I raised my voice and they threatened me with arrest
May 20, 2007, 5:40 pm
#48
Join Date: Dec 2006
Posts: 398
According to the various airport announcements you are responsible for maintaining contol of your personal belongings at all times. So I am afraid you are in a no win situation. If you insist on maintaining eye contact with your belongings and the TSO doesn't agree and considers you hostile you are threatened with arrest. If your bag is found unattended, or has been explained to me, as a consequence of being misplaced by the TSA, it may be confiscated and blown up, or they may clear the terminal due to a potential threat.
No where on the list of passenger rights does it say anything about being given reasonable time to get dressed and repack your carry on belongings.
I am afraid "it's being taken care of" is a corollery to "do you want to fly today". When I was arrested and suggested that my bag be removed from the plane I too was advised it was being taken care of. Guess what, it went on the plane to my destination without me. It is nice to know that having someone arrested at the airport doesn't constitute enough unusual behavior to have their bag pulled. DAH? or is it just me!
It sounds to be as if CATCH 22 may be required reading for many of the perspective TSA agents.
My advice is let them arrest you, load up the sytem with this kind of BS, and file for the information you require to counter under the Freedom of Information Act as I was advised to do. By the time you get the information we might even have a JUSTICE Department.
Remember, stay the curse!
No where on the list of passenger rights does it say anything about being given reasonable time to get dressed and repack your carry on belongings.
I am afraid "it's being taken care of" is a corollery to "do you want to fly today". When I was arrested and suggested that my bag be removed from the plane I too was advised it was being taken care of. Guess what, it went on the plane to my destination without me. It is nice to know that having someone arrested at the airport doesn't constitute enough unusual behavior to have their bag pulled. DAH? or is it just me!
It sounds to be as if CATCH 22 may be required reading for many of the perspective TSA agents.
My advice is let them arrest you, load up the sytem with this kind of BS, and file for the information you require to counter under the Freedom of Information Act as I was advised to do. By the time you get the information we might even have a JUSTICE Department.
Remember, stay the curse!
May 20, 2007, 5:59 pm
#49
Join Date: Jul 2003
Location: Salish Sea
Programs: DL,AC,HH,PC
Posts: 8,974
While we obviously don't agree with many of the rules (shoes, liquids etc.), I think most of us accept them or make alternate arrangements to avoid having to be subjected to them. Which does not mean, as many 'enforcers' seem to believe, we are willing to endure rudeness, intimidation or capricious threats.
Some screeners get it right, some never will. I don't buy Bart's argument that it's simply a leadership problem; and even if it were, the accountability myth of the TSA makes it moot. There are many posts here documenting that the official channel for redress is essentially futile, so we are left to deal with the goon screeners by our own devices (or just sigh and take it). Small wonder the entire TSA experience is a vexation to many - the ends do not justify the means. YMMV.
May 20, 2007, 5:59 pm
#50
Join Date: Mar 2007
Location: Wisconsin
Posts: 2,428
I read somewhere that one out of seven U.S. workers has worked for McDonald's at one time in his or her life. If true, that's really an amazing fact -- and it reinforces the notion that we shouldn't be so condescending about them. They are us! And, of course, everyone must agree that McDonald's employees are reasonably helpful and polite, which is not true of many TSA employees, unfortunately. (Note that I did not say "most" in the previous sentence.)
Bruce
Bruce
I also agree that if you are pulled out of line for further screening, your bags should be secured in your sight.
May 20, 2007, 10:50 pm
#51
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: Oct 2004
Posts: 10,037
I read somewhere that one out of seven U.S. workers has worked for McDonald's at one time in his or her life. If true, that's really an amazing fact -- and it reinforces the notion that we shouldn't be so condescending about them. They are us! And, of course, everyone must agree that McDonald's employees are reasonably helpful and polite, which is not true of many TSA employees, unfortunately. (Note that I did not say "most" in the previous sentence.)
The one thing McDonald's has that the TSA doesn't: Accountability.
Even McDonald's pays out lawsuits to idiots like the lady who spilled hot McCoffee all over herself.
The TSA has carefully crafted laws which they are not accountable or responsible for anything.
May 21, 2007, 8:31 am
#52
Join Date: Dec 2006
Posts: 728
The TSA does not operate in a competitive environment. Some heavily armed men forcibly monopolized the air travel security industry after 9/11.
