Sure, it's always better to know than not know, but if you follow policy then you're in the clear. Unless it's a policy to gas people at Auschwitz kind of policy.

The ones that get you jammed up are usually very clear, and almost always involve using force. You know when you're stepping over the line, every time.

Well, since you invoked Godwin's law , "just following orders" wasn't a valid defense at Nuremberg.

I'll be honest, I don't know what happens when LEO's screw up and do an illegal search. Of course, evidence would be tossed, but I'd think that could open up the department and/or the LEOs involved for a lawsuit.

But you do know and understand Tennessee v. Garner, don't you?

Ron's "I'll just blindly follow the instructions of my supervisors" attitude is an excellent example of why it's impossible to take TSA and their "officers" seriously.

The assumption being that upper management is abiding by the applicable law(s). Many here do not believe they are.But you do need to know that the law does not allow you to commit manslaughter or murder or whatever the charge would be. A screener should know the bounds of their legal authority. I don't believe upper management is overly concerned whether or not they do.

Ronny, I truly believe you believe what your saying.

But there is still a disconnect.

It is the aircrew who is most responsible for getting me to my destination safely.

TSA is in place to keep dangerous things off of the airplanes. That's it! Nothing more! No more is asked for by the public!

I have been through several airports in recent months. The process is similar at each but the degree of civility is certainly not the same. I have seen TSO's who present a neat appearance to those whose shirttails are hanging out and seem to be on the job just to collect a paycheck. The same spread of treating people well to not well has been observed. This is a failure of management!

TSA has a pretty simply job, yet fails to perform that job well. Instead, TSA gets all wrapped up in things that should be of no concern. How much cash money a person has is a perfect example. ID verification is another.

Screen people for prohibited items. All of the people entering the secure areas of an airport!

Screen carry-on for prohibited items.

Screen checked baggage for prohibited items and ensure its not tampered with after screening.

Screen all cargo, mail and any thing else that is loaded on the airplanes.

There you go, the whole TSA job in just a few sentences.

TSA should concentrate on these things and leave all else to the proper authorities.

If TSO's cannot be civil, honest and happy in their work they should quit or be fired.

There is no excuse to say procedures have to be different at each airport. They don't! How equipment is arranged perhaps, but not how TSO's do their job.

Known, published rules for travelers should be available. TSO's should have to justify going outside of those rules.

An immediate means to challenge should be available at the checkpoints elevating up to the FSD or their duty representative if needed.

I think most here agree that TSA has a role to play, it just seems that TSA doesn't understand their place in the big playbook.

Comments?

How do you know how they feel? Are you a trained specialist in reading minds? Do you ask? If you're spending time that way, no wonder the lines are so long.

I truly understand why you feel this way. No one wants to think their job is not essential. And while your job is necessary, that you consider yourself to be better than what existed prior to the formation of TSA is simply laughable.

A "pleasant experience" in line would be a return to sanity. No more stupid shoe rules, water rules, laptop rules, roving BDO's, and pointless random gate screening. A cheery smile and disposition isn't going to make up for TSA's pointless inefficiency and lies.

It is not in the least ambiguous. Perhaps you'll find this more enlightening:

"Airport screenings of passengers and their baggage constitute administrative searches and are subject to the limitations of the Fourth Amendment. United States v. Davis, 482 F.2d 893, 908 (9th Cir.1973) (noting that airport screenings are considered to be administrative searches because they are �conducted as part of a general regulatory scheme� where the essential administrative purpose is �to prevent the carrying of weapons or explosives aboard aircraft�); see also id. at 895, 904. Thus, airport screenings must be reasonable. See Torbet v. United Airlines, Inc., 298 F.3d 1087, 1089 (9th Cir.2002). To judge reasonableness, it is necessary to balance the right to be free of intrusion with �society's interest in safe air travel.� United States v. Pulido-Baquerizo, 800 F.2d 899, 901 (9th Cir.1986)."

In Davis and its progeny, we have established a general reasonableness test for airport screenings. �An airport screening search is reasonable if: (1) it is no more extensive or intensive than necessary, in light of current technology, to detect weapons or explosives; (2) it is confined in good faith to that purpose; and (3) passengers may avoid the search by electing not to fly.� Torbet, 298 F.3d at 1089 (citation omitted); see also Davis, 482 F.2d at 913; Pulido-Baquerizo, 800 F.2d at 901.

