Originally Posted by
chollie
I would really like to hear a member of Congress ask TSA HQ how many times contraband has been found concealed between someone's butt cheeks, in their groin, or under their breasts.
Because the truth is, the answer must be zero, because otherwise I'm quite sure TSA would make it a 'big catch' story to remind people why it is necessary (only in the US) to grope people's privates.
There are too many reports recently, at too many different airports. This is clearly not the latest class out of the 'academy', this is the result of some kind of directive from the top.
TSOs catch things in those areas more often than one may think. The vast majority of the time, it is something that a passenger is just trying to keep safe, like money, or jewelry, or even important papers. Most of the time it is not a big story, because it is much more common than most folks think. The only time I would anticipate we would even have a story about it would involve a firearm or something more dangerous. I am at a loss to explain the current uptick, as the process has not changed recently. I take each of these comments the same way - unverified until we have facts/info to initiate the investigative process. I still want the organization to treat each complaint, case or situation exactly the same and investigate each of these claims to the fullest. One problem is that people go onto social media sites and make a statement, rather than filing a complaint to the system for TSA to use in order to get to the bottom of it. When TSA has a standalone comment on Twitter that says something like "I was stripsearched by TSA at LAX" without a flight number, airline, time frame or terminal - how is TSA going to be able to effectively address that or investigate? LAX has 7 terminals, and all of them are in perpetual motion. Without specifics, the comment is just someone making a statement that is unverifiable. Which brings me back around to asking all of you to have anyone that makes these types of comments to
file the complaint with TSA. TSA can not address the issue if they do not know it has happened.