It's no different than if McDonald's leaders amassed an army and police force and took over the property of every other fast food chain, additionally threatening to use their army to attack other people attempting to enter the industry. You can be sure that the level of service you'd get from McDonald's would rapidly deteriorate shortly afterwards. It's just human nature.
Statism is a violent, destructive action. It should always be opposed. It is never necessary.
May 21, 2007, 9:55 am
#53
Join Date: Aug 2006
Location: DCA / WAS
Programs: DL 2+ million/PM, YX, Marriott Plt, *wood gold, HHonors, CO Plt, UA, AA EXP, WN, AGR
Posts: 9,388
Best defense against terrorism is carried out by highly-trained men whom the government denies exist who wear black masks and come in the dark of night to plant two rounds of ammunition in the center of the foreheads of men designated as targets by their government before they disappear back into the dark.
To be sure, there are plenty of bad folks out there that deserve this treatment. But it runs counter to everything that this country stands for.
It's never okay to lose. It's even worse to give up trying.
May 21, 2007, 10:17 am
#54
Join Date: Dec 2006
Posts: 398
Frankly, from what I have observed "everything that this country stands for." depends upon chronologically when you are referring to.
May 21, 2007, 4:53 pm
#55
Join Date: May 2004
Location: LAX
Programs: CO Platinum HHonors Diamond Avis President's Club
Posts: 2,312
Denver TSA Misses 90% of Bombs and Catches 100% of Coffee:
http://www.9news.com/news/article.aspx?storyid=67166&
Originally Posted by News Article Excerpts
TSA screeners failed most of the covert tests because of human error, sources told 9NEWS. Alarms went off on the machines, but sources said screeners violated TSA standard operating procedures and did not hand-search suspicious luggage, wand, or pat down the undercover agents.
...
In one test, sources told 9NEWS an agent taped an IED to her leg and told the screener it was a bandage from surgery. Even though alarms sounded on the walk-through metal detector, the agent was able to bluff her way past the screener.
...
Sources told 9NEWS the Red Team was able to sneak about 90 percent of simulated weapons past checkpoint screeners in Denver. In the baggage area, screeners caught one explosive device that was packed in a suitcase. However later, screeners in the baggage area missed a book bomb, according to sources.
"There's very little substance to security," said former Red Team leader Bogdan Dzakovic. "It literally is all window dressing that we're doing. It's big theater on TV and when you go to the airport. It's just security theater."
...
Dzakovic, who is currently a TSA inspector, said security is no better today.
"It's worse now. The terrorists can pretty much do what they want when they want to do it," he said.
...
The security chief says he expects screeners to fail the Red Team tests because they are difficult.
...
While Morris said security can always get better, it's already excellent.
...
"We understand that security is not perfect in every aspect but we understand that we go about trying to be perfect every single day and we are doing a tremendous job out there and the public should feel comfortable flying out today and quite frankly, they do," he said.
...
In one test, sources told 9NEWS an agent taped an IED to her leg and told the screener it was a bandage from surgery. Even though alarms sounded on the walk-through metal detector, the agent was able to bluff her way past the screener.
...
Sources told 9NEWS the Red Team was able to sneak about 90 percent of simulated weapons past checkpoint screeners in Denver. In the baggage area, screeners caught one explosive device that was packed in a suitcase. However later, screeners in the baggage area missed a book bomb, according to sources.
"There's very little substance to security," said former Red Team leader Bogdan Dzakovic. "It literally is all window dressing that we're doing. It's big theater on TV and when you go to the airport. It's just security theater."
...
Dzakovic, who is currently a TSA inspector, said security is no better today.
"It's worse now. The terrorists can pretty much do what they want when they want to do it," he said.
...
The security chief says he expects screeners to fail the Red Team tests because they are difficult.
...
While Morris said security can always get better, it's already excellent.
...
"We understand that security is not perfect in every aspect but we understand that we go about trying to be perfect every single day and we are doing a tremendous job out there and the public should feel comfortable flying out today and quite frankly, they do," he said.
peace,
~Ben~
PS> Does anyone know if the TSA has training on how to handle, store and dispose of potentially highly-explosive material?
May 21, 2007, 5:29 pm
#56
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: Dec 2004
Location: MSP
Programs: Fallen Plats, ex-WN CP, DYKWIW; still a Hilton Diamond & Club Cholula™ R.I.P. Super Plats
Posts: 25,415
Tickling the tail of the dragon
PS> Does anyone know if the TSA has training on how to handle, store and dispose of potentially highly-explosive material?
