If officers of the Transportation Security Administration are going to continue to “have their way” with female passengers—and it looks like they are—they should at least rent a room. Certainly, they should take the precaution of checking passengers’ credentials.
If they had in the case of Karen H. Kaplan, of Washington, D.C., they might have learned that she is a journalist. Fittingly, Kaplan has written up her experience at Norfolk International Airport on Nov. 25. Her first-person account, which appears in Sunday’s theday.com, makes several critical claims that the TSA should be called upon to react to.
Kaplan writes that she triggered no alarms but was forced to submit to a patdown because (1) she was wearing a long skirt and (2) Norfolk International has no body-scanning device that could have been used as an alternative. She also notes that the TSA website cites no regulation that calls for an invasive search “simply because a passenger is wearing a skirt.”
Kaplan observes moreover that her “search involved highly invasive groping and probing of my private areas” and that it “took five to six minutes,” during which time the agent reached into her skirt, “exploring front to back.”
There is an obvious problem with the way the TSA is run, but there is another, larger problem, which is implicit in the findings of a poll released last August. The poll, conducted by Gallup, indicated that 54% of Americans think the TSA is doing either an excellent or a good job of handling security screening at airports. Another 41% think TSA screening procedures are extremely or very effective at preventing acts of terrorism.
This poll seems to point to one of two possibilities. One is that the American public has become inured to invasive and inhumane treatment as a necessary evil of air travel. A second is that the TSA’s own public relations efforts, sending out “war-not-declared” press releases to media outlets, is working. By encouraging stories about what a bang-up job they’re doing keeping Americans safe, they neutralize horror stories like Kaplan’s.
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Though these things always have an element of “just one side of the story” to them, the fact they are so pervasive and consistent means there’s a real problem. The fundamental problem is treating the entire populace as if they are guilty of a crime. I refuse to fly nowadays. At least for a while, I still have my freedoms when I drive.
You were wise to include “for a while” in your comment.
Why shouldn’t the airlines be responsible for their own security checks? In the airports in Prague, Bratislava and BudaPest, (I fly into each often) each individual airline does their own checks, right up at the gates before you board. They have also started this in Amsterdam and several other airports in Europe (no eye rolls for my sometimes agreeing that they do something right in Europe).
I am thinking that airlines are doing a better job than TSA because it’s their planes they need to protect and they sure don’t want pissed off passengers who have been groped before they board those planes.
Seriously, it really is a good system. Fast and painless.
— ” Why shouldn’t the airlines be responsible for their own security checks?”—
because the public WANTS this stuff and if the airlines had to pay for it, the price of tickets would be near to the only thing taking off.
Too many people have way too much faith in Government in this country. If someone suggested that a private airline manage their own security, many people would cry that the airlines cannot provide for their own security because “profits would come before people”. Our holy Government, on the other hand, would never be tainted by something as crass as customer service and profit-making.
When it says “54% of Americans think the TSA is doing either an excellent or a good job of handling security screening at airports” — is that only polling Americans that fly or the general public? Because seriously why poll non-flyers? They don’t know squat about it. And for flyers I highly doubt that 54% think our current “security theater” is worth it.
I have wondered for a while if the TSA hires from the sexual predators list.
they have not caught one terrorist and are an invasive overreaching government group.
I am still surprised that people put up with them without rioting
I second GWB’s sentiments.
Unless I have absolutely no other choice, I refuse to fly. The TSA is beyond mere gubmint farce, it is abusive and criminal. I haven’t flown in 10 years now. I dread the day that work/family forces me to fly, because I may end up doing time for ‘redressing the balance’ with these TSA punks.
At least the video would go mega-viral