Letter from a Former Screener: “The TSA Attempted to Fire Me for Trying to Tell the Public That the Rapiscan Full Body Scanners Didn’t Work.”

This next letter is a first: a letter from a screener with whom I was actually familiar when I worked at TSA. I’m sure this will happen again at some point (I can’t wait until the day comes when I receive a letter from a TSA screener I actually worked with. That will be amusing. There are at least one or two people following me on Twitter who are actually former co-workers of mine, though they don’t know it.)

At any rate, this former screener worked at Newark Liberty International.  (Newark is like the little bastard problem child airport-within-the-problem-child-agency that is the TSA, an ongoing sentiment I’ve heard from screeners across the nation.)

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Dear Taking Sense Away,

I worked with Jon Corbett (tsaoutofourpants.wordpress.com) and he interviewed me in a video which appeared on YouTube last April. Unfortunately, all I got for my whistle blowing was a year of underemployment. 

TSA is a joke as we both know.

In January, 2012 I sent John Mica in Florida a detailed account of how the scanners didn’t work.  As a result, TSA tried to fire me for dissemination of SSI.  I also made a follow up video with Jon Corbett in April 2012 after I quit TSA.

With regards to your open letter today to the congressman, I can tell you from experience that these politicians could care less about what goes on with TSA. They all know exactly what goes on within this joke of an agency.

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Dear Former Screener,

Good point.

Sincerely,

-NJR

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Send all questions to takingsenseaway@gmail.com

An Open Letter to Congressman Michael T. McCaul

First of all, good morning, Chairman McCaul. Congratulations on your new appointment. I’m sure you’ll find that the TSA is more than eager to offer you their best obfuscation, excuses and attempts to mislead, as the Full Committee on Oversight and Government Reform has consistently found. I look forward to answering any of your questions, I can be reached at takingsenseaway@gmail.com.

In response to your recent statement of interest in probing the full cost of the ill-fated Rapiscan Backscatter AIT Full Body Scanners,  I would today like to give you something that the TSA, as well as far too many of our elected officials in Washington D.C., strives so hard to ignore insofar as possible: a floor-level, everyday account of how things actually worked, as a result of their government’s decision.

BACKGROUND:

The Transportation Security Administration screens approximately 1.8 million people who travel each day through 450 U.S. airports.

In response to the failed December 25, 2009, attempted bombing of a Detroit-bound international flight using an improvised explosive device–a plot that was yet again foiled by brave passengers– the TSA accelerated its investment in AIT technology– a result of a collaboration between TSA and private industry.

STATEMENT:

1. We, the TSA screeners, were given classes in 2010 on how to operate the Rapiscan backscatter machines, classes which, in at least one case, included an instructor telling his students that “…the general population of America cannot be trusted anymore… which is why (the machines were being deployed).” Though this may have represented an anomaly in the TSA’s training operations, representative only of one misspoken regional TSA training instructor, I believe it would be useful for the TSA to issue a statement to all TSA training instructors, advising that categorical remarks about the American public’s perceived trustworthiness, or lack thereof, by TSA training instructors while on duty in their capacity as trainers of TSA officers will not be tolerated.

2. We, the TSA screeners, now freshly minted as being Whole Body Image certified, were sent to the floors of our respective airports in 2010, in order to operate these machines, which we were told represented “Transportation Security Officers having the best technology available to detect both metallic and non-metallic threats.” There was only one problem: the Rapiscan AIT machines were not very effective at detecting either.

This quickly became common knowledge to screeners on the checkpoint, such as myself, who were obligated, through a sense of loyalty or fear of retaliation, to remain silent on the ineffectiveness of the scanners, while simultaneously, for instance, compelling toddlers to get inside of the radiation machines in order to assume the position (Children under 12 years old were not exempted from backscatter radiation screening until approximately one year after the full deployment of the machines.)

On an April 22, 2010, conference with Canada’s House of Commons Transport Committee,  Rafi Sela, former chief of security at the Israel Airport Authority, stated:

“I don’t know why everybody is running to buy these expensive and useless machines. I can overcome the body scanners with enough explosives to bring down a Boeing 747. That’s why we haven’t put them in our airport.”

We quickly realized the truth of Sela’s statement, as routine, covert self-testing of the Rapiscan AIT machines proved time and time again that organic substances, meant to simulate explosives, oriented in all but the most conspicuous manner on a human body, were extremely difficult, if not impossible to detect.

3. Then came the question of metallic items. Almost immediately, it was discovered that the Rapiscan backscatter AITs were shamefully ineffective when it came to detecting metallic items, such as guns. To give you a quick idea as to the level of gross incompetence involved in the TSA’s purchasing and deployment of the Rapiscan backscatter radiation machines, look at the header of this website– the x-ray images of nude human bodies. Surely, the Chairman sees the black background of those images.

Do you know what color metallic items, such as guns, show up as on the backscatter AIT images? Black. So in the case of detecting a malicious actor attempting to bring a gun through the Rapiscan  AIT scanner, it was a matter of finding the color black, outlined within the same color black.

