Yes. It’s not what the note said, it’s that there was a note at all.
To go back to my earlier analogy, it doesn’t really matter whether the cashier congratulates me for picking the classiest can of ravioli in the store, or goes “:rolleyes: Ugh. Ravioli, *really *?”. In both cases I wish he’d just STFU, ring my shit up, take my money, end of interaction.
[QUOTE=Troppus]
Well, this isn’t the issue at all, but thanks for sharing your prudishness. Sex is a natural, biological inclination and many, many people have few if any hang-ups about enjoying it. If it comforts you, please continue to assume that women have zero interest in sex outside of procreation and the vibrator in question was for her achy back. Feel better?
[/QUOTE]
I think they are required to leave the note of inspection, although certainly not to editorialize on it. As to the agent “just being human,” personally I don’t want them to be human while they’re rifling through my bags—I’d prefer they be as robotic as possible, or ideally an actual robot. I’d rather learn that my underwear was “inspected by #7” rather than “fondled by Mildred Johnson.”
Second (and last) bit of advice to TSA agents: if you’re going to do something like this to someone, try not to pick a feminist blogger. Jeez, talk about your shit luck.
Well, I guess that’s the difference between you and me; I don’t mind a litle bit of human interaction. There have been times when I was checking out with chili powder, ground beef, and cans of beans and tomatoes. When the cashier made a comment about making chili I didn’t try to have her fired, I just recognized the fact that she was a human that was being sociable.
Since this annoys you, you should try out the self-checkout lines.
Yes. If your mom/sister/wife went to get a mammogram and her discharge paperwork contained a handwritten note “Nice rack!” would you think that was a perfectly acceptable interaction? What about if you went to the urologist and they added a “personal note” about your dick? That kind of shit would earn a doctor professional sanctions for inappropriate behavior, and rightly so.
There are professions that involve having intimate contact with people who are in essence strangers and would never allow that sort of contact in any other circumstances. When you have a job like that, you’re in essence saying “It’s okay for me to see you naked/probe your orifices/paw through your personal possessions; I’m a professional.” But it is 100% incumbent upon you to act in a professional manner. That means you invade that person’s space/body/privacy exactly as far as necessary to do your job and not one centimeter further. No extra contact, no commentary, no wink-wink, nudge-nudge.
Well, on the one hand the TSA agent obviously abused their position and conducted themselves inappropriately. But on the other hand… whoops, Ms. Filipovic’s hand is not available for comment at this time.
She wrote that she almost died laughing in her hotel room so those of you getting all worked up about how violated she was might want to keep that in mind. Justified though she may be in her outrage if she did have any, she is still being an attention whore about it to get blog hits. She could have easily handled this with the TSA directly and discretely and had a better chance of causing real change. Instead she took it to her blog and forced the TSA to make an example of the screener in front of the court of public opinion without ever addressing their own practices and policies (which she allegedly now says is all she ever wanted to do). So one screener gets fired, she gets almost 2 million hits on her blog and some new advertisers, and nothing else changes.
No such thing in France, sadly. I’d use them in a heartbeat. I like to keep my “social events where neither of us actually wants to be here” quota to a minimum.
That being said, read above. I already said firing the TSA mook was over the top AFAIC, and other posted have already noted that the “cunt” did no such thing as yell for them to lose their job either.
But if I still had an active blog, and my friendly neighbourhood cashier commented one way or the other on my purchase of Mega Extra Large Reinforced Condoms (:D), I’d probably make a short post about my annoyance, yeah. And I’d be mortified if that post ever took a life of its own and ended up resulting in that sweet girl losing her drone job. I’d probably make a post about her hierarchical superiors being utter pricks, too.
You are so missing the point I don’t even know where to begin:
It doesn’t matter if she thought it was funny, it was objectively inappropriate. It’s way over the line.
This same person might be doing it to other women, some of whom may not be as willing to laugh it off. Can you imagine a teenage girl having someone comment on her underwear?
Putting the information on the blog was a public service. How are Americans supposed to stop people in positions of power from abusing it unless we know about it?
The TSA worker deserved to be fired and will be lucky if he is not prosecuted.
She is not being an attention whore, she just wrote about what happened to her. The fact that what she wrote caused such an uproar is evidence of how inappropriate it was.
She only blogged about it because her offhand tweet (made at the time while she was busy) was noticed and gained a lot of attention and a lot of people were asking about the situation in a way that couldn’t be reasonably described in 140 characters.
