It doesn’t surprise me that the scoreboard thing happened. Indeed, as a grad student my colleagues and I used to use a fairly dangerously public whiteboard in our “TA Lounge” to record what we thought was the dumbest sentence written by a student on a paper graded that day. If we grad school students were doing something like that, it’s a fair bet that some TSA agents (and many other groups) are doing this kind of thing as well.
But from your post I get the impression you think that “creature” is a term that TSA agents across the nation are somehow taught to use to refer to lesbians. As though the game they were playing weren’t just the kind of thing that bored stupid people do, but rather, was something specific to the TSA organization–something dissemanted somehow specifically amongst TSA agents from airport to airport. Is that what you think?
I’ve seen armed guards or police (I didn’t examine their badges) at O’Hare, Midway, Logan and Providence RI airport (I never remember the name of it) in the past 2 years. No worries, they’re probably just “outliers”, too. Or maybe all those men and women in their uniforms were just hanging out for the doughnuts available at the airport. :rolleyes:
TSA personnel have a great deal of intimidating power and IME they use it freely. Frankly, I think they recruit from the driver’s licensing facility and find the crabbiest, nastiest people they can. (the Doper’s mother excepted, of course!)
I probably would have freaked out like that young woman did. I would instantly be panicked, thinking “did someone get to my luggage? I never left it unattended” etc. It would never occur to me that it was a practical joke, seeing as how joking is almost a felony, if I read the signs papering the security areas aright.
It’d be a nightmare made real–like those dreams where you find you don’t have an alibi when the police knock on your door or they open your car trunk to find a dead body etc. It is not funny and I am glad the moron was fired. I am as disenchanted with security theater as anyone, but this is odd twist in the game we call “let’s make us all safe!” :dubious:
While I appreciate the hyperbole, there certainly do seem to be a significant number of - shall I say - unpleasant TSA workers. I know they must have a terrible job, dealing with harried and hurried people all day. But I am far more concerned about my luggage making it to my destination intact, or of me not getting somehow caught up in the security measures, than I am of a terrorist incident occurring on my flight.
When some guy takes my luggage and puts it in a pile, instead of through the machine, it makes me worry that it will make it onto my plane on time. And many of the “procedures” are not crystal clear - at least to this traveller. So when I ask what I think a reasonable question in as pleasant tones as I can, it is frustrating the number of times I am met with a curt and rude response.
Some of the people in this thread don’t understand the “recreational” indignation going on. I think it is because security is so strict and IMHO overboard. No liquids over 3 oz? No water? Make me drink some. (They did that to my sister once). So let’s just say someone stuck some sugar in their luggage and after 20 seconds said it was a little joke. What would happen to that person?
So is the TSA person doing it any less cause for outrage than if one of us peons did it?
If it was some dude instead of a young female, they would had a good laugh about, and we never would have been discussing this. And yes, if we stop laughing, especially at airports, the terrorists win. Sad.
What kind of money do TSA screeners make? I thought I read somewhere when the agency was being created that full time positions paid in the 40k a year range, which is fairly decent pay. We can’t find quality/professional people for that kind of salary?
Let’s assume the scenario played out exactly like it did except that the TSA guy didn’t say “just kidding.”
Now, I’ll say off the bat that throwing her in Gitmo for the rest of her life is really really really unlikely. But let’s look at best and worst case scenarios.
Best case scenario: they take her to a back room, interrogate her for an hour or two, go to review the video tape and see the TSA agent put the stuff in the bag and they release her. Meanwhile, she’s scared, justifiably so, because she has no clue how long she’ll be detained or how she’ll prove her innocence. She’s missed her flight - and possibly her connecting flight as well- causing hundreds to thousands of dollars in non-refundable tickets to be burned. She may be stuck at the airport for a long time to come.
Worst case scenario: they take her to a back room, strip search her. Interrogate her for an hour or two and then go to review the tapes (assuming tapes are available). There’s no evidence that the TSA did anything because he palmed the bag. She’s sent initially to a holding cell and then transferred to a federal penitentiary because this is a Federal crime they’re charging her with. She makes a call to her lawyer (if she has one) for thousands of dollars in fees or a defense attorney whose load is so backed up they can’t even talk to her for a month. The evidence gets sent out to a lab and it takes six weeks to come back with the results that it’s baking soda and not cocaine or anthrax. Meanwhile, during that time, if bail hasn’t been denied on the initial hearing, it’s going to be set at an arbitrarily large enough number to ensure she doesn’t go anywhere.
I’m pretty sure she wouldn’t be sent to a federal penitentiary until convicted, but she could easily be detained for days or weeks if there is not unambiguous evidence that the TSA guy was fucking with her. And that’s assuming he plants some ‘innocent’ powder, and not a real controlled substance.
Well if I was making shitty rent-a-cop pay, I would consider it a perk that I could amuse myself by having people falsely arrested and imprisoned. Between that and my inclination to shoot people who scare me, it’s probably a good thing I’m not a cop.
I don’t disagree with most of your post, but the quoted text is mostly wrong. After 9-11 national guardsmen holding M-16 rifles were posted in airports. It is pretty well documented that none of these rifles were ever loaded. I suppose you could make the argument that they were just expensive clubs, but really, they were just set dressing in a security theater production…nothing more than decoration.
Being terrorized by someone in a position of authority in your home country for 20 seconds is okay? How about a minute? Five minutes? A couple of hours? Where are we drawing the line here? I’ll give you a clue - it isn’t acceptable for any length of time.