This laughable weakness quickly became common knowledge among a small circle of experts and insiders within the field, knowledge which came to the attention of a blogger named Jonathan Corbett, who, in 2012, fully explicated this technological flaw on-video, and then filmed himself bringing a large metallic item through the Rapiscan machines, repeatedly.

The TSA downplayed the video’s significance to the public, while at the same time ordering us, the front line screeners, to begin giving passengers who had gone through the Rapiscan AIT scanners additional body pat downs, in order to compensate for the egregious, embarrassing, now-public flaw of the Rapiscan backscatter radiation machines that the TSA was using on passengers. Many frequent flyers noted that something strange was going on with our operations, as the sides of their bodies were now systematically being patted down in addition to having complied to their government’s request to get inside of backscatter radiation machines– the intrusive screening had doubled for passengers, all as a result of the TSA’s failure to properly test the Rapiscan backscatter radiation machines before purchasing and deploying them en masse.

4. As if this comedy of errors weren’t enough, the means of communication between the remote viewers of the nude images and the machine operators out on the floor was extremely poor. The whisper radios that the TSA purchased for use on the checkpoint and in Full Body Scanner operations were oftentimes completely non-functional, meaning that there was dead air or broken transmissions between the floor operators of the nearly-useless machines, and the image analysts in the remote rooms (who were, additionally, in at least some airports, acting unprofessionally in regard to passenger images, as a result of the TSA’s Privacy Impact Assessment’s conclusion that the remote viewers of the images could in no way be supervised or monitored by anyone besides the image analysts).

These routinely malfunctioning radios represent another expenditure that should be probed and included in any tally of the Rapiscan Full Body Scanners’ cost to the American public.

5. The radios further exacerbated the general failure of the Rapiscan machines to process passengers in anything resembling an expedient manner. The Rapiscan AIT machines were absurdly slow.

I had many 8 hour days with which to spend counting the number of passengers processed through security by the AIT full body scanners as compared to the walk-thru metal detector. Over the course of several months, I calculated that it was 5 passengers through the old walk-thru metal detector to every 1 through the Rapiscan AIT. (The metal detectors, used in conjunction with random pat downs, were no less effective than the full body scanners in terms of security value– the full body scanners had become, in essence, random alarm generators. The same can essentially be said of the TSA’s current mission to make L3 Micro Millimeter Wave scanners the primary mode of screening).

6. As a result of this fiasco of errors compounding errors,  passenger wait times began to balloon. This caused management to begin rushing the floor rotations of AIT scanner operations in order to counter the increasing wait times, which in turn led to breaches of the TSA’s Privacy Impact Assessment’s assurance to the public and to government oversight committees that the “officers viewing the nude images of passengers would never come into contact with the passengers themselves.”

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This systemic folly– this apocalypse of incompetence which unfolded daily at airports for years– is representative of a larger pattern of negligence, misuse of funds, and breaches of public trust to be found within the Transportation Security Administration. While I am but an anonymous source, to be blithely dismissed by TSA spokespeople and representatives, I am confident that a widespread investigation, in the form of discrete and retaliation-free inquiries given to floor level TSA screeners, would corroborate my claims.

I sincerely hope you make good on your promise to probe the cost to the American people of the Rapiscan backscatter radiation machines, Congresssman McCaul, not only in monetary terms, but in terms of their dignity, as well.

-NJR

Passenger Flashback: Airport Security in 1992.

As one reader pointed out about a month ago: uniformly criticizing the TSA is “like poking a neurologically-disabled bear with a sharp stick.”

Although I do have plenty of unflattering things to say about the TSA, with a former employee’s insight, I will occasionally give credit where credit is due to the TSA, and in the case of this passenger letter, we are being fair to the TSA when we admit this:

Airport security was oftentimes idiotic well before you even came into the picture, TSA.

So now I’ll hand it over to David D., who wrote in to take us back to a simpler time– 1992– when airport security could be dumb without making any headlines…

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This isn’t a modern story. I want to harken back to a simpler time of big hair and big glasses… 1992. Why is this story worth telling? Just to point out the nonsense is not new, nor unique to the modern TSA. We’re not going to get sanity by reorganizing or changing the letters again.

One evening I went to pick up my Dad from Palm Beach International Airport (International = you can fly to Nassau) and I went through security to meet him. You could do that in those days. I dropped my cellphone, pager, and keys in the tray and walked through the metal detector with my wallet, watch, and belt. No problem. I knew they were below the threshold because I traveled out of there all the time. When I got to the gate I found out the flight was delayed. Eventually it got delayed about 4.5 hours but in 30 minute increments. And this was before the Internet and flight texts so I had to stick around. On my second or third trip back through security the white-haired officer said, “Still here, eh?” I explained about the flight, that I was thoroughly bored, and that everything was now closed. He laughed and commiserated with me and we stood there chatting for a few minutes. There were no more flights leaving that night and it was quiet.