And it’s well in context with at least a half dozen prior posts on that site – which she doesn’t need to “whore” to get hits on, it’s one of the largest feminist blogs in existence with several thousand hits per day – about the TSA and their legally sanctioned invasions of travelers’ privacy and the implications of it. It’s also completely in context with countless posts about societal reactions women’s sexuality.
She had no intention of “handling” it with TSA at all, until it blew up larger than she had ever imagined because of the tweet. (Which is where the photo of the note came from.)
I like how you think Jill has some obligation to try to effect change within the TSA, and doesn’t have the right to tweet about something that affects her in the moment, or respond about it on her blog when pressed for further comment.
I also like how you think a blog which uses a closed network for a small strip of ads is going to gain ad revenue from this. Not how it works.
Anyway, fuck working with the TSA. A quiet call to a supervisor is certainly not going to put the TSA under the scrutiny that media attention would so she’s more likely to cause real change by doing what she did. The agent in the story acted unbelievably unprofessional and with a complete disregard for the privacy, or at least the last illusion of privacy, that airplane travelers have left and she deserves to be fired. I’m amazed that somebody would defend this shit.
By “better” do you mean “zero”? Because that’s how much chance I would estimate a discreet, direct communication with TSA would have had of causing “real change”. I’d say the odds would be good that TSA would have done nothing at all in such a situation, although it’s possible they would have decided to reprimand or fire the employee responsible for the note. But I don’t think there’s any chance at all that a single, private complaint would cause TSA to seriously re-evaluate its policies and procedures.
That’s ten times worse than the OP, if confirmed.
See, that’s the problem with the OP and anyone inclined to share the same rant. When you have morons in position of authority, it is imperative that they follow a strict set of rules. They’re not in a position of authority over you because they’re superior to you, either morally or intellectually, but because their task requires it. When those people start acting like they’re your fucking life supervisor or overseer, it’s time to do away with them. And in a hard way, if possible.
No, it’s the equivalent of finding a personal note from the cashier tucked into your groceries when you unload them at home. That’s a few more notches up on the creepy factor.
I would be amazed too - I don’t defend it. I think they deserve to be fired but the blogger says she didn’t ever intend for them to be. And she only wanted to draw attention to the larger, generic TSA not the screener. If all discrete and normal means of complaint failed, then I could understand taking it to the blog but doing that first, and later claiming her intention was never to get anyone in trouble is ingenuous or stupid.
It wouldn’t have mattered how she addressed it. The agent would have been fired as per the Zero Tolerance Policy. The blog, the number of hits, the press…none of this has to do with the agent’s unprofessional violation of policy.
The agent would have been fired for the violation whether it was handled discreetly or published on a billboard.
[QUOTE=monstro]
So it’s possible to find humor in what the TSA person did and still think it was an infraction serious enough for them to be fired.
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Co-signed.
Most EMTs and cops I’ve known had really morbid, sometimes hysterical, senses of humor and making tasteless jokes is one way they cope with their job. However, if one made a joke to the widow or family member of the person whose death they were investigating it would be fireable. It’s not the act but the indiscretion.
A bit off topic, but I’ve wondered how many five-finger-confiscations go on in airports and other places where people are allowed to search others belongings. Few women would probably be too embarrassed to report a missing vibrator (particularly if it was an expensive one), but I wonder how many things that are contraband (e.g. an eighth ounce of pot, Cuban cigars, bootleg movies bought overseas, etc.) or just embarrassing (hardcore fetish porn, nude pics, etc.) get lifted by unscrupulous agents who know that the person will be unlikely to report it unless they’re stupid or have really thick skin.
I’m sure it happens- not even maligning TSA agents in particular, it’s just that theft happens on all jobs where people have access to valuables- but I wonder how often. Also I wonder what precautions are in place to protect TSA and other agencies from people saying “I had my great-grandma’s 20 carat emerald necklace in my suitcase and now it’s gone”.
It doesn’t matter to me what her motives were. If she really didn’t care and wasn’t offended and spread the story just for attention/blog hits, fine. What she did will help the next person who may have been too shy or humiliated to retaliate.
This happened to a friend of mine in college, and she was indeed too embarrassed to report it. I think a big part of the embarrassment was due not to TSA itself, but the risk that a complaint would result in her very, very psycho mother finding out that my friend owned a vibrator in the first place.
I’m not immediately finding anything about it on Google, but I remember years ago – before 9/11 – a baggage handler stole some diamond jewelry that turned out to be incredible valuable and in fact belonged to Sarah Ferguson, Duchess of York. The jewelry was recovered, and IIRC the thief hadn’t realized what he was getting himself into – he’d thought he had just a fairly ordinary fancy necklace or whatever until the story broke.