“Enhanced” Pat-Downs and the Screener’s POV
It’s not every day that someone takes the time, in these TSA-bashing days, to think about the other side of the story. Maybe Phil Collins does, but not too many others. 
The fact of the matter is that there really is another side to the TSA story, and that is that of the TSOs, the men and women that actually administer the pat-downs, the ones that go through your luggage, the ones that interpret the x-ray images of your bag, in less than 7 seconds.
They’re the ones that catch the flying bile that passengers fling at the TSA and the TSA’s rules. It’s amazing that people have the audacity to actually call them names, publicly verbally assault and degrade them, and with a spoken intention to break the TSOs down argue, scream, spit, insult and demean them approach the checkpoints, smug in their conviction of own superiority.
Sure, the TSOs might have chosen a different profession, sure they are the ones that choose to be where they are, serving a government agency, and in turn their country. The argument has been presented before, and the fact is that it’s tired and not even remotely valid. If it were really the case that anyone could just switch professions when the going gets a little tough, or the moment someone doesn’t completely agree with the way that job is done, then not much would be done – anywhere.
There’s actually one blog out there that has taken the Phil Collins way, and tried to see the other side. You should all check it out. The post includes statements from real TSOs, real people doing the job that their government has told them to serving their country in the way that the federal government has told them to, and many, many of them are fine, upstanding people who protect and provide for their families, care for their loved ones and honestly believe in their country and the way of life that we who are lucky enough to live in the West have gotten used to.
Here’s a couple of things that the human beings behind the blue shirt have said about the way they are treated by airline passengers every day (all from BoardingArea.com);
“I come to work to do my job. It is not up to me to decide policy, it is up to me to carry out my duties as dictated by the Transportation Security Administration. When a person stands in front of me and calls me a pervert or accuses me of molesting them it is disheartening. People fail to understand that neither of us are happy about the intrusive pat down I am carrying out. I am polite, I am professional and while someone may not like what I have to carry out, they came to me because they choose not to utilize the alternative and less invasive method of security at my airport.”
“I served a tour in Afghanistan followed by a tour in Iraq. I have been hardened by war and in the past week I am slowly being broken by the constant diatribe of hateful comments being lobbed at me. While many just see a uniform with gloves feeling them for concealed items I am a person, I am a person who has feelings. I am a person who has served this country. I am a person who wants to continue serving his country. The constant run of hateful comments while I perform my job will break me down faster and harder than anything I encountered while in combat in the Army.”
“Do people know what a Nazi is? One can’t describe me as a Nazi because I am following a security procedure of designed to find prohibited items on a passenger’s body. A Nazi is someone with hatred and ignorance in their hearts, a person who carried out actions of execution and extermination of those based on their religion, origins or sexual preferences. I work to make travel safer, even if I do not agree with the current security procedures. Further more, I am Jewish and a TSA Transportation Security Officer, an American Patriot and to call me a Nazi is an offense beyond all other offenses.”
The blatant ignorance that the people who compare TSOs and Nazis exhibit is just not even worth commenting on. Those are the kinds of people that are bound to repeat history, since they have learned nothing, and likely never will. They are the ones who are likely to be fascist some day, or a variation of that.
The libertarian radio host that lied about her being harassed by the TSA the other day deserves even less of a mention – she merely makes it into this sentence to illustrate that maybe, just maybe, one should think twice before believing every word that someone says happened at a TSA checkpoint.
Well. That’s today’s rant. In closing, it should perhaps be mentioned that we’ve taken a look at the TSA’s procedure when it comes to this “enhanced” pat-down, and it’s exactly the same as the pat-down that has been standard in many European countries for years!
Now… this begs the question – why hasn’t there been this kind of uproar in Europe? Could it, dear reader, be that the US public is an uptight, self centered, self righteous bunch of pompous a$$holes?
(Incidentally, the method in the link above is used at US Embassies… and has also been used for years.)
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men är en nazi inte också bara en maniska som följer sina doktriner och regelverk?
Oavsett om de folk från TSA nu är ansvarig eller inte för kränkande policy så är det ändå de som utför de. Jag vet att det kan vara svårt i USA att hitta jobb, men om man inte samtycker med det man gör ska man sluta jobba för de. Det är lika med att jobba för Blackwater fast inte vill döda folk .
but is a nazi not also a person following a certain doctrine and set rules? Regardless, the people working for the TSA may not be responsible for the degrading (and misguided) policy, but they are the ones executing the orders, and as such are partially to blame. I am aware that the US job market is not the best, but if you don’t agree with your employers policy, change employer.
That is like working for Blackwater and stating that one holds human life above all other things.
“Do people know what a Nazi is? One can’t describe me as a Nazi because I am following a security procedure of designed to find prohibited items on a passenger’s body. A Nazi is someone with hatred and ignorance in their hearts, a person who carried out actions of execution and extermination of those based on their religion, origins or sexual preferences.”
Wrong!
Read Milton Mayer’s 1955 book “They Thought They Were Free”, one of the few books that delves into the psyche of the man on the street during the Nazi rule in Germany. The book is frightening in its portrayal of honest good churchgoing German citizens supporting Nazi rule for the greater good of the country. The German citizen was a law-abiding, conscientious, and caring neighbor that would smile and say hello as he passed you on the street. And the vast majority of German citizens in the early forties would proudly call themselves Nazis.
I can full well understand why the TSO is offended by the comparison. I hope he can understand why I, as an American citizen am offended by the choice of a digital strip search or being sexually molested by TSA to board a plane, something my job requires.
Jim