I have to agree with this post. I read this forum all the time and get a kick out of all the people who seem to go through security secretly hoping to make some kind of waves so they can come on here and tell everyone how right they were and how wrong TSA was. In the end though what really happened? The TSA get to trade stories of some self rightous guy making waves for no gain but to come on here and say how smart and right they were.

When I go through security I have nothing to hide and my goal is to not get hastled. Guess what, I've never been hastled AND I don't feel it cost me a thing to behave in a way that facilitates that.

My heart does go out to those people which through no fault of their own get hastled and insulted and treated without respect but to be fair I see just as many stories of people going through who get hastled and after hearing their story, seemed more like they were looking to butt heads and get hastled instead of just being honest and getting on with their lives.

If your advice is to make sure that the idiot remembers it, I agree wholeheartedly. A particularly bad day at work is very memorable. And a day on which a TSO is hauled away in handcuffs for a violation of 49 U.S.C Sec. 46405 will be a bad day.

As for the TSO's request to see a pilot's license (actually it's a "certificate" and not a "license") my advice would be to very impolitely tell the screener that the only legal requirement to produce a certificate for inspection is contained in Section 61.51 of Title 14 of the Code of Federal Regulations and is limited to a production for authorized NTSB reps and real law enforcement and he's just a lazy incompetent, fat (if appropriate) clerk with the same law enforcement powers as his donut stained tie.

I suspect then you don't travel with liquid/aerosol medication, breast milk, baby food, disability assistance equipment, medical devices, custom electronics, or pretty much anything that wouldn't be in a generic clip-art photo of a stereotypical air traveler. At least you acknowledge the problems of those who do.

I look at it a bit different. I've seen a very small handful of cases where the passenger was clearly looking to pick a fight (e.g., showing up in a bathing suit or underwear) and a huge number of cases where the TSA picked the fight and the passenger made the choice to engage instead of meekly submitting. In the OP's case, IMO the TSO picked the fight by overreaching his duty and examining documents that are not WEI, questioning these documents, and then illegally confiscating them. Without that overreach, there would be no "fight." Interestingly enough, this is quite similar to the fight TSA picked at STL over Steve Bierfieldt's cash box and the fight they picked with Kathy Parker at PHL over the "almost sequential" checks in her wallet. Also note that I do not consider using something other than a DL as ID or opting out of the NoS to be "picking a fight," as TSA explicitly allows passengers to do these things.

Just like in investigating an accident, you have to go back to the original root cause to understand it completely. Maybe the passenger could have had a "better" outcome by cooperating, but that's not the root of the problem.

Sorry Doc, with all due respect for your right to an opinion, you utterly and absolutely lost my desire to communicate with you with what I outlined in post #99. If you would like to address those concerns either here or via a private message I'd be happy to hear what you have to say. Until then I have not the slightest desire to interact with you or anyone else who has taken the Hippocratic Oath and yet would make the comments that you did. I honestly thought those types of thoughts and comments ended with the vacation of Barracks 10 at Auschwitz.

Or a way to justify theft. I understand what you are saying: If the OP had acted differently, the TSO may not have stolen their documents. But why should they have to?

Okay, I understand what you are saying: Cooperate with what they are saying, be done in a minute and on your way.

I don't agree with it, for many of the arguments described by others above, but I do see where you are coming from.

My hope is that others would make a stink. The OP should not have had to justify anything that was not a potential threat to the flight and I simply don't see how any rational human being could have seen navigation charts as a threat.

Mike

What's your opinion on people who take an oath to defend the Constitution, but go to "work" for the TSA?

(bolding mine)

I agree - there are two general categories of conflict.

1) TSOs don't know what they are doing or are deliberately bullying. Why should the sole responsibility for resolving a situation, particularly if the pax is absolutely right, be for the pax to back down and submit? Perhaps if, instead of just automatically getting his/her hackles up when challenged (or even questioned politely) by a pax, a TSO should automatically get a second opinion. (Although this won't help with LTSO/STSO/management who are just as woefully ill-informed and/or lazy). At least an ignorant TSO would get needed training and a supervisor would recognize that the employee is ill-informed for some reason.

2) someone who actually decides to 'push things' at the checkpoint (semi-clothed, for example).

So what?

The smartest, most efficient action a TSO could take (assuming no wrong-doing - and I'm not aware of any specific laws or ordinances requiring a certain dress code at the checkpoint) - is to ignore provocation (if any) and do their job. If a pax approaches in a bathing suit, it's legal and frankly, from a security point of view, the pax actually should be slightly quicker and easier to clear. Do it. End of situation. If it is someone who really has issues with being groped, they've minimized it; if it is someone who wants to provoke an unprofessional, illegal response on the part of the TSO, it has just failed (because the TSO behaved professionally.