More like desolate.

I went back out again in the hopes of finding something to eat (I didn’t) and when I came back to security this time there was a new crew at the checkpoint, and I forgot to take off my pager. When you wear something all the time it’s easy to forget it, bulky though it is. I said sorry, popped it off, and tossed it in the tray. Then stepped back through. I set the detector off again. Meaning the new crew had changed the calibration. I was of course made to take off my belt, watch, etc. and still set it off. They patted me down. I’m sure I looked irritated but I tried to be polite.

Then guy looked at the tray. “Why do you have a phone and a pager?”

“It’s expensive to use,” I said. “I have people page me and I call them back, preferably from a different phone.” I’d had that question from so many people I answered it automatically. Also the battery sucked. You had to leave it turned off when you weren’t using it. Remember, this is 1992.

Then it got good: “Phones aren’t allowed in the concourse.”

“What?”

“Phones aren’t allowed. Against the law.” I love it when people invoke The Law.

“I travel with this all the time,” I lied, “and it’s never been an issue.”

“Can’t bring it in.”

“Ok,” I said. “Well I’m just here meeting someone so I’ll just go wait for him at baggage claim.”

I could see him thinking about this one. His partner looked disinterested. He tried to threaten me into not leaving. I wish I could say that I made an impassioned plea for my rights. I don’t honestly recall what I said but I was bored and cranky. And I had nothing to lose short of getting arrested, which seemed unlikely So I argued. I was a pain in the ass. There was no one at all in line. I was it. The airport was closed except for my Dad’s flight coming in so he really had nothing better to do either.

Eventually the guy said, “Ok you can go.” I grabbed my stuff and started to leave. He said,

“No, you can go in.” I was dumbfounded. I said thanks, took my stuff and went to the gate.

Why did he change his mind? Maybe he planned to confiscate then steal the phone and didn’t want me to complain. (It wasn’t actually worth much, but maybe he thought it was.) Maybe he was a decent guy who realized he was wrong, but then why did he make such a stupid claim in the first place? Probably – I realized much later – he wasn’t supposed to work that night but got called in because my Dad’s flight was delayed. So maybe he was just plain pissed off and took it out on me. I’ll never know.

But the best part? They never x-rayed the phone or the pager. The first crew did so diligently even while joking with me.

Remember, this was 1992. The phone was the size of a brick and weighed more than a pound. Could have hidden a fucking bomb in that thing.

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Thank You, TSA.

Yes, the TSA finally canceled their contract with Rapiscan, meaning that the clunky, radiation iteration of the full body scanners are officially on their way out, on a national basis. This is relatively good news, dear passengers, at least insofar as it pertains to your wait times and unwanted radiation doses (the L3 ATR scanners are at least twice as fast as the Rapiscan AITs). It also means that, soon, there will no longer be any TSA screeners remotely ogling your nude images.

Although media outlets have mostly angled the TSA’s announcement as good news, I think that now would be as good a time as any for taxpayers to take a look back at the hundred million dollar blunder that was the deployment of the Rapiscan AIT machines, and realize just how amazingly idiotic the entire venture was.

For at least two years, their government was submitting them to unnecessary doses of radiation (at first, including toddlers), putting their nude images on the screens of people who were not in any way qualified to be remotely viewing and analyzing nude images of passengers, all in the name of an ill-conceived technology that was repeatedly assessed and proven– by experts and laypeople alike– to be near-useless.

If those Rapiscan radiation scanners made you angry, dear passengers, just try to imagine how angry I was, having to work those clunky, ineffective, idiotic machines for approximately 2 years. Sometime within the next week I’m going to post a warm walk down memory lane of my experiences with those scanners. Be sure to tune in.

But for now: thank you, TSA, for canceling the Rapiscan contract. It only took 3 years,  millions of taxpayer dollars, hundreds of millions of people being unnecessarily irradiated, and an outraged chorus of thousands of experts to gently guide you to that decision.

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The TSA Responds to This Blog in the L.A. Times.

Here.

Essentially, the following line of logic is what the TSA expects you to believe. I’ll just lay this out and let you draw your own conclusions. I guess I would be annoyed that they expect millions of people to believe this, if it weren’t for the fact that I find it, quite frankly, amusing and fascinating.

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1. All TSA screeners (those who have not yet been arrested) are professional and upstanding at all times.

2. There are people in an Image Analysis room at some airports, looking at nude passenger images, sometimes in groups, sometimes alone.  Information as to what goes on in those rooms is extremely difficult, if not impossible, to retrieve, per the TSA’s design: the presence of a recording device would itself break the TSA’s assurances to the ACLU that no images would be captured or taken out of the room. No one can even leave or enter the room without warning. So, paradoxically, the Privacy Impact Cost of a room that affords the most penetrating surveillance in an American airport is that the room itself cannot be surveilled.

