I understand your POV gsoltso, however majority consent or ignorance can not be used as a benchmark for consent when it affects the rights of the minority.

Just as you can't have 3 wolves and a sheep deciding what to have for dinner you can't have the majority of Americans being ok with new security procedures (esp considering the majority of Americans do not fly often) when it takes away the rights of the minority.

Touching people's genitals and/or seeing them naked just to make sure they are "safe" to be on a plane is a violation of our rights. If TSA wouldn't have put these procedures in place then we wouldn't be having this issue.

^

Y'know, I might have some understanding for you and others who feel as you do - except for the fact that my mother is a victim of abuse, utter and undeniable ABUSE, at the hands of TSOs on three different occasions.

If you haven't read her story, here it is: http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/trave...nly-ought.html

This is not an anecdote - these are real incidents that happened to someone I love, who did nothing to deserve it.

Read her story, and then come back and tell me I'm "swilling haterade". Tell me what gives the TSA the right to physically abuse a disabled senior citizen like this - on EVERY SINGLE FLIGHT. She has to get physically molested every time she flies, because of her metal hip - and since this "enhanced pat-down" was instituted, every flight for her is a nightmare. Do you really think it's okay for strangers to touch her genitalia, for the "crime" of having a metal hip? Answer that for me in some way that makes sense. If you can't, then I'm sorry, but there is just no way you, or anyone, has a right to defend the TSA.

Agreed 100%^ Thank you gsoltso.

I am quite sure there is plenty of debate within the TSA about the effectiveness and impact of procedures used against the traveling public. However, I am just as certain that little regard is given to the feelings, values and beliefs of various segments of this vast and diverse traveling public.

I sometimes think TSO's consider all of us to be the enemy. If I'm having an argument with one TSO at a checkpoint, three others will pop up to defend him without knowing the facts surrounding the altercation. The only reason I have not sat in an american jail cell is that I fire the "call the police" button way before the TSO's do. So, given the type of experiences those of us who travel frequently have had with the TSA, what sort of a reaction do you expect here? We are not the enemy, we are people who just want to be treated fairly and with respect. Our needs vary and the lady with the aluminium leg and the lady with the burka both need to be treated with respect and in a manner that does not cause an intrusion into their lives.

If the TSA and its agents continue to treat us like criminals, you will have initiated a chain of events that could literally end with a wall, several uniformed bodies slumped over in front of it, and a the words "Viva La Revolucion!" painted in blood on said wall.

(my apologies for the graphic ending there, but I think it works rather well. How about y'all?)

After reading this thread, there is only one question I would ask the posters here.

How many of you have found yourself in a position where your boss decided to change a policy into something that, on average, only half of those asked think is, overall, something that should be stopped... and actually had the courage to QUIT your job without any clear way you could support your family?

How many of you can actually give a specific example of when YOU have done that?

Seems an unfair thing to ask of a TSO if you have not followed through on such a thing yourself.

MDtR - I understand your point but there is no comparison for most of us. Here's why:

If I were a typical $20/hr employee working in America and my boss ordered me to institute a policy that I did not agree with it would probably be something along the mudane lines of how to answer a telephone call, how to greet the restaurant guests, or maybe even something more significant like how often I am allowed to give a patient a certain medication.

However, the TSA folks are being given orders that are forcing them to:

Radiate people
View our naked bodies
Feel and touch our genitals and put hands INSIDE our pants
Trample our constitutional rights

...all the while doing it with tin-badge authority and no accountability.

Their is no comparison between a person in a "typical" job standing up to their boss and a person in one of these jobs standing up to their boss. The vast majority of the American job force has not been asked to violate the rights of honest citizens. The TSA clerks have.

When the TSA is finally unionized - will individuals take this situation up w/their union reps? Will they push back through a channel that, in theory, will help?

You do of course have a valid point, but you are asking me to compare taking away someones prescription eyeglass benefit worth $80 every two years with stripping someone of all dignity three times a week just to travel on a plane.

Honestly, you're right, this forum is not impartial, and lately has gotten pretty hostile - I'm a fairly new member but I've looked back and can see that it used to be calmer. I'm not blameless either. So, sorry dude.