. . .

We have previously found airport screenings which require passengers to walk through a magnetometer and submit carry-on luggage for x-ray screening to be reasonable. See, e.g., United States v. Doran, 482 F.2d 929, 932 (9th Cir.1973); Pulido-Baquerizo, 800 F.2d at 901-02; Torbet, 298 F.3d at 1089-90. Generally, such a search �is brief, is less intrusive than the typical search warrant execution, does not have a stigma attached to it, is not made by armed police, and is often made only with advance notice.� Lafave, supra, � 10.6(c) [emphasis mine].

U.S. v. Marquez, 410 F.3d 612, C.A.9 (Wash.),2005.

You also might find this interesting, establishing a hierarchy of intrusiveness for airport searches:

Third, the procedures involved in Hartwell's search were minimally intrusive. FN10 They were well-tailored to protect personal privacy, escalating in invasiveness only after a lower level of screening disclosed a reason to conduct a more probing search. The search began when Hartwell simply passed through a magnetometer and had his bag x-rayed, two screenings that involved no physical touching. See United States v. Slocum, 464 F.2d 1180, 1182 (3d Cir.1972) (an airport magnetometer screen �per se is justified�). Only after Hartwell set off the metal detector was he screened with a wand-yet another less intrusive substitute for a physical pat-down. And only after the wand detected something solid on his person, and after repeated requests that he produce the item, did the TSA agents (according to Hartwell) reach into his pocket.

U.S. v. Hartwell, 436 F.3d 174 C.A.3 (Pa.),2006

There is also this, from the same case:

In addition to being tailored to protect personal privacy, other factors make airport screening procedures minimally intrusive in comparison to other kinds of searches. Since every air passenger is subjected to a search, there is virtually no �stigma attached to being subjected to search at a known, designated airport search point.� See United States v. Skipwith, 482 F.2d 1272, 1275 (5th Cir.1973).

Think about how that applies to "random" gate screenings.

Here's some more:

Headnote Citing References Routine security searches at airport checkpoints pass constitutional muster *110 because the compelling public interest in curbing air piracy generally outweighs their limited intrusiveness. See, e.g., United States v. Pulido-Baquerizo, 800 F.2d 899, 902 (9th Cir.1986); cf. United States v. Ferrer, 999 F.2d 7, 9 (1st Cir.1993) (upholding warrantless search of checked luggage on alternate ground of �abandonment,� but faulting government's �falling-domino approach, by which each intrusion diminishes privacy expectations enough to permit further infringements�). Consequently, all carry-on luggage can be subjected to initial x-ray screening for weapons and explosives without offending the Fourth Amendment. In the event the initial x-ray screening is inconclusive as to the presence of weapons or explosives, the luggage may be hand-searched as reasonably required to rule out their presence. Pulido-Baquerizo, 800 F.2d at 902.

[4] Headnote Citing References Other contraband inadvertently discovered during a routine checkpoint search for weapons and explosives may be seized and introduced in evidence at trial even though unrelated to airline security. See, e.g., Skipwith, 482 F.2d at 1277-78. On the other hand, lawful airline security searches of carry-on luggage may not be enlarged or tailored systemically to detect contraband ( e.g., narcotics) unrelated to airline security. See, e.g., United States v. $124,570 U.S. Currency, 873 F.2d 1240, 1243-45 (9th Cir.1989) (upholding suppression of contraband unrelated to airline security where screeners were rewarded monetarily by law enforcement authorities for detecting such contraband in carry-on luggage).

U.S. v. Doe, 61 F.3d 107, C.A.1 (Puerto Rico),1995.

