This is an outrage

Legislation through fear and lies. Back in the USSA... "wave that flag... wave it wide and high... summer time done come and gone my oh my".  Don't forget to fill up at the pump tomorrow like a good patriot y'all.

As with any profession you will get some people who are reasonable and some who are not.  I think the guidelines for the TSA need to be relaxed a little as the above stories would seem to indicate.

I will say that as a law enforcement officer, I carry my badge wherever I go off duty.  Atleast 30% of the time I have flown I have been pulled aside and patted down.  I always show my badge (as it's a big metal item in my pocket)  They do not care who I am, in fact one TSA guy laughed and stated "pfft is this thing real?"  Instead of laying him out flat on the floor..as my gut instincts suggested I do.. I calmly stated "your welcome to call my department and verify".  I have always been allowed to pass through without incident after these checks. 

The point being, if you make a big stink you will draw attention, miss your flight (which is the whole reason you are there) and possibly get into trouble.  You will not win any arguments 'on the street' with them.  As much as I hate lawsuits, it is how companies change their policies.    In the 60's or 70's people protested to get heard...in the 80's, 90's and today people sue.  Again, I hate the lawsuit mentality but it is the only way to get people to listen.  Or boycott flying.

  At face value, I think the lady with the breastmilk would have a great case given that the TSA seemingly did not follow their OWN procedure and she lost her flight, milk, and was subjected to go through the checkpoint again, seemingly out of spite than any real security concerns.

On a final note I mentioned "seemingly' and 'face value' because as a police officer I have not only witnessed but been subjected to public scrutiny based on 'facts' released from the media that were only 1/2 truths at best.  Newspapers and news programs are there to sell ratings, if you count on them to promote unbiased 'truth' you will be mislead.  It is very hard to judge a situation unless you have all the facts and understand what their policies and training are.  That said, I do agree these stories seem a little silly and overboard of the TSA.  Luckily for me, I have no money or time to fly anywhere anymore :)

This is what happens when you entrust our nation's security to a group of people who should be working 3rd shift at the local Quik E Mart. There hasn't been one person I've seen on these video's that has the IQ of a Mongoloid.

How about this ... how about turning the TSA over to our military. At least they know the difference between Ahk Mook Bin-Laden and a 92 year old grandmother wearing Depends ... and they have some self respect and treat others with respect.

My wife flies 4 sometimes 6 times a month. I don't know how she deals with it. I'm not making threats or suggesting anything, but personally speaking, if I had to deal with that on a regular basis and stand there and take the $hit of some bucked toothed half witted moron making $6.00 an hour while it is feeling me up, I'd snap and hurt someone.

You know who these people are working for the TSA ... they are the morons we went to high school with that prided themselves on being scumbags and outcasts and they end up in jobs like this making peoples lives a living hell because they wouldn't take a freaking shower or brush their tooth before they came to school and got picked on for it. Now they get off on making other peoples lives a living hell.

Ever been to the DMV and met the real life version of Patty and Selma? Ever dealt with any government (state or federal) agency, for example the moron from our local zoning office who made me put my septic lateral lines on top of the ground and cover them with loose dirt because of the high water table while there was 3,500 hogs 150 feet away with a trench dug from the hoop building to the ditch right in front of my house, draining off their urine and feces? 99% of the people who work for government agencies are like what you see happening on these video's. They are all a bunch of dimwits who know they can get away with pretty much anything because they can't be fired.

Well, there's still lot's of cheap land up here...It was interesting flying in and out of Hawaii that they seem to be less uptight. We Canuks will pay extra now not to have to land in the States when flying to Mexico. Landing in the states to change planes is feared by all! Your country is to be avoided at all costs when flying. We are not even staying, we never even leave the airport but you are treated like a dirtbag. You will miss your connection!
At least the Germans are polite about it.
I will drive my car if I need to get somewhere in the US. You have better roads than we do anyway. The border people are still normal and friendly thank god. And yes, stop believing everything the media tells you. America would return to civilization if they turned off the stupid TV sets and started coming out to our live gigs where the truth is actually told in so many words. .  

Granny and the kids, and breast feeding moms, and good old American men..... have NEVER, let me say that again ...have never hijacked a plane, or tried to blow one out of the sky.....

Middle Eastern men of a certain religious view..... well that;s another story.

I say profile the heck out of them and leave granny & the kids alone.

Traveling through Canada a few years back.... I was quite surprised to be told to keep my shoes on for security.



Yes Dave, I agree... that kind of stuff is totally outrageous and needs to stop now.

..

 
Wow, that's some disturbing footage for sure.
 
The key here is to strike the right balance of risk - from allowing anyone to board a flight unchecked right up to 100% safety where there are no flights at all. So if we're going to allow air travel, we have to accept that there will always be some risk.
 
I would suggest that the balance has maybe shifted just a little too far by the evidence of these tapes, and it seems to have done so at the expense of common sense.
 
