Tell me what you did in the War on Tewwow, grandpa!

Did you work for an agency so incompetent it was still experimenting with procedural changes almost 8 years into its mission? How come they could not get their act together? Did you try to make things better?

How many of your fellow soldiers in the war paid the ultimate price?

:rolleyes:

Please keep in mind that you are "talking" to frequent flyers here. Most of them with millions of miles flown and with many more interactions with TSO than what you get. The collective experience with TSA paints a pretty grim picture of what goes on at the checkpoints.

Oh, please spare me the whine. BTW, would you like some cheese to go with it?

And who would that be? Not a TSO, that's fer sure. Unless you count back injuries from lifting suitcases. Several TSO posting here have admitted they are in their jobs just for the government benefits, not for some lofty anti-terrorism goals.


If there was any accountability within TSA and if the complaints were handled in an appropriate manner, maybe there wouldn't be so much complaining still after 7 years of TSA.

What about you? How many TSA checkpoints have you visited in the last three years? What about airport security checkpoints in other countries?

I'm sorry but I can't let these remarks stand without comment.

TSO Ron said, "TSA is on the Front Line of America's Anti-Terrorism efforts."

Sorry TSORon, take a look at a map, Afghanistan is -------------> that way.
America's airports are not on the front lines nor are they dangerous.

How many TSO's have been wounded or killed in the line of duty since 9/11?

TSO's are paid well for the skill set needed to do the job your tasked with. If the pay is to low then move on to something else.

If you don't like your work environment then move on, we will all be better off.

I admit that I don't know you personally but from what you have told this forum about yourself some conclusion can be drawn.

Your ex military police, with if I remember 13'ish years of service. Your in your 50's.

Assuming you joined the service in your early 20's you left the service in your mid 40's. You must have bounced around for a few years before finding TSA. Does that about sum up your life?

Now it seems you feel the people who fly are the enemies your protecting someone from

Perhaps it's not the people posting here that are out of whack with current society.

Maybe the Green Beret's theme song? After all, those guys are getting shot at and actually engaging the terrorists in gun fights. However, that's clearly not as dangerous as working for TSA. After all, they have to stand there day after day, hour after hour next to garbage cans full of unidentified, explosive liquids that look like shampoo, Coke, and water. :rolleyes:

Or, it comes from experience and/or using powers of observation while standing in the security line. Or, it comes from interactions with people claiming to work for the TSA on message boards who act immaturely. Or, it comes from news reports about TSA employees doing things like breaking the law themselves.

My personal guess is, that in most instances, it's a combination of all of the above.

I agree with the above statements and try not to form an opinion of others until I've had adequate exposure to believe that I've seen enough behavior to establish a baseline for the person/agency. That's why I still view and respond to posts made by certain people on this message board... some I've only seen for a week or two, and while I have started establishing opinions I still feel it's too early to brand them as immature fools.

My opinions of TSA are based upon seeing them in uh, err, "action", for years.

I believe I've used the phrase "jack booted thugs" in a few threads, so I'll assume the statement may have been responding to something I said earlier. All I can say is that I call 'em as I see 'em.

When I experience rude, arrogant, near-militant TSOs who seem hell-bent on running their checkpoint like a POW camp, I think of jack-booted thugs. When I encounter people who think they have a right to demand answers to all questions they ask (whether appropriate or not), the word oppressive comes to mind.

When I encounter people who want to declare a Starbucks thermos as an item not allowed into the sterile area (just after them having made a comment about how "nice" the thermos was), I can only assume that they are trying to use their power to take something "nice" that they would like to have from me. (Yes, this has happened to me before, on two separate times, flying out of MLI. That's part of the reason why I've flown into ORD, rented a car, and made the 3 hour drive down there the last couple times I've visited friends out that way.)

TSOs sometimes fail to see the passenger behind the "perp". The men and women who get up at 4am to drive to the airport and be on an early morning flight, who endure the continuous laptop-in, laptop-out of the checkpoint and cattle-herding into small regional jets-- the people who are courageous enough to continue flying, despite all the published screw ups, mistakes, and blunders by the agency charged with keeping the flying public safe.

TSOs, in my experience, rarely understand that without us, the flying public, they would be out of jobs and standing back in the welfare line or at the unemployment office.

And the quote about being on the front line of America's Anti-Terrorism efforts is just too preposterous to even really deserve a reply. The only thing I can think of is the old G. I. Joe cartoons, and a TSO standing up in the middle of a checkpoint, magnetometer in hand and pointed to the sky like a rifle, shouting "Yo Joe!".

