There is no regulation or statute that specifies the details of the screening or inspection. No regulation was ever promulgated authorizing the use of scanners or patdowns to get on a plane. No regulation was ever promulgated stating what items are prohibited in carry-ons or that there's additional screening of "bulky" clothing. These requirements for the screening and inspection are all SOP, they are not regulations.

Much of this SOP has been made public by the TSA. But many requirements, such as additional screening for "bulky" clothing were not made public on TSA's website, just like the website does not contain details of the SPOT program. TSA could include this questioning by BDOs as part of the screening or inspection, and refuse entry to the sterile area for failure to comply in refusing to answer the questions and thus not submit to screening. I have no idea if they would do such a thing, but the fact that none of this is pursuant to statute or regulation, and their SOPs are not public, suggests that they could and we have no way of knowing what their rules actually are.

I'm not at all sure they are violating that regulation. I was just posing the question. But there is absolutely no screening of the "accessible property" of the ground crew; their bags are not x-rayed or examined at all. The regulation doesn't specify the procedures to be applied, but it also doesn't exempt anyone from undergoing inspection or screening, even if the procedures used are different than those for passengers.

That's not really that helpful, and as others have noted you don't "have" to get past the security checkpoint.

I notice a bit of a division in some of the forum posts; some people advocate an Israeli - style interrogation, while others say that they don't want to answer questions and want everything formulaic; interesting as we are still all on the same side and agree that the current situation is terrible yet ineffective.

I take a very practical approach - I hate the cancer boxes, invasive patdowns, and general security theater, but a supplementary assessment with brief questions to ensure that you are of minimal risk I don't have too much problem (almost certainly they are making sure you can speak English, looking at your response, not actually caring where you went.) However, I have never been asked where I am traveling or anything like that.

I WANT the TSA to be able to look closely at somebody sweating or acting really, really weird while passing through a checkpoint. However, the policies set by the agencies regarding screening have been generally terrible, and as others have noted I don't trust the USA barely-high school educated agent to make intelligent screening decisions independently.

Since when is speaking English (or any other language) required?

That's a lot of the issue when people compare, say, security at an embassy with the airport. There are many orders of magnitude less people trying to enter an embassy each than fly. Things that can work very well in a small scale with highly-trained people can't work when you need tens of thousands of people able to do those things.

My own feeling is that we need some combination of a little of all of them. Clearly, any sort of "interrogation" that gets into things of substance has even more Constitutional issues than the searches (courts are much stricter on Fifth Amendment issues than Fourth).

Part of this issue was raised recently by the Blitz court. Most of the SOP is directed at TSA employees to say how to screen each person. One can argue there's a legitimate governmental interest in not disclosing such information. I'd put the "bulky clothing" issue in that section: people have to know they are subject to a pat-down, but there's no legitimate need to know the precise set of conditions under which they'll receive it.

However, in that case, the TSA characterized the SOP as containing not rules for TSOs, but rules that the public must follow and here the court clearly wasn't happy about the concept of secret rules. That point wasn't relevant to the motion at hand, so it's just dicta now, but could become relevant later and I think it's the TSA's weakest case.

But the "procedure" in the case of employees can just be "random screening". The term "screening" doesn't necessarily mean to look at each item.

It depends on my mood, my kids moods (I never fly alone, I have 1 or 2 children with me) and the person. For example, the agent that was obviously trying to make it seem like I was taking the kids from their dad ("their father does know where they are??") I ignored and started talking to my oldest. The one that was just being friendly, "You traveling alone? Need help with your bags. Your girls are cute, how old?" etc then I was friendly in response. Your nice to me, I'm nice to you, you are an ... to me, I act like you are some figment of my overactive imagination..
Of course last time I flew was about a year ago and they weren't being this asinine about security. Next time I'll be flying with my husband and he doesn't do small talk.. with anyone.. so they are likely to get the cold shoulder ignore from him.

Plus, they tend to be less than bright about understanding that some of us who are disabled sound different. I hate to harp on it but given that much of the TSA's recent changes end up singling out those of us who are disabled as targets of TSA agent harassment...and what happened to a deaf flyer as recounted in another thread...yeah. Difference is bad in the world of the TSA.

You might be able to sue, and maybe, after a few years, you'll win the case. The TSA can still do what it wants, including possibly stopping you from boarding your plane for a ridiculous reason in the meantime.

Blitz is irrelevant. It was oral argument on a motion, which resulted in an unpublished oral decision that did not even go the merits of the issue. You could possibly be correct about what TSA can or cannot do, but this stuff just can't be asserted as fact. It's all speculation.

+1

I have severe inattentive-type ADHD. Which means I have nearly no short-term memory and my problem is (much) worse when I'm under stress.

Guess what? I didn't leave that foil-wrapped gum in my pocket on purpose. I get that there are rules, but being screamed at and ridiculed EVERY time at the checkpoint does add up after a while.

I'm not interested in conversations with traitors.

Beware of Greeks bearing gifts.

Hmm, really? Source please to go along with this accusation.

My best ever was in 2008 at Boston, where the TSA agent refused to take my valid, unrestricted Washington driver's license since "they don't give licenses to retards." (I have Down's Syndrome.) Needless to say, when that complaint went nowhere, and the guy's supervisor called me a few nasty names to boot, my distrust for the TSA started to rise. It was fortunate that I had my passport, and the TSA agent still "confiscated" my license, which really sucked, as my car was at the airport in Portland and I had to drive home.


Good thing I didn't get pulled over on that drive home, huh?

Of all the myriad abuses perpetrated by the airport tyrants, this has to rank right up there among the most outrageous. :mad:

Any TSA employee care to comment ? Other than "it never happened" of course.

Oh, the TSA person in charge admitted it happened, but said that it was a "logical assumption" based on "local laws." They refused to return the ID to Washington when the driver's license people demanded it back, too. I didn't conclude I hated the TSA, though, until the War on Prosthetics started in October. That was when I went from weary to full of rage.

For the record, the licensing people in WA replaced my license at no charge as a "special exception". The guy who helped me in Olympia looked more outraged than my father was about the whole mess, and my dad gets pretty outraged around such things...

Sweet Yahweh. I can hardly believe what I'm reading (NOT that I don't believe you, Chellian.)

Wonder if the statute of limitations on this has run out - I'd have hired a lawyer. 100% certain.

Let me know if I can help out with any special disabilities-related lobbying vis a vis these disgusting tactics...