Last edited by MikeMpls; May 21, 2007 at 5:45 pm
May 21, 2007, 5:53 pm
#58
Join Date: Aug 2004
Posts: 4,704
http://lawandhelp.com/q298-2.htm
McFact No. 1: For years, McDonald's had known they had a problem with the way they make their coffee - that their coffee was served much hotter (at least 20 degrees more so) than at other restaurants.
McFact No. 2: McDonald's knew its coffee sometimes caused serious injuries - more than 700 incidents of scalding coffee burns in the past decade have been settled by the Corporation - and yet they never so much as consulted a burn expert regarding the issue.
McFact No. 3: The woman involved in this infamous case suffered very serious injuries - third degree burns on her groin, thighs and buttocks that required skin grafts and a seven-day hospital stay.
McFact No. 4: The woman, an 81-year old former department store clerk who had never before filed suit against anyone, said she wouldn't have brought the lawsuit against McDonald's had the Corporation not dismissed her request for compensation for medical bills.
May 21, 2007, 9:07 pm
#60
Join Date: Dec 2006
Posts: 728
Sure it is.
When people are free to act, they will always act in a way that they believe will maximize their utility, i.e., will raise them to the highest possible position on their value scale. Their utility ex ante will be maximized, provided we take care to interpret “utility” in an ordinal rather than a cardinal manner. Any action, any exchange that takes place on the free market or more broadly in the free society, occurs because of the expected benefit to each party concerned. If we allow ourselves to use the term “society” to depict the pattern of all individual exchanges, then we may say that the free market “maximizes” social utility, since everyone gains in utility.
Coercive intervention, on the other hand, signifies per se that the individual or individuals coerced would not have done what they are now doing were it not for the intervention. The individual who is coerced into saying or not saying something or into making or not making an exchange with the intervener or with someone else is having his actions changed by a threat of violence. The coerced individual loses in utility as a result of the intervention, for his action has been changed by its impact. Any intervention, whether it be autistic, binary, or triangular, causes the subjects to lose in utility. In autistic and binary intervention, each individual loses in utility; in triangular intervention, at least one, and sometimes both, of the pair of would-be exchangers lose in utility.
All instances of intervention, then, in contrast to the free market, are cases in which one set of men gains at the expense of other men. In binary intervention, the gains and losses are “tangible” in the form of exchangeable goods and services; in other types of intervention, the gains are nonexchangeable satisfactions, and the loss consists in being coerced into less satisfying types of activity (if not positively painful ones).
McDonald's may have made a mistake, as human beings (and therefore markets) aren't inherently perfect. But McDonald's, as just another participant in a free market, is still more accountable than the TSA. This is just simple economic law.
When people are free to act, they will always act in a way that they believe will maximize their utility, i.e., will raise them to the highest possible position on their value scale. Their utility ex ante will be maximized, provided we take care to interpret “utility” in an ordinal rather than a cardinal manner. Any action, any exchange that takes place on the free market or more broadly in the free society, occurs because of the expected benefit to each party concerned. If we allow ourselves to use the term “society” to depict the pattern of all individual exchanges, then we may say that the free market “maximizes” social utility, since everyone gains in utility.
Coercive intervention, on the other hand, signifies per se that the individual or individuals coerced would not have done what they are now doing were it not for the intervention. The individual who is coerced into saying or not saying something or into making or not making an exchange with the intervener or with someone else is having his actions changed by a threat of violence. The coerced individual loses in utility as a result of the intervention, for his action has been changed by its impact. Any intervention, whether it be autistic, binary, or triangular, causes the subjects to lose in utility. In autistic and binary intervention, each individual loses in utility; in triangular intervention, at least one, and sometimes both, of the pair of would-be exchangers lose in utility.
All instances of intervention, then, in contrast to the free market, are cases in which one set of men gains at the expense of other men. In binary intervention, the gains and losses are “tangible” in the form of exchangeable goods and services; in other types of intervention, the gains are nonexchangeable satisfactions, and the loss consists in being coerced into less satisfying types of activity (if not positively painful ones).
McDonald's may have made a mistake, as human beings (and therefore markets) aren't inherently perfect. But McDonald's, as just another participant in a free market, is still more accountable than the TSA. This is just simple economic law.