It will be your problem to deal with soon enough.

- 6 lawsuits going to go to the SC. The SC has historically sided heavily against these sorts of government assaults on innocent people.
- Obama/Pistole/Napolitano gone in 2-6 years. Gas prices climbing, could mean Obama and his radiation/groping crap is gone in 2 years.
- Tanking economy, grotesque unsustained government spending on nonsense like the TSA's security theater.
- Nobody ever fixes government, but people do keep switching parties and the entire Republican party is hostile to the TSA.
- These policies are hurting demand for airplane and private revenues substantially ... to the tune of $80B. I flew once this year, no further plans to fly again, that is a 70% or so reduction in airline revenue from me personally.
- Hawaii, travel destinations can't stand this crap as it's damaging their economies. People don't even want to go to Disney World because of this crap.

The TSA's days ... and your job numbered.

When I speak of TSA training I am speaking of the whole, not of the individual, sorry if I was unclear on that point.

No, not all of my trainees made it. But that is the point, I had no qualms to DQ someone and senior leadership had no qualms but to send the trainees back to other duties. If I or any one of us in that field fouled up people could have died so we demanded near perfection.

When I first trained for the job that I later ended up as an instructor for we started with a class of 11, 3 of us remained at the end. That was typical for that specialty.

To me it is clear to that something is severely wrong TSA wide in the implementation of the SOP's. I fall back on my experience, either the material is faulty or the instruction is faulty.

^^^^^
wake up america!

I'm not talking about those who didn't make it through the basic course. I, too, have had to deliver the bad news to someone who didn't meet standards.

What I'm talking about are the ones you trained who met all the standards, perhaps even exceeded them, but later deviated from that standard AFTER they left the course and your tutelage. How much of that is really your responsibility? You hope you've given them all the right tools to address any situation, but in the end, it's all down to whether or not they stick to what they were taught or decide to come up with some shortcut.

Seems that you're determined to make this all a training issue. I'm used to it. I get that at work, too. The question I ask is what are the supervisors doing to maintain the standard I taught to the new hire. What actions do they take when they see an officer deviate from standard?

It's a team effort between the trainers and the floor supervisors, and it doesn't always work as well as it should.

I've been honest with you but feel you've been disingenuous just so that you can take a stab at TSA. Shame. You have a potential for some truly enlightening discussion.

Blah, blah, blah, yaddi, yaddi, yaddi.

The airlines DON'T want TSA to go away. They DON'T want the financial burden of paying for security. They DON'T want to be in the security spotlight. They have TSA as the Whipping Boy, and they enjoy every minute of it.

Hate to break it to ya. TSA is here to stay.

Welcome to the club, brother. :)

Not sure those are terribly helpful comparisons. The cost of a movie ticket isn't anywhere near the cost of a plane ticket. The opportunity cost of missing the next showing of a movie is miniscule compared to the opportunity cost of missing a flight. On the other hand, the cost of adding more staff at the movie theater or the checkout line is much smaller than the cost of adding TSOs to a checkpoint.

Regrettably, your observation is not at all unique to government service. I've suffered under precisely that form of "leadership" at many different times.

In short, your airport has learned that education is never completed; it must be continually refreshed and updated. Kudos.

Bart, I would agree with you that supervision is critical. As I mentioned in another thread I noticed at LAS how all the supervisors were removed from the screening lanes. I noticed this because as I went through having my carry on xrayed the operator of the xray was berating everyone for how they packed. No supervisor around so I made it a point to seek one out. When reporting my observation the person I spoke with was more concerned about the correct title of their person than of what was happening down in the screening lanes.

I do think training is critical. As critical is continuous refresher training. I recognize that that is probably the hardest thing to get done. So in absence of effective retraining strong hands on leadership is required.

My experiences at TSA checkpoints are running about 50% negative. I have little respect for TSA employees based on first hand experiences so perhaps that explains my negativity regarding TSA.

