TSO saying "heads up, got a cutie for you"
 

Last week, one of my flying partners (Captain with Skywest) was going through security at DEN with his 18 year daughter. As his daughter approached the detector, the TSO working the NoS said on his headset, "heads up, got a cutie for you." He then confronted the TSA clerk with what he said and that neither of us are going through the NoS. The TSA clerk said you must have misunderstood me. :rolleyes:

He said pat-down was pretty evasive, and his daughter felt uncomfortable.

He is taking it up with Skywest, with this behavior. Normally, crews there go through a different screening area, but since he was with his daughter, he got to see the TSA clerks at their finest in Denver. :td:

Its stoiries like this, is why I will not go through the NoS (radiation/health issues) and even refuse the the pat-down thus (if it happens while on duty) canceling the flight due to a hostile work environment.

I hope this gets resolves soon!! Got to fly....no NoS checkpoints on this trip so don't worry about a canceled flight from me!! :D

Holy moly. Horrific! :mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad:

PLEASE ask your captain to publicize this every way he can while protecting his daughter's identity. This is INSANE.


I presume you are a SkyWest FA... PLEASE resist at checkpoints, even if it means flight cancellations... activist flight crews are a key point of leverage for us in this battle. If enough of you resist the system grinds to a halt. Remember that TSA has chosen to go to war with you and your customers. PLEASE do not submit to government-sanctioned sexual assault as a job requirement... and PLEASE tell your captain friend how many passengers sympathize with him, and stand with him and his daughter.

We've got a concurrent thread going here started by a 17-year-old girl worried about exactly this kind of checkpoint abuse:

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/trave...-vacation.html

I hate for her to read stories like yours but this is the evil truth of what is going on. Prurience disguised as security.

EVIL.

Sexual harassment. Please report it to both links below.

In the 1950s, adolescent boys used to dream of x-ray specs that really worked, unlike the ones advertised in comic books at the time.

Fast forward to 2010, and thanks to a spineless President, a spineless Congress and too many cowardly, spineless wimps (fellow Americans), we've finally delivered the goods to the perverts and adolescents of the United States. We've even dressed them up like pretend police officers, given them the title "officer" and endowed them with essentially unreviewable authority to electronically strip search all of us, not just the 18 year old hotties.

And if they refuse the strip search, they get a rubdown of their genitals. See what happens when too many spineless cowards refuse to push back?

My daughters refuse to engange in this farce the TSA apologists label "security."

Give 'em hell, both of you. This behavior is repulsive. I've seen similar many times, usually by disproportionately shepherding hot women to the NOS.

^^^ for your refusal to go through the NOS and to also refuse the perp frisk.

Just how much are we willing to put up with? :mad: I do hope your colleague pursues the matter.

Yes. I am a Flight attendant. He will start with the company's internal pilots union then go from there.

I and some other flight attendants are going to resist the NoS at Skywest. We don't have a union like the others that are in the news (internal one only) to voice our concern to, but we are not going to deal with this crap!! :mad:

Have your captain contact the local media about this.

But of course, TSA will always be professional when using the porn-o-scope:rolleyes:

eyecue, what do you have to say for your brothers in blue?:td::mad:

Didn't happen....

:)

Me too. Cute pixieish business colleague picked out and lobbied heavily to go through NoS, lumpy middle-aged white guy (me) ignored.

Some passengers are more fun to look at naked than others.

TSA is engaged in profiling, all right, but not the kind that "keeps us safe."

Publicize, publicize, publicize.

SWFA, let 'em have it - BIG TIME.

I've never understood this part of the "opt-out" rule.

A. This technology is optional to passengers in the U.S. Passengers who opt out of imaging technology screening will go through alternative screening, including same-gender pat downs.

As a man, why can't I request a female TSA employee for my "pat down" ?
I wont be offended...really I wont. :-)


HP

I've been targeted too
 

Yep...had it happen as well. I'm a female business traveler. Always ready to cooperatively and speedily go through security.

Was just targeted Tuesday Nov 9 at TPA for NOS. Don't ya just love the up & down look from afar then....point to you...."step this way".....TSA agent whispers into the microphone....HUMILIATING!

