TSA induced panic attacks
Sep 15, 2012, 4:12 pm
#31
Join Date: Jun 2004
Posts: 456
You are in a position of power and authority, and took someone into a private room and then embraced them. There are a number of things that could be said about it, but it was frankly incredibly foolish on your part. I suggest that you don't do such a thing again if you don't want to put yourself in jeopardy.
You can try and spin it that you are a warm and caring person, but it doesn't change the fact that it was completely inappropriate.
Last edited by myrgirl; Sep 15, 2012 at 4:54 pm Reason: dropped word
Sep 15, 2012, 4:47 pm
#32
Join Date: Jun 2004
Posts: 456
The system in which you work takes a person that has already been the subject of a difficult situation and submits them to even greater distress just because there is a possibility that a medical device they are using, one that is of an embarrassing nature to many people, may be "faked" as you say. You have a responsibility under your SOP to ascertain that it is real so that you can clear this person to complete the lawful contract they have made to purchase air travel on a common carrier.
Here is the problem with that. Until you can give her clearance to enter the sterile area, she is now both medically distressed and under a cloud of suspicion as a person with criminal intent.
It is a matter of perspective that we have discussed here many times. Hopefully you will understand this distinction. I will try to frame it as simply as possible. The process of air security used to be one in which the primary assumption was that everyone that entered the checkpoint was without nefarious intent, and it was the job of the screening process to identify those that may not be safe to proceed. Now, the assumption is that everyone that enters the checkpoint is under suspicion of criminal intent until the screening process can prove that they are not.
While the distinction may seem trivial, it is far from it. In the first instance, we need only come as our normal everyday selves. We wear what we normally wear, act as we normally act and have with us the things of life that we will have in any other situation in which you may find us outside of the checkpoint.
The second is quite different. We now must be concerned that what we normally are does not reinforce or multiply the suspicion that is inherent in the process. We must carefully analyze the everyday things that we carry or possess to assure that they also do not support the suspicions that we are under. We even must be concerned of the things we say, even those that are relatively benign in any other situation other than at the CP.
It is a matter of perspective that we have discussed here many times. Hopefully you will understand this distinction. I will try to frame it as simply as possible. The process of air security used to be one in which the primary assumption was that everyone that entered the checkpoint was without nefarious intent, and it was the job of the screening process to identify those that may not be safe to proceed. Now, the assumption is that everyone that enters the checkpoint is under suspicion of criminal intent until the screening process can prove that they are not.
While the distinction may seem trivial, it is far from it. In the first instance, we need only come as our normal everyday selves. We wear what we normally wear, act as we normally act and have with us the things of life that we will have in any other situation in which you may find us outside of the checkpoint.
The second is quite different. We now must be concerned that what we normally are does not reinforce or multiply the suspicion that is inherent in the process. We must carefully analyze the everyday things that we carry or possess to assure that they also do not support the suspicions that we are under. We even must be concerned of the things we say, even those that are relatively benign in any other situation other than at the CP.
Where do you draw the line? You have no control over the line. It is positioned for you and any ability that you may have to move it only moves it around within a broken framework of everyone is a suspect that must be cleared.
Only your management can redraw the line and they have deliberately chosen where they want it. It is the insult added to injury that we endure just to travel for vacation, to work, to visit family or whatever the reason is today. You said it yourself. You have been taught to assume that medical devices can be faked and you must prove it is not. Our lives, and yours, would be much simpler if system were to assume that they were legitimate medical devices and that the screening would look for evidence that it is not.
Sep 15, 2012, 4:57 pm
#33
Original Poster
Join Date: Nov 2010
Posts: 646
If you had a colostomy bag, or an insulin pump, would you expect a guard at the entrance to the supermarket, hair salon, dentist or hospital to paw at it, or would you expect to go about your life with your privacy, medical info and respect intact? When you get dressed in the morning, do you go about town expecting people to put their hands on your genitals and caress your breasts?
Now, why is it that you think the normal expectations of a normal human being, to go about their life unmolested, with their dignity intact, have to be thrown by the wayside when they need to fly?