We are evaluated every year by performing certain basic screening skills (e.g. pat-downs, bag searches, etc.). I would be naive to ignore the fact that screeners "train up" for these evaluations and then later return to their regular habits once the testing is completed. Random testing is one solution, but as you know, tests are easily OPSEC'd and lose their effectiveness. (Although one of the good side effects is that whenever I eat lunch at either of the food courts adjacent to both of our checkpoints, screeners begin to check things with more vigilance because they think I'm testing them. :cool: )

Point is that whenever we conduct periodic refresher training, the TSOs know exactly what to do in order to pass our scrutiny. Not saying that they go back to the floor with the same level of attention to procedure and protocol. So, yes, it's a leadership challenge as well as a training one.

And that is why, of course, the CEO of Southwest and the U.S. Travel Association are all asking for changes? We'll see. The problem you have Bart is that all of this crap you are putting people through is theater. It's not even remotely effective.

What happens to the TSA when the next terrorist walks right through security after you guys decided to inflict this crap on 100s of millions of completely innocent Americans?

Do you think you are going to be getting a pay raise then Bart?

It's only a matter of time. The only wonder that I have is if it's a father who comes in with an AK-47 coming after YOU after you people were fondling his daughter. The only thing these sort of oppressive security measures do is they create terrorists.

Now that may be the TSA's REAL goal here. What do you think about your job then if that's what you do? You intimidate people and their families to the point they go nuts and react to it because the government wants to implement even more oppressive domestic security measures and take away more of the rights of the people?

What if that is your real job Bart?

I don't know the answer to that question, but it's clear to me the crap they are doing to people isn't weighted from the perspective of improving the safety of the flying public.

Part of the answer to this issue is that of inspections conducted without notice at any moment.

Another part of this answer is covert inspections.

Send unknown inspectors through screening and find out what is happening during real world screenings. Use various methods to test the screeners and see what happens. When things go south an immediate call to the FSD from HQ to find out what is wrong with that airport would be in order plus immediate corrective action including removing poor performing screeners.

These things are possible at very low cost.

But none of that matters without accountability.

Knowing there is a problem means nothing if no action, or ineffective action is the result.

Agree, TSA has a severe breakdown in management from the top down.

Without some real leadership TSA will likely just keep repeating errors.

Case in point, I reported an issue in February to TSA about an issue with a screener at DFW. The buck has been passed off several times and I believe my complaint is in the circular file.

No accountability is right!

And let's not forget about the generic "retraining" , "for your safety" or"out of an abundance of caution" statements.

buzzwords and platitudes do not equate to accountability. In fact they teach just the opposite. Every time the TSA comes out and uses such phrases, it reinforces a culture to their employees that poor performance has little consequences.

Contrast how the TSA deals with problems with how the FAA dealt with controllers sleeping on the job. The FAA didn't hide behind "we can't reveal disciplinary actions".

Being called a "retard" and a "queer" by BOS screeners: Got a letter saying that that's part of of procedure. No apology, of course, they were following procedure. "Part of necessary screening" they say.

Having my driver's license taken away from me, in a separate incident, at BOS, because "retards can't drive": Got a letter saying they regularly seize identification that they believe to be fake, and that they believed my license was fake. Again, no apology, as they were following procedure. They also didn't return my license, but the DMV didn't charge me to replace it once I explained why, and the DMV employee looked pretty angry about the situation.

Having a TSA employee threaten to "call the authorities" on me for traveling alone at EWR. I must have missed the directive where people with Down's Syndrome aren't allowed to leave the house alone; do I have to be on a leash at EWR or something? Had to call a Port Authority cop over to get this gentleman from the TSA to stop threatening me, and then never even got a reply on that complaint even though I submitted it three times.

And, the crowning glory, my recent "awesome" SEA experience: http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/trave...t-america.html ...no response whatsoever! The local media doesn't care ("we can't take on that kind of story") and the TSA pretty much tossed this complaint since it's proof that you will be targeted for being disabled. We all knew that already...

No accountability whatsoever. The TSA isn't just messed up, it's pretty much a legalized posse of bullies. I get that there are good TSA employees and all, but why does this keep happening? Because there's no accountability. It's circular logic, but an FSD having something to fear if their employees treat passengers in a discriminatory or outright hateful manner would probably cut down on that behavior happening in such an unchecked manner.

Agreed.

I was talking about recurrent training. You have to have some of that along with the covert testing program.