Originally Posted by
pmocek
This afternoon at 2009-04-03 14:57 -0700, I submitted a comment to the TSA blog with links to the above posts detailing my interaction with Blogger Bob Burns' colleagues at TSA. An hour and seven minutes later, I posted a comment about blog commenters' misunderstanding of Bob's statement about TSA's discouragement of people photographing TSA X-ray equipment that is visible from public locations. The comment about this airport policy survey has not yet been approved, but the later one has been.
After more prodding to explain why he won't allow my comment that contains links to this FT discussion, Bob at TSA posted the following
comment to the TSA blog (you must load the
post's main page first in order to browse directly to the comment using the link I provided):
Phil said... Also, why have you refused to admit my followup comment with a reference to the location of details of the survey of airport policies that I conducted upon your suggestion?...
The comment violates none of your EoS comment rules. April 6, 2009 2:30 PM
-------------------------------
Per the comment policy: In no circumstances will comments be posted that contain Social Security numbers, addresses, email address or phone numbers. Phil, the comments you are trying to link to all have phone numbers and e-mail addresses that are not posted publicly elsewhere. In one attempt here, you even attempted to post one of our CSM's work addresses. This is not acceptable.
Bob
EoS Blog Team
My response:
I
wrote:
"why have you refused to admit my followup comment with a reference to the location of details of the survey of airport policies that I conducted upon your suggestion? You told us that information you left out of your original post could be found by contacting TSA via your "Got Feedback?" program. I did so, posted a comment here stating such and promising to follow up here with results. I have submitted the comment with links to results gathered so far three times now (at 2009-04-03 14:57 -0700, 2009-04-04 07:30 -0700, and 2009-04-06 09:03 -0700). The comment violates none of your EoS comment rules."
Bob at TSA
responded:
"Per the comment policy: In no circumstances will comments be posted that contain Social Security numbers, addresses, email address or phone numbers."
Bob, the comment you have repeatedly refused to allow here contains nothing of the sort. It simply contains links to various points in a discussion on FlyerTalk Forums titled, "PV Alert: Can I Take Photos at the Checkpoint and Airport?" That discussion is very relevant to this post. The information there -- that with which you take issue -- is included in the signature lines of your TSA airport "customer service" and public relations representatives -- the ones that each and every person who contacts TSA via "Got Feedback?" will receive.
It's as if someone took letters received from TSA's public relations department, made copies, and posted them on community bulletin boards, then you disallowed any mention of the bulletin board locations because that person neglected to white information on the TSA letterhead that was used. What's the big deal?
Bob continued:
"Phil, the comments you are trying to link to all have phone numbers and e-mail addresses that are not posted publicly elsewhere. In one attempt here, you even attempted to post one of our [customer service manager's] work addresses. This is not acceptable."
There are no e-mail addresses in the FlyerTalk thread. I obfuscated all of them because someone suggested that posting the addresses there might increase the likelihood of your staff receiving unsolicited commercial messages at those addresses.
If the e-mail addresses and phone numbers of these people are so secret, why do those people include those addresses and numbers in their e-mail sig lines so that this information will be sent to everyone who contacts TSA? Setting aside the bizarre situation of an organization who has no customers employing "customer service managers,"
why was it unacceptable to publish work contact information for TSA's "customer service" managers for your "customers" to see?
Why is it unacceptable to link in a comment on the TSA blog to places where people can read e-mail I received from TSA customer service managers and public relations staff after contacting them upon your suggestion? What are you trying to hide? Would you prefer that everyone who is interested in the information you neglected to gather be required to contact TSA to receive this information instead of simply reading the copies I received?
Also, Bob, you never answered the question about photographing your monitors. First, you told us it was discouraged. Then you told us it was prohibited. Is it unlawful to do so, or will doing so simply disqualify someone from being allowed to cross your airport checkpoints?