As many here have noted in recent days, TSA screeners are in an unenviable position. Many of them are far from happy with the new procedures that include pornoscanners and fingering of genitals.
Yesterday I finished up a four-part diary series, "Coercion, Sexual Humiliation, and TSA" pointing out that these procedures are a human rights issue. Among others things, I mentioned that screeners are also being mistreated because they are required to view and/or handle other people's genitals as a condition of employment.
I would not want to do that, and you can bet most of them don't like it either.
Other hazards for screeners using x-ray nudoscopes or conducting body searches include cumulative x-ray exposure, exposure to contagious diseases, and job stress.
Today, it's apparent that rationalizers are now going to try and screen themselves behind the screeners.
"Instead of making this Wednesday National Opt-Out Day in which a bunch of self-appointed guardians of liberty slow down the line for everyone by asking for pat-downs," said [former TSA chief Stewart] Baker, "maybe what we need is a day when everyone who goes through the line says, ‘Thanks for what you do.’ "
In a perfect, just pitch-perfect analogy to the old canard: if you support our troops, you have to support the war.
Meanwhile, the same MSNBC article reports, unions representing TSA workers are trying to help their members through this.
They have suggested that things would be a bit better is TSA would just provide information, such as pamphlets, advising travelers what to expect so that individuals can make informed choices before inadvertently getting into a situation that is intolerable to them, and where they are not allowed to change their minds.
Others have pointed out that TSA screeners do not get the same protections as health care workers, which would include x-ray dosimeter monitoring and thorough handwashing as well as clean gloves put on for every person.
These changes would certainly be a small step better. They could improve safety and reduce stress levels for travelers and screeners alike.
At the same time, when the truly intolerable has been explained, and mitigated by small changes, at the end of the day it's still intolerable.
And clearly, the situation is intolerable for TSA workers as well. They are as coerced as the travelers.
Travelers who might like to quit flying rather than go through this are often stuck because they have to fly for work or it is the only practical way to travel for personal business and family reunions in the limited time off work available to them. They are coerced.
The screeners need their jobs as badly as anyone else. And if they unbent and told passengers how a lot of them really feel, they would fired for insubordination. They are coerced.
And they are stuck in a crossfire not of their own making.
Molester, pervert, disgusting, an embarrassment, creep. These are all words I have heard today at work describing me. ...These comments are painful and demoralizing," one unnamed TSO posted on [blogger Steve] Frischling’s website.
Yes, that is awful to have to hear. Yet the screeners are better off in one respect: they are in the position of authority, and if they are made uncomfortable by the comments, at least it is verbal. No one is photographing them naked or prodding their scrotums and labia.
Another said: "Being a TSO means often being verbally abused. You let the comments roll off and check the next person; however, when a woman refuses the scanner then comes to me and tells me that she feels like I am molesting her; that is beyond verbal abuse."
With respect, this is not beyond verbal abuse. This not even up to the level of verbal abuse. Name-calling, epithets, curse words, may be verbal abuse, but "she feels like I am molesting her" is someone expressing honestly how she feels about being treated in a demeaning, dehumanizing manner. The truth hurts.
Let's hear it from the other side: a young mother traveling with her special-needs infant. She was not the same traveler who reacted to the screener, but she felt exactly the same:
I went through the x-ray machine and metal detector, carrying the baby, with no incident...
She then said, I need to reach in and feel along the inside of your waistband. She felt along my waistline, moved behind me, then proceeded to feel both of my buttocks. She reached from behind in the middle of my buttocks towards my vagina area...She then felt my inner thighs and my vagina area, touching both of my labia....
She then told me that I could put my shoes on and I asked if I could pick up the baby, she replied Yes...I stood there holding my baby in shock. I did not move for almost a minute.
...I began shaking and felt completely violated, abused and assaulted by the TSA agent. I shook for several hours, and woke up the next day shaking...
The responsibility for putting both travelers and screeners in this nasty position rests with the decision makers.
A mental health professional who was interviewed
...says the best thing TSA administrators can do...is to provide an extra layer of managerial and supervisory support. "They need to convey the message that superiors are aware of the stresses...and are there to support them."
[He] says having a mental health professional on staff or available as a referral "can be crucial in helping the people who did not make these rules but are charged with enforcing and implementing them nonetheless."
Another ghostly echo -- mental health professionals trying to keep our troops in Iraq together enough that not too many of them commit suicide from the long-term stress of fighting in a war that never should have begun.
Actually, the best thing TSA can do is STOP THIS OBSCENITY! The decision makers are subjecting travelers and employees alike to physical hazard and horrendous psychological abuse, in the name of, perhaps, a little marginal safety.
Picked this up last night on on Alternet:
Pants pulled off senior citizen on his anniversary: A 71-year-old man had his pants pulled down by a TSA agent in a public area so the agent could inspect his knee replacement. The man and his wife were threatened with missing their flight if he didn't comply. The couple were taking off on a trip for their 50th wedding anniversary.
Is that better or worse than having to do such a thing as a condition of employment, and having to look the victims in the face?
That's one thing about top decision makers in general...they fix it so they rarely or never have to face the actual victims of abusive practices. Much less subject themselves to the same system.
Let's not allow them to divide us, the travelers (or non-travelers, now, in some cases) from the screeners who are also in an intolerable position.
I would say: it would be better not to hit individuals screeners with epithets like "creep" and "pervert," which in my opinion may belong properly to some decision makers, but not to most of the screeners on the front lines.
At the same time, it's entirely legitimate to let front-line customer services workers know when something is intolerable and illegitimate, because that is in the nature of customer service work. When decision makers hide behind the customer service people, part of the latter's job is to hear complaints and (if possible) relay them back to management. At the moment, this puts these particular employees in a very, very tough situation, and I'm sorry for that, but it's one of the few ways travelers have of making themselves heard.
And when people get angry or weepy or shaky under these human rights abuses, I would hope screeners would understand that this is the most natural, healthy thing in the world, and the cure is not an artificial teeth-gritting "civility" to be demanded of the abused, but a return to sanity.
On this, we're together.
UPDATE: This is just weird. Maybe it reflects TSA Administrator John Pistole's recent "openness" to possible change?
Another bizarre security addition that I have recently experienced is the plastic cage.
Last week I was flying and was randomly selected for the dreaded "secondary screening"...The security woman put me in the cage (fortunately it had air holes), locked it, and told me that I wasn’t getting out until she swabbed my hands (presumably for potential chemical residues from bomb making).