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.
Arab, you can tell by looking usually. Muslim, you can't always tell by looking. Remember Johnny Jihad? A haircut and shower and you'd never known he was Muslim.
I think many "hollyweird stars" become private pilots because they don't want to die in a commercial airplane...they would rather be at the controls...if I were rich...I wouldn't fly...ever...car, bus, or boat...only 'cause I know something about planes and they scare the hell out of me...lol
Just be prepared for the consequences.
Dont forget to dust all your luggage with saltpeter for the full experience.
Yeah. . .have fun as you are stripped nekked. . .
Your name certainly fits!!!!
Is that your argument? You wonder what they do when they go to the doctor?
That's about as deep as an oil slick. Thought that ditty up all by yourself, did you?
Are we to conclude your surgeon of choice is one of the TSA agents? And that you would have no problem if a TSA agent pulled out a scalpel and started to cut on you?
What a silly argument.
Newark Liberty, Cincinnati which is really Kentucky, and Denver International.
No problems at all.
Even passengers with attitude were met with courtesy.
ROTFLOL!! Dude, you just ain't right - but I love it!
Mmmmm....not so much. TSA regulations prohibit more than two people of Middle Eastern descent to be in secondary interview areas at any one time (No lie).
If profiling were used, this stupid, moronic, mind-bogglingly idiotic PC rule would need to be overlooked or broken.
You are an idiot.
I feel MUCH safer knowing that the TSA is looking out for me by hiring morons, giving them carte blanche to grope (albeit with PC rules), and offering them immunity from lawsuits.
Unfortunately there is no such thing as an obviously innocent person.
I think that a more practical approach would be concentrate the majority of the resources through profiling and the rest with random searches.
Maybe 80/20 would be a fair mix.
Waved right through customs with no issues. Bags were never scanned again after Moscow.
You might want to cut back on the caffeine.
Dr. Ron Paul, congressman (R-TX)
put down the bong.
There is a reason they don't have CCTV at the check points...can't prove sexual harassment or theft.
Lily, I admirenyour spunk. Yous ound like you're from the same gene pool as me.
Keep it up; payback's not a b*tch: It's Fun.
Lily, I admire your spunk. You sound like you're from the same gene pool as me. Keep it up; payback's not a b*tch: It's Fun.
Exactamente, compadre. Lord Acton scores again.
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