gingersnaps

A blogger describes her experience where a TSO effectively required her to prove her disability.

part of her conversation

blogger: Huh? This is the handicap line — I’m disabled.”

TSO: scoffed, and responded with “No, you’re not.”

Later blogger talks to a TSA Managet who tells her that ad long as she present her (papers) card identifing her disability it should not have been an isse.

Since when have people been required to display their disability?

chollie

TSA has had a downloadable for pax to fill out and carry for quite a while. It allows the pax to document his/her medical issues in detail.

Both from firsthand experience and reports, it works as well as you might expect. Most TSOs have never seen the form and it means nothing anyway, because 'anyone could print something like this up and say anything'. Other TSOs will simply refuse to even read it.

Bottom line, TSOs have the right to challenge any pax declaration of medical limitations and you comply or you don't fly. If you are physically incapable of complying, you are in for a rough time. I've had my inability to stand still and hold my arms high over my head challenged. I've had to 'demonstrate' how high I can lift my uncooperative arm, and on one occasion, the TSO tried to push on my elbow to make my arm go higher. I almost screamed, it hurt so bad.

Good thing I didn't, because if I had, I would have missed my flight for sure.

Sad thing is, this was allegedly caused by one of CLT's 'best' TSOs. Makes me shudder to think how their 'regular' TSOs are allowed to treat handicapped people.

jkhuggins

Do you have to prove your disability to a TSO when asked? No.

Does a TSO have to allow you to proceed through the checkpoint? No.

Irresistible force, meet immovable object.

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Seriously, though ... common passengers aren't allowed to know what the rules are at a TSA checkpoint. The rules are whatever the screener in front of you says they are. I suspect that, the vast majority of the time, this sort of event doesn't happen. But it happens often enough to become commonly reported in forums such as these.

TWA884

Unfortunately, some people have been abusing the rules so those who are truly disabled suffer as a result.

saizai

Actually… yes they do. And they have to provide reasonable accommodations.

This is an issue I'm actively litigating: https://s.ai/tsa/legal/bos & https://s.ai/tsa/legal/sfo


However: will a TSO blatantly violate the law and make things up, including interrogation or denigration of disabilities and refusal to accommodate? Absolutely yes, IME.

How to cope with <redacted by moderator> who violate the own laws they purportedly work under is … a difficult question. "Cooperate", giving up your right to privacy etc, and maybe they'll deign to treat you decently. Or maybe not. Assert your rights in full, and maybe they'll realize they are up against litigation liability, and back down. Or maybe not.

Until they are subject to injunctions and multi-hundred-thousand damage awards in court — and a lot of negative press, preferably on national TV — I don't believe that will change significantly.

IME — and based on evidence obtained via FOIA — me being on TV did lead directly to SFO staff getting re-trained on medical liquids. But TSA doubled down on its rule when it came to responding to me like the court ordered, as opposed to admitting I was right when the press asked.

saizai

<redacted by moderator> I use a wheelchair in airports, for legitimate reasons. Nevertheless, I have good upper body strength, and can pick up heavy bags if my legs aren't worn out. I can exert brief bursts of strength.

<redacted by moderator>

I'd rather people be given benefit of doubt, rather than having to "prove" themselves to the satisfaction of everyone all the time. Even if it means people that <appear not to be> "worth" accommodating get accommodations, too.

jkhuggins

With great respect, saizai --- and I do mean that --- the fact that you are being forced to litigate against TSOs making things up and refusing to accommodate passengers means that there's little distinction between your assertion and mine. To the ordinary passenger, the net effect is the same: there's no guarantee that a passenger's disabilities will be reasonably accommodated at a checkpoint. A "right" that can't be relied upon isn't a "right".

And so, I (like many of us) hope that you (and many like you) will succeed in your efforts to force TSA to change its ways.

saizai

At a ground level, I fully agree. It is seriously messed up that someone should have to litigate to get their rights respected. Yet that's how it is.

The only difference is that, at least in theory, an unreliable right can be enforced in court, with damages and injunction against those who violated the right.

I, too, hope that my litigation will help to change things systemically. I would consider it a failure to only get remedy for my own situation. I want to make it so nobody has the same thing happen again.

