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.
OTOH, if one really wanted to protect airplanes and passengers.......
I flew on the day before Thanksgiving from Reagan to Jacksonville. Security was quick and efficient. I didn't see any women being felt up. Same thing on my flight back.
Seeing all those inspiring quotes on your FR Homepage, I'd expect more from you than a simple resignation to the chains you must wear without complaint.
Comrade, if you have nothing to hide up there, then you won't mind a quick proctological exam.
That being said, I would not have any problem whatsoever with every single person that gets on an airplane being subject to both a magnetometer and a pat-down search.
"If you love wealth more than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, depart from us in peace. We ask not your counsel nor your arms. Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you. May your chains rest lightly upon you and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen."
Can a domesticated hound run with the wolves again?
Why submit to being groped, searched like a common criminal, stripped of my weapons, and crammed into a flying cattle car, when I can drive myself in leisure, comfort, safety and freedom?
TSA, their knuckle-dragging, no-English-speaking Federal goons, and all the airlines can kiss my a$$.
For now, anyway.
Thanks for the insight.
Now, care to comment on the article?
Profiling is worthless since it won't catch anyone who may be native to this country while being sympathetic to the terrorists... there have already been some of those and they aren't necessarilly middle-eastern (one was Hispanic). How can you profile a Muslim when they can be of almost any descent?
Unfortunately, there are no easy answers to the problems posed in the article. At the same time, we need thorough screening measures while not having TSA agents resort to rude and/or inefficient means. No matter how thorough the TSA thinks they are now, it's nowhere near impossible to bring a potential weapon on board a plane. Yet more thoroughness often means more rudeness, inefficiency and invasion of privacy. I know many people who refuse to fly anymore because they don't want the hassle. There is no perfect solution.
I travel frequently and I notice that there is a huge lack of consistency with the screening processes. TSA people seem to range from lax to overly zealous; from polite to downright rude and occasionally argumentative. The sensitivity of metal detectors varies from one day to the next; from one airport to the next leaving some to ask if they really need to take off their belts and shoes when the forgotten cigarette lighter in their pocket doesn't set off the alarm. Some X-ray scanners for carry-on's are set too high so that they damage film even though the TSA agent refuses to hand-inspect it for you while assuring you that it will be safe.
I personally know some people who work as TSA agents. Many basically do only what they are instructed to do with little feel or understanding that the job should demand. Many have no background in security or law enforcement and can't discern the difference between a WMD toting psycho or grandma's underwire bra. After all, they're just government employees. Our safety and our privacy is at the mercy of people who are just as competent as postal workers that lose or discard your mail.
"99.99% of world terrorist activity is perpetrated by young, Arab males."
Indians and Pakistanis are not arabs. Indonesians and Philippinos are not arabs. Somalis and Sudanese are not arabs. Kosovans and Albanians are not arab. Iranians are not arabs.
We then move to the British (Ried-mixed), the Americans (Padilla-Hispanic), the Australian (Caucasian) which are non-arab.
So the issue is not physical race. The issue is radical islam.
I believe the Israelis screen passenger lists much more thoroughly than we do.
Ummm, by what means, wraping the (ahemm), cockpit, in a Trojan? :-/
Sorry I couldn't resist.
I suspect you meant impenetrable.
The only thing more disgusting than the airport Nazis is the fact that Americans have become so feminized and docile that most accept it.
"I believe Israelis screen passengers lists....."
A good friend of mine is a retired US Army Sergeant First Class (Logistics Technician) who served at the US Embassy in Israel in the mid-90's. He had occasion to come home a few times as he was on an "Unaccompanied Tour" in Israel. He told me that the screening process at the Israeli Airports are "unbelievable". If you even look suspicious you get an immediate "interview"....."Who are you, where are you going..etc." COMING AND GOING!
I have flown three times since Sept 11, 2001:
I get my tickets on-line; get to the SECURITY CHECKPOINT TWO HOURS IN ADVANCE OF MY FLIGHT; carry as little as possible - small carry-on with toiletries etc; check the rest of my luggage; I like my boots so I put up with the small convenience of taking them off going through the checkpoint..... TRAVELLERS CAN MAKE THE PROCESS AS DIFFICULT OR EASY AS THEY WANT!
"I believe the Israelis screen passenger lists much more thoroughly than we do."
they do, but are dealing with 1/100th of the air traffic the US does and much better trained screeners that often counduct random, impromptu interviews.
I saw an Asian woman getting the pat down from a female TSA. I was waiting for my wife to get through.
The TSA woman used the back of her hand but did touch the woman all over her chest, including between and below her breasts. She didn't actually touch them specifically.
This 5'1" asian woman was getting the full treatment. I also saw some short white guy get the full treatment too, but I didn't see if the TSA guy felt up his package.
I did watch about 10 minutes later(my gate was nearby), two mohammads in BLACK turbans(not colored like most sihks) waltz through. Not that I think that a bomber would wear a turban however.
We need to profile, random people won't protect us. El Al, has this issue nailed. Why we don't do the same is assinine.
"I wonder what they do when they go to the doctor?
"
A doctor isn't some nerdly pimply faced high-school dropout looking to cop a feel for no reason.
True, but they are not, so far, a significant part of the anti-US terrorist contingent either. Listing off a litany of races proves nothing. Most terrorists, and most radical Islamists, are young, Arab males. The terrorist recruiting and training system intends it to be this way, and so it is.
I may be but I do have a sense of humor that seems to be lacking with you.
Eggsactly! :)
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