Outraged by TSA

I offer a different viewpoint because I work for TSA . . . . this is my job to screen people.  I understand people fustration, BUT its something that NEEDS to be done.  I think a big problem would be solved if the security officers were a little more compassionate, when needed.  Yes the job needs to be done but maybe a little more caring should be involved. Ive had people yell, cuss etc at me telling me im "groping" them.  Believe me I dont wanna touch people anymore than I have to, sometimes the passenegers overreact (they have other things going on in their life . . . ie family member death, illness, screaming kids, helping elder people etc) and emotionally and physically they are drained. 

People get mad cuz their child has to get screened, they yell cuz their 90yr old mother has to get screened . . . . Do you know people in other countries "use" kids, old people, pregant women to plant bombs on ???   God, forbid we have another 9/11 . . . then everyone will complain "we" werent doing our jobs. People lose sight as to why we are doing this . . how soon we as humans forget when things are not directly presented in front of us.  

If  and when the next time you walked into an airport and saw an image from 9/11 would that change your mind ? What about if you had the opportunity to speak to a family member of someone who lost their life in 9/11 would your viewpoint change ??

Maybe their needs to be a "different" system put in place to deal with people that have special needs , but everyone still needs to be screened  . . . .

The other day on the news some TSA guy (forgot his name) said flying is a privillege not a right and he is correct in saying that.

PLEASE, remember I am on both sides . . . .a cancer victim & a TSA agent !

P.S. I will be wearing a prosthesis soon !

As a former flight attendant and now breast cancer survivor I support the new screening guidelines.  I  worked as a FA before 9/11 and you would be shocked at what people we able to get through "security."  I was relieved when they decided to increase screening after the fall of the towers, and now there is a need to increase security again and I am again relieved.  The reason that everyone has to be screened is because a "terrorist" could be anyone...elderly, disabled, cancer survivors and yes, children.  I fly quite frequently and I welcome the screening, after all I have fought for the last 11 months to save my life, I would hate to perish in a plane because someone wasn't screened properly.  If certain people were excluded from the process don't you think that someone wanting to do harm to the US would seek out those that were excluded and recruit them to do their dirty work?  Terrorist come in all shapes, sizes, colors, nationalities, genders and varying states of health.  Just another POV.  Angi

I know I'll get flamed for this, but here goes...

I'm finding it hard to understand why the government considers it an abuse of civil rights to check someone's immigration status when they've been pulled over/arrested, but it's perfectly fine and mandatory to physically search an individual who has committed no crime but only wants to board an airplane. I feel like I'm living in Bizarro World.

Celtic, I live here too...maybe we need to find more tunnels

Kathy, I lived in Madrid for four years back when Franco was alive..talk about security!

Absolutely! No one should be treated disrespectfully. A humiliating system is being imposed upon the pilots, the TSA employees, the public and EVERYONE is victimized...everyone. This new security is not "fool-proof" and I don't believe it is even close to being effective. I have a close friend who works for the TSA and my husband insures our local airport! I really believe we are being told to believe this is for our own good when experts know the truth.

If someone is determined to blow up a plane, they are going to find a way around the obstacles that are in place. We just heard from Daisy that she read that terrorists were recruiting women to surgically implant bombs. If that is so, what's going to be next? Will there be a requirement for body cavity search? We need trained professionals who can detect nervous/unusual behavior and we should be using bomb sniffing dogs. We really need to learn from the experience of other countries who have been dealing with terrorist attacks and threats for decades longer than we have.

And you make a very valid point also, Colette. What are the numbers? 1 in 4 females and 1 in 6 males have been physically abused? And we are doing "what" to people as they go through security at the airport??? Tell me: how do we teach or children or grandchildren "good touch, bad touch" if Uncle Sam declares "no holds barred"!

Also, thank you for enlightening me about the difference in the "rays" given during CT Scans and MRIs. I had no choice about radiation. I had nodes under the arm and under the collar bone that were either positive or "suspecious". The nodes under the collar bone were not removed. I had a 100% response to chemo revealed by pathology after surgery. Still, my docs didn't want to take chances and I was given even more chemo after surgery and the radiation. ...I'm well done!

I swore I was not going to get involved with this thread. "Just stick to the BC issues," I told myself.  "Just worry about getting that foob through security next time!"  Alas, ... here I am.

singletona80, I am sympathetic to your situation.  I would never, ever accept a job in which I had to do the things you're made to do lately.  That said, I would never, ever work as a cold-call telemarketer, either.

Okay, I have a bargain to offer:  If we, the paying passengers -- the customers -- agree to be nicer to TSA agents, how about the TSA agents being nicer to us?  (I'll concede that it might not make much difference if the agent smiles as she's feeling us up.  Maybe that would make it worse.  And, I'd rather that the hidden goon -- I mean, male TSA agent -- who's viewing my Nude-o-Scope pics not smile, thankyouverymuch.)

It starts with the ID inspectors.  What if they would not look us up and down with a scowl normally reserved for scumbags reporting to the county lock-up?  Would it not be possible for TSA agents to treat the paying customers with a bit more respect, rather than assuming every single one of us has the same potential as Khalid Shaikh Muhammed for blowing up an airplane? And, don't tell me it's necessary to make that assumption, because it isn't.

