TSA blog comments disabled/deleted
Jul 1, 2019, 9:03 am
#1
Original Poster
Join Date: Aug 2012
Posts: 3,526
TSA blog comments disabled/deleted
https://www.tsa.gov/blog
No way to comment any longer and no past comments being shown. Must mean the Blog is in its death throes.
No way to comment any longer and no past comments being shown. Must mean the Blog is in its death throes.
Jul 8, 2019, 7:17 pm
#5
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Join Date: Mar 2002
Location: An NPR mind living in a Fox News world
Posts: 14,165
Jul 8, 2019, 7:40 pm
#6
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Join Date: Mar 2008
Location: DFW
Posts: 28,110
As one of the 5-6 I see little reason to continue spending time with the TSA blog. I don't care how many guns are found each week, or how many other assorted items are discovered, but I do care how well TSA performs which is verboten for mere travelers to know. TSA has decided that input from the people who help fund the agency is undesirable. Well I have news for TSA, I find TSA particularly undesirable!
Jul 10, 2019, 7:39 am
#8
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Location: An NPR mind living in a Fox News world
Posts: 14,165
Not a lawyer but if this extends to govt agencies it could explain removing comments:
https://twitter.com/knightcolumbia/status/1148596838636957699
https://twitter.com/knightcolumbia/status/1148596838636957699
A while back, several of us under various noms de plume were blocked on PV as well as several official TSA social media sites. Especially after the Davison ruling, we filed IG complaints stating that the particular TSA employee (most notably Lisa Farbstein) was in violation of the law. Fortunately for us, the Davison ruling was in federal court in the same district as TSA HQ. It took a couple of weeks, but, one day we noticed that we were quietly unblocked.
Jul 10, 2019, 8:02 am
#9
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Join Date: Mar 2002
Location: An NPR mind living in a Fox News world
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Nostalgia Trip...
As one of the 5-6 I see little reason to continue spending time with the TSA blog. I don't care how many guns are found each week, or how many other assorted items are discovered, but I do care how well TSA performs which is verboten for mere travelers to know. TSA has decided that input from the people who help fund the agency is undesirable. Well I have news for TSA, I find TSA particularly undesirable!
- We repeatedly called out the Cancer Boxes for what they really were: industrial ionizing radiation devices. We kept quoting the Hopkins analysis and other peer-reviewed documents. We found documents stating that the Cancer Box radiation was especially hazardous to the eyes and to skin.
- We helped promote National Opt-Out Day and called out Blogdad Bob's lies about the protest being fizzled by stating newspaper articles that noted that the TSA simply turned off the Pornoscopes for the day.
- When Kippie declared that "ID matters.", we got on PV and encouraged people to get a Library of Congress library card because it fit the definition of Kippie's IDs. The library cards had very little personal information on it. Our strategy worked because the TSA changed the rules a few weeks later declaring the Library of Congress cards were no longer acceptable.
- We called out Blogdad Bob when he and others denied that the Pornoscopes could not store or transmit images. We posted their own procurement and operational specifications stating they they could store and transmit images.
- We got in their faces every time a clerk got arrested for something.
- As noted above, we threw legal decisions at them stating they were in violation of the 1st amendment by blocking us from their official social media sites. They unblocked us.
- We called them out several times for violations of the Privacy Act when they revealed names of passengers who had items confiscated. If you look closely at PV, you'll see that any PII is redacted.
- We laughed at their "voluntarily surrendered" double-speak and kept using "confiscated". These days, the TSA sites simply use the term "confiscate".
- We called out PreCheck for what it is: ExtortionCheck.
- We pleaded with people to NEVER go into a private room.
- We mocked their sterile terms such as "meets resistance", "groin area", etc. We dared to use actual body part terminology.
- We reminded people to make sure that you always told clerks to change gloves and to test them first.
Jul 10, 2019, 8:25 am
#10
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Join Date: Mar 2008
Location: DFW
Posts: 28,110
How are you seeing blog content? Anything older than August 2010 is gone as are all comments from current to first post.
I think it's a real shame that TSA made the decision to change the format. I have to think that all of that history has been saved somewhere since they are government records with retention requirements.
I think it's a real shame that TSA made the decision to change the format. I have to think that all of that history has been saved somewhere since they are government records with retention requirements.
Last edited by Boggie Dog; Jul 10, 2019 at 11:35 am
Jul 10, 2019, 10:48 am
#11
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Join Date: Aug 2012
Posts: 3,526
I did some reminiscing while running this morning. I was thinking about how our persistence criticizing the TSA paid off. We should feel good about this. Here's what popped into my head:
- We repeatedly called out the Cancer Boxes for what they really were: industrial ionizing radiation devices. We kept quoting the Hopkins analysis and other peer-reviewed documents. We found documents stating that the Cancer Box radiation was especially hazardous to the eyes and to skin.