3. The people in those rooms are TSA screeners.

4. Therefore, everything that has gone on, is going on, or will ever go on in any of those rooms will be professional and upstanding at all times.

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Again, I’ll just let the reader decide what they think of this line of logic, and of these rooms– or even just the concept of these rooms– which exist across the nation on the taxpayer’s dime.

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Letter from a Passenger: A Change.org Petition for the TSA to be More Understanding with Cats.

We are petitioning the TSA to offer opt out advisements directly to cats’ faces.

As a TSA screener, the second most daunting situation (right behind foot odor) that one faces on a day-to-day basis,  is, of course, not the existential threat of terrorism.

It is the moment in which a cat owner begins attempting to pull his or her cat out of its carrier.

Cats, as we all know, are proud, stubborn little things. They do not like being bossed around. In this way, cats are probably the biggest, baddest, most patriotic Anti-TSA Americans on the planet (all cats are American when they hit a TSA checkpoint. Even French cats are like, “Merde! Zees is bullsheet! Why do I have to come out of zees carrier! Why you are patting me down!? Do not touch me I scratch you! Fuck zees I run away now and abort my screening!”

“In Europe we do not take zee shoes off. I speet on you, TSA.”

As a screener, I saw several harrowing instances of a cat escaping its owner and breaking loose in the terminal, causing a near all-out breach and terminal dump. Not to mention the everyday close call near-cat escape. You can see the terror in their little kitty eyes as they are ripped from their carriers to be carried through the walk-thru, per TSA policy.

To this end, someone recently emailed me pointing me to a petition on Change.org, started by Karen Pascoe of San Jose, California, who had one cat die horrifically at JFK airport, and another lost during a TSA screening.

The petition calls, quite simply, for TSA to institute better policy, training, and procedures in regard to the above mentioned moment when a TSA screener forces a cat owner to pull kitty out of its carrier, as well as in the event that the cat escapes.

Now I don’t know about the rest of you screeners out there, but at the airports I worked, the standard M.O. was to tell a cat-carrying passenger that “the cat has to come out of the carrier!” and work from there. Then, if the cat owner expressed a clear and mortal fear that the removal of said cat would most certainly result in the cat never being seen again, only then, would a supervisor or lead be called over, resulting in the passenger being offered a private screening, where the cat could be removed from the carrier in the relative safety of an enclosed room.

What I think could definitely be changed in TSA procedure when it comes to advising a pet-carrying passenger of his or her options, is an emphasis on the fact that the pet and the owner can be taken to a private screening room without the necessity of removing the pet and attempting to carry it through the walk-thru metal detector, as two sets of fully extended claws are digging into the passenger’s neck.

The passenger will always, at every airport, consistently, be advised that they can either take the cat out of the carrier right there, or in a private screening room. The cat will be given the choice to opt out of being removed from its carrier and taken through the metal detector.

Hey, it’s one small thing you can consistently do for the cat-carrying, taxpaying public, TSA, since it’s not like you’re really going to be saving them from terrorism. I know you definitely don’t have your screeners memorizing and reciting pet screening verbiage in your theatrical annual practical examinations. So why not?

So far, the petition, addressed to TSA chief John Pistole, has nearly 115,000 signatures. (Although it is addressed to the Transportation “Safety” Administration, so Karen, you may want to edit that.) Please circulate this petition, in memory of Karen’s cat, and in order to force the TSA to make one small change in its SOP, which would require all cats to be directly provided the option for a private screening.

Yes. We demand that TSA screeners address the option for a private screening directly to the cats’ faces. Cats need to be lulled into feeling terror-free too, TSA.

In memory of Karen’s cats, Jack and Xiaohwa.

I’ve Received a Lot of Email About How Generally Annoying the Official TSA Blog Is, Recently.

In case any of you haven’t heard, the TSA did, in fact, find guns— the same ones that have been such a hot topic in the media lately for unfortunate reasons. Coincidence? — with their 8 billion dollar annual budget, and they have even managed to do it with pre-9/11 security methods. If you think that’s impressive, wait until you see what they do with the part of the budget that isn’t devoted to simply doing what pre-9/11 security did.

Go on, wait and see. And wait. And wait. And wait. Like the opening voice over in Casablanca.

There was a day, about a year ago, when rumors began flying among the screeners at my airport about the holy TSA grail having been found: screeners were all aflutter with a rumor that a man had been caught trying to board a plane with C-4. The rumor was that it had been discovered on a positive explosives test alarm.

“Well I’ll be damned,” I said to myself. “I may have to give it up to them on this one, after all. This may be The Big Catch.”

Then the details of the story emerged, and it was never spoken of again by the TSA, as far as I know. It turned out that the man had flown through one airport, where the TSA had failed to detect the explosives, then attempted to board his flight home (this being the point at which the TSA finally made the catch) only to discover that their “terrorist” was a U.S. Army demolitions expert who had forgotten the C-4 in his carry-on; C-4 he had carried home from his tour in Afghanistan.