But you sort of have to see that the course of action the TSA has taken recently was practically guaranteed to make people angry, and not only what was done, but how. There is no debate, the TSA leadership never even allows for any sort of the debate, their stance is an unapologetic 'my way or the highway'. From the very top, to the lowest screener - ranks always closed. Anger is sort of the only rational reaction at this point.

Airport security has always been tough, and for many years we put up with it, but clearly the tension has been building. It seems that in the last ten years being bullied or intimidated by airport security has become just something that almost everyone experienced once in a while. Those incidents have far more impact than the typical polite hassle, so we've come to expect to be abused a bit when walking up to security, breathing a sigh of relief when it doesn't happen. This expectation combined with the new procedures is what's fueling the current rage.

But it is a rage, a surprising and fundamental anger I haven't seen or felt for a very long time, and expressing anger is rarely rational. Let me repost something from reddit, a person's story, it sort of illustrates my two most common mental states on this issue.

Basically, all in all that's a pretty professional experience, and I'm sure that's probably the norm. Sure there are a few procedural issues there, but the passenger experience seems to be fine. Reading stories like this and looking over the vaguely misleading information that the TSA puts out I can rationally talk about how procedures are potentially abusive, talk about security concerns, privacy issues, etc.

But then the redditor continues:
And here I just start seeing red and I'm probably not capable of doing much more than incoherently spitting four letter words at the screen. It's like a situation that's perfectly set up to piss people off, doubly so when children are involved. It's a testament to how compliant we've become that a scene like that doesn't start a riot. Even the witness was left feeling violated, and filled with unease and regret.

So yeah, sorry you guys are caught in the crossfire, but we didn't put you there or create this situation - and we have a right to be angry. Of course, it's always best to cool off and temper anger with rationality before posting on the internet.

There was a reddit TSO who posted an ImA a while back - he ended up going to a supervisor and saying he was refusing to perform male assists from now on. The supervisor treated him with some compassion and rotated him out, but made it clear that unless he changes his mind his days at the agency are probably numbered.

I don't think anyone was heaping on him. Personally I think that took a lot of guts, and wish him all the best in these tough economic times. If I was a local employer who was looking for someone with character I'd look him up.

OMG, just reading that fills me with rage and sickness. I feel like vomiting. It transports me back to that moment last year when I was watching my elderly mother be molested and verbally abused by a brutish female TSO, while she stood there crying and calling out my name, and I was being prevented from going to her by a huge male TSO blocking my way. Tears pouring down her cheeks, crying out my name, while she stood there with a full bladder that she was desperately trying not to release, as this TSO was shoving her hands between her legs and YELLING at her for having damp trousers, because THEY would let her go the bathroom.

And then I read this story, and I'm shaking again.

I'm sorry, but there is just nothing that anyone can say that will make this acceptable. Nothing. I'm sorry that the TSO's life sucks, but they have as much choice as we do. They don't seem to have any problem saying to us "take it or leave it - if you want to fly, and not lose the hundreds (or thousands) you spent on your airline ticket, you have to let us abuse you and quit complaining." Well, we're saying "take it or leave it - if you don't want to molest people in the name of security theater, then go get another job, or quit complaining."

LeeAnne - you have my complete, total, 100% support. This kind of treatment is absolutely unconscionable. Any clerk who expects sympathy in the current state of affairs is profoundly naive.

The "haterade" as you put is something TSA has brewed up with its assault on Americans that just keeps getting worse & worse. When TSA actually looks in the mirror & addresses this, the "haterade" will subside.

... which is actually what the 2nd amendment is all about, just in case we ever need another revolution. :D

An organization that has institutionalized the abuse of its "customers" should not be wondering where all the love as gone. :rolleyes:

Okay. Here's one for you. I was told by a company I worked for NOT to hire visible minorities. I told them I would hire who ever was best suited for the job, and if they had a problem with that - I dared them to do anything about it. I did not quit. I was willing to lose my job. being fair was more important to me than a job - this IS what it means to have values

I will take up your challenge.

I have twice quit jobs because my employer wanted me to abuse my Notary seal in order to commit fraud on documents including back dating a document in order to avoid a hefty fine from a government regulatory agency.

So, now that I have met your challenge, please let me know when you will be asking your local TSO to do the same.

Yes, it was the hardest decision in my life to quit a job on principle - twice - but I did exactly the right thing.