Boggie Dog

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Filing with DHS OIG gets your concern on record. Complaining to TSA is like complaining to the guy that just mugged you.

petaluma1

Yes, except that now, if you file online, a complaint to the TSA gets you a file number so that they can no longer claim they never got your complaint. However, over all, your chances of getting some action are better if you file with DHS and, as you say, your complaint is on record. I have a suspicion that DHS doesn't have a clue as to how many complaints TSA receives.

NotaCriminal

I have already filed one with DHS OIG. I've written my congressional representatives, etc.

Administrative law is my day job. As such, I tend to follow administrative procedure to preserve future options. Hence, a complaint to TSA in addition to the others, despite the likely futility.

Boggie Dog

I wish you all the success in the world but to date getting any kind of satisfaction through TSA is very unlikely. I don't know why but it seems that TSA believes they are exempt from oversight.

mauve

Unfortunately, I expect that's a good way to get thrown out of the sterile area or end up facing criminal charges.

But I would love to watch someone else do it.

Loren Pechtel

I didn't say it was a good reason.

I do think a "breast" made of C4 would not feel anything like the real thing if lifted. (Remember, the scanner can't tell the difference if the edge is carefully feathered.)

Boggie Dog

Explosive Trace Portals seem to be the logical solution.

GUWonder

I wouldn't be so sure of that. There are some pretty creative concealment methods using prosthetics/prostheses that would be systematically missed by these TSA fondling acts. And there are some "real" breasts, augmented or otherwise, that don't "lift". And C4 isn't the only thing out there for explosives to be "shaped".

Breast fondling isn't required to effectively interdict contraband explosives on a person.

chollie

Are we talking about 'lifting' or full-on squeezing and manipulating?

Of course, given that we're talking about TSA, the definition of 'lifting' is subject to each screener's 'discretion', so it may very well include squeezing, smashing, gripping, twisting and pinching.

How does 'lifting' a breast reveal whether it is naturally heavy, heavy because of silicone, heavy because of saline implants, heavy because of post-mastectomy expanders, or heavy because of implanted nefarious substances (like drugs or the fabled liquid explosives)?

Are guys with well-developed pecs going to be similarly assaulted, or will TSA limit its male focus to ramping up the duration and nature of its genital probing?

I was introduced to someone recently who worked for TSA for over a decade. I'm sad to admit that I had zero desire to get to know this person better. All I could do was look at them and wonder how an apparently decent human being could make a living sticking their hands and faces in people's crotches and butt cracks and grabbing breasts, doubling down on harassing people whose only crime is being physically or mentally challenged and wanting to fly. I was so repulsed I shifted around awkwardly to avoid sitting near this individual at dinner.

I have no desire to know more about this person and I made my feelings known. Normal decent people don't do things abusive screeners do. It's possible this person never actually personally groin-chopped anyone or jabbed stiffened fingers into the sensitive privates of a wheel-chair bound partially-paralyzed stroke victim to teach him/her not to show up at a checkpoint if you're physically incapable of 'moving' when a screener orders you to move.

It is not, however, possible that this person worked at TSA for over a decade and never heard about or personally witnessed this behavior. Continuing to work in an environment where your co-workers do this while you stand by and say nothing means you're just as guilty and disgusting as they are.

Boggie Dog

Do you know why they left?

Just speculation but I don't think just lifting breast will disclose if something has been added.

The things TSA is doing are because they have no idea of how to screen people without resorting to extreme measures that simply would not be acceptable.

TSA is trying to prevent another 9/11 where airplanes were used as guided missiles, that threat vector was closed by adding locked and hardened flight deck doors. The biggest threat facing air travelers today are from insiders, the one threat vector that TSA refuses to address. Knives, guns, and such present an individual threat but WTMD, MMW, and X-ray units mitigate that threat. The rest of it is just power building by power hungry government workers.

chollie

If they're really 'just' lifting breasts to see if something is 'artfully concealed' between the torso and a low-hanging breast, then people with sagging fat rolls should also be seeing a new focus on 'lifting' their rolls and folks with ostomy bags will likely be required to lift their bags during the scrutiny - which will require backroom clothing 'rearrangement'.

Also mentioned in TSA's recent announcements was an acknowledgement of something they've been doing all along but have denied: TSO's can exercise their 'discretion' to require pax to 'rearrange' their clothing.

eta: I've met and chatted briefly with TSOs prior to the body scanners and the gropes. I have nothing to say to any current employee. The fact that they continue to work in an environment where they routinely mistreat pax themselves or witness co-workers mistreating pax without saying something or finding another job - sorry, that's just not someone I'm interested in getting to know better.

No surprise that I've flown through the airport the former TSO I was introduced to recently worked at, one particularly rife with pax abuse. The TSO left voluntarily, something family-related that required a relocate over two hours away from an airport, IIRC. I'm glad it wasn't the kind of social setting where a handshake was expected.

Loren Pechtel

I'm not talking about explosive implants, but "breasts" that are really a mass of C4. It's not going to lift like flesh.

GUWonder

The purpose of the TSA "lifting" breasts is questionable, or at least more questionable than "lifting" scrotums and penises. Looking forward to a TSA scrotum squeeze? Will the TSA be telling people whether the passenger testicles are dropped properly and actually healthy testicles or not? And what about vaginal or rectal or oral concealment? Time for TSA digital inspections of body cavities?

This TSA "more intimate" "fondling" of passengers is ineffective and unnecessarily dehumanizes passengers, for explosive trace detection requires no such intimate contact in order to have a reasonably effective means of contraband WEI interdiction.

chollie

If it was just about rubbing every body part to get a good sample for ETD testing, then TSA could let me put on the gloves and publicly rub my pubes vigorously, stroke and squeeze and lift the rest of my body parts, stick my hands inside my pants, and then give up the gloves for testing.

HomerJay

My Uncle was executive director of the Sanitary Authority in a major metropolitan area - the agency that handled sewage and water treatment. When I was in college, I qualified for a summer job there. Other college kids worked in the office, or in the gardens on the grounds. He put me on a truck, going to the pumping stations in low-lying areas.

After rainstorms, we might have to get dressed up in rubber and plastic suits and go into those stations, wading in sewage waist deep - armed with aluminum rakes to rake logs, rags, trash, and condoms off the grates so that storm water and sewage could pass through. Though that work took less than five percent of our work week, it was as vile and disgusting as anything one can imagine.

I came home from college over Thanksgiving of my freshman year, and asked my Uncle why I ended up on a truck while the other guys had other jobs. His answer still resonates:

"First, I didn't want anyone saying I gave you special treatment. But most important, I wanted you to respect what some have to do people do to provide for their families and put food on the table. And once you've shoveled **** in the sewers, you'll never look down on anyone doing an honest job."


I learned that lesson, and I still believe it. I don't look down on anyone doing an honest job. And that certainly includes TSA screeners.