Originally Posted by
TheRoadie
Nonsense. This is in the SOP? Screeners are allowed to put their badge in their pocket? Tape over their name? Wear stocking masks to disguise who they are?
I claim if it can be seen in public with an eyeball, it can be filmed. With the monitor exceptions already mentioned on the web site. It's the same doctrine that allows filming of LEOs doing their duty. A public servant acting in public can have no expectation of privacy.
It goes with the job. If the staff isn't trained in this at indoctrination, then that's yet another management failure.
According to Blogdad Bob, SOP prohibits the disclosure of a TSO's
full name, and the concealment of a TSO's ID badge, which has the full name on it, is allowed when a TSO is being filmed. This is ostensibly to protect the TSO from harassment and stalking by lunatics, troublemakers, and conter-revolutionary subversives.
The legality and Constitutionality of concealing the identity of a public employee, particularly a badged, uniformed, paramilitary employee whose job is rife with opportunities for abuse of power under color of authority, is of course up for debate.
My personal opinion is that NO government employee should be able to conceal their identity from the public for whom they work. Every TSO, TSM, AFSD and FSD, every federal employee who works in public and interacts with the general public in any way should be required to display in plain view at all times a name tag with their full names and their job titles, and to provide that information verbally on demand to anyone who asks.
Additionally, I find it absurd that TSA does not maintain an online list of current FSDs and AFSDs at all airports, along with their contact information. It is difficult to find the name of the current FSD at any particular airport, leading me to believe that this information is also being deliberately witheld from the pblic under the dubious assertion that publicly identifying these folks would put them "at risk." The particular risk is somewhat nebulous, but terrorist blackmail and Evil Stalking Crazy Passengers are implied.