<i>The reason TSA fills out an incident report when you ask for a complaint form is as much for your protection as ours. I know some people are doubting this but days, weeks or even months from now if someone looks at your complaint they will have no way of knowing what the circumstances were without that incident report.</i>

I call BS here. Asking for a complaint form is not grounds for an incident report. It doesn't take an incident report to file a complaint.

If the incident warrants it for damage to an item, that's one thing.

Crap like this is the very reason why I bring my own complaint form.

<i>It also serves to weed out those false complaints which will untimately cost the taxpayer. Believe it or not, there are people out there who will claim damage when there was no incident at all.</i>

You falsely assume that all complaints are going to be for damaged goods. That is patently false and a red herring.

<i>By us taking an incident report we can state such.
It also gives us a chance to list all screeners who may have witnessed the event and may need to be interviewed later, etc.</i>

There's a place on the complaint form for that. You don't need my name and address for that.

Besides, many TSO's will refuse to identify themselves and provide their badge number despite TSA policy requiring that they do so.

<i>As far as the privacy act, we should not be asking for your Social Security number and you should refuse to give it if one of us asks for it. It is NOT required and we were told not to ask for it.</i>

I suggest you read the privacy act. Social Security Number is just one of the things that can be collected. Even the post office provides a privacy act notice when I purchase services online. The fact that TSA thinks it's exempt is seriously erroneous.

<i>
As far as name/address, etc. We do have the right to ask for this info just by virtue of the fact that you are coming through the checkpoint. It does help us to match your complaint to the incident reports and providing it can help in seeing that you are paid if there is really damage.</i>

You have no such rights. If you're claiming the authority to collect that info, back it up with a law or reg. SSI is not a valid excuse here. You claim the right, you back it up.

TSA is there screen for threats. That's it. I don't need ID to get thru a checkpoint. Where I live, who I am, what my phone number is is irrelevant to file a complaint. Unless you have valid grounds to issue a fine (are you claiming that asking for a complaint form is grounds for that?), you have no reason to ask for it. And if you do decide to anyway, you HAVE to provide a Privacy Act notice. Otherwise, you are violating the Privacy Act and you are commiting a crime.

One of the big problems is that TSA and its employees think they have a lot more authority than they really have. With attitudes like yours, it's no wonder things are messed up at TSA.