The concerns, expressed in this circuit and elsewhere, that administrative searches not become a tool for law enforcement, reflect the limited rationale supporting those searches. To sustain a warrantless search, a court must normally make a case-specific factual determination that an exception to the warrant requirement (e.g. exigent circumstances, plain view) is applicable. If the search is approved, the approval covers that case only. An administrative search is different. By approving a warrantless search under this rationale, a court places its stamp of approval on an entire class of similar searches. Because it must consider the general, long-term implications of approving a new type of administrative search, the court will focus on legislative facts-those applicable to the entire class of cases-rather than adjudicative facts-those applicable only to the case before it. The court then relies on these legislative facts to make a dual determination: (1) that the search serves a narrow but compelling administrative objective, see, e.g., Camara v. Municipal Court, 387 U.S. 523, 536-37, 87 S.Ct. 1727, 1734-35, 18 L.Ed.2d 930 (1967); and (2) that the intrusion is as �limited ... as is consistent with *1245 satisfaction of the administrative need that justifies [it].� Davis, 482 F.2d at 910.

[6] Headnote Citing References Once a type of search has been approved under this rationale, the court is freed from the need to make a specific factual inquiry in every subsequent case. In later cases, the search is deemed proper if it is covered by the approved rationale. By the same token, the court cannot sustain a subsequent search that differs in material respects from the search initially approved, as the same legislative facts may not be applicable.

[7] Headnote Citing References In Davis, we approved airport security searches based on the understanding that they would be limited to searches for guns or explosives, and that they would be no more burdensome than necessary to achieve that objective. So long as the government officials conducting the searches pursue a single-minded objective-air safety-the rationale of Davis works well: the searches will, almost by definition, be no more intrusive than is necessary to achieve air safety. Not so where FTS officials have other objectives in mind. We can then no longer rely on the same legislative facts that underlay the search we approved in Davis.

U.S. v. $124,570 U.S. Currency, 873 F.2d 1240, C.A.9,1989.

And not to belabor the obvious, but a definition is not "ambiguous" because you don't understand it. It is ambiguous only if it has legitimate alternate constructions.

But if the policy is contained in the SOP, which is SSI, the TSO may not have the ability to offer up that evidence in defense given cases such as Gilmore.

This gives me concerns about the legality of gate searches. Those searches are more extensive and intensive than what current technology is, i.e. x-ray machines. Also, I am unaware of a case in which a prosecution has been based on a "random" search at either the screening checkpoint or the gate. Based on dicta, a strong argument can be made that a "random" secondary search exceeds what is permissible.

This is what I've been saying right along. I think there is a significant constitutionality issue with gate searches, particularly when they involve a pat-down.

There have, however, been prosecutions based on discovery of non-security-related contraband in the course of a WTMD screening search.

I agree and have had these concerns for some time about gate searches and, to a lesser degree, secondary searches when the technology such as ETD is out there but not being deployed and/or used.

As for your second paragraph, I do know about those cases. What would be interesting is a case in which the secondary search was solely based on being "random."

Having worked at Disney World for six years I can tell customer service is highly quantifiable by using several factors. However Ron started this thread to find out.

So Ron tell us after careful review do you still believe that your upper management is asking you to perform your job within the law? So who is wrong and who is right?

That�s because you let it get to you. It�s a part of the experience, take it for what it is, a necessity of one want to fly in today�s world. Neither good nor bad, it just is. If you want to be upset with someone, be upset with Richard Reid.

Not really, I just had to get to a part in the various conversations where I could mention it. I have traveled quite a bit over the years (ex-military) and have had to deal with both the civilian security as well as TSA. The Germans are pretty hard to deal with, some who complain here should go through the checkpoint in Frankfurt. It would open their eye�s.

Name me a big company that wouldn�t? It�s a fact in our world now days, and a part of the whole employment experience sad though it may be. The thing is to not vary from the written, and if you have no choice then you get the OK from your supervisor to do it. That puts the monkey on their back.

Sorry, not buying that. The government gets sued all the time. 4000 times a day. For things they did do, didn�t do, and might do. The government is the great cash cow, along with being the great satin.

Actually its the TSA that is to blame. Tell me Ron what other countries require airline passengers to remove their shoes unless they are flying to the United States. How many shoe bombs outside of the United States have occurred since Richard Reid?

Having spent twenty years in an industry that has a high level of risk management I can tell you are mistaken. If you do something that you know is wrong and your supervisor tells you to do it you are just as liable. The Nazi's at the war crimes trials claimed that they were just following orders. The Nuremberg defense didn't work for them it won't work for you.

I need to know my operational boundaries and parameters. How they got there? Not so much. I just need to know what I can do and why? Not the actual mechanism vis-a-vis that decision came about.