate the TSO, they hate the policy, and for many, that may be their only means to let someone know.
The TSO are not being verbally abused. When you’re being touched in that manner to call some one a molester is appropriate. To tow the line that you’re just doing your job… well, we’ve heard that many many times before. The TSO have a choice. They can walk out, they can strike, they can, collectively, refuse to follow this policy, but instead they choose to assault person after person and then claim they’re serving their country by abusing their own countrymen. I’m sorry, but I have zero sympathy for the TSO and will continue to make comments to them when they touch me inappropriately. How can you tell your kid that you shouldn’t let adults touch you inappropriately, but it’s alright if the government does it as they’re serving their country? Ironically, the TSO are in the best position to stop this policy by refusing to implement the policy. Don’t blame the victim for their choice to fly.
BJ…
I’ll be this fair to the rank-n-file TSOs screeners. This is obviously a highly politicized set of directives with in TSA and DHS that they too are on the wrong side of. Hacks like Napolitano & Pistole won’t be caught dead being photographed groping nuns or causing two year olds scream “stop it!” And there are few immobile objects in the university more intransigent than a bureaucrat needing to safe what little face they have left as the TSA/DHS highbrows have been these last few days. THere are whistleblower protections of course, but they are ink on a page. Unless you are very very very public in your whistle blowing like in the DOJ Voting Rights Office, you don’t have much protection from Big-P and small-p political retaliation. And the stereotypical TSO has no indemnification (as in a financial cushion) to go up against them. Even if they know this is BS, they don’t have what it take$ to stand up in this economy and there are plenty of people who would take their job.
All they have to rely on are the outside expert consultants, airline industry and the Legislative and Judicial Branches (since both the Obama and Bush 2 admins were fine with this crap). (Honestly, TSA and DHS will not listen to travelers as they are not responsible to citizens. This administrations of all stripes, especially this one, has a street rep for smearing sober and measured criticism with the kind that has BHO being Islamicist Sleeper.)
1. You complain about this until your plane is taken over by “terrorists” and then you blame the govn’t for not providing enough security.
2. Airlines are private companies in which you pay for a service.
3. While you are sitting in your nice cozy office or your high rise loft or whatever luxurious dwelling in which you have access to Internet. Think about the people who for whatever reason need to work undesireable jobs. Post man, gas station, TSA, McD’s, ect. It is easy for you to say “just leave” because you are well off. My boyfriend is a graphic designer with a degree and has been unemployed for over a year. Have you tried looking for a job lately? Few and far between. We do not need more homeless people.
4. Just use the fucking body scanner you dummies!!! Then there would be no problems with people searching you for weapons or explosives. That IS what they are doing you know. Stop being assholes to people who are just doing their jobs when you are the 20th person they have seen today. You are not special. You are not a unique snowflake.
5. I like how only the men who are homophobic and insecure with their manhood have posted negative comments. You really think they want to put their hands in your nasty smelly crotch? You are dumb.
“do people know what a Nazi is” . . . I think the far larger portion of Nazis were people “just following orders” kind of like most TSA agents are. The average Nazi infantryman most likely gave two shits about cause, they just wanted their paycheck.
Keep in mind, the officers in Germany used the same defense after WW II. They were just following orders.
It does not matter if the TSA staff are perverts or not – they are acting like perverts and molesting people at the airports under orders.
This is one of the very few good posts I’ve seen about this issue. Too many hysterics around; how can any thinking person take anyone shrieking about Nazis and homosexual assaults seriously?
flyingfish, you should know that each of the 17 screeners who responded to you risked termination and/or imprisonment because uniformed TSA personnel are absolutely forbidden to speak to the media.
Maybe they should suck it up and stop bitching. That’s what the passengers are told, right?
Or maybe they shouldn’t be there if they don’t want to do it. That’s what the passengers are told, right?
Sympathy: zero.
I’m afraid I come down on the side of those with little sympathy for TSOs. They’ve chosen to be instruments of an idiotic policy. Now they’re instruments of the backlash. Best thing they can do is take every bit of the push-back they receive from the public and pass it on up the line to their superiors. Maybe it’s not fair for them to bear verbal abuse, but it’s even less fair for the traveling public to bear the burden of coddling the political sensibilities of the political elite. Remember: we’re searching nuns and kids not because they’re a threat, but so that no one can accuse us singling out people on the rational basis that they might actually be a threat.
Fish, I wasn’t the one who started the Nazi parallel—so please forgive me for extrapolating from a violation of Godwin’s law, while not actually breaking the tape myself.
You didn’t address my larger point. “I was just following orders” is NEVER an acceptable excuse, especially for a government official who is putting immoral policies into practice.
So, no, that TSA person is NOT a Nazi. But he or she shares traits with other people throughout history who have helped their governments and leaders violate the rights of their citizens while claiming no moral responsibility for what they are doing.
Nobody should call the TSA agents Nazis. That’s silly. But are they morally responsible for their actions? That’s a big yes.
Nazi’s WERE people who “just followed orders”!
“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.”
So…the TSA are “Just following orders?” Seems I’ve heard THAT before too.