Hmm. Sounds like just about any other person's job to me. Nobody is ever happy with their pay, everybody always thinks they have to work too much, and nobody is ever completely satisfied with their work environment. It's a government job, so I'm not sure what else one would expect. Let's put things in perspective:

- The job of a TSO does not require any real skills that can't be acquired in a day or two of on-the-job training
- The job isn't very demanding (doesn't require much physical work, and certainly doesn't require much mental exertion)
- The job doesn't require much in way of education (no college degree is really necessary, and high school drop-outs could probably even run the equipment and screen the baggage after a day or two training at most)
- It's a government job, so it won't pay much

As for the remainder of that comment, well, let's consider this:
- Many other professions come into contact with far more dangerous unidentified materials than yours. Police, fire, and military come to mind immediately. And as a volunteer in this arena, I probably have been exposed to more dangerous materials than 95% of TSOs standing at a checkpoint.
- Diseases... well, everybody gets exposed to this at work. I can't think of a single job in America where people are not exposed to sick people in some way, shape, or form. And I'll refrain from getting into other nasty details like the scabies outbreak from TSA folks at BOS. Lord only knows how many of the flying public were exposed to that.
- Undeserved attitude and cussing out... well, all I can say is that it's something you need to deal with. Every job has its unpleasantness. Perhaps if TSA was more effective, didn't at least create the perception that so much taxpayer money was being wasted, didn't hold people up in line so much, didn't try to secretly strip search people via machines, and wasn't rude/condescending/know-it-all in the first place, they wouldn't get as much attitude back. From the way your remark is phrased, though, I infer that you don't think TSA has played a significant role in creating and propagating this problem.

TSORon, that's a nice piece of touchy-feely stuff you wrote. It sits in stark contrast with many of your other postings in many other threads, and does a nice job of trying to paint TSOs as people too.

But somehow I just can't reconcile the mental picture of TSOs joking with little children and welcoming people through the WMTD with smiles on their faces with the TSA I see on a weekly basis. It just seems too... 'plastic-like'... to be real.

Are you sure you're not trying out for a new blogger position at Propaganda Village? Or I guess you could possibly be Blogdad Bob himself, posting on here in disguise... ;)

There are very good reasons why most of the posting here is complaints. TSA is not doing a good job at fulfilling its mission, if its mission is indeed keeping our skies safe. TSA is not customer-friendly, held accountable for its mistakes, or wisely spending taxpayer dollars. And nobody there seems to be interested in making the necessary improvements to make it an effective organization. What you see here is the manifestation of a lot of pent-up anger and frustration because of this. There is a reason why "TSA" has come to mean things like "Thousands Standing Around" and "Totally Stupid *ssholes" to the frequently flying public; what you are experiencing here is this anger and frustration in a somewhat more concentrated form due to the frequent traveller status of many of this board's posters.

I can't speak for everybody, but a lot of my frustration is because of the above. But I'll also be one of the first to admit that a tiny part of it is because it is somewhat fun to make fun of the TSA too. Let's face it: they do such a bad job at their primary function that they are a pretty easy target.

Others have already responded, but there's one point that hasn't been covered here.

And if TSA's policies are ineffective, or counterproductive, then all of that personal sacrifice on the part of these loyal TSOs is wasted.

When a passenger registers a public complaint here, it is often easy to assume that the complaint is being made against the TSO who acted, rather than the TSA who made the policy being enforced. It should be possible to criticize the TSA without automatically assuming that it is a criticism of all TSOs.

Of course, it's entirely possible that a given passenger's bad experience at a checkpoint is due to the fault of an individual TSO. But, as many have pointed out repeatedly, since TSA has declined to publish its procedures and rules in a codified fashion, there's no way for a passenger to distinguish between a rogue TSO and a good TSO enforcing a bad TSA policy.

But to return to my first point. Yes, many TSOs are serving their country at personal sacrifice by working for the TSA. But noble people executing flawed policies does not make for noble outcomes.

Oh please, would you? When you get done come back and tell us all about it. THAT should be the highlight of my day.

And he still had the option to chose a different way to deal with the issue that would not have forced a confrontation. BTW, if you are going to try and use the “rights” thing, you might want to add in 5th amendment as well. Gives it flavor.

If they chose to request a LEO, well then that is their job now isn’t it. You can chose to take it anyway you like, call it what you like, but it is still a part of the job. I am fairly sure that they will be a bit more mature about it than you would.

