Trying to keep you from having more than 2oz. of shampoo in your carry-on and looking at your socks and the other “stupid passenger tricks” are apparently not entertaining enough for TSA employees any longer.
You’ve heard of “Audience Participation Theater”?
Rebecca Solomon is 22 and a student at the University of Michigan, and on Jan. 5 she was flying back to school after holiday break. She made sure she arrived at Philadelphia International Airport 90 minutes before takeoff, given the new regulations.
She would be flying into Detroit on Northwest Airlines, the same city and carrier involved in the attempted bombing on Christmas, just 10 days before. She was tense.
What happened to her lasted only 20 seconds, but she says they were the longest 20 seconds of her life.
After pulling her laptop out of her carry-on bag, sliding the items through the scanning machines, and walking through a detector, she went to collect her things.
A TSA worker was staring at her. He motioned her toward him.
Then he pulled a small, clear plastic bag from her carry-on – the sort of baggie that a pair of earrings might come in. Inside the bag was fine, white powder.
She remembers his words: “Where did you get it?”
Two thoughts came to her in a jumble: A terrorist was using her to sneak bomb-detonating materials on the plane. Or a drug dealer had made her an unwitting mule, planting coke or some other trouble in her bag while she wasn’t looking.
She’d left her carry-on by her feet as she handed her license and boarding pass to a security agent at the beginning of the line.
Answer truthfully, the TSA worker informed her, and everything will be OK.
Solomon, 5-foot-3 and traveling alone, looked up at the man in the black shirt and fought back tears.
Put yourself in her place and count out 20 seconds. Her heart pounded. She started to sweat. She panicked at having to explain something she couldn’t.
Now picture her expression as the TSA employee started to smile.
Just kidding, he said. He waved the baggie. It was his.
And so she collected her things, stunned, and the tears began to fall.
And the left wants to unionize these people!?!
Thankfully, this jackass was fired. But imagine if he had the SEIU or some other POS union behind him. We’d be paying his higher than the private sector salary for six months or more while the union held negotiations with the TSA about the finer points of his severance package.
If I were the woman, I’d be suing everybody. Including and especially him and his direct supervisors for everything they own and will ever own. I’d make sure their grand kids hate me. I’d be suing for sexism. If the guy isn’t white, I’d be alleging racism, and any other fucking thing I could think of and make them all defend themselves until their lawyers refuse to go to court for them because they can’t pay the fees.
Disgusting.
In the Un-Do, the TSA would be the first complete Federal outfit to be eliminated, IMNSHO. Every person, form top to bottom. here one day, gone the next.
Not surprising. This is Philthadelphia.
Idea: unless you have a birth defect or injury, one has as many toes as there are letters in the phrase “Fuck the TSA”. Sharpie pen and sandals are cheap.
Also I’m wondering why more people aren’t accusing the TSA of planting objects when knives and other prohibited items are found in carry-ons.
I’m kinda torn on this one. I’ve got a good buddy that is a tsa supervisor, and he totally gets f**ked over all the time… Plus, not to mention getting passed over for promotion due to EEO (he’s not a black female)
Example of his schedules:
4AM to 2PM, wed thurs off days
In the last 5 years of his time at tsa, I think he’s only had about 6 months of a normal weekend schedule… Now I suppose some would say that he gets what he gets for staying with tsa… (Going for his 20 in fed service) But still some pretty sh*tty hours…
I’m don’t even like unions, but they really need to do something better than what they’ve been doing…
“Has your luggage been out of your control since you packed it?”
“Why yes, it was out of my control when the TSA agents scanned it.”
I flew through Philly on my way back from Cancun a year ago. The TSA officer at the metal detector was leaning against the wall…not even standing up, looked like he’d slept in his uniform, and I was apparently taking too long filling up the divesting bin becuase he rudely advised me to “lose the phone” referring to my cellphone that was still attached to my belt.
I work for the TSA, and those kinds of antics are an embarassment. I also believe they are isolated. The screeners at my airport are a mix of former and active reserve military, Former law enforcement, firefighters and other public servants, who were looking to do something to protect our country in a time of war. A war against an enemy our government really doesn’t want to admit were fighting.
TSA personnel at each airport are hired from the local demographic, so if theres a large consentration of scumbags in one area, your going to have a larger percentage of them working at that airport. Philadelphia, Detroit, Newark, to name a few examples.
As for unionization, TSA screeners are already joining unions, I belong to the National Treasury Employees Union. It’s good because the arbitrary and capricous rules put in place by TSA Headquarters (career government beaurocrats, who have never screened a passsenger) aren’t just for passengers.
The douchenozzel cited in this article needs to be prosecuted, not just sued civilly, especially if he introduced contraband into the sterile area of that airport.