No More! I'm opting out.

Doober is correct. This IS sexual harassment. If you read through my posts, you will see that I have had a long career in the military and the civilian government and know of whence I speak. A government employee making a remark like this is a slam-dunk sexual harassment violation if anyone within earshot (doesn't have to be you or your daughter) were offended.

I would call the DHS IG Hotline as soon as possible and report the incident as calmly and professionally as you can, remembering as many of the details as possible.

I know I've posted this before, but, in the interests of expediency, here is the link: DHS Office of Inspector General Hotline.

Rest assured that you can request as much anonymity as you'd like. My advice would be to restrict your identity to the IG staff only. FYI, this is a statutory IG, meaning the office and the IG, Richard Skinner, report directly to Congress and are outside the DHS chain of command.

Please do this. PM me if you would like more help.

Here's a question for our TSOs out there:

Are your radio transmissions routinely recorded and archived?

If not, they should be. 24/7.

This is a serious question, that I'd love to know the answer to.

Professionals have absolutely no issue with this kind of information being recorded:

Police/Fire/EMS transmissions are routinely recorded.
Air Traffic transmissions are routinely recorded.
Railroad transmissions are routinely recorded.
Pretty much ANY profession that uses radio as a primary means of communication is recorded.

This would serve a number of very valuable functions:

Protect the TSO from false claims (such as they'll claim the one made in this thread is false in 3, 2, 1...)
Provide invaluable audio commentary/evidence when (not if, but WHEN) there actually is a terrorist incident at the huge pile in front of the checkpoint - only a matter of time.
Allow for consistent monitoring and training to ensure employees are adhering to SOP.
Allow for better identification and weeding out of "Bad apple" TSOs who refuse remedial action, thereby improving their image with the public.

Just off the top of my head.

REAL PROFESSIONALS have no problem having this information recorded. Does the TSA?

You know comments like this is what makes all of this disgusting for us women! Its not a freakin joke!

Would one of Ron's colleagues do this? :confused::rolleyes:

Outrageous!

I hope the Skywest captain goes further than just taking it up with his airline. I have to think about this, but I suspect there may even be a criminal aspect to the TSO's behavior. The sole legal purpose of the checkpoint security inspection is to assure that weapons, explosives and incendiaries do not pass into the sterile area. If these TSOs are using the NOS for their own amusement and sexual gratification, they are acting outside the very narrow limits of the administrative search (and certainly outside the scope of their employment). If it had been me, I think I would have called over a LEO and pressed charges. And then called the media. And then my congressperson and senator.

I'm WAY ahead of you:

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/trave...pat-downs.html

:)

This could turn out to be an systemic problem with AIT, and potentially, its downfall, at least in its current incarnation. They will probably have to get rid of the human observed graphic display, and go to some computer image reading system that flags abnormalities. While it won't solve the backscatter radiation issue, it would resolve the observation issues.

Not all of them are, but they are all in the clear others are on a reversal codec but that is easy to correct and you can look up the freq online. I always have my radio with me(digital recorder plugged in as well) and i have a 3x5 card with the frequencies on it so i can see what clerks are upto and saying. In my travels I have heard some dispicable radio traffic by TSA, as no professional would ever say the things I have heard TSA have said. Its been to the point that i have sent CDs of recordings to FSDs of a few airports because they were so unprofessional it would make a sailor blush.

The worst one in the past year was at MIA, I was sitting in the admirals club listening to channels, when i came up on the TSA channel, where i heard a interesting conversation going on. After listening for under a minute i was able to pick out which checkpoint it was based on there conversation as they were pretty stupid/blatant and obviously dont know anything about professionalism or opsec. I went and see who these idiots were and once i saw who they were and had enough information to send to the FSD; I broke in on there conversation and told them they should watch what they say on a open and clear channel and that talking about a passengers butt is unacceptable and highly unprofessional and that they would be reported to TSA management. I have never seen clerks look so scared in there life as it looked like they were either going to crap themselves or cry. I had to sit down at this point as i was trying hard to keep from laughing my butt off. Once i stopped laughing I went up to the checkpoint supervisor and asked for the name and badge numbers of the offenders. The supervisor naturally was asking why i wanted that the information. I told him it was above his pay grade to deal with the situation/issue. This clerk must have been ex military because instead of bowing up like normal clerks do this ones response was "yes sir". I got the names and badge numbers, and verifying they were correct i went back to the club to wait for my flight. Never did get a response from the FSD but i havent seen those two clowns since, but that doesnt mean much considering how big MIA is and the number of clerks TSA has there.