And in the furtherance of the duties I am sworn to perform, I can ask those questions. As a citizen, you can refuse to answer the. More power to you. Have a good time. Can we prevent you from boarding an aircraft because you refuse to answer a question? Depends on the question, and what its about. Ya rolls the dice and ya takes your chances.

I’ll let the legal minds here look that one over, but I suspect that you are missing a few salient points in your argument. Important ones.

This much I know, and it is usually limited by the position one has and not by the general fact of government employment.

Now, have you gotten all that pent up hostility out yet? After all that name calling I should hope so. If not then we can continue, I at the very least can be civil when I chose to, and am more than willing to let you rant until your fingers fall off.

Preaching to the choir. We see policies every day that make us scratch our heads, and more than 50% of the TSO’s I work with have extensive experience in the field. I would think that we had seen it all, yet TSA can sill toss the odd screwball into the mix.

Agreed. Tone and wording have a great deal on how ones complaint is received, and few here take the time to separate out their concerns between the system and the individuals.

Just how many of those passengers would go and review all those rules and policies prior to approaching a checkpoint? We cant even get them to read the signs we place in their way, or listen to the announcements the PA system is shouting at them every 30 seconds.

Welllll, at least someone is willing to acknowledge it. “Noble outcomes”, interesting phrase. I prefer any outcome that does not involve another terrorist attack.

Please, spare us the martyr act. You clearly started this with your attitude. Don't like the hostility? Don't dish it. It is possible to be from TSA on here and actually be liked. Of course, it requires not being obnoxious.

And by the way, are you going to answer Spotnik's question? Quite honestly, as a BDO that's earned the respect from FT group (even if we don't like who she works for), surely you could elaborate on her question. After all, you're colleagues and even she, as a spotter, seemed to miss the hostility you keep bringing up in the STL encounter.

It doesn't matter when the rules change constantly or even what's being announced over the PA or signs are not what's enforced.

Do you or do you not acknowledge that there are TSO's that make up and change the rules as they go?

No one wants a terrorist attack. And TSA has yet to catch a terrorist. So TSA needs to stop treating us like terrorists.

That said, most, if not all of us, don't have a problem with the basic premise of TSA. It's that it keeps adding more and more things that don't actually do anything to promote security (you even admitted this in so many words) and their constant overreach into other areas that are the concern here.

All the rules? Probably none. Not everyone needs to know every rule every time they fly; but they need to know they can find the rules when they need them. I don't know every motor vehicle law in my state by heart ... but if I need to know whether or not I can turn left on red onto a one-way street, I know I can find a definitive answer if I look hard enough. Similarly, I haven't needed to know the rules about carrying cremated remains aboard an aircraft (thank goodness). But I'm glad to see that those particular rules are published, if I should ever find myself in that position.

But perhaps the most important reason for publishing the rules is this: in the event that a "dispute" happens between a TSO and a passenger over a particular procedure, there would be a public, objective standard to use in evaluating whether the TSO or passenger was wrong (or both). Right now, that standard doesn't exist.

And having public rules would help TSOs as well --- perhaps more than it helps passengers. During the famous "nipple-gate" incident, the TSOs involved were roundly criticized for their actions. It only became clear much later, by reading "between-the-lines" of the public statements of TSA and some TSOs, that the TSOs were following an unpublished SOP which did not permit them to take the most obvious action to resolve the conflict. The TSOs involved took a lot of abuse that they didn't deserve, and the TSA left them out there to take the hits. That's not fair to them.

Back in the Forensics club in high school, I was taught something: if you emphasize everything, you emphasize nothing. Of course people are going to ignore the continuously-running PA announcements; they are repeated so often that people consciously tune them out as background noise. TSA might consider repeating them less often.

But, again, not every end justifies the means. It was fear of terrorist attacks in the wake of the Reichstag fire that led von Hindenburg to suspend civil liberties in Germany, as a precursor to the rise of Nazi Germany. I don't think we want to make that mistake again.

(aside: yes, I know I'm flirting with Godwin's Law here, but I think this analogy qualifies for the exception)

There is so much wrong with this.

Wrong. This if FlyerTalk -- a website for frequent fliers. We all have far too much experience of TSA.

Wrong. Our objections are to specific policies and procedures, as well as the conduct of TSOs with whom we've interacted.

Wrong. Your agency is charged with protecting airline profits.

1. If liquids pose a danger on board, all liquids would be banned. 3/1/1 is a sop to the airlines who were in danger of losing their business travelers.

