Confessions of an ex-TSA agent

Most TSA officers I talked to told me they felt the agency’s day-to-day operations represented an abuse of public trust and funds.

Officers who were dating often conspired to get assigned to the I.O. room at the same time, where they analyzed the nude images with one eye apiece, at best.

Read more: TSA Agent Confession - POLITICO Magazine

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Im sure the govt will deny everything, but this is a pretty damning article from an insider, confirming everyone fears and criticisms. Will it change anything? Of course not. Change requires voting libertarian.

TSA is a joke, but so are libertarians.

Wiseone said:

TSA is a joke, but so are libertarians.

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Because we all know we need a big, powerful government looking after us and spying on us.

Dittohead not! said:

Because we all know we need a big, powerful government looking after us and spying on us.

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Hyperbole and straw man arguments are jokes too

Wiseone said:

Hyperbole and straw man arguments are jokes too

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That's not a straw man when you post that Libertarians are jokes.
and it's not hype when we have two parties, both of which favor big brother.

Dittohead not! said:

That's not a straw man when you post that Libertarians are jokes.
and it's not hype when we have two parties, both of which favor big brother.

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Well I never said we need a big powerful government looking after us and spying on us, that's a straw man and the hyperbole is the obvious ridiculous exaggeration. Anyway sorry I feel libertarianism is a joke, its unrealistic, has no historical background, seems to be based purely off ideology rather than pragmatism. And that's really the sticker for me, ideology is probably one of the most dangerous things that people can follow as if there's some magical set of rules that if you follow everything will turn out well in the end. I'm a pragmatist, I'm about solving problems, getting things done, and doing things that make sense without worrying about whether they pass some ideological litmus test.

For example in that other topic about seat belts we have people arguing that seat belt laws are just government tyranny despite the fact that there's no benefit to not having these laws and every benefit in having them. But it doesn't pass the ideological litmus test so throw out the common sense and march lock step with what the ideology says.

Dittohead not! said:

Because we all know we need a big, powerful government looking after us and spying on us.

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You should know better than to feed the trolls.

Wiseone said:

TSA is a joke, but so are libertarians.

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Didn't make it far into this thread before the first bait/troll post eh. So much for actual debate I suppose.

I like how the guy works in a single airport and extrapolates certain things across all of TSA. I can't say in the 6 months I previously worked in the airport that I ever once heard one of the "definitions" he gave of "inside" lingo.

What I see is a self loathing guy who disagreed with what the TSA was doing but kept doing it because he had to pay the bills, becoming increasingly bitter about it and projecting his bitterness and opinion onto agency employees at large based on....well, no tangable evidence other than the words of a guy who admittedly came to work with a negative view as to what was going on since day one. What I see is him indicating instances of people acting outside of what is trained and what are the established codes of conduct and presenting that, based nothing but his own opinion which is clearly prejudiced, across all of TSA as some kind of unofficial or official SOP.

I enjoyed his attempt to confirm the accusations of racial profiling, despite pointing out countries or origins were targetted and not race. At one turn he says "middle easterners" were targetted, at the next moment he's pointing out Saudi Arabian and Pakistani passports didn't make the list...so which was it, was it targetting those of "middle eastern race" or was it targetting those of particular countries?

I also like how he full on admitted to fraudulently presenting his employee status on his blog, claiming to be a former employee while still employed and posting things that would likely be legitimate grounds for termination. And just like all the other "whistleblowers" lately, he "Saw" his blog as a "whistleblowing" thing...ignoring that there's an actual protocol for being a whistleblower and bitching about things online and justifying it by believing really really hard that you're "whistleblowing" isn't it. For how much he likes to try and put in little quips to make himself sound smart, he seems pretty dumb regarding some facets of law.

Is everything TSA done honkey dorey and works wonderful and is exactly as they say? No. Some of the stuff he says I can understand and agree with. But far to much of his random rantings are attempts to extrapolate his own individual experience across the entire country, and presenting things that are clearly against TSA rules and regulations as standard run of the mill happenings by all.

Wiseone said:

Well I never said we need a big powerful government looking after us and spying on us, that's a straw man and the hyperbole is the obvious ridiculous exaggeration. Anyway sorry I feel libertarianism is a joke, its unrealistic, has no historical background, seems to be based purely off ideology rather than pragmatism. And that's really the sticker for me, ideology is probably one of the most dangerous things that people can follow as if there's some magical set of rules that if you follow everything will turn out well in the end. I'm a pragmatist, I'm about solving problems, getting things done, and doing things that make sense without worrying about whether they pass some ideological litmus test.

For example in that other topic about seat belts we have people arguing that seat belt laws are just government tyranny despite the fact that there's no benefit to not having these laws and every benefit in having them. But it doesn't pass the ideological litmus test so throw out the common sense and march lock step with what the ideology says.

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Sounds like an ideology to me.

A former TSA supervisor told me that the TSA workers who search checked baggage are not under video or other type of surveillance. Little is done to prevent them for stealing or unnecessarily invading our privacy.

The government knows why we don't take them seriously... yet what irk's me about the article is how everyone knew from the start that the scanners were utter ****, and yet the government sold it to people to show they were doing something about terrorism, even if it was ineffective and made for TSA jokes of the bodies they reviewed. Most people don't care about the humiliation as long as it was effective - in this case it wasn't. The joke is on us... we paid for a system that basically provided us some added radiation and entertainment for TSA agents. We could have paid for PS3's and been better off.

