Originally Posted by
MaximumSisu
Exactly. The TSA can not detain me. If I start walking away after being screened, they can't do anything but call a LEO. And that LEO will not first spend time with the TSO getting the story. He will order me to stop, and at that point I am detained. We then find out whether the TSA has caught its' first terrorist or other legitimate reason, or whether they're griping about the usual comments regarding their parentage. The LEO instigates an investigative stop at the behest of the TSO, and has no reasonable suspicion other than the call from TSA (and given that the majority of calls to law enforcement by TSA are resolved in the passengers favor, a call from TSA can not be prima facie reasonable).
I would hope that an officer would treat a call from a TSO to respond to a checkpoint just as they would treat a call from any other citizen, shopkeeper, or anybody that wants their presence outside of the airport. A reason needs to be articulated as to why an officer is needed and that's why questions should be asked of the caller/complainant before the officer is dispatched or arrives. If the TSO is calling for an officer because they're describing somebody as unruly, disruptive, loud, yelling, etc. you're right, if you're walking off when the officer is arriving they will probably ask you to stop so they can talk to you. If that happens, I'd stop and be as polite and calm with the officer as possible. Once the encounter is over, I'd make a complaint against the TSO for calling the cops and having me detained needlessly. If you're gone from the checkpoint before the cops arrive and no further problem exists, maybe the officer will go look for you after talking to the TSO if they're bored, who knows.
The point I'm trying to make here is that the TSO in these instances is no different than a citizen, store employee, shopkeeper, or whomever that would request an officer's presence outside of the airport. I can't tell you how many calls I took from store employees or owners about transients disrupting their business, drinking in public, "being loud", basically doing whatever transients do. As long as the person calling the cops could articulate some reason, however minor, we were pretty much obligated to dispatch an officer. What actions they took from there were up to them and depended on the situation they found upon arrival. I would hope, however, that too many instances of TSOs crying wolf at checkpoints and demanding an officer for stupid reasons would lead to some retraining and better communication about when to call for an officer with the local airport police.
Put yourself in this situation, you're at home and you find somebody on your front lawn staring in your living room window. You call the cops and tell them there is somebody standing on my lawn staring in my window, he's suspicious. They dispatch an officer and when the officer arrives they find the guy a block away walking down the street minding his own business. Based upon your call and description of what he was doing, the officer could reasonably ask the person to stop. I know it's not quite the same scenario but officers are going to take reasonable actions based upon what callers tell them or describe to them.
Again, if you think that a TSO ever calls the cops on you for a bogus reason, by all means make a complaint with TSA.