Just wondering why you didn't try to stand up for her or at least try to help out? Curious for your perspective...

I imagine intervening during the mess that would have only made things worse for her.

It's a reasonable hypothesis, but I just can't agree.

To Global Hi Flyer's point, we already have the CLEAR/Registered Traveler program, which takes identification to the biometric level and the TSA still checks to see if the ID matches the BP.

CLEAR aside for now (because it will threadjack this baby), I can't believe that is the intent. It has been seven and a half years since this was begun and there has been no progress toward anything you hypothisized. Even bars and clubs in NYC use things like these at the door. A simply modified version would be stupidly easy and pretty close to what you allude to. Also, grocery stores use barcode scanners that will automatically prompt the cashier to check for ID if an alcohol or tobacco item is rung up. Something similar would be incredibly simply to implement, require no more training than a retail worker gets in 30 minutes their first day, and are so widespread that costs are quite low, especially in bulk. With the TSA's willingness to throw money at anything and everything like MMW and sniffers, I can't imagine cost, training, legality, or space would be what is keeping them from doing it.

In short, there is no grand plan for evolving the ID checking downstream in my opinion. It has been nearly eight years. Nothing has changed. It adds nothing to security and serves no purpose. Just my $0.02.

peace,
~Ben~

The best way to help in this situation is:

1) Cellphone video of harassment
2) Get her contact information if possible after TSA and LEO is done harassing so you can share it with her or offer to make a statement on her behalf as a witness
3) Send cellphone video to news outlets and publish online as much as you can to highlight harassment
4) Get the GA's name who initiated things and follow up with the authorities and the employer. Making false reports is a crime, too.

Trying to intervene once law enforcement is dealing with someone is a horrible idea in my opinion unless you have plenty of time and money to be principled and see things through. Sad, but true.

The only thing I could see someone reasonably doing without getting swept up in things is going up to an LEO (a real one, not a TSAer) after the situation seems cooled down and offer to give a statement and your contact information as a witness.

peace,
~Ben~

FOR oneofthosepeopleyouloveto hate

Out of curiosity - why at one airport will the TSA ID checker only initial my BP while at a different airport the TSA ID checker marks almost every printed line on the BP?

To keep the terrorists on their toes.

It would only make sense that different airports would employ different marking schemes. Why would you want all airports utilizing the same security markings for any length of time? Same idea behind clubs or amusement parks alternating the colors of wrist bands they issue for a day or session.

Where I work, we're only required to initial the boarding pass, but we also have to check various things on it (name, date, etc.). I would guess most TSOs have a routine worked out whereby they do things in a certain order, thus ensuring that they look at everything they're supposed to. (I know I do!) The system used by the TSOs in question probably includes checking everything off so at the end they can take a quick look at the boarding pass and immediately note whether they've missed anything. They're just being thorough, perhaps to the point of being anal (IMO)!

Is that observation meant to be more than a simple truism, something along the lines of "gravity works because of the physical nature of mass?" People should only ask themselves whether they and those close to them are more at personal risk of being killed, maimed, or otherwise immediately harmed by terrorist acts than they are by more commonplace hazards of modern life, and unless the answer is yes, they should go about their daily business paying the reality of terrorism no heed? FDR might have had terrorism as we now know it here in the US post-9/11 in mind when he said, "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself?"

Why should anyone be disgusted by the requirement to show ID before being allowed to board a plane to travel domestically, if that requirement arguably serves the purpose of our safety? Or is it not the requirement as such which disgusts you, but rather the need for such a requirement and those responsible for that need?

Or better yet, to knock set them back on their heels, or still better, off their feet altogether.

So argue it then ... how does it provide safety?

It provides revenue protection for the airline. That's not the government's problem.

The ID isn't checked against against a database (and by TSA's admission, many terrorists aren't on the no fly list anyway lest we tip them off ) ... just an ID against a boarding. The names match ... so what? What did that just accomplish?

If a person is properly screened, it doesn't matter who they are - they're not going to be a threat to the plane.

It's theater. I went onto a government installation a few times in the last couple weeks. I had to go thru visitor control as I don't have a permanent badge yet. To get to the VC, I had to go thru a gate where one of their cops looked at my DL. Looked at my DL, looked at me, and waved me thru. What did that accomplish? He still didn't know who I was ... only that my DL picture matched me. I laughed about it every time I went thru the charade. A much more stringent check was done inside the VC to verify that I had reason to be there and I was who I said I was - for very good reasons not related to safety.

Requiring ID, a la "Papers, please" is an unamerican practice that we railed against in the Cold War as hallmarks of communism and fascism. We prided ourselves that we were free to associate with whom we wished and go where we wished. For some reason, America seems to be wanting to emulate those societies it railed against back in the day. Do you think, in a free society, that we should have to ask permission of the government by proving our papers so we can ride on a plane?

ID checks have their place. An airport isn't one of them though.

Super

For us outsiders (i.e non permanent resident), they looked for a specific label on our passports it seems, and also checked ID of course.

I'd stick with Superguy. There isn't any needs for ID checks in airports!

It seems you don't understand what it means to go ahead en arguendo. I wasn't stepping up here to go around about whether or not ID checks at the gate are a highly effective safeguard of our security or even a minimally effective one. I asked my question in an attempt to understand why anyone would find the screening "disgusting," if screening afforded any protection at all. Your "it isn't effective" answer is non-responsive to my question.

And your it's "un-American practice...hallmarks of communism and fascism" is silly. It's so obviously and fundamentally different for our government to exercise the police power granted it by the Constitution in this effort to protect us against those who would do us harm from a government using ID checks to suppress opposition to it, real or potential. (Why would "ID checks have their place," as you allow, but not at airports, where they are to be seen as "hallmarks of communism and fascism?" Is it also a hallmark of communism or fascism that I am asked to show ID when opening a bank account, something one didn't always have to do?)

Hmmm, got me thinking...

So the TSA Ossifers in this case would be the equivalent to the clowns in the amusement park?

No, gravity works no matter what happens.

Terrorism works because people choose to be cowards and frightened by acts of terrorism. If the universal response to hostage taking was an armed, violent response where the hostages' safety was ignored, than hostage taking would pretty much end immediately.

And screw 9/11 It's an over-worn, cowardly excuse for destroying civil liberties.

Because it 1)doesn't serve any purpose of safety and 2)is a disgusting, un-American action. Those mandating ID checking should be caned and deported to a papers-please-Comrade place like North Korea. They are filthy Communist scumbags.