How would you feel if your dentist groped your breasts and genitals or asked to see and examine your colostomy bag? How would you feel if the guard at the entrance to the hospital, where you're going for a check up with your surgeon or endocrinologist, groped your genitals and massaged your colostomy bag?
Why do you think it's acceptable for you or any other non medical person to do this to anyone? Or for any person, including a doctor, to invade and touch another person in the manner, except in the context of medical treatment, with their full consent?
Now, why is it that you think the normal expectations of a normal human being, to go about their life unmolested, with their dignity intact, have to be thrown by the wayside when they need to fly?
How would you feel if your dentist groped your breasts and genitals or asked to see and examine your colostomy bag? How would you feel if the guard at the entrance to the hospital, where you're going for a check up with your surgeon or endocrinologist, groped your genitals and massaged your colostomy bag?
Why do you think it's acceptable for you or any other non medical person to do this to anyone? Or for any person, including a doctor, to invade and touch another person in the manner, except in the context of medical treatment, with their full consent?
Sep 15, 2012, 5:19 pm
#34
Join Date: Jul 2011
Posts: 45
That's the first time it had happened to me and it sucked. Really. Sucked. I felt like crap. I love my job because I believe in the point behind it but I do believe reform is badly needed. I will do my job because if I don't, someone else will and they may not have the compassion and caring that I have. I don't want to make people cry and usually I don't. My day is usually full of laughing and joking with the passengers, making them feel wanted and important and trying to make the checkpoint experience as good as it possibly can be. I don't pass judgement on people, and I certainly don't retaliate. Of course, when I get those who just want to be left alone, I honor their wishes. I want traveling through our checkpoint to just be a minor blip on their radar of the day, not a traumatic experience to be prepared for. Some of the stories I read on here sadden me greatly and some make me downright angry. That's why this particular screening bothered me so much. Screening a colostomy bag is something that has to be done and I used as much decorum and tact as I use in everything I do. So I hated seeing her distressed over this. That why I posed my original question. You folks on this board travel way more than I have or ever hope to. Based on the confines of what the SOP says we have to do, how do we find the line to deal with a sensitive screening like this without distressing the passenger? Is there anything I could have said or done, that allowed me to still do my job, but yet made the screening easier for her?
You ask the best way to comfort someone? Don't talk to them beyond what is needed. We're not there to chat or to like you...you are invading our very personal space. Just get it over with and let me leave and don't make me pretend to like being around you - like ripping off a band-aid. Again, nothing personal, but it's not my job as a passenger to make you feel better about what your job requires.
Sep 15, 2012, 5:32 pm
#35
Join Date: Aug 2012
Posts: 3,526
I hope you don't mind that I snipped your post but I wanted to address this point in particular. Panic attacks are something I've never witnessed at work and swabbing hands that patted insulin pumps is, what's the word?, status quo? I've never seen a passenger object or be bothered by it that I can recall. I wanted to address the act of screening someone's medical device and how it can affect them emotionally. I wanted to present the question of where is the line between screening a device and not invadin-g someone's privacy or causing them distress and how do we find this line? As a TSO I see the need to screen devices; I read intel briefings and I read the news and I understand the need to screen something such as a colostomy bag because it could be faked and such. As a human being, I also see the need for privacy and discretion as well as the need for compassion and humanity. How does a TSO such as myself reconcile the two? It's like saying one believes in both Darwinism and Christianity and that the two are reconcilable. That's the way I feel about this issue. I feel that the need to follow the SOP and do my job to the letter AND the need to use compassion and discretion are reconcilable. A few weeks ago I was called to go to private screening to screen a woman's colostomy bag that had of course been flagged by our gumby software on the AIT. It was a simple matter of her patting the bag over her clothing and me swabbing her hands, but it still bothered her. I stayed with her and talked for a bit, explained the need for the screening and empathized with her, and listened to what she had to say. She cried a little which really bothered me because I hate to see someone sad especially when I know that I'm essentially the cause of the sadness. I couldn't help but place an arm around her shoulder and give her a good side hug. Out of line, I know, but damn I'm human and comforting someone is my first instinct. She could had thrown off my arm and said to not touch her and it would have been my own fault but the hug and sympathy seemed to help. She explained that the bag was fairly new, she was having trouble adjusting, and to then get pulled aside because of it was a reminder of her struggles. I asked her, "So we basically added 'insult to injury,' yes?" and she agreed. We talked some some more and I hope she felt better when she left to go to her gate. Which brings me back to: How do we screen situations like this and avoid the "insult to injury" fact
or?
or?