- We helped promote National Opt-Out Day and called out Blogdad Bob's lies about the protest being fizzled by stating newspaper articles that noted that the TSA simply turned off the Pornoscopes for the day.
- When Kippie declared that "ID matters.", we got on PV and encouraged people to get a Library of Congress library card because it fit the definition of Kippie's IDs. The library cards had very little personal information on it. Our strategy worked because the TSA changed the rules a few weeks later declaring the Library of Congress cards were no longer acceptable.
- We called out Blogdad Bob when he and others denied that the Pornoscopes could not store or transmit images. We posted their own procurement and operational specifications stating they they could store and transmit images.
- We got in their faces every time a clerk got arrested for something.
- As noted above, we threw legal decisions at them stating they were in violation of the 1st amendment by blocking us from their official social media sites. They unblocked us.
- We called them out several times for violations of the Privacy Act when they revealed names of passengers who had items confiscated. If you look closely at PV, you'll see that any PII is redacted.
- We laughed at their "voluntarily surrendered" double-speak and kept using "confiscated". These days, the TSA sites simply use the term "confiscate".
- We called out PreCheck for what it is: ExtortionCheck.
- We pleaded with people to NEVER go into a private room.
- We mocked their sterile terms such as "meets resistance", "groin area", etc. We dared to use actual body part terminology.
- We reminded people to make sure that you always told clerks to change gloves and to test them first.
Jul 12, 2019, 3:36 am
#12
Join Date: Nov 2010
Location: Baltimore, MD USA
Programs: Southwest Rapid Rewards. Tha... that's about it.
Posts: 4,332
I did some reminiscing while running this morning. I was thinking about how our persistence criticizing the TSA paid off. We should feel good about this. Here's what popped into my head:
- We repeatedly called out the Cancer Boxes for what they really were: industrial ionizing radiation devices. We kept quoting the Hopkins analysis and other peer-reviewed documents. We found documents stating that the Cancer Box radiation was especially hazardous to the eyes and to skin.
- We helped promote National Opt-Out Day and called out Blogdad Bob's lies about the protest being fizzled by stating newspaper articles that noted that the TSA simply turned off the Pornoscopes for the day.
- When Kippie declared that "ID matters.", we got on PV and encouraged people to get a Library of Congress library card because it fit the definition of Kippie's IDs. The library cards had very little personal information on it. Our strategy worked because the TSA changed the rules a few weeks later declaring the Library of Congress cards were no longer acceptable.
- We called out Blogdad Bob when he and others denied that the Pornoscopes could not store or transmit images. We posted their own procurement and operational specifications stating they they could store and transmit images.
- We got in their faces every time a clerk got arrested for something.
- As noted above, we threw legal decisions at them stating they were in violation of the 1st amendment by blocking us from their official social media sites. They unblocked us.
- We called them out several times for violations of the Privacy Act when they revealed names of passengers who had items confiscated. If you look closely at PV, you'll see that any PII is redacted.
- We laughed at their "voluntarily surrendered" double-speak and kept using "confiscated". These days, the TSA sites simply use the term "confiscate".
- We called out PreCheck for what it is: ExtortionCheck.
- We pleaded with people to NEVER go into a private room.
- We mocked their sterile terms such as "meets resistance", "groin area", etc. We dared to use actual body part terminology.
- We reminded people to make sure that you always told clerks to change gloves and to test them first.
We complained about the Chat-Down, and TSA responded by eliminating the Chat-Down.
After years of travelers complaining that TSOs stacking plastic tubs is inefficient and wasteful, while other countries have automated tub return systems, TSA is finally investing in automated tub handling systems. They're expensive and imperfect, but they're coming.
After complaints about the cost of having TSOs man exits from the sterile area, a few airports have installed automated one-way exit gates.
We've kept harping on Red Team tests coming back with abysmal rates of failure (up to 90%, IIRC) at finding genuinely dangerous items such as explosives, as well as keeping in the news the various examples of screeners violating rules and policy, and misuse of Screener Discretion, to harass or punish travelers, and TSA responded by creating their vaunted academy at FLETC. It was a solution that had the potential to create real, genuine, measurable improvement in TSA-public interaction... yet it doesn't seem to have done so. But hey, we made a difference!
Jul 13, 2019, 4:55 am
#14
Join Date: Nov 2010
Location: Baltimore, MD USA
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Not lately, but in another thread we've heard that VIPR teams now seem to be concentrating their efforts on interdicting delivery trucks with Kosher or Halal meals at airport gates, and opening the sealed food trays for inspection (desecrating the meals in the process and also risking contamination by opening them in unsanitary conditions).
Jul 13, 2019, 11:28 am
#15
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Interestingly, I haven't noticed anything in the news about exceptionally long lines or delays. TSA claimed they weren't sending checkpoint folks to the border, but what TSA says and what TSA does are not always the same.