TSA

[Soonergriff]

Personally, I'm just going straight for the pat down. Don't care for the radiation.

Me too. But I'm going to point to the nearest female TSA agent and request that she do the search, just to be difficult.

[monkeybutter]

Personally, I'm just going straight for the pat down. Don't care for the radiation.

Me too. But I'm going to point to the nearest female TSA agent and request that she do the search, just to be difficult.

sadly, it doesn't work that way

i heard there were some guys planning to protest by wearing a kilt and no underwear, which i think is pretty hilarious and also misguided but mostly hilarious.

[Eagle]

Yeah, we don't get to choose.

I'll keep an eye on the guy and if he starts looking like he's enjoying it or something... I don't know. Not a lot you can do.

Not that it changes the world any.

[Eagle]

http://www.redstate.com/erick/2010/11/1 ... a-outrage/

Oh, look. They confiscated nail clippers...

From an otherwise armed soldier.

TSA Guy: You can’t take those on the plane.

Soldier: What? I’ve had them since we left country.

TSA Guy: You’re not suppose to have them.

Soldier: Why?

TSA Guy: They can be used as a weapon.

Soldier: [touches butt stock of the rifle] But this actually is a weapon. And I’m allowed to take it on.

TSA Guy: Yeah but you can’t use it to take over the plane. You don’t have bullets.

Soldier: And I can take over the plane with nail clippers?

TSA Guy: [awkward silence]

Me: Dude, just give him your damn nail clippers so we can get the f**k out of here. I’ll buy you a new set.

Soldier: [hands nail clippers to TSA guy, makes it through security]

This might be a good time to remind everyone that approximately 233 people re-boarded that plane with assault rifles, pistols, and machine guns–but nothing that could have been used as a weapon.

Oh, and there was a Gerber multitool too. But those have little blades.

And so, so much more:

https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/ ... atter.html

Michael Chertoff, former Department of Homeland Security secretary, has been touting the full-body scanners, while at the same time maintaining a financial interest in the company that makes them.

Although...

More importantly for our purposes, assuming that the radiation in a backscatter X-ray is about a hundredth the dose of a dental X-ray, we find that a backscatter X-ray increases the odds of dying from cancer by about 16 ten millionths of one percent. That suggests that for every billion passengers screened with backscatter radiation, about 16 will die from cancer as a result.

But then someone mentioned in the comments:

I was talking to a radiology expert recently, and the community's concern is that because the backscatter machines by design use lower energy radiation that only penetrates a fraction of a millimeter into the skin, that means that even though the dosage is lower, it is ALL concentrated in the top bit of skin. This has potential for causing melanoma down the road.

[Eagle]

[Bill Farmer]

http://gizmodo.com/

[monkeybutter]

whoa, lady liberty is stacked

[Eagle]

From the screeners' point of view:

"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.”

This one just makes me sad:

“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.”

[monkeybutter]

"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.”

loled irl at the bolded part

[monkeybutter]

also if your job actually requires you to go through the kind of gutwrenching moral torment these people contend they are experiencing, well, they should probably quit.

[Eagle]

TSA response to this video:

A video is being widely circulated showing a shirtless boy receiving secondary screening from a Transportation Security Officer (TSO). A passenger filmed the screening with their cell phone and posted the video on the web. Many are coming to their own conclusions about what's happening in the video which is now perched at the top of the Drudge report and being linked to in many other blogs and tweets. We looked into this to find out what happened.

On November 19, a family was traveling through a TSA checkpoint at the Salt Lake City International Airport (SLC). Their son alarmed the walk through metal detector and needed to undergo secondary screening. The boy's father removed his son's shirt in an effort to expedite the screening. After our TSO completed the screening, he helped the boy put his shirt back on. That's it. No complaints were filed and the father was standing by his son for the entire procedure.

It should be mentioned that you will not be asked to and you should not remove clothing (other than shoes, coats and jackets) at a TSA checkpoint. If you're asked to remove your clothing, you should ask for a supervisor or manager.

