And any highscool student with 3/4 of a brain can figure out that an explosion that can open a locker door is unlikely to cause serious damage, let alone catastrophic damage, to a commercial aircraft. There are numeros non-liquid-explosive ways for a deranged pax (terrorist or otherwise) to take out one or two pax, burn someone's face off (maybe their own), and even cause minor damage to the aircraft (seats, bulkheads, maybe even crack/shatter a window). Think matches, newspaper, a laptop used as a club, flailing arms, etc.) None of those are credible threats to the aircraft or the aviation system. TSA is not here to protect us for deranged passengers with flailing fists or equivalent threats; otherwise TSA would need to be in shopping malls.

What I have not seen is any chemical experts come forward and say that airport/airplane mixed liquid explosives (or premixed liquid explosivies carried by bad guys) are powerful enough, stable enough, and easy enough to produce in the airport/airplane environment (if applicable) to provide reliably the degree of damage needed to with high probability take out an aircraft (or at least kill more than a few pax). Terrorists don't like unkowns any more than anyone else planning an operation, and a liquid concoction that takes hours to mix in a fancy ice bath and is as likely to burn your face as destroy an aircraft doesn't sound like much of a plan when it would be much easier to ship a container full of stable solid reliable explosives in the cargo hold.

And I don't for a moment believe that the government wouldn't release a video of placing a container of liquid explosive in a fake airplane shell and then blowing it to smitherines if it could. The demo would give the government credibility and DHS/TSA self-preservation. I suspect the problems are some combination of the lack of volunteers to carry the highly unstable liquid explosive onto the simulated aircraft (using a robot wouldn't make the threat look credible) and the generally pitiful size of the bang produced unless the container is rather large.

Please provide one actual example of a terrorist who looks like my living grandparents (89+ years old, white). Stop telling us we look like a terrorist and treating us all like suspects just because we want to travel; most of us don't and aren't.

Ugh. This is the real reason I'm replying; I hate this one. I don't have the right to fly like I have the right to free speech. I have the privilege of flying, which is granted by the airline not the government, and is granted in exchange for me presenting a big pile of cash or credit. The right of free movement is pretty well established in the Constitution (interstate travel, freedom of assembly) and other human rights charters. I have yet to see one legitimate claim that secret government blacklists with no effective means of redress, such as the no-fly list, which deny the right of travel to innocent people who have not been charged with or even suspected of any crime, are legal.

Huh? Do you really believe that? My property does not belong to the US Government regardless if I am standing with it in my yard, your checkpoint, or a commercial aircraft. Even TSA recognizes that it can't say "confiscate" with regard to (non illegal) prohibited items and that pax have the option to leave the checkpoint with their item instead of continuing on. If you tell a passenger at the checkpoint that their property belongs to the government, expect them to call over a supervisor and a cop; that's what I'd do.

I have no support for the vast majority of screener mistreatment, and you're right, it does happen. Most are trying to do their job well, and are just people. But I also have no sympathy for the TSA power trippers--and you know they are out there--who confiscate permitted items, perform retaliatory secondaries because a passenger stood up for the SOP or asked a question, and generally take pleasure in making up their own rules. And I personally feel those power trippers deserve whatever treatement they get.

Welcome to FT; I hope you stick around as we need all the points of view we can get. Consider passing on some of the comments you see here about TSA at BOS to your coworkers; BOS has had some of the worst offenses of bad screener behavior and confiscation of permitted items, especially in Terminal B.

Spiff, you hit it on the head. Wile I extend the welcome to FT to this new poster, he seems to forget that he is in a servic eindustry? If oyu don't like it don't fly? IF YOU DONT LIKE IT QUIT THE TSA!

He works for US, not the other way around. He is OUR EMPLOYEE. I would love to see the whole story behind anyone w3ho left a 6 figure a year job to work for the TSA.

This is a plant to curry sympathy for the TSA. The fact is, if Americans get sick of them they WILL go the way of the dodo bird. And I was pretty sure that interstate travel WAS a right and not a privilege.

And to the OP, perhaps if your agency followed its own published rules, followed its SOP and didn't have gum-cracking reprobates saying things like "I nah dem, dey nah me" you'd find a lot more sympathy amongst the rest of us.

THinking Americans can spot BS a mile off. So when you have an agency that insists that we remove our shoes for explosives screening and then put them into an X-ray machine that YOUR OWN AGENCY ADMITS cannot detect explosives, it's going to irritate thinking Americans.

Want to see the videotape I shot of FOUR TSA employees, on duty, in uniform, standing around complaining about their schedules on the sterile side of the screening checkpoint I shot this past year at at airport? If you're looking for sympathy, you've come to the wrong place. Your procedures are absurd, the lion's share of your employees couldn't pass a police civil service test and if you really do have a criminal justice degree, you more than most know that what your agency does is WINDOW DRESSING and is only preventing the most simplistic and amateurish of terror attacks. What percentage of test bombs got through screening at EWR?

--PP

Dear TSABOS: I'm a retired educator, college through preschool level. Didn't get my accolades (considerable!) from being dumb. Now, listen:

I DO hate TSA "that bad", and BECAUSE of TSA, I have stopped flying. Until the public lines of infuriation come to an end I will not fly. Not too stupid to figure out that to go through the lines is to bolster your job. That I will never do again. My momma would have slapped me if I'd turned out that stupid.

