Originally Posted by
cbn42
I know it's sacrilegious to defend the TSA on here, but OP mentioned 3 things that the TSO in question was doing:
1. asking pax if they had any questions about the screening process
2. asking conversational questions like "are you going to Disneyland?"
3. talking about how his son was just finishing a posting to a USAF base.
Which one of these three is a violation of your rights, and how?
The TSA does plenty of things that legitimately deserve criticism, but sometimes I think that people on FT have an automatic reflex that immediately criticizes anything they do. I could post a message on here saying "Today I saw a TSO chewing gum" and immediately people would claim a violation of their constitutional rights and waste of taxpayer money.
I understand your objection ... but I think there is a point to the objections.
Here's the problem, at least from my perspective. (Standard disclaimers apply: IANAL).
When you're interacting with a LEO, and you're a suspect in a criminal proceeding, the LEO has to inform you of that fact, and make your rights clear to you before proceeding with questioning. Thus, you're fully informed as to the intent of the questions being asked, and how your answers will be used. If you're uncertain as to how to proceed, you have every right to request legal counsel, and for the interaction to cease until that point without any consequence to you.
When you're interacting with a TSO, having one of these conversations, the situation is far different. If the TSO is a BDO, the BDO does not have to identify him/herself to you as such. The TSO does not have to tell you that the answers to your questions are being used to determine your admissibility past the checkpoint, or to determine whether you should be subjected to additional screening. It is not clear at all what the consequences are for refusing to engage in such conversation; anecdotal information suggest that at least some TSOs use such refusal as a basis for retaliatory screening or denial of admissibility (D-Y-W-T-F-T). Of course, since TSA will not publicly discuss the standards for behavioral screening, citing "SSI", there's no way to know if such TSOs are acting within or outside the scope of their duties.
(To be fair: the consequences are very different in the two situations. The LEO can arrest you. The TSO can only deny you the opportunity to make your flight --- and in the case of larger airports, perhaps only temporarily.)
In short: when a TSO begins such a smalltalk conversation with a passenger, there's no way for the passenger to know whether the TSO is honestly trying to be friendly and helpful, or whether the TSO is engaging in a criminal interrogation of a suspected terrorist. And that's sad.