(If this is the wrong board, my apologies. Searching “ask the” yields nothing.)
I was never a TSA, but my wife was a TSA for three years. (In another thread I said it was just a year and a half, but I was wrong.) So this is an “Ask the former TSA” thread. Ask away, and I’ll relay her answers.
-FrL-
(She was in the TSA from Nov 04 to Sep 07)
(Some things are confidential, btw, but nothing really interesting AFAIK. 
)
I want to ask:
What is a TSA screener?
The people in the airports in the USA who screen the baggage and so on.
-FrL-
What does she think of the current fiasco with the whole nipple rings saga? Does she feel proper procedure was followed? Was she ever involved in a similar incident involving delicate body piercings? If so how was it handled?
What single piece of information could I use to bring the US airline industry to its knees?
Just kidding.
Do TSA and customs (ICE) screen international baggage?
Does TSA use dogs for detecting bombs and drugs?
Regarding the first two questions, I’ve already talked to her about it. She said people must either remove the body piercings, or else be searched not by a TSA in this particular kind of case but instead by someone from the sherriff’s department. (At her airport, the sheriffs are on duty right next to the TSAs.) I believe the inspection in this case is visual.
She was not sure whether it is that the person has the option of either, or whether it’s that if they can’t easily remove it, then they can opt for an inspection. I’d think it’s the former (either/or at the passenger’s option) at least de facto since if it’s easy to remove, its up to them to say whether it’s easily removable or not. But I’m also pretty sure if it’s easily removable, most people would just remove it.
She says she’s had plenty of people remove body piercings, and it never seemed to be a problem. (I.e., no more than a rolleyes kind of annoyance for the passenger concerned). (It was kind of a problem in one case, because the 16 year old girl was with her parents, and her parents had no idea she had nipple piercings before the metal detectors went off that day. 
) She says nobody ever had to use pliars, and the lady either was, or should have been, offered a visual inspection by the sheriff (or whatever local law enforcement agency was on site at that airport).
I wrote the above from memory from a brief discussion last night, so if she reviews it and says I got something wrong, I’ll repost. And I’ll ask her for more detail about your last pair of questions as well.
-FrL-
She says “That’s customs, not the TSA.”
She says “Not that I know of. Maybe at bigger airports. Anyway, we don’t check for drugs. If we find them, we have to notify the Sheriff, but we’re not looking for them.”
Usually these go in IMHO.
What is the level of discretion a screener is given? We hear stories about ‘[item] is fine…unless the screener doesn’t think so.’
We’ve heard a lot of negativity: does she have any stories of TSA successes?
What qualifications (if any) are required to become a TSA screener? Are they employed by the TSA or by the airport? Once hired, what specific training do they receive and by whom is the training given?
It is sometimes vague whether an object is forbidden or not. For example, there’s a rule against “sharp objects.” But a lot of objects have sharp bits. So for example, if someone brought in a lead crystal sculpture with one part that comes to a point, (I suppose this is something that actually happened on my wife’s watch), this could be considered a “sharp object.” She says that in vague cases like this, they ask the passenger what it is and what its for. She says that if the passenger can clearly explain this, they generally will let it through, but if the passenger seems defensive or evasive, then they call a supervisor. I asked her if the rule is specifically to call a supervisor, and she said a screener has the authority to use her own judgment, but she herself always deferred to a “lead” or a “supervisor.” She said this it often helped the passenger, because if they were getting aggravated, a new face could help calm them down and help them to calmly and clearly explain what the object is.
-FrL-
High school diploma, citizen of the US, background check (she’s not sure what they look for except no felonies and not too much debt), interview, physical, and several different tests she describes as “rigorous”.
Employed by the government. She was a “Transportation Security Officer.”
“We are constantly trained. We read things every single week. We recieve retraining on procedures. If new intelligence is recieved then we are briefed on it, for example when new weapons come out. We are recertified quarterly on the X-Ray machine, bag checks, pat-downs, and other procedures.”
(It’s cute how she slips into present tense when talking about this. 
)
-FrL-
I’m not exactly sure what you’re asking exactly, but she responds as follows:
“The guns that we find, the clips I found, the giant swords, the brass knuckles, all the weapons we find. And fireworks. We find fireworks. People act like we’re just after their toothpaste, but there are real threats people are trying to take onto planes, and we find them all the time. That doesn’t make the news.”
Is that what you were looking for?
-FrL-
My wife would also like me to add:
"Let them know that when I was working at the TSA I was almost always pregnant and am very cute and nice. Why in the world would anyone want to yell at a cute, pregnant chick who is carrying your 40 pound bag? I am very sorry that ‘it was expensive’ or ‘there’s only a little bit in there’ or ‘they didn’t catch it at LAX’ but READ SOME SIGNS PEOPLE and please don’t yell at me. I just want you not to die.
-FrL-
Hi, I’ve been unemployed 5 months and I need a job. I have thought about TSA.
Check
Check
Not even misdemeanors and no debt - check
I’ll take my chances with these.
Where do I go to apply?
Ask her why there appear to be so many failures when the government sends “secret shopper” passengers in with illegal items and many times get them through.
I often wonder also, is this higher than I would expect failure rate due to the monotony of the job (staring at countless x-rayed items over and over again)?
How long are their shifts?
[QUOTE=Broomstick]
Hi, I’ve been unemployed 5 months and I need a job. I have thought about TSA.
She says, “Although the goal is security, customer service is the underlying message. Screeners get in trouble if the lines are too long; supervisors have to fill out an incident report if the wait time is more than 15 minutes; when both of your bag checkers are off doing bag checks on the liquids that you TOLD the person to take out of their bags earlier, bag number three seems overwhelming. Screeners choose whether to A.) wait while the other two bag checks are complete and stop the entire line (this causes people to yell at you), B.) jump off the x-ray to do a quick sneak peak themselves (a big no no), or C.) just assume it was probably fine and let it go.”
“In training, screeners are told to call a bag check on any cluttered bags. That just happens to be every bag coming through. (Think of what you, yourself, have shoved into your own bags!) Those who call too many bag checks are not put on x-ray; those who call too many bag checks are ridiculed by their co-workers; those who call too many bag checks are kindly, but overtly chided by their supervisors. You just try to get everyone through quickly and not get yelled at.”
-FrL-
Shifts are varied. Part-timers work 4 hours; full-timers work 8 or 10 hour shifts. Positions are rotated every 30 minutes to prevent burn-out.
Why would they make anybody take out their body piercing jewelry when regular earrings are fine? I mean, I can understand if the metal in question sets off the detectors and they say, “Oh, that’s my nipple rings,” why somebody might need to take a quick peek and verify that said alarm was indeed caused by nipple rings, but why then would anybody have to remove them?