Excellent!!!!! ^

...Why in the world is the TSA doing this??? By "this", I mean creating the "Mythbusters" web page (The Discovery Channel CAN sue the government for copyright infringement, BTW), publishing the internal report, and releasing the checkpoint video? Surely Kippie himself had to have approved the web page, otherwise, it would have been taken down by now. One would think that the TSA would do what they do best -- ignore her complaint and let the whole thing blow over.

If they fear the wrath of the female flyer, they have gone way beyond the breast-groping days when they sent out some shameless female spokeholes to calm down the population. If it's a young mother and child thing, worse has happened at checkpoints that the TSA has just let blow over.

Never again will the TSA be able to say "We don't have the checkpoint video." and get away with it.

The TSA wanted this story to stay front & center. But, why???

Do they want to teach us all a lesson? If so, which lesson(s)?

Or, do they want to place the blame for escalating the incident on the DC cops and not on the TSA?

100% of the TSA's reaction, including the fact that they HAD a reaction, is completely out of character. I still haven't figured this one out.

They CAN also sue for patent infringement, intentional infliction of emotional distress, loss of consortium, hurt feelings and a whole bunch of other things. That doesn't mean they have any legal basis to do so.

Copyrights are not at all involved here -- this is about trademarks and related doctrines, such as dilution. As I mentioned above, the one circuit court decision I could find on the subject held that the trademark laws do not apply to claims against the federal government.

Just to be clear, my comments were in no way an endorsement of the liquid ban - which has nothing to do with safety or security at this point in time. Stopping people with beverages is not being diligent - it's just being silly and theatrical.

However, given this asinine rule is still in place, the only appropriate response from the TSA should be to look at the situation (minimal amount of water in a infant's drinking cup held by woman carrying infant), apply some God-given common sense, and let the woman be on her way.

No matter what, the TSA is looking mighty foolish in the court of public opinion - again, even if the woman was a participant in the escalation.

In a way, I actually hope these types of incident continue and reach the media - it will only hasten the destruction and death of the TSA once and for all, once the agency has lost all the remaining pockets of respect from the citizenry and Congress.

As Emmerson shows, there are really stupid things one can do when confronted with stupidity.

Nothing mythical about either:Both took place in 2002. When was the TSA formed again ?

I doubt either victim cared much what uniform the screener was wearing. Neither do I.

Keep misrepresenting, I'll keep correcting you.

This is a good question.

My impression is the TSA is attempting to discredit and/or humiliate the passenger who went to the press with their complaint. I'm not going to get into the "did she spill it - or was it on purpose"

Is this perhaps an attempt to warn the public: Think twice before you go to the press - We have the ability to do this to you.

I personally believe putting up this video on an official government website is unprofessional at the very least. I further object to this because it is ultimately taxpayer money being used to distribute this video to everyone (bandwidth costs, cost to have an employee obtain tape, program into website, etc).

Also - wasn't it previous policy of the TSA to not publicly comment on such interactions with the public?

Members of the public have the right to freely express opinions in the public and say things about public figures -- elected officials, government agencies, etc. Does a government agency have the ability to do the same about a private citizen? The TSA is more or less implying that this individual is not honest, among other things -- at taxpayer cost.

What if the IRS or the SSA put things on their websites implying an individual is not honest?

Depends what Mr & Mrs America will think of this but, as others have noted, it seems an ill-advised example to use for a full-court press. This is MOTHERHOOD they're messin' with; maybe the PR flacks who decided to run the tape don't realise the iconic nature of sippy cups.

Or perhaps they were simply not thinking. Again.
Yup, that's what I'm going with - the "we're never wrong" paradigm.

The woman's mistake was asking permission to drink the contents of the cup. She should've just done it. What could they do then? Send her to the back of the line for having an empty cup?

Another question: if this water was so dangerous and it was spilled (disregarding fault for this argument), why wasn't a terminal dump initiated?

We have an unknown hazardous material on the terminal floor that can potentially blow up.

Oh yeah, it's just water and not dangerous, but TSA decided to make an example.

Yeh. But why now? So many other ops available to them ...

Possibly because the pax behaved so badly? Pulling the "Do You Know Who I Am?" line was a bad move, as was the deliberate dumping of water, even if done out of justifiable frustration.

(emphasis mine)

Minor correction here - DCA is actually located in Arlington, VA, not the District of Columbia. It is also governed by a special governmental agency, the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority, an agency of the Federal Government created under the Metropolitan Washington Airports Act of 1986, Title VI of Public Law 99-500. They are responsible for management of operations at DCA (Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport) and IAD (Washington Dulles International Airport). They maintain their own emergency services departments. The LEOs involved in this incident, should be (not easy to identify in the videos) members of the MWAA Police Department, not the Metropolitan Police Department of the District of Columbia.

That's a mystery to me, too.

And here's rather odd quote from a TSA official in an Associated Press story: "The allegation here that we were out of control is absolutely false," said Earl Morris, deputy assistant administrator for security operations with the TSA. "If you look at the report and the video itself, it shows she's the only one who was out of control."

Damage control is one thing. One can draw their own conclusions from the video. But that kind of comment on his part just sounds a bit over the top.

Or they are just tired of the complaints and they want to send the message "we will destroy you".

We have a government and an agency out of control.

Why? That is the million dollar question. Typically the TSA lets these things blow over and doesn't as much comment. Now the TSA is involved in a 'pissing contest' over this.

Whatever the specific reason, I do believe this was approved by Kippie and reviewed by TSA/DHS staff attorneys. I'm not sure how TSA incident reports are handled - i.e. handwritten and later typed up - but the report online reads as if it was written after the decision to post it was made.

This crap makes the TSA look stupid and it's in poor taste. I believe there is a larger goal rather than showing their side - it wouldn't surprise me if this was done to discourage or scare pax from going to the press when they believe they've been wronged. Millions of people have seen parts of the footage, either from the website directly or from a televised news program.

Worse yet, taxpayer money is being wasted on this 'pissing contest'. I'd be interested in seeing what the overall cost is. There is the initial cost in creating that portion of the site and then costs associated with editing the tapes and putting them in a format that can be streamed across the web. When people start viewing it, there is then the bandwidth cost. It could be a portion of a fixed cost - or it could be a variable cost if they are paying for bandwidth traffic.

FWIW, I plan on calling my congress critters tomorrow to complain taxpayer money is being used for this. It does irritate me to see taxpayer money wasted on what is nothing more than a 'pissing contest' (which may have been initiated with a larger goal in mind).

Now be good and show your papers, citizen!