tev9999

Have not seen this posted in case any North Florida / South Alabama FT members want to attend.

http://www.nwfdailynews.com/news/ral...a-florida.html

chollie

Well, TSA should deploy one of our resident posters to attend this rally and explain to people that it is all media hype. Pistole lied, there is no 'new' patdown, it is the same as it has always been and it is not (as Pistole said) more invasive than before.

Nothing is being touched that wasn't touched before. All same, same. Open palms are the same as the wand.

It's all hysterical lies and media distortion. Even the incident where Pistole aplogized to the fellow whose ostomy bag was ruptured was a photo-shopped fraud, it never happened.

Yup, one of our guys here could just go down there and set the record straight, pronto.

HSVTSO Dean

I understand from having read a number of your posts that you're not exactly TSA's biggest fan, but do you go out of your way to distort what we say on here?

I'm not aware of any TSO on FT claiming that the pat-down is 100% entirely the same as it used to be.

chollie

Frankly, I'm insulted by your post. Really insulted.

I try to give the benefit of a doubt, but there are TSOs (real or alleged, and I am specifically excluding you from the group) who do not post on here in good faith. They clearly post to amuse themselves by antagonizing and playing word games. Unfortunately, they direct their efforts at logged on, participating folks, unaware or uncaring of the effect their contemptuous attitude has on random lurkers who might end up here looking for answers. Very unnerving. If someone can't keep it together during a heated discussion on an internet forum, then I really really don't want that individual putting his hands on my person or my belongings when I transit a checkpoint. That individual might be having a bad day. If he can't use the ignore button or walk away from his keyboard when things get heated, how much self-discipline does he exercise at the checkpoint when he's in a bad mood?

As I pointed out elsewhere, one chip-on-the-shoulder pax has the ability to make an arse of themselves and inconvenience a handful of people at a checkpoint - or to embarrass themselves by making outrageous posts on an internet forum.

However, one chip-on-the-shoulder TSO has the ability to make an arse of himself and to cause headaches for many dozens of people at a checkpoint - or to discredit the organization and his co-workers by the attitude he displays on an internet forum. Further, at the checkpoint such jerks really are putting my security at risk - hostility and contempt interfere with job performance.

I'm not going to dig up the references. There have been endless discussions just about whether or not there is a 'new' or 'enhanced' patdown. IIRC, some TSA folks, real or alleged, have tried on occasion to play word games about whether or not things have changed.

Most recently, a TSO (real or alleged) posted that the same ground (breasts, buttocks, groin) is being covered as before, so folks shouldn't be getting upset. Right. We're all victims of mass hysteria and media manipulation and poor little TSA just can't get the word out that things haven't really changed, well, just a tiny bit, but none of the published accounts of problems are really true. The videos and photos don't tell the story (unless TSA releases them, of course).

IIRC, you posted recently suggesting that perhaps the outcry is because so many more people receive gropes now than before. Well, your employer says it is a mere 3%, IIRC. Too bad your employer doesn't say what per cent got patted down before. Too bad your employer's numbers aren't likely to be reliable anyway.

Lots of pointless and insulting word games, none with the intent of clearly acknowledging that there are significant differences between what happens now and what happened prior to last fall. Pistole acknowledged the patdown was different and more invasive - is he a liar, or do some TSOs (real or alleged) just come here to play games?

Plenty of posts to doubt or discredit pax bad experiences (and occasional - occasional posts acknowledging that something might have gone poorly, albeit still probably the pax fault).

Certainly some of the TSOs (real or alleged) who post on the blog would also be suited to address this gathering, if it takes place.

And certainly TSO posts on this forum last fall, informed posts gloating and dropping hints of coming changes, knowing full well that invasive gropes wouldn't be welcomed.

I know y'all want to act like FT'ers are the only folks who report room for improvement at the checkpoint, but do you really think FT'ers are behind news reports (where the word 'groping' seems to becoming standard) and posts on other websites? Do you really think if we just closed this forum or only allowed 'puppy posts' that public attitude in the US would immediately turn around and folks would be welcoming their 'duty gropes?

HSVTSO Dean

The fellow you're referring to is GSOLTSO, in the Militarize TSA? thread.

In the same thread, I concurred with what he said:

And I stand by that. Neither one of us have said it was completely unchanged. 90% of it is exactly the same as it used to be. The final 10% — the sliding motion instead of the crush-and-feel technique, and the inner-upper thigh portion of the pat-down — are the only differences. Even the sliding of the back of the hands down either side of the zipperline (or where a zipper would be, anyway) is the same as it used to be in the full-body pat-down. It is, however, that 10% that has caused the pat-down to be viewed as invasive -- and it is. By its very definition, a pat-down is invasive. But that last 10% makes it more than it used to be, for certain.

Maybe you're viewing this as some kind of word game, I don't know; it just is what it is.

Everything else about it is semantics, such as the difference between calling it "The Enhanced Pat-Down" as opposed to its actual title, "The Standard Pat-Down."

Neither. The pat-down is different, and it is more invasive than it used to be. It's just not as significantly different as most people seem to think it is. The only major difference from before compared to now is what you, yourself, pointed out in the same thread:

Off-hand, I think you did, indeed, recall correctly about the 3% number.

