With only a few weeks left to leave your comments about the TSA’s controversial passenger screening methods, here’s a question worth asking: Is anyone listening?

If you said, “not really,” then maybe you know Theresa Putkey, a consultant from Vancouver. She had a run-in with a TSA agent recently after trying to opt out of a full-body scan, and sent a complaint letter to the agency assigned to protect America’s transportation systems.

Here’s the form response from the TSA:

Thank you for your e-mail regarding the rude behavior you experienced from a Transportation Security Officer (TSO).

The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) regrets any unprofessional treatment you may have experienced.

TSA seeks to provide a high level of security and customer service to all passengers who pass through our screening checkpoints. Every person and item must be screened before entering the secured area, and the way the screening is conducted is important.

Our policies and procedures focus on ensuring that all passengers are treated with dignity, respect, and courtesy.

Please be advised that a passenger can always request to speak with the Supervisory Transportation Security Officer at the checkpoint to address any complaint regarding screening procedures.

Because your complaint concerns an incident that occurred at a specific airport, we have forwarded a copy of your letter to the appropriate Customer Service Manager.

We hope this information is helpful.

TSA Contact Center

Actually, it wasn’t. The form response failed to acknowledge her complaint, and she hasn’t heard anything from the agency since then.

Now, don’t get me wrong: Form letters can be a helpful way for a company or agency to send the same information to many people with the identical question. But Putkey had a specific complaint, and she was hoping for a specific response — if not an apology, then a promise to investigate.

“I’m still waiting, ” she says.

“I’m writing my congressman”

If you think contacting your member of Congress will get better results, then talk to Craig Szwed, a photographer based in Hartford, Conn. He recently complained to his representative about the constitutional violations committed by TSA screeners and received the following boilerplate response:

Thank you for contacting me regarding Transportation Security Administration (TSA). I appreciate your comments and having the benefit of your views. As a frequent flyer myself, I understand your frustration with the security screening process.

After the tragic events of September 11, 2001, our nation began a much needed overhaul of the security procedures involved in air travel. Included among these necessary reforms were increased screening of passengers, cargo and aircraft personnel. Additionally, precautions including the securing of the cockpit were undertaken to further ensure the safety of the aircraft and those on board. In order to ensure the safety and security of both passengers, crew and others, the US Congress passed the Aviation and Transportation Security Act (PL 107-71), which was signed into law by President George W. Bush. Among the provisions in this legislation was the creation of the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) within the Department of Transportation. Oversight of the TSA was then transferred to the Department of Homeland Security in March 2003 after the Passage of the Homeland Security Act of 2002 (PL 107-296).

TSA is responsible for the security screening of approximately 1.8 million air travelers that pass through more than 450 airports each day. TSA officers are charged with ensuring passengers do not carry prohibited items. As a result, TSA employees are required by law to check both passengers and luggage for banned items. In order to prepare customers for the security screening process, a list of banned items is provided by both airlines and TSA in a variety of ways: on their websites, in announcements over public address systems at airports, and in posted signs throughout the security screening area. These items include weapons, lighters, and certain liquids. Passengers must comply with these rules in order to gain access to airport terminals and aircraft. While these rules are strict and often inconvenient, they help to ensure that our transportation systems are safe and secure.

In your letter you voiced concern that this screening process was a violation of your constitutional rights. But the Fourth Amendment, along with most of the Constitution, does not apply in the airport the same way it does in most public spaces. The courts have found that airline passengers also consent to be searched when they choose to fly. Federal law requires commercial airline passengers to be searched prior to boarding a plane and airlines cannot transport any passenger who refuses. Over the past 40 years, the courts have upheld the constitutionality of airport security screenings as part of an overall regulatory effort to prevent hijackings and other terrorist activity.

The Supreme Court has ruled that blanket suspicionless searches are allowed in the airport as long as terrorism poses a risk to public safety. Of course, it is worth noting that the government’s right to search citizens in an airport is not unlimited. The government must show a clear need or immediate danger to justify the level of intrusion imposed on passengers. According to the Ninth Circuit, airport searches must be no more extensive or intensive than necessary, in light of current technology, to detect the presence of weapons or explosives.

