halls120

Well, you can post however you wish to, but most people I know who wish to be taken seriously take care to not provide a blanket endorsement for views they don't agree with.

While those inside DHS and TSA who have the Gestapo mentality are in the minority, they DO exist, and because they are not summarily dismissed from government service, my fear of the police state that DHS would impose if they could, grows steadily.

LOL, best post of the week!!!

meisterau

I would agree with you. I must be awfully lucky when I fly non-private. With the exception of New York, Boston and Miami, most every agent I have come into contact with (SFO, CLT, ATL, PHX. DFW, ORD) has been polite and professional - even when I have gotten the extra duty search. (But I would probably say that about people in general in those cities )

Caradoc

And that seems to be the primary difference between those who complain about the TSA and those who do not.

I don't see a prison-style groping without probable cause to be "polite and professional" under any circumstances.

PhoenixRev

Perhaps you can help me out here.

When the supervisor at the checkpoint at T4 at PHX flat out lied to me and said that the TSA webpage showing the NEXUS card as valid ID for TSA purposes was "out of date" was he being polite or just professional?

InkUnderNails

PhoenixRev, you will like this one.

Just before Christmas, December 23, PVD, TDC would not accept my Nexus, so I requested a supervisor. I get ready for the whole thing. While the supervisor is coming over, I pull out my printout of the web page, I have even made business cards with the url's and have clipped them to the printout, and when she arrives and looks at my Nexus, she asks, "Don't you have a driver's license?" I hand her the printout of the web page and say "The Nexus is valid according to your own web site."

I hope you are sitting down. Swallow your drink if you have one.

"I have never seen the Nexus, so thank you for showing me this. I have learned something today. May I keep this?" She gave me the magic squiggle and sent me to the xray line. I was careful to not trip over my dropped jaw on the way.

There are genuinely not all alike, thankfully.

Boggie Dog

She may have accepted your print out but how did she reach supervior level without the skills to validate ID's that TSA claims are acceptable?

Another example of poor or inadequate training that TSA brags about.

Sorority Luchesi

I really think that the Golden Rule applies here: "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you."

I am polite and considerate by nature, I am a person who usually avoids confrontation whether online or in real life. My mother has taught me to be respectful towards others.

However, I also hold the belief that if someone isn't doesn't show respect they shouldn't expect it in return.

If I am at a restaurant and I receive very good customer service, the staff is friendly, kind and always smiling. If they go out of their way to service you and the food is cooked well, then I will be kind, respectful in return and might even give my server an amble tip. And I would most definitely be returning. I have a good rapport with the owners of a few small restaurants here in my town.

If, however I eat a restaurant where the service is slow, the staff is obnoxious and the food is terrible, I will not ever do business with that particular place again.

Same thing with shopping, if I go to a store and the employees are helpful in what I need to find, checking to make sure I got what I needed etc. I am more than grateful.

If I go to a store where they are rude, unwilling to help, etc. I will not be as friendly towards them. Because they haven't earned my respect.

Someday if I have to go through a checkpoint and the security agents go out of their way to help me, that is direct me to what I need to do, what I can and cannot have in my carry on etc., performs screening properly and is courteous, professional and respectful then they will have a respectful, courteous passenger, so yes I would thank those that are doing their job properly. For those that do not, I will still be respectful to a degree but I most certainly would speak up and voice my displeasure about their demeanor and their actions.

Unlike many on here, I don't ascribe to the notion that every security checkpoint is a cesspool and that every TSA agent is a boisterous, barking, brute or ascribe them the slanderous terms relating to sexual deviancy. I always give the benefit of the doubt and until I see otherwise, with my own eyes I am going to be respectful and treat them as the human beings that they are.

MikeMpls

Your profile says, "I don't have money to travel", so one has to wonder how many, if any, TSA checkpoints you've actually experienced?

PhlyingRPh

The problem is that I do not want someone playing pocket billiards in my front pockets and neither do I wish to do so in somebody else's pockets. I don;t want to view pictures of other people naked at the airport, and I don't want someone else looking at pictures of me either. I don't want someone telling me I have to purchase a brand of bottled water I don't like at an inflated price and I don't wish to impose such a restriction on anyone else either, etc, etc, etc...

I do treat others in the same manner I wish to be treated, but I don't particularly care for the way I am treated by people, who may be good blokes outside of their workplace, but who in many instances do unto me what I am sure they would not like me to do to their wives, mothers, daughters or sons.

Sorority Luchesi

Yeah, I don't travel. So? Like I said unless I see it with my own eyes, perhaps in the future, I have no right to judge people irregardless if I ever meet them or not. I just don't buy into hyperbole and would rather withhold my judgment. I simply don't believe, on principle that every TSA agent is a thug by nature. That every TSA agent has some latent sexual deviancy, or has a lack of morals, or is boorish and everything else that they have been accused of on here.
The people that work the front lines of the TSA probably are more than likely law abiding citizens just eeking out a living and are probably decent people. And yes I know you're going to scream "But they can't be because...because they grope us! They can't be decent people!" or something along those lines.