Personally, I think the percentage of people who have to undergo secondary screening is about the same. I haven't noticed any dramatic uptick or downtick in the number of secondaries that have to be performed over the course of the day. The main difference is that, before, we used the hand wand for most of them. I would only have had to perform a full-body pat-down maybe once or twice a week.

Maybe Ron would say something like that, but I'm not stupid enough to believe that FlyerTalk and FlyerTalk alone is the clearinghouse for anti-TSA angst.

However, I would still maintain that the reputation is worse than the experience.

Wally Bird

My recollection is different, but I'm not going to make an issue of it.

4nsicdoc

it's only 288 miles from PNS-HSV. Come on down. I just hope that the organizers mandate that any TSO who desires to speak be groped first "Do you want to speak today?")as a learning opportunity for the audience. Of course, the piglike screaming and wailing would probably violate the Escambia County noise ordinance and the TSO, upon conviction, would have to comply with lifetime noise offender registration.

HackyMcHack

Probably should change the location on the thread name to Fort Walton Beach. The Emerald Coast Conference Center is nearly an hour east of Pensacola.

Wally Bird

Another difference being that people are being frisked in addition to having to submit to WBI.

chollie

(bolding mine). There's a great big world outside FT and there are plenty of folks out there who seem to find the 'checkpoint experience' since last fall significantly different.

I don't recall how much flying Sawyer (?) did before last fall (the fellow whose ostomy bag was ruptured), but certainly the flight attendant who was told to remove her breast prosthesis for inspection was a regular flyer and I'm sure she would describe her current handling at the checkpoint as 'significantly' different than before. Certainly the handicapped, wheelchair bound family member (only one data point) confirms that the experience is significantly more invasive than before.

I personally never had a wand actually come in contact with my privates, but I find it hard to believe having a wand touch your privates isn't 'significantly' different from having a hand touch your privates. And wands don't clutch/grab/squeeze. Never had a wand slide down my buttocks cleft during a patdown either, but I've certainly had hands go there since the new changes.

I never had a hand inside my collar before and I never had someone put their hands inside my waistband, pull my pants out and look down. Is that included in the 10% changes?

Never had hands run through what little hair I have left before last fall.

I would add to your 10%. I've been told by a TSO that the edge of the hand has to contact the breastbone of a woman to ensure that she isn't hiding something between her breasts. Now you take a look at some well-endowed women (obesity, silicone, old age droop, whatever) out there and you explain to me how you can get your hand between the breasts and to the breast bone without exerting significant force or sliding the hand sideways between the breasts - so the front of the hand is jammed against one breast and the back of the hand against the other.

You should know how, even if you are a guy, because one of our resident TSO posters (real or alleged) says male TSOs are trained to patdown females (no hands-on experience, but hey, if someone wants to fly so badly that they'll take an opposite-gender patdown with someone who has no hands on training, I guess they shouldn't have high expectations). I'm still perplexed about why women need hands-on training to frisk other women but men only need to be told how to do it.

I find Rep. Sharon Cissna a credible source. She's no stranger to flying. Tell her that the invasive breast examination that she finds so offensive is no different than the one she got before the changes. After all, I think her complaints go beyond sliding motions around the breasts.


Your reputation is, unfortunately, negatively affected every time a TSO (real or alleged) posts with contempt for pax. It is negatively affected every time a TSO treats a pax with rudeness or contempt or in violation of procedures at a checkpoint and is not corrected by co-workers. It's negatively affected every time a TSO at a checkpoint sees something being done badly by a fellow worker and stands silently by. That's not a conscious decision to not get involved; it's a conscious decision to be seen sanctioning the actions taking place.

This isn't unique to TSA - it's true of any large organization (including mine), particularly one whose employees wear uniforms. You share the reputation.

golfguy714

Dean,
I will have to disagree that the reputation is worse than the experience. I fly mutiple times per month and depending on what airport you fly out of it varies wildly. TSA at CMH is a bad experience on a good day. I have had to get LEO intervention 3 times at CMH due to the same blue shirts there going out of their way to make things difficult. I have had enough and do not tolerate any crap any more period! Too many bad apples have created this attitude and every TSO I encounter now gets same treatment, pure defiance and as much crap as I can dish out. It is too bad that what was once something I looked forward to, flying, has turned into this because of the TSA. The one truely sad thing is that all the money pi$$ed away on the TSA does not protect airline security anymore than pre 9/11. I work in the nuclear power industry and I have NEVER had any security guard at a power plant touch or grab my genitals to get into a power plant with an actual working reactor and tons of spent fuel, but just to get to work I have to put up with this crap!

Boggie Dog

What I am having a really hard time understanding is how TSA is not hearing the uproar and keeps on saying the same things.

The pat down is different! The Porno Boxes are to invasive. TSA is completely off the farm and out of control.

We see that it is different, we hear others saying it is different but TSA continues to say we don't know what we are hearing or seeing.

Is TSA deaf?

Caradoc

No.

There's a big difference between being unable to hear, and not giving a crap about what you hear.

The TSA is definitely in the latter camp.

Boggie Dog

We all thought Hawley was an idiot then along comes fourth runner up Pistole.

Redefined the word Idiot.

mikemey

I really should read the whole thread before I post.

Deleted!!!