And all this coming just as the agency was attempting to ease security restrictions on military personnel. Needless to say, the holy grail Big Catch turned out to be a giant embarrassment in various ways.

The big splashy photos on the TSA Blog are, of course, theatrical in nature. Any theoretical real, 8 billion dollar budget-justifying accomplishment of the TSA’s privacy-compromising and oftentimes reckless theatrical production would be deterrent in nature, hardly visible– someone who was going to try something nasty with our nation’s aviation system, but who then decided that the TSA was simply too formidable an opponent, and aborted their mission.

Given that these metrics of “success” are difficult to get a read on, the one thing you could look for would be terrorists who were detected in attempts to hit other targets in lieu of aviation; indications of a sort of displacement at play. What you actually get are a lot of people such as the Times Square Bomber– thwarted by alert citizens– and successful stings by real intelligence and police agencies. Basically, what you get are successful security plays by entities to whom most of the TSA’s budget would be better allocated: the FBI, for instance, or, even better, back into the pockets of the taxpayers who will probably be the ones to thwart any exceedingly rare attempt at a terrorist attack, via tips to police and intelligence agencies, anyway.

Various security experts have said it time and time again, and I believe that the public could stand to be reminded of it as often as possible, in light of the TSA’s historical penchant for flashy, distracting theatrics: the fatal hole in aviation security, the one that actually warranted panic, was closed before the September 11 attacks even concluded; before the heroes of UA Flight 93 brought that now-legendary battle to its close: passengers’ belief that there was no need to fight back. That’s how lightning fast that smart, natural, decentralized human security systems are. Enormous, ill-conceived, lumbering bureaucracies are good at wrapping and debilitating those systems in expensive, senseless, irritating red tape.

TSA, here are 5 things to consider:

1. Take your screeners out of the blue uniforms, do away with the badges. Inspector-beige and-black is a good look. Personally, I would have been thrilled to find out that we were changing over to a beige look. It would look great in summer, and it wouldn’t have made me feel as though I were masquerading as a fake police officer all the time. Walking around in that uniform on the way home during off-hours, a TSA screener will often hear a little kid say, “Mommy look! A police officer!” to which the parent usually replies, “No, he’s just airport security.” It is extremely embarrassing when this happens. Have some mercy on your screeners (the ones not interested in playing cop, anyway; the good ones, in other words), and save them that daily humiliation.

2. Get a dry erase board. On it, depict your entire security operation rolled back to pre-9/11 security.

3. Identify the things that you can do on a random, minimally-invasive basis in order to provide adequate deterrence. For instance, there is a segment of the public who actually loves the full body scanners: people with metal implants. I used to hear them singing the praises of the full body scanners every day. The full body scanners are actually adored by them, which is a good sign that something smart and useful is going on. Go ahead, have one ATR-fitted full body scanner near every checkpoint, and randomly select people to get into that line, with, of course, the right to opt out. But enough with your quest to make them the primary screening method. Stop buying and staffing thousands of full body scanners, only to replace them all when you find out that they don’t work. It is ridiculous, which is why EPIC filed a federal lawsuit against you.

Announce that there may be an occasional, random swab of shoes, but otherwise, people can keep their non-alarming shoes on. The liquids restriction can be almost entirely lifted as well, with the caveat that liquids can and will be tested on a random basis.

4. Phase out the multi-billion dollar SPOT program. It is an egregious waste of money.

5. Now you have a leaner, less despised, and more cost-effective operation. Spend more time on better hiring, personnel management, passenger interaction training, and identifying and weeding out the bad apples in your midst.

The people who will hate you and complain about you incessantly, no matter what you do, will have to reach a lot harder to do their inevitable complaining, and you’ll be wasting a lot less taxpayer money and time, as well as doing a lot less insulting of people’s intelligence with flashy photos of inert bazooka rounds and weaponized chastity belts on your official blog.

I’m not sure that it was a weaponized chastity belt that I saw on the official TSA blog earlier this evening (a link to the official TSA blog was emailed to me by a very smart reader, thank you) but in general, that sums up what it is you’re doing with that silly blog of yours: bragging about goddamned weaponized chastity belts.

Taxpayers are funding a person to sit at a computer and write words such as “we found a chastity belt! Ha ha! Look at us!” (“And we found it with your billions of dollars, mounting privacy concessions, and good faith willingness to put your toddlers in our ineffective radiation machines a couple years back!”)

Truly, hats off.

-NJR

Confession #6: No, You Don’t Know What It Is.

One of the most common things a TSA screener hears from passengers on a day-to-day basis is: “Oh! I know what it is!” This is usually said in regard to an alarm on the walk-thru metal detector, an anomaly on the full body scanner, or, most often, a call for a bag check. But I’ll let you on a little secret:

No, you probably don’t know what it is. Half the time we don’t even “know” what “it” is.

