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TSA Plays Joke On Traveller At Screening
An anonymous reader writes "As a 22-year-old female student at the University of Michigan went through security at Philadelphia International Airport, 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. Answer truthfully, the TSA worker informed her, and everything will be OK. After 20 seconds of crying, the TSA agent waved the baggie. It was his, and it was all a joke. Ann Davis, a TSA spokeswoman, said this afternoon that the worker is no longer employed by the agency as of today. She said privacy laws prevented her from saying if he was fired or left on his own."
What an idiot. This TSA worker lost one of the most fun jobs any wanna-be cop or control freak would ever dream of having. It's the TSA's loss, and Best Buy's gain.
You've got multiresistent HIV!
Just kidding!
For all of you who insist that "if you have nothing to hide you have nothing to fear" I truly hope this happens to you every damn time you fly.
every anarchist is a baffled dictator. Benito_Mussolini
Interestingly, Canadian courts have ruled that you have an expectation of privacy even when there's drugs in your luggage.
Is even though the article says the person no longer works there, they could very well just be making it up just to cover their own butts and hide behind this answer to avoid a lawsuit regardless of what really has happened since the persons name is never listed 'due to privacy laws'. That means no way to make sure and also this would allow them to get another job just like this and do it again since 'due to privacy laws' it wouldn't be on file about them. Not to mention that the article also mentions this was the trainer showing others what to do and wasn't taken off the floor when complained about.
Attention... all grammer nazi"s! Is they're anything; wrong with: my post,
The TSA employee should be fired... preferably from a large canon.
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
If I'm not mistaken, making a joke about having something illegal to a TSA agent at the airport can result in large fines and even jail time. In this case, the TSA agent made a "joke" that represented a serious threat to the safety, freedom, long term career and life outcome of a 22 year old girl while in a position of authority and power. Jail time seems frankly appropriate to me.
The problem with quotes on the internet, is that nobody bothers to check their veracity. -- Abraham Lincoln
This kind of joke would only be funny to a terrorist or a drug dealer and this idiot should be viewed as one of the above.
It seems that privacy law nowadays are used to protect just the agents of the government, not the people. Ironically, privacy laws are protecting the same agents whose job duty is to violate the people's privacy. I find this even more outrageous than what the TSA employee did to that poor girl.
I once had a signature.
It's incidents like this which keep those of us who would really love to visit the US far away from it.
How could someone with a mentality which considers it ok to play such a joke on a passenger even be considered for employment by the TSA ?
Protecting innocent people is a serious business. It would be nice if the people entrusted with it didn't have a high school bully type mentality.
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I decided to make the lifestyle choice of not flying anymore. Not because of any fear of flying itself, or fears of any specters of "air terrorism" (I felt just fine flying, even shortly after 9/11), but because of the security theater and gate rape on every passenger's person being perpetrated by the federal government via their low-budget rent-a-cop jackboots affectionately referred to as the TSA. I call it my "one-man boycott."
When I started my one-man boycott years ago, I sent e-mail to the customer service departments of every one of the carriers I had ever flown with up to that point in time, telling them that I would no longer be availing myself of their services, and why.
My family lives in the eastern US, and my wife's family lives in the western US. We flew a decent bit before. No longer. We now drive to see family, and get to see a lot more of our country while we're at it.
Thank you, TSA jackboots, for reintroducing me to the *real* United States of America that lays in the broad expanses outside of the airport "security" zones. There is so much within our own great nation to see that it seems a shame to "bend over" for Unkle Sham and miss all the sights and people just to save a little time.
Someone's got to get fired here.
Now that they have federalized these rent-a-goons, there is no one to sue.... except the American People, who went along with the "change".
and how would the TSA take it if someone played a prank on them at a security check point.
the prankster would be in jail.
the guy got off easy.
This employee should be charged with terrorism. Put yourself in the victims shoes. I'm sure that she was fully terrorized.
Wherever you go, there you are.
If a person employed in the private sector pulled a stunt like this -- a non-bureaucrat, in other words -- they'd be looking at fines, civil suits, and you bet your ass their NAME would be all over the media. They'd have a hell of a time ever getting employed again.
If such a private person pulled a stunt like this on a bureaucrat, they'd be in jail before you can say "quidditch"
Crap like this makes me invoke NH Constitution, Article 10, aka "Right of Revolution".
(emphasis mine)
Part of the Second American Revolution!