Posted on 12/01/2004 1:17:00 PM PST by yatros from flatwater
TSA- Bullies at the Airport
November 29, 2004
If you traveled by air last week for the Thanksgiving holiday, you undoubtedly witnessed Transportation Security Administration agents conducting aggressive searches of some passengers. A new TSA policy begun in September calls for invasive and humiliating searches of random passengers; in some instances crude pat-downs have taken place in full public view. Some female travelers quite understandably have burst into tears upon being groped, and one can only imagine the lawsuits if TSA were a private company. But TSA is not private, TSA is a federal agency-- and therefore totally unaccountable to the American people.
TSA was created in the wake of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. Although the National Guard, DOD, FBI, CIA, NSA, and FAA utterly failed to protect American citizens on that tragic day, federal legislators immediately proposed creating yet another government agency. But the commercial flying community did not want airport security federalized, and my office was inundated with messages from airline pilots opposing the creation of TSA. One pilot stated, “I don't want the same people who bring me the IRS and ATF to be in charge of airport security.” But Congress didn't listen to the men and women who spend their working lives flying, so it created another agency that costs billions of dollars, employs thousands of unionized federal workers, and produces poor results.
Problems within TSA are legion. In the rush to hire a new workforce, 28,000 screeners were put to work without background checks. Some of them were convicted felons. Many were very young, uneducated, with little job experience. At Kennedy and LaGuardia airports in New York, police arrested dozens of TSA employees who were simply stealing valuables from the luggage they were assigned to inspect. Of course TSA has banned locks on checked luggage, leaving passengers with checked bags totally at the mercy of screeners working behind closed doors. None of this is surprising for a government agency of any size, but we must understand the reality of TSA: its employees have no special training, wisdom, intelligence, or experience whatsoever that qualifies them to have any authority over you. They certainly have no better idea than you do how to prevent terrorism. TSA is about new bureaucratic turf and lucrative union makework, not terrorism.
TSA has created an atmosphere of fear and meek subservience in our airports that smacks of Soviet bureaucratic bullying. TSA policies are subject to change at any moment, they differ from airport to airport, and they need not be in writing. One former member of Congress demanded to see the written regulation authorizing a search of her person. TSA flatly told her, "We don't have to show it to anyone." Think you have a right to know the laws and regulations you are expected to obey? Too bad. Get in line and stay quiet, or we'll make life very hard for you. This is the attitude of TSA personnel.
Passengers, of course, have caught on quickly. They have learned to stay quiet and not ask any questions, no matter how ludicrous or undignified the command. It's bad enough to see ordinary Americans bossed around in their stocking feet by newly-minted TSA agents, but it's downright disgraceful to see older Americans and children treated so imperiously. But any objection, however rational and reasonable, risks immediate scrutiny. At best, complainers will be taken aside and might miss their flight. If they don't submit quickly and attempt to assert any rights, they will end up detained, put on a TSA list that guarantees them hostile treatment at every airport, and possibly arrested or fined for their "attitude."
Airlines should be using every last ounce of their lobbying and public relations power to stop TSA from harassing, delaying, humiliating, and otherwise mistreating their paying passengers. They should be protecting their employees, passengers, and aircraft using private security and guns in the cockpit. After all, who has more incentive to create safe skies than the airlines themselves? Many security-intensive industries, including nuclear power plants, oil refineries, and armored money transports, employ private security forces with excellent results. Yet the airlines prefer to relinquish all responsibility for security to the government, so they cannot be held accountable if another disaster occurs. But airlines are finding out the hard way that millions of Americans simply won't put up with TSA's abuse. Wealthy Americans are using private planes via increasingly popular fractional ownership plans, while ordinary Americans are choosing to drive to their destinations and vacation closer to home. Even business travelers are finding ways to consolidate trips and teleconference. Who can blame anyone for avoiding airports altogether?
While millions of Americans undoubtedly welcome any TSA indignity under the guise of "preventing terrorism," millions more are not willing to give blind obedience to arbitrary authority. TSA creates only a false sense of security, at great cost not only financially but also in terms of our dignity. How we as Americans react to authoritarian agencies like TSA is an indicator of how much we still value freedom over our persons and effects.