Sep 15, 2012, 5:45 pm
#36
Join Date: Jun 2004
Posts: 456
If you had a colostomy bag, or an insulin pump, would you expect a guard at the entrance to the supermarket, hair salon, dentist or hospital to paw at it, or would you expect to go about your life with your privacy, medical info and respect intact? When you get dressed in the morning, do you go about town expecting people to put their hands on your genitals and caress your breasts?
Now, why is it that you think the normal expectations of a normal human being, to go about their life unmolested, with their dignity intact, have to be thrown by the wayside when they need to fly?
How would you feel if your dentist groped your breasts and genitals or asked to see and examine your colostomy bag? How would you feel if the guard at the entrance to the hospital, where you're going for a check up with your surgeon or endocrinologist, groped your genitals and massaged your colostomy bag?
Why do you think it's acceptable for you or any other non medical person to do this to anyone? Or for any person, including a doctor, to invade and touch another person in the manner, except in the context of medical treatment, with their full consent?
Sep 15, 2012, 5:57 pm
#37
Join Date: Jun 2004
Posts: 456
You ask the best way to comfort someone? Don't talk to them beyond what is needed. We're not there to chat or to like you...you are invading our very personal space. Just get it over with and let me leave and don't make me pretend to like being around you - like ripping off a band-aid. Again, nothing personal, but it's not my job as a passenger to make you feel better about what your job requires.
Sep 15, 2012, 6:10 pm
#38
Join Date: Jun 2004
Posts: 456
You know, not to sound too "big brother"ish, if our intel came strictly from our own department, I'd wonder sometimes. The reason I do pay attention is because the vast majority of our intel comes from police departments from all over the country and from other countries too. We get info from everything from ICE, CBP, and FBI down to local yokel "we caught this dude in a traffic stop what do ya know?" stuff. When you add that to the stuff anyone can find on the internet. We actually see pictures of the dude with the fake beer belly, the dude with the exotic birds taped to his legs, the drugs under the wig, etc. Go ahead, google it; no ssi here. True, our mandate doesn't involve drug runners or smugglers, but the philosophy is, if you can hide something there you can hide explosives there and no one here can say our mandate doesn't involve searching for explosives.
Sep 15, 2012, 6:11 pm
#39
Join Date: Feb 2008
Location: Nashville, TN
Programs: WN Nothing and spending the half million points from too many flights, Hilton Diamond
Posts: 8,043
I really really like how you worded that. Particularly with the part, "assume that they were legitimate medical devices and that the screening would look for evidence that it is not." That would be a great way to avoid the sadness that my screening caused this woman. But how? Speaking just in the realm of a colostomy bag, how would we be able to screen in this fashion? What evidence would be needed? Hypothetically of course, no one needs to come up with specifics unless they want. I guess that's my biggest issue, and that's something that's out of my hands, which is that our actual screening methods need revisited and revamped. (But for those in management who are reading this - I will continue to screen per the SOP while I wait for reform.)
- Eliminate the use of the scanners as primary screening.
- WTMD and random ETD. Bag procedures unchanged.
- Allow passenger to self-clear. Remove items from pockets and walk back through.
- Scan option only on verified alarm. (Verified as in double checked against a known control sample and bring back the HHMD.)
- Offer option of scan or pat down to resolve alarm.
Passenger enters the area assumed to be fine. Only after the alarm is generated does an invasive search (virtual or hands-on) occur. A body search should only be done in the instance of found evidence, not to find evidence.
Sep 15, 2012, 6:23 pm
#40
Join Date: Sep 2003
Location: CLT
Programs: Choice Hotels/FFOCUS
Posts: 7,256
myrgril After reading your posts you do seem very sincere. You also seem like some one who belongs in a much better position than working as a tso. Honestly & no disrespect meant I couldn't do your job for any amount of money. No way I could go home knowing that I make a living "feeling people up".