JoeBas - not all PD/FD/EMS traffic is open and in the clear alot of departments have gone to trunked or encrypted radio systems, some of which can be cracked if someone has the time and money to do so. For the most part all traffic by those groups is professional, clear, and to the point as they have other things to do then BS. That and its recorded, at least where i work (all phone, and radio communication is stored digitally uncompressed raw format)

This is what I was asking - I wasn't asking if it was "In the clear" or untrunked, I was asking if it was recorded and archived on TSAs end for monitoring and investigating of this kind of stuff.

Every other professional and government agency out there that uses radio does this. Does the TSA?

Scubatooth, what sort of radio are you using to listen to TSA conversations?

Disgusting, filthy perverts. They should be put in jail and on Megan's list. Predators, plain and simple.

But really, is anyone surprised this is happening? It was about as hard to predict as last week's election results.

My apologies, Mr.
I was only trying to add a bit of levity to the situation.

A bit misplaced I suppose, after your comment.

HP

I would followo the suggestion that has been made on a couple of threads now - send the recordings and information to the DHS IG.

One is a yeasu vx6r HT the other is a modified ICOM HT radio for use with MARS (military amateur radio service) and a few other things. I have other radios but those are my portables for 70cm, 2m, 6m. I have other radios (but there not portable) that go into the HF bands but atmospheric conditions have to be right for those and I cant keep those antennas up due to the local HOA.

DevilDog - I have had some other items I need to take care of higher priority but now the time is right to kick TSA while everyone else is.

I'd guess you meant invasive, instead of evasive.

Screw the FSD's, send it to the local media. They'd eat this up!

HORRIBLE!!!!! It is time that we American's stop being WIMPS and raise bloody hell about this.

This thread scares the crap out of me on behalf of my niece, who is a college freshman and flying home for one of the upcoming holidays through DEN. She has the cutest figure ever and while I hate the thought of someone seeing her virtual strip search, I hate even more the thought of her being fondled. Have talked to her mother about this. Fingers crossed that she is not traumatized. Though I am on the opt out bandwagon myself, I almost wonder if, for her, the humiliation she won't see (or maybe not be as aware of) with the NOS might be better than the physical humiliation of the grope. ugh. :mad:

The fact that she will be viewed virtually naked by a TSO who may be male, and may be enjoying the "show" in a prurient manner (there are many reports of attractive young girls being recruited and pressured to go through the NoS; it's possible that TSOs work in teams to procure "eye candy" for one another), and that her image may be saved for later review / enjoyment, combined with the medical impact of the ionized radiation which ought to be a concern for all women of childbearing age, should compel her to go through the assaultive patdown, as sickening a choice as it is. Please encourage your niece to become politically active as a result of this experience if it happens.

And the General Accounting Office. Even the other Feds are afraid of those folks.

At least the grope will be done by a woman. Maybe

Pm me the who what and where of the GAO and I'll make another package.

Hmm I think I perked a few ears up on the TSA freq's and listening in on them. It's good that there will be more people looking to listen in on them.

I think you have answered your own question.

TSA has no professionals.

Hey, you know I love your posts, but I think that's a little extreme. TSA is saddled with a considerable number of thugs, drones, crooks and sadists who wreck the agency's public profile. It's also saddled with a weak and stupid management that spends its time bolting the doors of empty barns and either doesn't know how to professionalize the rank and file or chooses not to. But you have to believe there are plenty of TSOs who are trying to execute this stupid, crippled policy to the best of their ability. I think there must be plenty of professionals in there who are privately horrified at being ordered to turn on the citizens who pay their salaries.

Check your PM's, I gave you every media outlet in the MIA/FLL area.

They will *Love* this.

Not to get too personal, but as a gay man, I get no thrill out of having a male TSO grope me. It's just a disgusting situation.