More to the point, how can anything they say be trusted at all, since dishonesty is part and parcel of the TSA's "job?"

Of which NONE have ever been found in the two years of using strip search machines, as opposed to the many guns and knives which continue to be found, and which can be placed to evade those machines.

You'd think patting a person down is not a very effective way to find a gun in their carryon.

Besides, while I agree that some security is definately necessary at the airport, that doesn't mean that anything is ok in the name of security. Just like the need for a legal system doesn't mean that any law you can come up with is good.

Have there been many (or any) knives and guns found on people? I thought that nearly all (or all) have been found in carryons?

Also, as has been said before, the most important part of checkpoint security is the deterrence factor, so saying that something hasn't been found isn't that meaningful: in almost all cases, something that is found isn't a threat, but somethign forgotten.

My prayers for your wife and us all
 

I wonder what the regulations are regarding passengers taking video of the process. If you were videotaping your wife's security check, they might have shown more care.

I can't speak to this general issue from experience as I haven't flown since 9-11.

Aside from talking to representatives, and stirring up the media, a general campaign of prayer about what is happening to our country would help. I don't blame the airlines, but I wonder if they could be doing more to moderate the TSA.

I have heard the TSA also can stop people traveling by motor vehicles on the highways. This situation will have to be reviewed by competent authority before it gets much worse.

I agree with you - I don't know what airport Rico's brother and wife work for, but in my last three trips through LAX and HNL I have seen a young woman crying, another woman visibly shaken, husbands getting angry at the TSA and an elderly woman complaining about the invasiveness of the search, plus an unpleasant experience of my own. I don't fly that often (anymore) but considering I'm not even at the checkpoint for that long, I find it hard to believe that someone working there all day has not heard any complaints!

I believe that it may have to do with either being hardened to the job and lacking compassion or empathy, or interpreting the situation differently than the traveller. We've seen that here in past on FT.

Then there are the TSOs who shout and bully; they most likely enjoy the responses like that as it validates their sense of power.

The relations may be referring to their perception of valid complaints, which may differ very greatly from ours.

True, most have been, although celebrated Red Team exceptions (pistols waltzing past hidden in brassieres) have occurred, and Jon Corbett's test indicated that these can be hidden on the sides as well.

The deterrence argument loses a lot of force if you look at the level of expertise required for true threats--explosives. It's not going to be the isolated crazy that comes up with these. The folks who are capable of producing these will go under the wings using ground crew. Or through WTMD with children serving as props. Or probe til they find a bribable TSA clerk, which apparently isn't all that hard. Pick the hole in the sieve, there's many to choose from. Yet we subject the 99.99999999999999% of innocent passenger to wholesale sex organ groping despite the uselessness of it.

If the terrorist were smart, they wouldn't be too afraid of getting someone caught. A near miss would cause as much disruption as a hit.

A "near miss" or even a mythical "hit" or "plot" involving airports and/or on planes served by US airlines causes far more disruption than any actual hit, since September 2001.

The TSA's knee-jerk overreactions and conditioning to respond to everything and nothing at all has resulted in the current idiocy and the kind of apathy that is the handmaiden to inhumanity against others being performed by those in the employ of government.

The TSA doesn't deter much of anything that is a serious treat. The TSA's methods may even be better characterized as the opposite of a deterrent.

Except that there's a significant risk of being caught unless the first TSO is bribable and that's hard. I think people on this forum tend to greatly underestimate the difficulty of implementing plots that rely on "insiders". Those are indeed viable if the opponent is a national intelligence service whose operators are trained in how to approach and select people. They learn how to do so in a way that won't cause suspicion and they also learn how to fit into a society. But it can take years to be successful in that sort of task because of the very real risk of being reported by people who aren't willing to cooperate, especially in this day and age. So they have to move very slowly, deliberately, and carefully.

I don't think that terrorist groups ever had that capability, but it's nearly impossible that they have it now given the focus on operations to degrade and track communications and money slow, both of which are essential to the success of any such long-term operation.