Unwanted sexual contact of any sort *IS* sexual assault. It doesn’t matter if the TSO’s are happy about it or not. They are sexually assaulting people on a daily basis. Don’t like it? Quit. The job pays about as much as a Wal-Mart greeter…and has about the same requirements, a HS diploma or GED.
If a TSO wants to “serve their country” that person should quit their job over the immoral violation of the 4th Amendment they’re being “forced” to perform.
Any agent that doesn’t quit is a willing and active participant in this travesty and deserves any and all scorn they receive. Including allusions to Nazi Germany.
I really don’t have much to add beyond what Jason #229 said. This is exactly how I feel about the current state of things, as someone who has done long haul travel to Asia and the EU a good part of my life. I’d just like to add a couple things:
1 This link from Sibel Edmunds:
http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/2010/11/09/the-not-so-gradual-degradation-of-a-nation/
2 It only takes a core of 5-10% ‘extremists’ to move the ‘normal folks’ to ‘just follow orders’. It happened in Germany, it can & has happened here.
3 There really isn’t THAT MUCH difference between our country and the Weimar Republic of the 30s. All the elements are there, and we’re just a ‘building set fire to’ away from being the bad guys of the 21st century.
I love my country. I *DO NOT* love what it has become in the last 12 years. I think that Police & Military get SOME presence of mind thru their oaths and training as well as the UCMJ. But some kid doing baggage and now LEO style pat-downs?
I think when the kids working at the TSA ‘just following orders’ look back at this period in 20 years it will be in shame. Pretty much the same shame I’ve been told even the young in Germany feel for what their elders did. What Germany devolved into is something that has haunted them for at least 3 generations.
Now it’s our turn. The only thing I can advise to all parties is to educate yourselves.. and ask: Is this what you’re fighting for? Do you want to leave this to your kids?
-Drunken Economist
http://mindtaker.blogspot.com/
http://twitter.com/drunk_economist
If a TSA agent touches the genitals of you or a family member CALL THE POLICE AND INSIST THE TSA “OFFICER” BE ARRESTED FOR SEXUAL ASSAULT.
I would enjoy being on the jury!
Demand the names of TSA agents molesting your children. Prosecute these people and have them convicted as registered sex offenders.
Airports are arresting and seizing the smart phones of citizens recording events. WHY ARE YOU ARRESTED WHEN THE GOVERNMENT AND AIRPORT ARE FREE TO VIDEOTAPE YOU?
Use the apps for Ustream and YouTube to upload your encounters. Use twazzup.com to keep abreast of events on Twitter.
Service members – is this what you fought for – to see your Mothers and children groped by TSA workers? Is that what the flag you salute before your ball game represents?
Workers – is is NOT A CONDITION OF EMPLOYMENT for you to be radiated, searched and sexually groped to earn your paycheck.
Children – I am so sorry you have to stand by and let strangers touch you and take your innocence. I am so sorry your parents are cowards who allow this. Remember this children – never forget it.
Where are the clergy who allow this evil to continue?
Good. Keep verbally abusing these people; maybe if they all quit their jobs, we can fly again. Call them nazis. call them perverts. make them cry themselves to sleep at night. give them depression. screw em. make them feel horrible about themselves. they are doing horrible things, even if it IS their job.
I am sure it is unpleasant to grope people all day long. But I was struck by this comment:
“…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.”
The “less invasive” method involves exposure to radiation concentrated at the skin surface. There is no provision for protecting the eyes of passengers, who may be at increased risk of cataracts from this exposure. The machines have not been shown to be safe. If your cancer risk is increased, that is not a preferable alternative. What about children? Pregnant women? People already undergoing cancer treatment with radiation?
If I have to choose among being irradiated, having my labia handled by a person who it not my ob-gyn, or driving, I’ll take driving.
I read all of those TSA responses and all I kept thinking is QUIT! Why in the world you would continue to go to a job like that? Surely they realize the folly they are involved in. They are NOT making us safer. Where did the shoe and underwear bombers board their planes? In the US? No, they boarded over seas, how is feeling up a 3 year old girl or 70 year old grandpa going to make us safer? I feel sorry for these TSA people if they actually feel they are helping in some way for they are not. They are HURTING plenty as we will no longer fly. We have already canceled our trip to Florida and Disney and I explained to both organizations why, solely upon TSA thuggery.
If they hate the comments from passengers and feel sick when they go home, they should quit this job!
If the US public hates this and the screeners hate this, it’s a no brainer. Lets stop this madness.
All passengers opt-out. All screeners quite their jobs. Let’s team up.
Then this airport madness will be stopped and the 4th Amendment restored.
