N9373M

Sorry, multi tasking - and not very well.

He was polite and followed all instructions, as far as interviewing, paperwork, but he did not do the scanner nor pat down. The TSA and another officer walked him away from the screening area and began talking - out of his range. He asked if he was free to go, and they said no - once in the security area, you must be screened. He walked anyway - subject to the 10K fine.

I thought the full story was on CNN, but a lot of the detail I read is not there. If I find the original link, I'll post it.

tsquare

Where's that Easy button then...?

Repeat after me: Touch my junk, and I'll sue. Priceless.

AZFlyer

The Israeli's may have the security/screening/profiling gig down pretty well, but they also have far less traffic/passenger volume to deal with.

When the TSA was first created, the hiring requirements to become a TSA 'officer' were much higher than they are now in terms of education, background, previous job experience, etc. Unfortunately, not even remotely enough people that met the qualifications applied for the job. However, the TSA's inability to properly staff the airports with educated and experienced 'officers' was largely due to the fact that the TSA was not offering a commensurate wage for the qualifications they were asking of people. (Surprised??) As a result, the job has become the government equivalent of being a Wendy's burger flipper, that it is today.

I'm not trying to over simplify things, but it is entirely possible that the TSA could have been an entirely different animal than what it is today, if they had only put down a little more cash. They (and we) are getting what they paid for.

I for one can't wait to go through the nude-o-scope with a sign stuck under my shirt that tells them, explicitly, how I feel about them.

Jughead

I got ya now - I found the youtube with this guy going thru security.

Actually, it was "touch my junk, and I'll have you arrested". The guy did have a good point - everything they're doing would be considered illegal, but they're the government, so it's allowed.

N9373M

I agree, to a point. If the undie bomber took down the jet, would your thoughts change?

All this 4th amendment stuff is good, until we lose an aircraft.

It's a tough call.

hockeypilot44

The solution is to keep our civil rights that this country was founded on and accept the fact that there is no way to make flying 100 percent safe. What happens when a stadium or subway is attacked? Are these security methods going to be deployed there? Are we going to have to start going through security to go into a mall?

hockeypilot44

No it's not. Without our rights, what else is there?

satchip

Actually you do have a right to air travel. It is a contract between you and the air carrier. The government is inserting itself between the two and baring you from exercising your contractual rights if you don't willingly forfeit your 4th Amendment rights.

The real answer was to not let the government do this in the first place. The carriers were perfectly able to perform the security function before and they are now. Bush created the TSA to placate the dems in order to get the Patriot Act passed. His initial proposal was to contract it to private companies.

KnightFlyer

What are the statistics on how many bombs the TSA have found at screening?

Zapata

Directly from the horse's mouth, here's his blog. For the audio recordings, he embeds 3 YouTube videos at the end.