This is TSA we’re talking about, people. Most everything is inconsistent, senseless, chaotic and rationality-deficient, so any one thing that happens on a checkpoint at any given time usually has absolutely no connection to anything resembling a deeply satisfying explanation. Oh, the “officers” may appear all official and industrious in their faux police officer uniforms and impersonator badges, but really, behind it all, it’s just a big, dumb jumble.

Here’s how it actually works, from a former TSA officer: we mindlessly go around just doing things, and owing to the sheer number of mindless procedures and empty, senseless rules, it all becomes white noise. We are constantly swabbing hands (essentially self-defeating any hope that a hand swab alarm would ever be TSA’s miracle Hail Mary shot to actually catch a terrorist), mindlessly throwing away bottles of liquid and gels (under the logic that they may pose a threat, but I ask you, screeners at any medium-to large sized airport: how often do you liquids test a bottle of water or jar of peanut butter before you mindlessly toss it in a garbage bin right there on the checkpoint?) just mindlessly doing things. It is essentially a cacophony of million-and-billion dollar gadgetry crying wolf all day and night, with hardly anything being even theoretically accomplished, besides hassling the people we are supposedly protecting.

Now, I will tell you right now what the TSA’s official response to this big heap of truth would be:

“The screening procedure is unpredictable by design, so that terrorists are unable to exploit our security systems by monitoring our procedures and working around them. We have many layers of security, which…” etc, etc.

Let me ask you this, TSA, as one of your former employees: if everything for a given organization is explained away as “unpredictable”—purely random— then isn’t there (just humor here for a minute, TSA, I know this couldn’t possibly be the case) but isn’t there just the slightest chance that maybe, just maybe, that organization would at times take advantage of the unpredictability cloak and file things that are really just dumb, inefficient inconsistencies and errors under the heading of “unpredictable”? And since the screening process is all just a big storm of regular unpredictability, why not have an occasional, unpredictable “Let People Take the Jar of Apple Butter That Their Grandma Surprise- Packed Into Their Luggage Day?” Or an occasional “Shut Down the Nude Scanners and Just Do Pat Downs on People with Excessively Baggy Clothing Day?” Hey, it’s all unpredictable, anyway, put your TSA officers in clown wigs every now and then, terrorists won’t know what to make of that, while the American public sure as hell will.

Another common thing that officers hear is: “This bottle of shampoo got through such-and-such airport, but now you guys are telling me I can’t have it.”

The explanation for this is simple: the airport where your slightly oversized bottle of liquid successfully passed through was staffed at the time by an x-ray operator who either A. Didn’t notice the bottle of liquid or other “contraband” item because he or she was too busy thinking about things such as whether or not they were going to soon be terminated for something ridiculous such as failing to use the proper hand motion on the inside mesh pocket of a test suitcase during the annual PSE test or B. the x-ray operator at the other airport noticed the bottle of liquid, but, being a screener of the thinking variety, shrewdly weighed the costs and benefits of stopping the whole security show just to have a bag checker steal your jar of Grandma’s apple butter for no really good reason, thereby wasting everyone’s time and doing absolutely nothing to make anything safer since the liquids rule is basically just idiotic, and in a snap decision—(a miraculous show of human rationality and intelligence actually operating in a place as intellectually impoverished as a TSA checkpoint, oh, bless the rare, thinking TSA officer!)— decided to just let your liquid pass through and save everyone the little security show. This happens all the time at airports all across the country, I guarantee you, and, as you can see, nobody’s jar of hair gel ever turns out to be a deadly instrument of mass destruction.

Then there are random alarm generators at certain airports. Every time one of those goes off, the passenger pats his or her pockets down claiming things like, “Oh, maybe it’s my…nipple ring?” “I’m on my period, is that it?” Or “I have absolutely nothing. This is fascist.”

Sometimes when bag checks are called, there is the occasional married couple who uses the bag check as an excuse to continue some heated marital dispute that has clearly been going on for quite some time. I’m telling you, a psychologist would love to be a TSA officer for maybe just a week or so. An example of a Bag Check with Acute Marital Distress Transference Syndrome (BCWAMDTS) might go something like this.

TSA X-RAY OPERATOR: Bag check!

TSA BAG CHECKER: Whose bag is this? I have to take a look through…

WIFE PASSENGER: Oh God. It’s the goddamn lingerie, Bob. You made me bring the goddamn lingerie and now the TSA’s gon’ take it from us and everything else all on account of you don’t find me attractive anymore unless I’m dressed like some goddamned SLUT.

HUSBAND PASSENGER: Now hold on just a minute there, just calm down, Patsy.

WIFE PASSENGER: NO. I will not calm down! I tried to tell you the TSA don’t let people bring no goddamn fancy lingerie and such on no goddamn planes after 9/11 and now they’re gonna’ take everything away from us!

HUSBAND PASSENGER: Then we’ll just give up the goddamn thong in the name of freedom, Patsy. Be quiet, woman.

TSA BAG CHECKER: Ma’am, it’s not the lingerie, I assure you…

WIFE PASSENGER: The hell it ain’t! Then what is it?