And then there's the hated "inspection" area....  How about allowing us some dignity for a change?  Maybe it's a far reach, but wouldn't it be nice if TSA agents would concede the possibility that we are offended at a virtual strip-search, even though you've assured us the stranger eyeing the naked images is (supposedly) not able to see our clothed bodies? There is the little problem of inter-agent communication, of course, which has been highlighted by a story racing across the internet this week: 

An airline pilot and his 18-year-old daughter are making their way through the airport security lines.  As the young woman approaches the Nude-o-Scope, the securty guard ... I mean, TSA agent who is escorting her says this through his headset to the person manning the viewer: "Heads up, got a cutie for you!". The pilot quickly declined the scan for himself and his daughter; they were patted-up quite enthusiastically as a result.  A secondhand account of this story was posted on the "Flyertalk" discussion form about a week ago (http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/travel-safety-security/1147497-tso-saying-heads-up-got-cutie-you.html).  I swear I read the firsthand account there, too, but I can't find it today.

There's more, of course. Perhaps the agents doing the "enhanced" pat-downs could be gentler or more .. oh, I don't know ... more sympathetic, as they rub their hands over our crotches and boobs in the name of National Security.  They don't like doing it?  That's a good sign. Do they understand that we don't like it, either?  Do they understand that they have been granted a privilege?  Don't they understand that we know the searches TSA conducts could not be carried out by a Law Enforcement Officer unless he or she had probable cause?

Finally, I want to offer a couple of links I had decided not to post on the other two BCO threads about TSA security, because they had nothing to do with prostheses or radiation exposure.

The first link is a post in a blog that's supposedly being written by a former TSA "inspector".  If this woman's attitude represents even a minority of TSA agents, it should not be a surprise that paying passengers are getting p*ssed off.  The title of this entry in her blog is, "Shut Up And Get In The Scanner -- TSA".  Here's the link:  http://www.momversus.com/2010/11/03/shut-up-get-scanned/

Here's what she wrote in the closing paragraph of that blog entry:  "Now if you want to fly, suck it up and accept that you have to submit to the security procedures.  Yes you think they are stupid or unnecessary but TSA officers and TSA don’t care what you think.  They try to make it all warm and fuzzy but they can’t because it is security not a trip to Disney World.  Shut up and get in the scanner or don’t fly."

Oooooookay, ... I get it.  Except, hon, for some of the people headed toward that airplane, it is a trip to Disney World.  They are not on their way to Leavenworth or Sing Sing.  At least, that's not where they thought they were going ... until something like this happened:  http://www.ourlittlechatterboxes.com/2010/11/tsa-sexual-assault.html

I'll stop now.  I somehow forgot to eat lunch.

otter

I find it amazing that so many people think these measures actually make them safer and shrug the whole thing off as being necessary to feel safe.  I wish I could be so naive. As many have mentioned here, those intending real harm are way ahead of these silly, rude and degrading measures.  I would think anyone working in the travel industry, especially, would be aware of how ridiculous our security measures are here.  I remember even as a young child how thorough the screeing was when we were flying back from Israel - and not a hand was put on anyone's body. Most security experts in this country have been saying for years that we need similar types of screening here.  We need to be looking for bad people, not just things.  Obviously there is not as much money to be made with this kind of "low-tech" screening.  You need specially trained, intelligent people - but no one entity is going to make a ton of money by selling fancy machines.

Why is everyone so afraid of profiling? It doesn't need to be ethnic or racial. Every traveler should be profiled - call them background checks if you want.  When we've visited other high security places in the past we've had to submit to background checks and that's been just fine. It's a heck of a lot less invasive than being scanned and groped at the airport. Plus then you can focus on the people who could pose a real threat as opposed to just the random nth person.

If it made the flight safer that would be one thing.  But it doesn't.  I do fly for business and 9 times out of 10, the person checking my id barely looks me in the eye.  I find I am most likely to be looked in the eye and treated like a human being if I am at a small airport.  But something big like LAX--not a chance.  Tell me the logic of putting airline pilots and flight attendants through this type of check?  They are flying the plane!  If they want to perform a terrorist act, all they have to do is steer down or open the door.  Tell me the logic of picking people out of line by #.  My husband and I and our 3 kids got pulled for extra searching going on a flight---did that really make sense?  Was a man --a US citizen--traveling with his wife and kids really likely to be a terrorist?  And please don't start on the "those people" in "those countries"---until 9/11 the biggest terrorist act on US soil was Oklahoma City where the lone American born and bred blew up not only innocent grown-ups but a whole day care center. 

The machines and screenings don't make us safer.  They just depersonalize us further.  If we want to be safe, we need to hire screeners who really pay attention.  And yes, profiling need not be racially based.

I am sad that women who have already gone through so much are being dealt yet one  more indignity.  And I have to wonder, if there were lots of men out there wearing prostetic penises and testicles, would it still be something that they had to pull out and show the TSA person?  Would we even be having this conversation?

enjoyful:  What's the matter have you not had enough caffeine today?  "Everyone" knows why lighters are allowed on planes and fingernail clippers are not.  They might have seen that horror movie where this crazed woman chopped someone to pieces with the clippers and didn't see the one where the guy set fire to the stewardess's underwear and held her hostage!  As for the 3 oz bottles they think no one can blow up a plane with just 3 ozs of anything.  They probably read that in the Mad Comics they must read instead of their job bills.  If anything "they" did made sense we might actually have a bit of respect for them and we sure don't want to do that.  As they say "The Inmates are Running the Insane Asylum!"   God Bless what used to be America!