Judging by the 'jobsworth' attitude of some of the TSA officials (like the one described as shouting "I have the power" to that one guy) it seems to me that it might be a case with a lot of them that their personality should have ruled them out of contention for doing this particular job.
 
On the other hand, I'd assume that these people are trained to have this zero tolerance/no exception approach just in case the unthinkable does happen, and nobody wants the hijacking or destruction of an airliner 'on their watch'?
 
And finally, and while in no way am I condoning the truly appalling behaviour shown in those clips, you have to remember that ultimately the responsibility for the clampdown on security lies with the terrorists, and not the TSA.  
   
   
  
  
  
 

This thread is being banned!

by over zealous moderator

bitflipper


Long before the TSA came into existence, I'd had interesting encounters with airport goons.

Flying into Honolulu from Tokyo and arriving at 4:00 AM, a little man with a gun showed me my customs declaration and asked "is this your signature?". I said yes, it was. He pointed to a line on the form and said "could you read this aloud?". I read it: "I have no vegetables".

From my checked baggage he pulled out a 12" piece of bamboo that we'd made a piggy bank out of. I'd planned to fill it with quarters over the coming year to help finance our next trip to the Philippines and thought a piece of bamboo from my back yard would be an appropriate container. I thought for a moment, and then replied "a vegetable?". He just silently glared at me as if I had just admitted to a crime.

It was 4:00 AM and I had just got off a 12-hour flight that had been preceded by another 4.5 hour flight and a 7-hour jeep ride. Given my tired state, it seemed like a good idea - at the time - to argue with the little jerk. "So, if I had brought home a piece of rattan furniture, you would expect me to declare it as a vegetable?"

My wife kicked me and shot me one of those looks. She was even more tired and crankier than me, being one who cannot sleep on airplanes. Later, she lambasted me: "you don't talk back to people with guns!" she said.

In the end, the little puffed-up nazi with the gun decided that I could keep my piggy bank but admonished me to be honest next time when signing a LEGAL DOCUMENT with criminal consequences for lying.

Good thing you weren't flying with Ozzy Osbourne!  (Unless you declare him of course! )

We Canuks will pay extra now not to have to land in the States when flying to Mexico. Landing in the states to change planes is feared by all! Your country is to be avoided at all costs when flying.

 
Wow Cactus not to be argumentative but I live about 60 miles south of Vancouver, BC in the US and almost every working day at lunch I walk around the airport. Now I've never done an exact count but I'd say over (way over) 60% of the vehicles in the parking lots have BC plates on them. Of course it's possible they're in the long term lot to pick some local resident up whose plane is arriving. Just sayin.
 

 
Regards.
 

every one is being treated the same moor or less. this is what Martin luther was talking about when he said all men should be treated equal!!!!

According to the story there Bit... looks like the middle eastern radical extremists have won.... they have the TSA groping everyone...except them.... and hassling moms. The ones who seem to get no hassle are the young muslim males traveling alone, one way, with no luggage, no proper ID, tickets paid by cash, and no current boarding pass....(tell me with a straight face that they "honestly" didn't see that one coming) ...... GO FIGURE..... but Granny can't get through and the kids get groped and everyone else gets a nude picture taken....... but we're all safer...right?


I say fire TSA and let those of us who carry concealed weapons fly with them tucked in our coats. There will not be any stupidity on the planes when the terrorists know the people around them are likely to be packing a 9mm.

Guitarhacker

I say fire TSA and let those of us who carry concealed weapons fly with them tucked in our coats. There will not be any stupidity on the planes when the terrorists know the people around them are likely to be packing a 9mm.

In these times I completely agree the crew should be fully armed but it can't be conventional weapons or ammunition. You could bring a plane down if you shot at someone and missed with a 9mm.

They just changed the law in Iowa so that anyone without a background can pay a fee and get a permit to carry a concealed weapon. It used to be at the county Sheriffs discretion regardless of your background. The Des Moines Register printed the name of every person who got one.

Thomas Jefferson quote of the day ... "Laws that forbid the carrying of arms...disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes... Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants; they serve rather to encourage than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man."

Actually, I think he was quoting someone else when he wrote this.

bitflipper

Bruce Schneier calls it Security Theater.

This paragraph from that article sums it up:

Despite fearful rhetoric to the contrary, terrorism is not a transcendent threat. A terrorist attack cannot possibly destroy a country's way of life; it's only our reaction to that attack that can do that kind of damage. The more we undermine our own laws, the more we convert our buildings into fortresses, the more we reduce the freedoms and liberties at the foundation of our societies, the more we're doing the terrorists' job for them.

I will not violate the TOS by getting political, but I have to say the most egregious harm done to us in this country as a result of terrorism has been perpetrated by some of our own countrymen.

The sentence you highlighted is analogous to a tenet of Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP).  It talks about how an event is just an event, it's how we react to the event that's important.  This is the chief reason people label something as good or evil for example (or, as Shakesphere put it, "Nothing is good or evil, but thinking makes it so").  In practice, there are times when "reprogramming" a person's reaction to an event is very beneficial to them.  People that let their buttons get pushed and overreact for example.