But prosthetics are a go.

[Soonergriff]

Welcome to Salt Lake City. Check your rights (and those of your children) at the gate.

[Soonergriff]

I called the SLC Police about this to file a complaint. Their response, I shit you not, is that "this is a TSA matter, and that perhaps I should talk to them."

So I call the SLC Airport Police, figuring they're going to be more informed than their downtown counterparts. Same response, so I ask for the Lt. or Sgt. on duty. They transfer me to the TSA supervisor. I ask her if she's seen the video, and is she aware of the situation? She replies, very sarcastically and verbatim: "You mean the one without all the facts? That video?"

Bitch.

I politely ask to be transferred back to the Airport Police, at which point I'm hung up on.

Can you think of any other scenario in which the video of a young boy getting felt up by a grown man (while others watch) wouldn't have Child Protective Services out there in a heartbeat? I could probably get my neighbors kids taken away on baseless allegations, but the guy in the blue shirt at the airport can be videotaped doing it, and then do it ten more times that day without any repercussions.

Absolutely disgusting.

On a lighter note . . .

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldne ... nners.html

[Eagle]

I called the SLC Police about this to file a complaint. Their response, I shit you not, is that "this is a TSA matter, and that perhaps I should talk to them."

So I call the SLC Airport Police, figuring they're going to be more informed than their downtown counterparts. Same response, so I ask for the Lt. or Sgt. on duty. They transfer me to the TSA supervisor. I ask her if she's seen the video, and is she aware of the situation? She replies, very sarcastically and verbatim: "You mean the one without all the facts? That video?"

Bitch.

I politely ask to be transferred back to the Airport Police, at which point I'm hung up on.

Can you think of any other scenario in which the video of a young boy getting felt up by a grown man (while others watch) wouldn't have Child Protective Services out there in a heartbeat? I could probably get my neighbors kids taken away on baseless allegations, but the guy in the blue shirt at the airport can be videotaped doing it, and then do it ten more times that day without any repercussions.

Absolutely disgusting.

TSA response to this video:

A video is being widely circulated showing a shirtless boy receiving secondary screening from a Transportation Security Officer (TSO). A passenger filmed the screening with their cell phone and posted the video on the web. Many are coming to their own conclusions about what's happening in the video which is now perched at the top of the Drudge report and being linked to in many other blogs and tweets. We looked into this to find out what happened.

On November 19, a family was traveling through a TSA checkpoint at the Salt Lake City International Airport (SLC). Their son alarmed the walk through metal detector and needed to undergo secondary screening. The boy's father removed his son's shirt in an effort to expedite the screening. After our TSO completed the screening, he helped the boy put his shirt back on. That's it. No complaints were filed and the father was standing by his son for the entire procedure.

It should be mentioned that you will not be asked to and you should not remove clothing (other than shoes, coats and jackets) at a TSA checkpoint. If you're asked to remove your clothing, you should ask for a supervisor or manager.

But prosthetics are a go.

You're not the only one to call them about it.

[Laura]

also if your job actually requires you to go through the kind of gutwrenching moral torment these people contend they are experiencing, well, they should probably quit.

My thought exactly. I hate hearing the "I'm just following orders" and "I'm just doing my job" excuses. Your job does NOT entail violating people's rights day in and day out. If you're just trying to protect your country, protect it by refusing an immoral order, and protect the Constitution.

Like the first responder to the thread said: "Professionalism doesn’t replace the fact that they are doing something that not even a law enforcement officer is allowed to do, especially without clear suspicion of any unlawful behavior."

Wouldn't that be a crazy thing, if a whole lot of TSA employees suddenly put in their resignations.

I don't understand the $11K fine. If you don't accept the enhanced patdown or the AIT scanner, why can't you just go home and not take that flight? It's not like you're putting the TSA out of any extra time, and you're already going to eat your airfare. What's the point of fining people enough money to bankrupt them? Last I checked, that's called extortion.

-- Laura