HUSBAND PASSENGER: Calm the hell down, Patsy! Now this here officer just said it ain’t the lingerie, and the way I see it, there ain’t nothin’ wrong with a woman getting’ dolled up every now and then for her man! If it is the lingerie then we’ll just have to surrender it and per-se-vere in the name of this here goddamn terror fight we got goin’ on for these here stars ‘n bars, baby! Now lower your voice, woman!

WIFE PASSENGER: Well maybe if you’d snuck that other woman of yours on the plane like you do everywhere else you wouldn’t need me to dress up in no lingerie to make you forget about who I really am and this here goddamn ex-i-stential terrorist threat wouldn’t be robbin’ us of our goddamn suitcase now would it!? Looks like the goddamn terrorists won and she’s a twiggy 23 year old bitch who didn’t never go through the pain of bearing your three fuckin’ children, now how ‘bout THAT Bob?

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Sometimes, I guess, people really do know what it is, on some Freudian level or another. Also, it must be noted that occasionally, the theatrical performances are given by the passengers, and not the screeners.

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Fair and Balanced TSA Discussion, Part 1: How Long Until the TSA is Complicit in Ruining Disney World and All Childhood Memories for America?

They’ll make you take your shoes off to enter this.

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I try to be a reasonable person, I really do. I have come here to discuss the TSA, not to be alarmist about it. The TSA gets slammed in the media enough. After all, how many other government agencies find themselves having to fend off earnest accusations of flying reconnaissance drones over football games?

And so in this installment of my ongoing quest to clear my email inbox by the end of January, I will be giving equal blog space to different sides of the “to-despise TSA because it will one day ruin Disney World and America’s future childhood memories, or not to-despise TSA because it will one day ruin Disney World and America’s future childhood memories” question.

Our first letter comes from Ginny, an anonymous current screener, whom you may remember from Hate Mail Part 2.

Ginny writes back:

I guess ‘asshole’ is just an easy thing to call a person, however I do apologize for using such language. Behind Anonymity it’s easy to forget your manners. So once again, I do apologize for using such a harsh word.

To be honest, the thing that irks me the most about this all is the fact that people are now taking everything you do and say as fact despite there being hundreds of airports out there where these things don’t happen. Even though you’re anonymous for the most part, you’re still giving the other thousands of workers an even worse name. That is basically my main issue as I so ‘eloquently’ stated in my first email. For the most part, the blog just seems to be a bash on the TSA with nothing to show that there are hard-working TSOs out there doing a job that they believe is needed and actually provide security to the flying public. However, things such as pay and a poor hiring process along with a horrible system of part-time workers causes the TSA to retain terrible screeners and force screeners who actually want to work out as a TSO position is just not economically viable for many months after taking the job…

Sincerely,

Ginny

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Dear Ginny,

Good to hear from you again. I appreciate the implicit acknowledgement from a current screener that the things I write about on this blog do happen at some airports, which is of course more than the TSA is able to officially acknowledge. Sorry I cut your email off about halfway through, but you were encroaching upon a child’s warm memory of Disney World and the TSA.

Sincerely,

-NJR

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Our next email comes from someone who was going to have an entire post dedicated to him or her, until Ginny came along again, complaining about how I portray the TSA, thereby ruining everything.

Anonymous writes:

Hello there.

I just happened to stumble across this blog, and wanted to share with you my first experience with the TSA.

In 2003, my father won a trip to Disney World for the whole family. I was about 6 years old, and was really excited to be spending the 4th of July with Mickey and Cinderella. So we went to JFK, and since I was a little kid, told the TSA agent about how I was going to Disney. She then told me to tell Mickey hello for her.

With how the world is today, I just wanted to let others know that the TSA was kind to a little kid excited to be going to Disney for the first time.

-Anonymous

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Dear Anon,

How does it feel that, 10 years later, another TSA employee came along and forced you to surrender your very own blog post?

Sincerely,

-NJR

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And to wrap it all up, with the final word on whether or not the TSA is going to ruin Disney World for America, is Aaron, who writes in:

Hi there…

What’s your take on this?

I don’t like the looks of it, personally. My questions are 1.Will we be stopped for inspection any time we leave the house? 2.Will they want an “Enhanced VIPR” through which they can enter our houses and test us at any time?  3. Where does it end?  And 4. How does it fit into the “Transportation” aspect of TSA?

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Dear Aaron,

1. You will only be stopped on a random basis when leaving the house by 2020.

2. Yes.

3. Not Disney World, I’ll tell you that.

4. Amusement park rides and running backs are sort of transportation-ish. They’ll make it fit.

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Send all viewpoints to takingsenseaway@gmail.com

Letter from a Passenger: Brandee Always Gets Picked for Random Screening.