And I have seen a few videos of the pat-downs on Youtube and personally don't see anything that is "sexual" or any form of "groping" as I understand it. However if that's how you view it, that is your perception and your problem, not mine.

You can have your opinions and I will respect them fully, but I will not respect someone attacking me because I don't share the same mentality as everyone else on this board.

Like I said, unless I go through a security checkpoint myself and see and experience for myself I am not going to judge the people working the lines simply because of hyperbole in both media and online.

nachtnebel

Strangers in positions of authority are touching people's sexual organs, and the victims are persons who are submitting under duress. This behavior is proscribed in most states penal codes.

That you don't mind getting your sexual organs touched in this way this is irrelevant.

Sorority Luchesi

And exactly how are they touching the sexual organs of a person? Are there any videos that show what exactly they are doing? The videos that I have seen shows the agents touching "sensitive areas" with the back of their hands. This is hardly what would be called "groping." It is because of words like "invasive" "intimate" "intrusive" that the media has spouted out that has given you a perspective that the TSA agents are nothing but a bunch of leering, high libido freaks that are actually grabbing people in those areas. The videos that I have seen show no such behavior or any behavior that crosses the boundary of what would be deemed as "sexual assault." And don't tell me I don't know what sexual assault is, I have had two family members that were raped and I was once molested myself.

Again the media has used certain buzz words to broadly paint a picture, a sensationalist picture, of these procedures. It's called framing.

Caradoc

I prefer the Modified Golden Rule.

"Do unto others as they plan to do unto you, but do it first."

Actually, it'd be the reports of a buddy of mine and at least two regular posters here who've stated very clearly that during their so-called "pat-downs," the smurfs "cupped" their testicles and "rolled them around."

That's hardly in line with the videos you've seen, I'm sure.

There are additional first-hand reports around the internet of people having fingers jammed into their rectums through their pants and underwear...

I'd classify those actions as "invasive," "intimate," "intrusive," and "useless for a search, but useful as a 'punitive' measure for people who 'opt-out.'"

RadioGirl

If a restaurant or store has unfriendly or unhelpful staff, you have alternatives. You are not going to go hungry because one restaurant is rude to you. You are not going to go without clothes or books because one shop is inefficient.

RadioBloke refuses to buy anything from a bakery that sold us a cake with eggshell fragments in it. We have a dozen Chinese restaurants within 10 minutes of home. When one of them started getting sloppy about taking orders, we just stopped going there. I don't have to give them a second chance; I have lots of options.

But if you buy a ticket on AA from LAX to BWI for Jan 12 at 8 am, you DON'T have 12 options for security screening. If some of the TSA screeners in LAX are rude or thieves - and from my personal experience they have both - you can't go to the next airport later in the day for your flight. You can't, as you enter the checkpoint, say "That's the guy who swore at me for no reason last week; I want someone else to wave me through the WTMD." You have very limited choices in picking an airline/airport/checkpoint combination which has the least possibility of problems (which, BTW, is what much of the discussion here is for) but that's about it.
In theory what you are saying is reasonable. And there may be a few airport checkpoints where you would have this experience. It implies that someone is going to meet you at the beginning of the checkpoint and personally guide you through it. (Although telling you at this point "you can't take THAT in your carry-on" is not as helpful as you might think.)

I think you are extrapolating from the restaurant/store situation where someone is there to serve you, and (ideally) gives you their complete, friendly or polite attention during the transaction. If you are in a wheelchair or traveling with a few small children, you may (or may not) get such personalized help from TSA. In my actual experience, at best, the checkpoint is an assembly line; you get told: "go through there" then another person says "is this your bag?" then another person says, "stand over here; put your hands up." Finally "you can go." In between, they're saying the same thing to other people, or you're standing there waiting for them to get to you. They may be vaguely pleasant about it, they may be impersonal, they may be downright rude, but I have never had an experience comparable to being (well) served in a restaurant or store.

Even in non-US airports, which I would consider professional and polite, no one has ever "gone out of their way" to be helpful. They are, at best, quietly impersonal.
Again, brilliant in theory, difficult in practice. To whom will you voice your displeasure? To the person who is yelling at you for no reason? To their supervisor, if you can find them? Are you prepared for the consequences of doing this?
Neither do I believe that every security checkpoint is a cesspool or that every TSA agent is rude or a thief. But I know there are enough checkpoints that ARE cesspools and enough TSA screeners who ARE rude or dishonest, and I would approach each checkpoint and screener prepared for the worst.

I don't believe that everyone who goes through my neighborhood is a burglar. I don't even believe that most people are burglars. But I lock my house anyway. @:-) I guess you will leave yours unlocked until you have direct personal experience of being robbed.

PhoenixRev

Wow! I am stunned.

Well, that's one.