(Or, when that too inevitably fails — it's worth pointing out that much of what I'm litigating is prohibited by TSA's own supposed policies, so another memo definitely ain't going to fix it — make it so it's much easier and quicker to get appropriate compensation for the injured party and appropriate sanctions against the violator. Including the TSA itself.)

JoeBas

Maybe if the system didn't suck so much, people wouldn't be as prone to game it.

Just saying.

Loren Pechtel

Yeah--but you can't always prove a disability. A while back my wife was injured on a trip. What proof should we supply? All we had was the doctor's evaluation (whether she even had a written copy I don't know--and if she did it wasn't in English) that flying home as scheduled wasn't going to exacerbate the injury.

It also occurs to me--there are those who only need a chair to board. They can walk but their endurance is limited, on arrival there are no security lines to slow things down.

Night Owl

I don't always need a wheelchair, and try to walk whenever possible. I tried to walk through the handicap lane in ATL last year, and the well trained TSO said it was only for pax in wheelchairs. I showed my parking placard as proof. Her answer I wasn't driving, and how did she know it was actually mine. Um, because it matches the name on my DL and boarding pass?

onlyairfare

I've never been asked to prove or document my disability as way to avoid the Nude-O-Scope. I state "I cannot assume the position" for the MMW, and perhaps mention "rotator cuff injury." Since I recently got Global Entry and go through the PreCheck line, I've not had any issues anyway.

In the past, there have been a couple occasions where the TS"O" argued with me about whether or not the backscatter involved radiation, when I declined to be irradiated and requested a pat down. I ask if they are licensed to practice medicine (they never are), mention that I am so licensed, and offer my (not very sincere) sympathies that they have to stand next to the radiation machine all day long.

I do have a disability with the requisite placard, but my disability usually does not affect my ability to raise my arms.

saizai

None. TSA has no right to your medical records. All you have to tell them is the nature of the accommodation you want.

That includes me. I can walk but have very poor lower body endurance. So I walk with a stick (or two), and use wheelchairs where possible.

Justifying any of that is not, IMO, appropriate for anything short of my doctors or possibly stuff like an SSDI claim. If I say I can't walk far enough, that's that.

Disabilities can be temporary. What if you sprained your ankle the previous day, it'll heal on its own, you've not gone to the doctor, but you still need to reduce your time on your feet? I think that 100% justifies use of an airport wheelchair and cutting long lines (or at least being allowed to sit while waiting — remember that long lines isn't just a question of how fast you get there, but having to stand the whole time; even the DMV generally manages to do better than that).

Was it actually a TSO, not someone from the airport? TSA has claimed: "Priority lanes are managed by the airlines. We don’t regulate or endorse this practice."

They also usually claim that their area only starts at the TDC. Then again, they also have stuff saying that eg BDOs are supposed to "walk the line", starting with the beginning of the line, which is a strange thing to do in an area you supposedly have nothing to do with.

And if anyone from TSA is checking the front of the line, let alone determining whether or not someone can use a priority lane (including disabled priority), then that becomes an outright lie.

I'd love to have proof of this, BTW. Pictures or videos of TSA — not airport — personnel managing the beginning of lines (pre TDC) would be very valuable to me.


…

a) You shouldn't have to, though as above
b) ...

Loren Pechtel

She wouldn't have had a problem with giving them the relevant medical records (it was just a simple injury), my issue is that with the temporary nature of the problem there was almost no evidence and what little there was was not in English.

TSA didn't make an issue about it.

What did surprise me is China did a far better job of handling the situation than the US did and they had a family restroom while in the US I had to wheel her into the men's room.

FliesWay2Much

OK -- I know this is civil disobedience and I apologize to everyone out there who has a real disability.

When I went through the NOS at Dulles a year or so ago, I had put a crumpled paper towel near my "private area." Sure enough, an "anomaly" showed up on the Gumby screen. The clerk asked about the "anomaly" before he started his "pat-down" and I told him I had a medical condition. When that didn't satisfy him, I said (loud enough for other male & female clerks and fellow passengers to hear): "I have genital warts caused by years of unprotected sex. They are really oozing right now." Needless to say, I was released from the checkpoint without further screening.