Found at the TSA Blog:

Hmmm. Could this Anon be right? Could it be folks like those who post to TS/S who have given the victory to the terrorists rather than the TSA and the government?

Terrorizing Sovereign Americans

Keep trying, just keep trying.

Al Qaeda has won by making the US into a police state where TSA = STASI. Also these issues have nothing to do with capitalism, which is an economic system. It has more to do with the concept of natural rights which this country was founded on and which TSO traitors enthusiastically spit on daily.

Your suggestion that those of us who oppose TSA policies and procedures are giving aid and comfort to the enemy is disgusting, unAmerican, and smacks of fascism.

Ron, I realize that you are a TSA true believer, and that you post here mostly in good faith. That said, TSA and DHS are not infallible, and have consistently lied to the American people in the past, and based on their track record, will likely continue to do so.

However, another FT poster says it best.

The reason that a large number of Americans have turned against TSA is that TSA is conducting a war against the American people. It isn't all that complicated.

The TSA gave victory to the terrorists when AIT and full body patdowns were implemented.

American government overreach and betrayal of our founding principles didn't start with TSA. Nor did it start with 9/11. TSA just helps the average Aerican see this dynamic in sharp relief. Many if us never forgot Ruby Ridge. It is, however, a common tactic of all authoritarian states to blame citizens for a lack of sufficient 'patriotism', or subserviance to the state.

This is ridiculous. The point of terrorism is not body count. It is to cause people to be afraid and change their way of life.

DHS and the TSA are our response to terrorism, and they have changed our way of life quite a bit. The terrorists "won" when these agencies were created, and they continue to win every time we give up essential liberties in the name of safety "from terrorism".

It is impossible to be safe from "terrorism". We can try to prevent future acts of terrorism, but the way we are going about doing it is amplifying our fears, eroding our rights, and allowing opportunists to grab up powers they would never have a chance to otherwise.

Our government has many options to prevent terrorist acts, which do not involve changing American's way of life.

Our government has many options to fight terrorism, which do not involve doing the terrorists job for them, by continuing to invoke fear.

Our government chose the wrong options, and the recent major overstepping by the TSA has caused some people to wake up to this. It was one thing to deal with stupidity like the 3-1-1 rule, the shoe carnival rule, etc - but techno-strip-searches and bodily searches/gropings have really pissed some people off.

Is it enough people to cause change? I don't know. But I do believe that they next ridiculous response TSA has to some new threat will not be taken as lightly as the previous responses. Eventually enough people will get pissed off. And eventually changes will be made, either through civil disobedience or elections.

Every time someone criticizes the government or the TSA, the tewwowists eat a kitten.

Please, think of the kittens!

The TSA has a symbiotic relationship with terrorists. They need the terrorists and depend upon them for their raison d'etre and their $7bn budget. When al Qaeda says "jump", the TSA asks "how high" while it's already on the way up.

TSORon, TSA began life with enormous goodwill and support from the traveling public. Way back when, most of us thought it was a fine idea to upgrade the professionalism level we saw from random rent-a-cops at checkpoints -- especially post-9/11. You didn't start out hated; you made yourself hated -- by refusing to explain yourself; by tolerating an out-of-control workforce; by dodging all accountability; by perpetrating terrible abuses on innocent citizens; and by denying they occur.

TSA basically made the bed it lies in today. It's virtually the only arm of government that doesn't set out to curry public support; even the IRS tries to explain itself, and relate to taxpayers. Instead TSA treats every criticism as an act of treason, and threatens or smears its critics.

Your post is a fine example of this -- you suggest that any TSA opponent is a traitor. TSA is a totalitarian agency operating in a democratic society. (It's depressing to see the substantial American appetite for totalitarianism revealed in peoples' slavish expressions of support for extreme TSA actions.)

The mismatch cannot persist. Either TSA eventually succumbs to the customary rules of American democracy, or the US slides toward totalitarianism. The comparisons some here make to East Germany's Stasi are a little hyperbolic, but in point of fact TSA demands just such an operating brief for itself: the power to set up shop anywhere, make citizens do anything, and arrest all critics. No enemy real or imagined justifies this.

It's incredibly difficult for TSA to claim it's "defending the homeland" when its very operating principles strike at the heart of American values.

Happy Thanksgiving, TSORon. Remember, the pilgrims were fleeing royalist tyranny. I think they'd be heartbroken at how much political tyranny now stains the new world they risked everything to reach.

Your honor, Exhibit A in the case that screeners view passengers as "The Enemy"...

Or is it exhibit Z?...

I have said something similar a few times now. Most people didn't have anything against TSA; it was their own experiences which changed their opinion. I flew probably a hundred flights from the US with little issue, and used to think that a lot of the stories were embellished or simply not true.

Then I found FT TS&S, and it was primarily the posts from TSOs and the way that they spoke about and to the public which made me open my eyes. Combine that with some very bad experiences this year, and my opinion has changed completely.

I am surprised that a government agency does let TSOs continue to post in a way which continues to decrease public opinion. There have been some very helpful and respectful TSOs who did post here, but they seem to have disappeared, and I am not certain that they were just driven away by the anti-TSA crowd.

The continual cries of 'everybody lies', 'it didn't happen', 'SOP is....' does nothing to improve the relationship here, in my view. I don't agree with name-calling and hyperbole on either side, but it is the TSA which is being evaluated here and which should be trying to improve its reputation.

You obviously missed a few things.

1 I didn’t write the anon post, I just happen to be willing to consider its validity. I know it counters the prevailing lack of wisdom here, which is why I posted it as “A different perspective” rather than an attempt to state it as fact as is oh so very common here.

2 You write quite a bit of rhetoric, but little that has any actual support to it. Just because you refuse to see the accountability does not mean that it is not there. What you believe are abuses are no more or less than what we as citizens have asked the government to provide for us. And of course the government rarely explains what it does in detail, and for well known and sometimes very good reasons. Someone out there in the government knows what is done and why and they consider it valid. You don’t, oh well.

Why do you feel that government must “curry public support”? Government is here to serve a purpose, not to make 100% of its citizens happy or lick their shoes. One of the main reasons government exists is to provide for the public defense, and TSA is nothing more than one way of doing that. Or are you of the opinion that the US Coast Guard is the only defensive force that the United States needs?

I didn’t suggest anything, I asked a question about someone else’s words. If you are interested I can provide a link to where I found them, and no I don’t post as “Anonymous”, I don’t feel a need to hide my opinions as many of those who post at the TSA blog do. Please, try and get it right.

Hyperbole is the mainstay of many of the posters here. Yourself included it seems. TSO’s have no arrest powers other than that of every citizen. We are not law enforcement officers, please stop indicating that we are.

“Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” The TSA does its very best to make those “American values” available to every person who feels the need to board a commercial aircraft. Your opinion about its “operating principals” is just that, opinion. And ignorance is really a poor excuse for it.

And a happy Turkey Day to you as well. I sincerely hope that one day you will understand that freedom is not free, that there were many more reasons for the pilgrims to sail to the new world than you imagine, and that you eventually realize that the hyperbole serves no useful purpose other than to highlight how few actual facts support your belief’s.

Oh, gee whiz, Ron. I guess those who opposed the invasion of Iraq were un-American and giving in to the terrorists.