Boggie Dog

If a TSA screener refuses to follow established SOP then they should be fired on the spot. No appeal.

saizai

I disagree.

Some established SOP is unconstitutional. Screeners who refuse to follow such SOP should be awarded.

And screeners have due process rights too. TSA should have to prove that they did wrong, if it's disputed.

petaluma1

Kristin Beck today:

https://twitter.com/TheLadyValor/sta...73980713123841

Boggie Dog

An example please. I find it hard to believe that with TSA's army of lawyers that something unconstitutional would make it into SOP's.

saizai

Surely you jest.

Refusing to screen medical liquids; refusing to allow medical liquids more than some arbitrary amount in the opinion of someone unqualified to practice medicine; preventing someone from speaking because of the content of their speech; having someone arrested for protest that doesn't interfere with screening; interfering with recording checkpoints; …

And that's just a small part of stuff that happened to me.

petaluma1

But is that written into the SOP or is it rogue screeners imposing limits, etc.?

chollie

How can you have rogue screeners when 'screener discretion' is always the final word?

Thanks to 'consistent inconsistency', a screener doesn't even have to exercise his discretion consistently - with his own prior behavior or with the practices of his fellow workers.

petaluma1

That's different than deliberately drafting procedures that are unconstitutional, as BD suggested.

Boggie Dog

Was that due to SOP or to improper screener action? Seriously, I would think that the SOP's are fully staffed through the TSA legal department.

gsoltso

I have had direct feedback from the Contact Center, as well as from comment cards locally - Luckily, all of my feedback has been positive. I have seen changes in national policy after events that I have seen in the news, and I have seen changes in focus on a local level after events I have seen in the news. I can not tell you whether those changes were something from HQ or not. Please keep in mind, I work at a smaller airport (most of my time anyway), and the vast majority of complaint situations are handled directly on the floor. I have seen some complaints escalated past the STSO, and some feedback given afterward to all involved and the others here - but again, I can not tell you if that was from our local leadership or HQ.

Boggie Dog

The problem is that a TSA complaint resolution process is not clear to the public. Checkpoint comment cards are believed to be trashed so the complaint does not reach management. Then we see things like the Nitro Pills that we have discussed for over a year where "Can I Take" does not provide a clear, concise written response. Added up it certainly appears to the public, at least those who care to investigate a bit, that TSA has little desire to correct screening issues. TSA's typical path is to deny, deflect, and to shift fault or blame to someone or something else.

How about taking on one task and get TSA to change the verbage from "TSA allows larger amounts of medically necessary liquids, gels, and aerosols in reasonable quantities for your trip, but you must declare them to security officers at the checkpoint for inspection" to something along the lines of "Nitroglycerin Pills, Patches, Gels, are allowed in both checked and carry-on luggage........."when checking if Nitro pills are allowed or not. As of today it is not clear since the question is not answered.

Why is it so hard to get something this simple changed at TSA?

I know that TSA, its Blog Team, and others at TSA have been aware of this issue for going on two years but nothing has changed other than claiming that Nitro pills are allowed which is not stated on TSA's public tool. If you can't change it by working inside of TSA how would you expect a member of the public to get that change made? Short answer we can't, which proves the point of this whole thread. TSA screeners do what they like with no repercussions and the workplace culture created by TSA management supports these acts.

edit to add:
The point I'm trying to make is that the public has little chance to ever make change at TSA unless the incident gets national attention. TSA is very much like a truck mired in mud. It doesn't have enough power (desire) to extricate itself and appears happy just sitting there spinning its wheels. It doesn't really matter what facet of screening we look at, the same problem is present in every case.

saizai

Combination of both. And SOPs that imply or encourage unlawful behavior, like the previous memo on liquids saying e.g. prescriptions are "recommended but not required", etc.

(FWIW, I've heard there's a new one out about medical liquids, saying FSDs have discretion on how much is a "reasonable amount" of medical liquid. I consider that unambiguously unconstitutional — there's no amount at which water or juice suddenly turns into WEI. If it's screenable, that should be the end of the matter.)

I don't know what it means for an SOP to be "staffed". An SOP is a document, not a group of people.

^ for substantive answer as to how things are on the ground.

I guess anything @AskTSA would go through the Contact Center.

No offense to you, but it's suspicious that all your feedback is positive. Basically nobody gets 100% positive reviews. To me it implies that at least some negative feedback is getting filtered out / ignored.

Loren Pechtel

And how are they supposed to know what's reasonable?

chollie

I'm sure they are given adequate training in estimating the exact length of time of a pax's journey, including allowing for potential delays of any sort. I'm sure they're also trained to know which medical supplies can be easily replaced if a pax is delayed during IRROPS and runs out of a needed med.

If they make a mistake, oh well. Win a few, lose a few. Don't like it, don't fly or fly private.

petaluma1

Now, Sai, you knew what his response would be with reference to himself.