I would like to point out that "TSA" is just that - the TRANSPORTATION Security Administration. It is a subset of the larger cabinet-level-led Department of Homeland Security. DHS was constituted out of a combination of numerous other federal agencies: a number of which were involved in intelligence, counter-intel, counter-terrorism, & law enforcement (CBP/ICE).

At no point does TSA involve itself in anything other than 'securing' our federally regulated modes of transportation within the borders of these United States. To wit I would assert there are no LEOs currently operating as sworn LEOs within the confines of the TSA. As the aim of establishing the TSA was to create a government organization involved with conducting 'administrative searches' while ensuring to remove/disallow "LEO-like" powers - detainment, eveidentiary requirements, arrest.

I'm certain there have been incidents where TSA was involved in the steps of a larger DHS investigation but to assert that what TSA is doing "...gets the job done..." (especially said by anyone part of TSA) needs to be taken with a rather large grain of salt.

Namely one that won't fit in the overhead or under the seat in front of you.

Credit to goalie's sig: But what do I know I know? I only fly commercial regularly.

Your assertion would be quite wrong since the TSA actually has a significant number of sworn LEOs...it's called the Office of Law Enforcement and this information is available on TSA's website. OLE consists of the Federal Air Marshal Service and the Assistant Federal Security Directors for Law Enforcement (AFSD-LE). TSA also has OIG criminal investigators (1811s).

TB

Is this like Nixon's "secret peace plan"? I'm always suspicious when someone says there is secret information that supports a given position. My first question is: If it is secret, how does the person making the assertion know it?
Second, why should anyone not in on the "secret" believe it is real? A lot of secrets just turn out to be delusions.

Sorry, if you can't trot it out, don't expect to be very persuasive.

In context of retaliatory pat-downs of people who opt out of scanners:

New Jersey (EWR) - 2C:14-1d. "Sexual Contact" means an intentional touching by the victim or actor, either directly or through clothing, of the victim's or actor's intimate parts for the purpose of degrading or humiliating the victim or sexually arousing or sexually gratifying the actor. Sexual contact of the actor with himself must be in view of the victim whom the actor knows to be present;

e. "Intimate Parts" means the following body parts: sexual organs, genital area, anal area, inner thigh, groin, buttock, or breast of a person;

Ron, answer these questions:

1. What other countries have a TSA-style shoe carnival, in which all passengers are required to remove their shoes?

2. What countries that do no have a TSA-style shoe carnival have suffered any ill effects as a result of that lack? Cite specific countries and incidents.

Once you answer them it will be clear who's dealing with facts and who's not.

The sexually invasive search is inherently coercive. Refusal leads to heavy penalties, from not taking your trip, to possibly not being able to recover the price of your ticket, to risking a civil lawsuit. (The guy in SAN this weekend who declined a patdown was pursued out of the screening area and back to the ticket counter by a rogue TSO who threatened him with a $10,000 civil suit unless he returned to the checkpoint to have his junk fondled... and he was leaving the airport, trip cancelled. That not only makes no sense, it's a misrepresentation of TSA power -- it's an empty threat from a thug, designed to intimidate.)

It's a cornerstone of the law in this area that when you enter a checkpoint you are voluntarily submitting to reasonable search. That does not mean you are voluntarily consenting to anything TSA can dream up and call "search" -- from sexual touching, to disrobing, to verbal and/or psychological abuse, with harsh penalties for refusal or even attempting to exit the process. TSA is literally making this stuff up, and is provably unable to control its own agents -- it cannot or will not stop them from lying to customers, stealing from them, screaming at them, intimidating them, inventing fake threats, etc.

But TSA, and TSORon, seem to argue that they have an unlimited ticket here with no accountability, or responsibility for getting you through in a timely manner (in fact, they use the threat of marooning opt-outs at a checkpoint for 20, 30, 40 minutes, while their flights board and depart, as another flavor of coercion to submit to NoS). This is 100% backwards from the way government agencies are supposed to be assigned power; they get carefully limited rights, not carte blanche.

This is why TSA is considered a rogue agency awaiting censure and control by the court system.

No other country has been the subject of a "shoe bomb" style attack. But you already know that, right?

How many other countries have had commercial aircraft used as weapons of mass destruction? How many of those countries have TSA style airport security?