Ockham said:

The government knows why we don't take them seriously... yet what irk's me about the article is how everyone knew from the start that the scanners were utter ****, and yet the government sold it to people to show they were doing something about terrorism, even if it was ineffective and made for TSA jokes of the bodies they reviewed. Most people don't care about the humiliation as long as it was effective - in this case it wasn't. The joke is on us... we paid for a system that basically provided us some added radiation and entertainment for TSA agents. We could have paid for PS3's and been better off.

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Whatever gets the government most involved in our lives and teaches us to tolerate being treated like cattle.

You want to know what I don't understand?

What the manufacturer of the Rapiscan machines were thinking calling a machine that was going to show people nude (admittedly in blobby, black and white, form) a name that when read wrong could be pronounced "Rapey Scan".

I mean, you'd think SOMEONE in the marketting department would've saw that and went "Guys...um....can we do something a little less rapey for the name?"

Wiseone said:

TSA is a joke, but so are libertarians.

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Our ideology would never allow the TSA and these scanner machines that are good for nothing but seeing people naked and exposing their secrets, be that surgeries, missing parts of their body, or otherwise. I guess losers that are good for nothing but violating the rights of people and being all around assholes and thugs have to criticize those that want nothing but freedom though. How else would they be worth anyones time. Don't worry about it though you can pretend to not follow any sort of ideology and keep on agreeing with everything liberals say and I won't let you on the fact that I noticed to much. It's the least I can do for someone that wants to violate my second amendment rights and yet has the balls to enlist in the military as if they actually care to protect the peoples rights.

jonny5 said:

Sounds like an ideology to me.

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His ideology is basically ignore everything but effectiveness. It's a not a very sound ideology and is prone to lead to tyranny. He can practice it if he wants, but many things that are effective are also oppressive. Without anything else guiding you there is really nothing stopping the natural flow of things. He seems to think that all ideology does is hold back progress, but libertarian ideology is designed to restrain power of a dangerous organization and empower the people, not to hold back progress.

Wiseone said:

Well I never said we need a big powerful government looking after us and spying on us, that's a straw man and the hyperbole is the obvious ridiculous exaggeration. Anyway sorry I feel libertarianism is a joke, its unrealistic, has no historical background, seems to be based purely off ideology rather than pragmatism. And that's really the sticker for me, ideology is probably one of the most dangerous things that people can follow as if there's some magical set of rules that if you follow everything will turn out well in the end. I'm a pragmatist, I'm about solving problems, getting things done, and doing things that make sense without worrying about whether they pass some ideological litmus test.

For example in that other topic about seat belts we have people arguing that seat belt laws are just government tyranny despite the fact that there's no benefit to not having these laws and every benefit in having them. But it doesn't pass the ideological litmus test so throw out the common sense and march lock step with what the ideology says.

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Any ideology has to be mixed with a large dose of reality if it's going to work in the real world, on that I agree.

But, I think we'd be better off to mix libertarian ideology, rather than the statist ideology of the major parties (yep, both of them, not just the Democrats) with that reality. We'd have a much more palatable mixture.

Dittohead not! said:

Any ideology has to be mixed with a large dose of reality if it's going to work in the real world, on that I agree.

But, I think we'd be better off to mix libertarian ideology, rather than the statist ideology of the major parties (yep, both of them, not just the Democrats) with that reality. We'd have a much more palatable mixture.

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I don't want this to become all about libertarians. My only point with that comments was that only libertarians actually want to try something different. Republicans put TSA in place, and democrats want to keep it there. The benefit to libertarian ideology, as regards pragmatism, is that you can have both. Libertarians will leave you alone to be pragmatic, and will ask nothing of you when their ideology doesn't produce the results that make sense to Wiseone, who even though he apologized (Anyway sorry I feel libertarianism is a joke), I don't feel like it was sincere...

Ockham said:

The government knows why we don't take them seriously... yet what irk's me about the article is how everyone knew from the start that the scanners were utter ****, and yet the government sold it to people to show they were doing something about terrorism, even if it was ineffective and made for TSA jokes of the bodies they reviewed. Most people don't care about the humiliation as long as it was effective - in this case it wasn't. The joke is on us... we paid for a system that basically provided us some added radiation and entertainment for TSA agents. We could have paid for PS3's and been better off.

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Whenever that's they're reason for pushing for something, expect that something to be bull****.

This story is no surprise.

Create a new federal agency based upon a myth and fraud, and things like this are bound to happen.

I agreed with him on all but the ME stuff, we ought to tighten it up in that department because (not all of them) but a sizable minority to a majority of them would like to do us harm, ie 911, underwear bomber, times square, 1993 wtc, etc etc etc

...concocted stories, all.

Zyphlin said:

You want to know what I don't understand?

What the manufacturer of the Rapiscan machines were thinking calling a machine that was going to show people nude (admittedly in blobby, black and white, form) a name that when read wrong could be pronounced "Rapey Scan".

I mean, you'd think SOMEONE in the marketting department would've saw that and went "Guys...um....can we do something a little less rapey for the name?"

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It might have been a joke, because they knew the government was buying the machines, no matter what.

Wiseone said:

TSA is a joke, but so are libertarians.

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Fine, is there another option that will end the joke? Bring it.