2. TSA doesn't screen all air cargo that is placed on board commercial passenger aircraft.

3. TSA doesn't screen all U.S. mail that is placed on board commercial passenger aircraft.

4. Reporting "extra cash," suspected pot, etc. has absolutely nothing to do with passenger safety.

Wrong. Most, if not all, have seen the lies (yes, lies) on the EOS blog, and have had bad experiences with TSOs at checkpoints that have cost us far more than 15 seconds.

It is sad that we have to take the sum total of all our interactions and from that form the negative impression we have of the agency.

Only when they act like jack-booted thugs.

Only when they ruin our day.

Only when they steal from us, as so many now-arrested TSOs have done.

Which they do every day.

Do you really believe this nonsense? "Front line of America's Anti-Terrorism efforts." What a joke. TSOs wouldn't have a clue what to do (other than yell for help from a real LEO) if Osama bin Laden himself walked through your checkpoint.

You want the front line? It's the FBI, the CIA, the NSA, our militiary, our police and our fire personnel. It sure as hell isn't the TSA crew who confiscate nail-clippers, illegally detain people and whose motto is, "Do you want to fly today?"

[quote]dangerous though it may be.[/quote}Dangerous? You can't be serious. How many TSOs have been injured in the line of duty?

[quote] They endure low pay, long and unusual hours, less than perfect working conditions, unidentified hazardous materials, the diseases and infections of those passengers they come into contact with, undeserved attitude and the occasional cussing out, and a whole host of other things that make the job less than pleasant at times. {/quote]To get a good job, get a good education.

98% are casual-flying sheep, whom your dog-and-pony show is designed to impress.

Yeah . . . the one's who have read the constitution (and the newspaper).

And why do you think that is?

No one is screaming.

That's right. And we will continue to do so as long as TSA continues to suck in tax dollars for absolutely no conceivable benefit.

Whereas we have the feeling that TSA has no interest whatsoever in changing its ways so that it becomes a responsible agency that actually provides security, rather than petty harassment.

And I'd glad give up some of that, "fun," by having an effective security procedure run by security professionals.

This is exactly why you and people who think like this should be removed from the TSO program immediately.

You cannot control the temptations regarding the power you have been given. You use your power as a weapon to compel people to answer questions that may or may not be valid, always with the Sword of Damocles dangling over their heads if they do not acquiesce to your whims.

There are only two options here: you are incapable of handling the extreme responsibilities of having power or you are not courageous enough to admit to the public that TSOs will routinely threaten the flying public with the inability to board their flight because the TSOs cannot get the answer they believe they so richly deserve.

In either scenario, you are not a sympathetic character. However, you cannot blame the public. You are the masters of your own destiny in this case.

Boggie Dog is right in this instance. TSA's job is limited to making sure that passengers and property do not present a threat to airplanes or aviation infrastructure. Yes, we are required to follow TSA work rules, but even those are ostensibly linked to the safety of aviation.

Actually, we have the authority to ask anything we like as it pertains to potential threats to aviation. We ought to be very careful with anything outside of that purview, so as to avoid unnecessary and inappropriate constraint of liberty.

Which rights did Mr. Bierfeldt have? How about the right to be treated with respect? The right to an honest answer to his questions? The right to know if he was, in fact, legally required to answer the questions posed to him? (He wasn't) The right to know if he was being detained? The right to contact a representative if he was, in fact, in legal jeopardy?

Please refer to my earlier post re: "both are to blame"

Actually, many of the people here have extensive experience with TSA. They can actually provide some insightful discussion and feedback if you give them a chance.

This is a description of any public security work. It may be frustrating, but that is the job you signed up for. It's also largely a safe job (well, except for the OJI issues) and comes with a decent pay/benefit package for the level of work and expertise required.

Oh, and I tend to do well with the passengers who see us a jack-booted thugs, ect. I had one passenger call me gestapo, and shake my hand by the end of the screening. It's all in how you treat people.

As you say, you have only been here a few weeks. There have been a significant number of potentially productive discussions on this forum. Yes, there are people who just want to complain, and there are people who just come here to bash/make fun of TSA. That's part of what you sign on for when you choose to represent TSA to the traveling public.

Can you at least stop denigrating constitutional and other civil rights and liberties on public forums? Some of us took that "protect and defend the Constitution of the United States..." thing seriously.

Actually, the point is that passengers should be able to easily access said rules and policies should they choose to educate themselves before approaching the checkpoint.