I don't have any respect for anyone, TSA or otherwise, who takes an oath and then voluntarily acts contrary to that oath.

Disclaimer: The following is not related to the TSOs, as they're not LEOs.

One of the major reasons I got out of law enforcement is that I found the fact that some (not all, or even the majority of) LEOs would not only deprive people of their civil liberties under color of authority but actually took pride in doing so and bragged about it. I believed in the old "To Serve and Protect" mantra and to see people twisting that into something more like "To Abuse and Victimize" made me sick- both figuratively and literally.

Anecdotally speaking, this sort of reaction is so rare as to merit comment when it happens.

Typically, the supervisor will back the ignorant TSA clerk to the point of absurdity.

So why would you treat TSA employees with "respect?" Is it just a sham to get you through the checkpoint without a hassle?

I don't recall ever saying that I would. I said I would be polite. There's a huge difference.

Why would I be polite to them? Several reasons. 1) Because I'm better person that I feel I would be if I acted otherwise. 2) Yes, it would get me through the CP with a greater chance of a hassle free experience 3) If I DID catch some kind of trouble I would be able to articulate to their supervisor/the media/the courts/whoever that it was a completely 100% unprovoked situation and 4) In the event of trouble witnesses would be more likely to take my side.

Wholeheartedly agree with these posts. There are so many radical, extreme posts here that it seems most everyone with a moderate, rational approach is gone. When you take a simple idea such as "the TSA oversteps their role and needs to have an approach to security that makes sense," and turn it into an extreme such as "the TSA is the first step in the rise of a tyrannical dictatorship," all you're accomplishing is alienating people with sensibility. You take the people that might actually listen and drive them away. You turn a perfectly reasonable goal into a conspiracy theory that's no less pathetic than 911 Truthers, Birthers, and people that don't believe we landed on the moon.

If you want to accomplish a goal, you need the mainstream, not the fringe.

I've seen posters on this board talk about how pat-downs are sexual assault and they'll have a TSA arrested if they do it. Yet, I once asked the question: "Has anyone *actually* filed a sexual assault complaint against a TSO?" Not one single person said they had done so. If it's all just bravado, whining, and b----ing, what's the point?

That hasn't been my experience. While there are undoubtedly outliers, the bulk of STSOs I've escalated to over matters where I knew I was right (and where it did matter) have pulled the TSO aside and instructed them on the actual rules. And yes, I've overheard the conversations on multiple occasions.

^

Thank you for admitting that issue and for taking the action of getting out (at least in part) in response to it. All too rare for anyone in that field to do anything regarding that problem.

I much prefer the concept of "peace officers" to that of "law enforcement officers."

Wow, this thread is still going, and, frankly, I find it enlightening and thought-provoking.

There seem to be three camps in this thread (though some people belong to more than one camp):

1) The TSA inherently encroaches on civil liberties and / or breaks the law in other ways, is inefficient, ineffective, and costly.

2) The TSA does a lot of things wrong, but if you just go about your business, you will likely never have a problem.

3) This is a tough, underfunded job. Securing an air system is a tough job, and the TSA needs to do that job. For the most part they will allow you to pass, but they do need to clear you first.

Personally, I think all three are valid point and have merit. In terms of the OP, I am not sure it really matters which camp you fall into. The cost of the "stolen" materials are small.

I fall into camp one, however, because 1) as an economist, I don't think it is worth spending so much money to get air safety, and we don't get enough for what we do spend. And 2) Because I know that government bureaucracies will always encroach. If it is shoes, liquids, and papers now, it is not inconceivable to think the government might one day ban books on topics that are not "safe."

Government controlling information is the historical world norm, and the US is a small blip countering that. I, for one, think it is worth picking the small battles to prevent needing a big one. FWIW, I also try and fight the big battles, in terms of attending fund raisers with elected officials and making my views known, but most are not able to do that, so they fight where they can.

Yeah, right. I've had multiple confrontations where I wanted to use my NEXUS card as ID, and the supervisor didn't know what it was anymore than the document checker. One time I had FOUR screening clerks, including a supervisor, NONE of whom knew what it was. Another time, the supervisor didn't know what it was and wouldn't look when I showed him. Do a search on NEXUS; the experience of many people here demonstrates that screeners don't know how to do their jobs and don't care about learning how to do their jobs.

And you say you've had MULTIPLE experiences where the supervisory screening clerk instructed the screening clerk about the rules. You don't see that as a problem? Why didn't the screening clerk know the rules in the first place? Why is it so often necessary to call a supervisor because the screening clerk doesn't know how to do his job, and why (according to the experience of so many here) is the supervisor also ignorant of the rules?