it’s only about 8 minutes long, but I guess we all have busy lives.
At the end, after a uniformed officer finaly arrives, the passenger says that they were just doing their jobs, so it seems they were genuine TSA agents.
He handled it pretty well, I think.
From what I know about TSA and airport security (just what I’ve read, no expert knowledge), the TSA plainclothes agents exceeded their authority. The man in question was not being screened for entering a secure boarding area; he was in a public area on his way out of the airport. What possible jurisdiction does TSA have to harass members of the public? They are not LEOs. If they suspect illegal activity, they call the cops. They have no powers of arrest. I have never even heard of plainclothes TSA agents.
I think the guy should have just kept going. I do not believe TSA can legally detain anyone outside of the screening area. He was right to refuse to accompany the agents to another area.
The ACLU just released a report on TSA’s plainclothes officers. Apparently, for years the agency has employed them to conduct behavioral analysis (profiling) on people in the terminal (which the ACLU says is entirely unreliable). It may be that the agents were not actually interested in how much money he had but rather were trying to provoke a reaction for this pseudoscientific purpose.
I’m with those who would not know if these guys were even really cops. In my experience, cops don’t ask questions like this, and they don’t interact with the public except in uniform (outside of undercover stuff).
The only interactions I’ve ever had with a cop are “Howdy, sir,” “here is your stolen item” or “just say no to drugs, kids.”
The isreals have been using behavioral profiling for years to great success and the tsa program is based on their system. I’m a little hesitant to call it pseudoscience just because the aclu calls it that.
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The ACLU cites independent expert opinion on this issue. If you wish to refute that, it would be helpful to cite the contrary evidence you have. Even if we concede that Israel has a successful system, that has nothing to do with whether the TSA has implemented it effectively.
Profiling is an amazingly powerful tool – it enables the authorities to spot suspicious characters bu suspicious traits such as:
[ul]
[li]arrived late at night[/li][li]arrived early in the morning[/li][li]arrived in afternoon[/li][li]one of first to deplane[/li][li]one of last to deplane[/li][li]deplaned in the middle[/li][li]etc etc etc[/li][/ul]
“Badge?” :dubious:
While I keep walking.
Not true for everywhere in the U.S. In D.C. and certain states, citizen’s arrests are limited to felony-level crimes only. It even says so in your cite.
So, that covers about 60% of everybody who flies. How is that suspicious?
May be powerful, but just because TSA is doing something they call “profiling” doesn’t mean they’re doing it effectively.
Whoosh.
Any activity can be called suspicious under those guidelines
On further review, I do see that the point of the linked article is to deride such methods. However, it is not an indictment of profiling in general, but more specifically reasons that police stopped people for suspicion of drug violations. The list is not a description of a methodology but rather just a laundry list of items given by federal agents as drug courier profile elements.
This is much different than TSA’s mission, which is flight safety, and has nothing to do with TSA’s programs.