How ludicrous can you make an argument to support your agenda? Well, that answer is obvious.

Those are nonresponsive replies, Ron. Please address the questions I actually asked you, not the ones you think I asked.

Stop asking loaded questions and I might. Participate in a real discussion and we might actually get somewhere. Until you can do either you will get the answers you get. Life's a rock, live with it.:rolleyes:

Thank you, BearX220. The experiences we are hearing about from many passengers is that many TSA clerks are abusive. They have no right to be yelling at us, purposely delaying us as a means to get us to submit to their radiation machines, tossing our carry-on items without concern for possible breakage of items, and so on. Those TSA clerks who behave in this manner are bullies. And it seems that TSA is taking no steps to control them.

That's circular logic. Maybe those countries haven't been the subject of a "shoe bomb" attack or had "commercial aircraft used as weapons of mass destruction" because their security is not "TSA style airport security." Their security could may have stopped such attacks.

And those countries have probably also decided that if a threat exists, it is a low-level threat not worthy of changes to current procedures and unlikely to be eliminated by having innocent travelers remove their shoes, send them through a device which doesn't detect explosives, and then have a low-level functionary with minimal training decide what to do next.

Many of these same countries have also likely decided that, since the underwear bomber caused significant damage only to himself, the magnitude of the risk of further underwear attacks does not warrant the introduction of intrusive imaging or groin patdowns.

They are also aware that the indignities to which the TSA currently subjects travelers would have done nothing to prevent the use of "commercial aircraft [...] as weapons of mass destruction".

Ron, these are not at all loaded questions. The fact that you want to claim they are speaks volumes. Once again, I invite you to respond honestly and accurately to them:

1. What other countries have a TSA-style shoe carnival, in which all passengers are required to remove their shoes?

2. What countries that do not have a TSA-style shoe carnival have suffered any ill effects as a result of that lack? Cite specific countries and incidents.

Agreed. When the FAA was in charge, we could be reasonably assured that they followed their own regulations. They published their procedures and rule making in the Federal Register before they applied practices to operators. They did not rely on SSI to act in an arbitrary and capricious manner, but rather to insure uniform standards for air carriers and commercial operators and other users of the system.

The Homeland Security Act transferred this power to TransportationSA from the FAA and we can all see the outcome.

It has come to the point where TSA has faced a congressional Resolution of Disapproval of some of its more egregious attempts at subverting the constitution.

You have good insight. As your colleagues, TSORon and to a lesser extent Blogger Bob have noted, TSA and its ilk hide behind these concepts. When problems are pointed out, the chorus replies: its on the website, the web site is out of date, or it is SSI.

The only proof I will accept that the TSA is doing the proper and appropriate thing is when and if I read it in the Federal Register or on WikiLeaks. Of course the TSA will not go through ordinary rule-making required under the Administrative Practices Act because every time they've attempted to do this, they have failed.

At one point there was legislation pending that would have disallowed the use of SSI to establish policy and procedure for longer than 6 months, and thereafter would have to enter the rule making process. We need to resurrect and pass this legislation and end secret and arbitrary rule making. Now.

According to the government regulators in the FAA: If it ain't documented, it didn't happen. Your assertion that there is "stuff" that supports the TSA but cannot be shared won't wash. There may very well be "stuff" but if it cannot be sanitized and documented for the general population, then it doesn't exist, and crying SSI won't make it exist.

Next, the real post 9/11 change came when I was on one of the first flights on UAL out of DTW for DEN after 9/11. The FO came on and said, "take a look around you, get to know your fellow passengers, and if there's a terrorist on board who tries something, well you know what to do." This was the sea change that rendered what you do in the terminal obsolete. Reinforced and blockaded cockpit doors were icing on the crash axe cake.

Finally, in your third point, you assert that things are being done that have no precedent. Subversives have always existed as far back as recorded history. And Kings, Monarchs and Governments have always sought to neuter them. There are no precedents here, save the creation of the American Republic through its constitution founded on the philosophy of the right of consent of the populace to anything the government wishes to do. It worked for 225 years.

The United States may not presume someone is a bad actor and therefore subject to any and all abuses your agency and its parent deem acceptable. Your practices require our consent and increasingly with each abuse, that consent is less freely given.

Ron, you won't participate in a real discussion because the results would not be what YOU want to hear as they do not reflect your distorted view of the world.