I DON’T FLY-I DON’T NEED TO-AND I DON’T LIKE THE FEELING-IT URKS MY SENSE OF “GROUNDEDNESS”.I USED TO DO SECURITY-AND ONE THING I FOUND OUT FROM THRITY YEARS OF DUTY—-THE BEST JOBS, REGARDLESS OF THE PAY, ARE GRAVEYARD SHIFTS WITH AS LITTLE CONTACT WITH PUBLIC AND CLIENTS. THE PUBLIC WANTS YOU AS THEIR PERSONAL “WHIIPPING-BOY”, AND THE CLIENTS RESENT HAVING YOU AROUND AT ALL-AND WAIT IN THE WINGS TO FIRE YOU! THIS IS THE OVERALL STATE OF ALL SECURITY-AND TOUCHY-FEEL PAT-DOWNS, AND GODZILLA SCANNERS ARE NOT GOING TO PRESENT MUCH OF A THWART TO DETERMINED TERRORISTS-THEY COME INTO A VENUE BLAZING AND TAKE HOSTAGES, AND PLANT EXPLOSIVES—–THE MACHINES JUST SIT THERE AND ABSORB SOME BULLET HOLES-AS DO YOU! ALL THE POLITICS AND TEMPER-TANTRUMS, AND “QUEERED PERSONNEL FILES” OF GUARDS—-I CAN DO WITHOUT! BUT-WHEN IT DOES BLOW UP-I WILL REMIND YOU A-L-L—–I TOLD YA SO-AND YOUR ATTITUDES MUST CHANGE IF YOU WANT R-E-A-L PROTECTION!
“I am a professional doing my job, whether I agree with this current policy or not, I am doing my job.”
or to shorten it
“I vas chust following orders”
If ya don’t like flying inconveniences of the security madndated-stay your whining ass home! I am not overly concerned about the TSA security-they were all remnants of the outsourced guard services that failed at these venues before-or vestiges of near-welfare marginal employees. When they get stressed and raked across the hot coals-I remember my reasons for n-o-t applying! Nothing spells stress like tending to a hostile public—high blood-pressure, broken parenting, cancer and diabetes brought on by that stress and irregular hours and insufficient sleep. Dead guards, busting their ass -for an unappreciative public-who wait for a big screw-up to bust their chops and fire them. It is a self-esteem killer, and a career-killer—-no winners! The terrorists get a big laugh—
MAXIMAL “HUMP”-marginal success—-no satisfaction—-other then marginal pay.
If they are so unhappy with their jobs, perhaps they should go on strike. They have rights as employees, and it sounds like those rights are being violated just like the traveling public’s rights are being violated.
Could you imagine the disposition of personality of your local florist, for instance, if the public came in with a sour face and then made your business a living hell? Flowers would suffer-and security is no different. Weird personality and stress behavior manifestations began happening to- certain Wackenhut-assigned groups of guards when they went covert places, and took on certain secretive protocol—it clamps down severely on undisciplined personnel-leading to their problems with bad press relations and broken laws. What I am pointing at is—–the more that is demanded to accomplish a difficult tasking, without higher training and pay-you get less and less results that are effective-and open the window to outright failure-such as is the case with worldwide outsourcing. It is not debatable-I know the guard industry-and America is skating on mighty thin ice-along with a bad dose of hateful public attitude!
Beth,
TSA TSOs are in the process of unionizing and getting everything together, http://tsa.afge.org. Even if they Unionize that could not strike. This is an issue elsewhere in the TSA, such as Federal Air Marshals being unable to join a Union and seek collective bargaining (they don’t want to strike, but many want recourse for unfair termination).
Happy Flying!
-Fish
Keep making them feel uncomfortable, folks, because that is the only way these violations will stop. Our politicians won’t listen. TSA’s upper management won’t listen. We NEED to make the front line people want to quit their jobs. We need to make them realize they CAN “just say no” to committing sexual abuse on the job.
Otherwise, “the terrorists have won.”
THE REASON THE PROCESS IS MADE MORE AND MORE CUMBERSOME, AND HIGHLY INEFFECTIVE-IS BECAUSE THE LAST CONSIDERATION IS THE FLYING PUBLIC AND REAL SAFETY—IT IS ALL ABOUT CONTRACTS, AND MONEY-MONEY-MONEY-MONEY-MONEY! THE COST OF THE BIG MACHINES CROWS OUT THE PAY AND TRAINING RESOURCES ALLOCATED-AND THE PUBLIC HAS NOWHERE TO GO AFTER THE CONTRACT BUYS THEM—YA GONNA SELL THEM AT THE SWAP-MEET IF THEY FAIL?! NO-“LET’S FIRE ALL THE GUARDS!”–TYPICAL PUBLIC STUPIDITY!INSTEAD OF TRAINING THEM WITH DIVERSE FIREARMS, FLEXIBLE RESPONSES, SCENARIOS, AND MOSSAD INSTRUCTION TRAINING—-WE DEBATE PAT-DOWNS AND SCANNERS. I LIKE BIG ARMAMENTS ON THE READY-THEN-THERE IS AN OPTION TO UP THE QUALITY AND NUMBER OF PLAIN CLOTHES OBSERVERS IN THE AIRPORT VENUE—-NOT ALL DRESSED UP LIKE CLOWNS. MANY MORE OPTIONS FOLKS-BUT THE AIRLINES PEOPLE AREN’T TALKING BECAUSE-IT CUTS INTO THEIR PROFIT MARGINS!