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Brandee writes:

Ever since I was a teenager I have experienced bag searches, additional screenings, pat downs – the whole nine yards – every single time I fly. I am an American but had residency in England while living there. I have traveled with my family, alone, with friends and with my husband. Years ago I used travel agents, then the internet to book flights, only paid cash once, I have booked months in advance, I have booked last minute, I have traveled with Red Cross letters because of a death in the family and twice in a wheelchair because of surgery. I’m nothing special to look at – a little on the short side, average looks, blond or brown hair. Basically I have experienced just about every combination of travel events possible – yet every single time I get extra screenings….is there some bizarre combination of criteria that I am inadvertently hitting because honestly – I remain perplexed – and it’s become a family joke!

-B

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Dear Brandee,

One of the most common things a TSO hears from passengers is “I always get picked for random screening!” Sometimes this is said with bemusement, as is probably your case, and sometimes it is said with indignation. People who are angry about being randomly screened on a consistent basis usually follow up their exclamation with “So how random can this possibly be?” as in, “I always get picked for random screening! So how random can this possibly be?”

As a TSO, I used to point out things that the TSA training department never saw fit to include in their Engage! training, such as, for instance, the fact that even if a passenger were “randomly” screened every time they flew, it would not necessarily indicate that the events were not “random,” as defined within TSA’s parameters; that such a belief, as it is often articulated by passengers, can sometimes be ascribed to a form of the gambler’s fallacy — just because a passenger has been pulled for 2 random screenings does not make him or her “due” to not be randomly screened the third time around. (The TSA training department probably does not bother trying to rhetorically-enable its floor-level employees because A. the word “fallacy” in itself would confuse half the workforce and B. introducing the concept of logic to its workforce could possibly open up a can of worms: it would not exactly be blue-uniformed Socrates and frequent-flyer Glaucon out there on the checkpoints.)

However, with all that being said, Brandee, you are probably being “randomly screened” because you are, in TSA terminology, hot.

You seem intelligent, and you describe yourself as having “average looks.” Most intelligent people who describe themselves as average are actually above average. Even if they really are only average, their modesty puts them above average, on account of the Personality Point Attractiveness-Level Variance, as we all know. Ergo, I believe the case to be that you are an attractive female, and therefore of higher national security interest to TSA agents on the checkpoint.

The TSA’s system of claiming everything to be random is actually brilliant in its evasive, dopey TSA way. By claiming that everything they do is random, they are able to hide behind the mask of randomness whenever explaining a questionable happening.

On the micro level, this translates to TSA employees who are able to pull carry-on luggage for a “random bag search, above and beyond the SOP per random risk-based layering,” in order to ask your name, where you’re flying, what you’re doing later that night, and to look down your shirt as you bend over to put your shoes back on.

In a recent study comprised of aggregate Twitter data, one of the most common complaints voiced on Twitter involving the TSA came from attractive women who felt as though they were being systematically targeted for additional screening. I can assure you, Brandee and the public, that their concerns are valid.

So, what can you do about it, Brandee and other attractive female passengers out there? Here are a few tips for mitigating your additional TSA screening, ladies.

1. MENTION THE WORDS “ARTICULABLE BELIEF.”

In defense of the TSA, screeners do leave the training classroom with the words “articulable belief” programmed into their heads—I know I sure as hell did— and passengers can use this to their advantage.

“Articulable belief” within the TSA is government-speak for “please avoid getting us into a lawsuit, for the love of the ACLU, by having an excuse ready in case you’re accused of profiling, guys.” If you are an attractive female passenger, and you have been pulled for a questionable random screening, the first thing you can do in terms of TSA-speak is ask, “Is this screening based on an articulable belief?” Although there is only a fifty percent chance that the TSA agent will be able to pronounce “articulable,” or to articulate what an “articulable belief” is, it will trigger memories of job training in the agent, and jar him or her back to a point that was temporally closer to unemployment.

2. OLD TACTICS ARE STILL GOODIES.

Bringing up a significant other is a good old-fashioned way to throw cold water on a preying TSA agent, but bringing up a police officer significant other who is nearby is an even better way. When you’re being pulled for your 5th random screening in as many flights, try saying to the TSA agent: “Hey, I really appreciate the randomness you guys do. My husband is sort of in this line of business, too, only he’s an actual police officer doing a lot less randomness. Speaking of that…where did he go? He was right in front of me in line. Oh, there he is, over there.”

3. SAY YOU WORK FOR THE MEDIA.

TSA employees are instinctively fearful of the media at this point: scent of the media will make a TSA agent rear up like a horse having its path crossed by a rattlesnake. So if you have been pulled for additional screening, and feel as though you are being harassed, try to slip in an affiliation with the media in some way. E.G. “Excuse me, sir, how long do you think this random screening will take? Because I really have to make this flight so as not to miss this undercover investigators’ convention that I’m going to on behalf of ABC News.” Ostentatiously adjusting something on your clothing that could pass for a hidden camera will earn you extra anti random-screening points.

All of this may shorten the length of your random screenings,  ladies.

Hope this helps,

-N.J.R.

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Send all questions to takingsenseaway@gmail.com