If another planes hits a building, the same writer will be complaining about lax security.
I don't know about that but, he seems to make some valid points in this article.
Do you think it merits no discussion?
"Those who give up freedom for security, even temporarily, deserve ________________.", Ben Franklim
Man, the ways some people get their cheap thrills! You look forward to the groping, eh? ;O)
"I'm more concerned with the unnecessary searches conducted on obviously innocent passengers"
While I agree in large part with your post I don't believe we can assume anyone innocent. I can easily imagine a scenario wherin some 14 year old kid is hired by some not so innocent looking person to smuggle say a ceramic knife or some such through suecurity.
Why haven't we made it policy to have cockpits that are un-impregnable??
Thanks. But I did this same thing when I traveled in July. It was hot that day and I was at the airport 1 and 1/2 hours before flight time. When I went through I beeped from one side of my shoes, all the way over my head and down to the other side of my shoes. I was then taken to a room off the side and two female TSA's reviewed why I was making such a noise. With a big grin on my face, I showed them my jewelry, lifted up my top and showed my girdle as well as the top of my jeans, took off my shoes and showed them an anklet. While one TSA took off my shoes with my top still pulled up, I stated with a grin on my face that I was heterosexual if anyone was interested. The woman checking my shoes grinned like it was a great joke. The other lady frowned like a prune and told me I could put my top down. I informed her that it was too hot and I'd just as soon keep it up until they were finished. :)
I lead a very puritan life. Gotta get my jollies someway. LOL :)
I question your motivations for acting like you do, Juvenile behavior at best.
Had me giggling reading your post though
I doubt they will have to. When people stop flying, there will be no one for the "McDonalds employees in Band Uniforms" to inspect. Even a bureaucracy, when confronted with Free Market forces, will fold up.
In my career I have been subject to a lot of Security restrictions. I do not mind them, and encourage them...if they are done professionally and for the right reasons. I always found people from DISCO, the FBI, etc. to be earnest and good people- but THESE?
Employers are realizing the 80's are over. Is much of this travel NEEDED? Let's those of us who have flown for business a lot in the past be honest- Are the Frequent Flier Miles really worth it?
And to be personally honest, of all the meetings and seminars I have flown to over the past decades, few could not have been done with Netmeeting, most were an utter waste of time that came to nothing, and in the long term, produced no lasting results.
Sure, nothing can give a manager more of a cheap thrill than to send a little toad employee off on short notice on a fool's errand- I suspect from my experience more "business" travel originates that way than anyone would admit. For a couple of decades I worked for a Fortune 500, saw a lot, and came away not caring if I ever got onto another commercial plane again...and this has put me over the top.
I Won't Go.
Before someone suggests that I hated flying and was looking for an excuse, I spent quite a few thousand of my own money to be a Private Pilot. It's not the same thing!
And people have proven, repeatedly, that such an act is still quite possible with the status quo. We have the inconvenience of the searches without the equipment, policies and competence that would yield the security we pay for.
I agree that we can't assume anyone is innocent, but, in the balance, our efforts would get a much better "bang for the buck."
Don't forget to get a couple of piercings where they won't show. ;o)
My whole point is that these TSA bullies are going to do what they want regardless of any protestations on the public's part. Until the rules are changed at the executive level of TSA, this bullying will go on. So with that in mind, I'm going to have some fun whether it's outrageous or not. Besides, I'm going to make the TSA agents work for a living since I'm paying their salary.
"Before someone suggests that I hated flying and was looking for an excuse, I spent quite a few thousand of my own money to be a Private Pilot. It's not the same thing!"
That's because you are in control....
Right on!
The airlines can take their "everybody is a potential terrorist (except Muslims)" and shove it.
I'll get that jewelry on EBay as soon as the TSA inspectors unload it! Hope it's something my wife will like!
Remember Ann Coulter's rave about her sterling bullet pendent, and the TSA guy going "Christmas Shopping"?
The trick is to wear costume jewelry where the cost is minimal.
That's because you are in control....
Really good point! I suspect many of us do not make great "Back Seat Drivers"....("You call THAT a turn?", "Log two landings for that bounce", etc.etc.)
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