Smaller stations seems to have better results. BOI was a real treat. The screeners spoke thequeen's english, used humor to keep the stress down, explained everything, NO ONE was yelling at people like cattle, followed the published rules (at the time) on shoe removal, it was such a day and night contrast to EWR, ORD T2, STL, SFO, LAX and one day I had at IAH. As hard as this might be to beleive, LAS has actually been quite good recently.

Yes, there ARE some good TSA folks, and some stations that comport themselves to the best standards. However, there are so many other horror stories that they drown out the good.

--PP

#1, this guy obviously doesn't make the stupid rules that everyone hates. And he has to enforce them as part of his job description. Although he does personify the problem of TSA agents "internalizing" the rules, and taking this terrible superior power-tripping attitude about enforcement that everyone hates.

#2, the rules are made by people appointed by President Bush, confirmed by the Senate and tacitly supported by the American public. Take it up with your representatives (as many of you do), meet politicians in person and tell them how important this is, give $ to politicians that promise to make a change, heck even get involved in your party appartus of choice and get this in the platform. Over the last 4 years, I have become a "privacy" voter - these things are all connected and I don't want to live in a police state, and I vote and support accordingly.

#3, I have to say that the TSA folks at small airports are about a million times nicer than the big airport guys. This is not an option for everyone of course but TSA has actually driven my (minimal) business to my local aiport, AZO, where I pay usually a hundred dollars more to have a quick, friendly, and minimally invasive entre into the secure aiport system.

I agree, but you forget: When the TSA violates its SOP, you get some butthole staring you down saying "Do you want to fly today?" in an attempot to intimidate you into following whatever he said WHETHER IT'S SOP OR NOT. The agency is accountable to no one, their inner workings are kept from the people who finance its operations, and their PR machine is awfully good at trotting out some white bread suburban soccer mom who flies once a year on the family trip to Disneyworld saying "Oh, ANYTHING for security" for any idiot with a TV camera.

If the TSA were to become fully accountable to its owners (read: The America People) it would change drastically. That's why they are not accountable to us, their employers.

And by the way, a CJ degree means only that you attended class and passed the tests. It's no more proof of actual security or investigative ability than a math degree guarantees that you can balance your checkbook. Remember, the guy who scored DEAD LAST on the medical exam is still addressed as "doctor". Anyone bragging about his college degree as proof of legitimacy is deperate for the legitimacy that he clearly doesn't have.

--PP

"If you hate us that bad just stop flying". I pretty much already have.
You state you have a CJ degree why waste your time at TSA ?

Most CJ degree holders are cops, prison officers (well...) or POs, aren't they?

So that's where former FEMA director Brown ended up. I always wondered. :D

It would make sense. He'd be the TSA's poster child candidate to replace Comrade Hawley.

I can understand your situation.... :rolleyes: but I think you should seriously
think about a career change... may be you can go back to that 6 figure salary
position in the real world.

How many seek a CJ degree with the goal of becoming one of the security guards in an NWA (not Northwest ;) ) music video? :D

People getting groped and their personal belongings rifled through by complete strangers for no valid reason.

Yeah, go figure.

Why don't you try to do a search on Spiff's posts. Include words like "C4" and "liquids" and other words you might think be relevant.

You'd be pretty surprised at what Spiff knows. But you're here to tell us how you're single-handedly better than we are, so it might not sink in anyway.

And your detection of those components, as remote those chances are (as proven by The Red Team's success), does not qualify as knowing mixtures and the procedure to make those things dangerous.

He is operating under the assumption that the TSA knows most, knows best and knows first. The sheer tonnage of what most TSA screeners DON'T know about security would require two dozen diesel-electric locomotives to move it to the far end of the runway.

When I was working for a PBS station, we wanted to send them a program for use on the PBS network feed. It was rejected because the tape we submitted did not have 84 FRAMES (30 frames to a second of video) of black between the end of the program and the PBS logo. The next week they sent a network promo feed without tone and bars (absolutely critical for getting video and adio levels and color quality correct) on the front of it. I called them up and said "Hey, as soon as your network is frame accurate, my tapes will be too."

What does this have to do with the TSA? Simple: This crowd missed something like 90% of the fake bombs and guns that they sent through the EWR screening positions and they are griping at us over half an ounce of hand lotion? As soon as the TSA is THAT accurate, they have a right to expect us to be as well. As soon a travelers are not yelled at like cattle, they can expect us not to treat THEM like animals.

It goes both ways, kids. The TSA apparently wants all to submit to whatever rules they come up with, even if the screener is making them up, accept our grope and rubdown, remove our shoes and walk on filthy airport floors and accept a screener not knowing the difference between a liter and a quart, what three ounces looks like in metric, and suspending the first amendment at MKE...but they they want us to treat them like we're happy to see them, they are our best friends and never question them? I got news for ya: This country happened after enough people got sick of fat old King George expecting similar deference after being abused by the government. You want to be treated better? YOU FIRST. After all, THEY work for US.

--PP