When I fly I treat the tso the way I'm treated, that's how I roll. I also do not want to talk or have any thing to do with them that I don't have to. Just get it over with then I can go have a Starbucks
I'm loaded with stress until I'm through the cp.
When I fly I treat the tso the way I'm treated, that's how I roll. I also do not want to talk or have any thing to do with them that I don't have to. Just get it over with then I can go have a Starbucks
I'm loaded with stress until I'm through the cp.
Sep 15, 2012, 6:37 pm
#41
Join Date: Aug 2012
Posts: 3,526
Tsa does not make us feel "safe"; it makes us feel violated.
Your description of the "Intel" proves that you are being conditioned to see each passenger as a threat unless proven otherwise. How can you in good conscience work for such an employer?
Your description of the "Intel" proves that you are being conditioned to see each passenger as a threat unless proven otherwise. How can you in good conscience work for such an employer?
Sep 15, 2012, 6:37 pm
#42
Join Date: Jun 2004
Posts: 456
It is really quite simple.
Passenger enters the area assumed to be fine. Only after the alarm is generated does an invasive search (virtual or hands-on) occur. A body search should only be done in the instance of found evidence, not to find evidence.
- Eliminate the use of the scanners as primary screening.
- WTMD and random ETD. Bag procedures unchanged.
- Allow passenger to self-clear. Remove items from pockets and walk back through.
- Scan option only on verified alarm. (Verified as in double checked against a known control sample and bring back the HHMD.)
- Offer option of scan or pat down to resolve alarm.
Passenger enters the area assumed to be fine. Only after the alarm is generated does an invasive search (virtual or hands-on) occur. A body search should only be done in the instance of found evidence, not to find evidence.
I think we should do this:
*WTMD primary with the option to opt into the AIT.
* TSO discretion to offer advice as to when AIT may be better for the passenger. Some examples would be when the passenger volunteers they have a hip or knee replacement or a pacemaker/defibrillator, or the passenger has an unremovable item that more than likely will alarm the WWTD but not the AIT such as bangle bracelets or an elaborate hairdo with lots of bobby pins, or if the person is wearing a baggy or bulky outfit that would require a bulk item patdown ofter the WTMD but not after the AIT.
*In my world, the passenger could still say, "Nope, I'll take my chances with the WTMD." with no retaliation.
But then again, in my world all liquids would be allowed provided they were removed prior to xray screening and opened and test stripped (with certain exceptions of course like premixed baby formula). If not removed, it doesn't go. (The only reason for that would be to keep the line from growing ridiculously long - I hate when passengers inconvenience other passengers.
This is all fine and dandy, but it still doesn't help with the current problem. Currently, we have to work with what is mandated to us, so I need to find a way to make such screenings an easy as possible while following the current rules.
Sep 15, 2012, 6:38 pm
#43
Join Date: Jul 2010
Location: California. USA
Posts: 1,404
To myrgirl.
I think like a lot of other psoters that you really are a good girl. So can you answer me this.
If I was selected to get a invasive pat down, why cant I just strip instead of having a pat down?
I have been told numerous times if I do I can/will be arrested for indicent exposure.
What I cant get into my head why is that indicent exposure and "feeling" me up is not?
I think like a lot of other psoters that you really are a good girl. So can you answer me this.
If I was selected to get a invasive pat down, why cant I just strip instead of having a pat down?
I have been told numerous times if I do I can/will be arrested for indicent exposure.
What I cant get into my head why is that indicent exposure and "feeling" me up is not?
Sep 15, 2012, 7:05 pm
#45
Join Date: Feb 2008
Location: Nashville, TN
Programs: WN Nothing and spending the half million points from too many flights, Hilton Diamond
Posts: 8,043
That is really quite a good question. I have caught myself with a greatly different attitude toward law enforcement in general and security procedures specifically just because of the near constant exposure to the few bad apples in airport security. I have to remind myself that it is the DHS and the TSA that are the problem, not security and law enforcement in general. The only reason I have to fight this is that I have much more contact with the security people at the airport than I do in any other aspect of my life.