The TSA does deter attacks. Why hasn't anybody come up to a checkpoint with a couple of AK's and sprayed the line? Ahmed Ressam wanted to blow up a passenger waiting area at LAX. Why hasn't anybody done anything like that? The TSA causes large concentrations of passengers that could be attacked, but the existence of the TSA deters such attacks.

Terrorists want to harm America, and leaving the TSA in place harms America more than any single attack possibly could. An attack on an airplane - or, even more, an attack on a checkpoint - would highlight the uselessness of TSA, and possibly lead to changes. Terrorists don't want any changes to the TSA, so they don't attack.

First and foremost, to the OP, your story is horrifying. As a survivor of childhood sexual abuse I completely understand your wife's reaction. Though my encounters were nowhere near as violent and traumatizing as hers, just approaching an airport these days to drop my wife off for a flight aggravates my "baggage". Please let her know she is daily in my thoughts and prayers. Please let her know she is not alone, she did nothing wrong, and she is strong enough to get through this.

As for what to do next, you might want to write a letter to TSA, though it will do little good, so don't be surprised by the reaction. In December of 2010 I wrote a letter to John Pistole and my Senator, who sits on the Homeland Security Committee (or whatever its official title is), following my first opt out groping. It retraumatized me to the point where I shook through the flight, and vomited upon arrival. This is not to take away from your horrifying ordeal, only to relate that the response for those of us with these backgrounds is not uncommon.

TSA responded with a form letter that I should be proud to undergo such retraumatization in defense of the Nation. No joke, and nation was capitalized. My Senator let me know I should be grateful for the option.

TSA's letter also included information that they worked with a variety of disability groups (This is a verbatim quote. Sexual abuse is a disability to them.) to help them (the non-TSA people) understand the necessity of the screening process better. I asked for a list of these groups so that I might seek help, and this letter has gone unanswered for nearly 2 years despite several follow up requests.

The simple fact of the matter is, TSA doesn't give a sh!t that they do this to people. In conversations with supervisory personnel following these gropings, they are proud that they do this to people because, in the words of one supervisor, "Only a terrorist wouldn't want to feel the way you do right now." They are sick, perverted fetishists who abuse their power and get off on it.

But, yes, do write those letters. Eventually someone somewhere with some common sense will finally see these procedures for what they are: rape and molestation. There are many of us on this board who will gladly help.

As to these points:

As an "insider" let me tell you, your assessment is grossly off.

Because the volume of evil terrorists out there hellbent on destroying America is far less than FedGov would like us to believe. It doesn't happen because the threat does not exist at the level we've been led to believe.

There are approximately 60,000 terrorists in America. They are easy to identify by their blue shirts and spiffy tin badges. The spraying down of a queue of passengers will happen when one of these "people" "goes postal". Mark my words.

.... because there just aren't that many terrorists at US airports who are interested in doing the easily done above sort of thing. In other words, no deterrence.

Clearly some terrorists want changes to how the US does things, including at US airports and with US flights. Evidence of that: even aborted attempts using incompetent clowns is considered acceptable and authorized, upon the opportunity presenting itself to get the US to work itself up into a frenzy and to get the TSA to go into yet another massive knee-jerk overreaction by letting loose.

The creepy TSA is not going to give up its creepy behavior in full anytime soon.

Are you serious?

Just how would the presence of TSA workers dissuade any terrorist from a landside assault?

I will concede that the checkpoints may have deterred a direct approach to get on an airplane, but we don't know since no attempts seem to have been made. In the US. The shoe bomber, underwear bomber and the faux liquid plot don't seem to have been put off though.

Terrorists want screening to kept just as it is, or made worse. The screening process interferes with commerce and degrades the quality of life in America. Terrorists know that a landside assault would make it even clearer that the TSA degrades aviation security, rather than improves it, and they're scared that such a demonstration would cause changes to the screening process that would make it more efficient.