Oversight steps have also been taken in order to prevent overreach by an individual screener or the agency itself. TSA has an independent mechanism for passengers to file complaints. The independence of this mechanism is then periodically audited and reported on by the US Government Accountability Office (GAO). Congress also has taken steps to increase transparency and serve as an oversight mechanism itself. This is most often done during FAA authorization measures where legislative language is inserted to ensure civil liberties and privacy concerns are adequately addressed.

Again, thank you for sharing your views on this issue with me. Should you have any additional comments or suggestions, please do not hesitate to contact me in the future.

This form letter apparently isn’t unique to one representative. Versions of it have reportedly been sent out by other elected officials.

What’s so telling about the email is the kicker.

“Please do not respond to this email as this mailbox is not monitored,” it says.

In other words, it’s a lecture, not a debate.

As to the form email itself, Szwed calls it “platitudes and excuses” and I can understand why. It suggests no one is paying attention to his complaints, and that even if someone did, it wouldn’t make a difference.

But a debate is exactly what Americans want, and deserve. They never had a chance to sound off on the TSA’s screening practices, which were imposed on them almost five years ago, and now, thanks to a court decision, they will finally get one.

Isn’t it time for the decision-makers in the security process to start listening, too?

More than a year after elderly travelers Omer Petti and Madge Woodward claimed that TSA screeners stole $300 from them during the course of what they described as “extreme pat-downs” at the San Diego International Airport, it appears that the TSA has reimbursed Mr. Petti. The agency continues to deny culpability, claiming the surveillance video was too blurry for them to be able to identify the thief.

Petti, a retired 96-year-old WWII Air Force Major, had lodged complaints with  State and Federal lawmakers, TSA, and Delta Airlines; he also filed a tort claim with TSA seeking reimbursement.

“Here it is,” Petti said in triumph, waving the official embossed check from the U.S. Department of Treasury.

We may draw a couple of conclusions. One, the video really was clear enough that the investigative crew could reasonably identify the amount — $300 in cash — that had been stolen (and was therefore likely clear enough, especially when cross-referenced with employee schedules, to identify  the thief himself). And two, since no employee was publicly charged and held accountable, Petti’s “official embossed check from the U.S. Department of Treasury” was simply a PR effort on the part of the TSA, one that perpetuates the agency’s customer-service charade while also covering up and closing the file on yet another episode of TSA screener theft and abuse.

Given the number of articles about this incident appearing over the past year (still available on a Google search), that hush money was probably the least effective ever paid. Certainly the 300 bucks wouldn’t come close to covering the time and effort it took Petti to make all the calls, write all the letters, and file all the paperwork involved. Petti was doing this as a matter of principle, and we salute him.

But this rare bit of good news stands in sharp contrast to the nature of other, more typically concluded stories of egregious, unresolved, and unpunished incidences of TSA theft. These continue to deluge the local news media; too often, though, they go unnoticed by larger national outlets.

For example, there’s this story, from WPXI in Pittsburgh:

Jewelry, laptops, electronics — all items reported missing from Pittsburgh International Airport in recent months — yet Channel 11 has learned TSA has only distributed $1200 in reimbursement checks.

Laura Snell of the TSA in Pittsburgh has taken the angry calls.

“If we’ve done something wrong, we want to make sure those passengers are paid,” she said. According to TSA data we obtained, 58 Pittsburgh airport passengers filed claims of damaged of lost items last year.

Already this year, 17 people have filed claims.

Channel 11’s David Johnson wanted to know why so few claims are reimbursed and uncovered a unique tracking mechanism at Pittsburgh International Airport.

Unlike at most other airports, Snell has the backup of about two dozen cameras that track your checked bag, literally every step of the way.

So: in 2012, 58 passengers filed claims of damaged of lost items, including jewelry, laptops, and electronics, at Pittsburgh airport. But to date, the TSA has only distributed $1200 in reimbursement checks for those. Such lack of reimbursement is typical, as we’ve reported many times.

TSA representative Laura Snell denies TSA involvement, stating ”I’ve been here 8 1/2 years; I’ve never seen us (sic) take a thing. I don’t know how else to put it.” And the public is supposed to be satisfied.

Ironically, Snell’s dismissal of the possibility that TSA workers stole from passengers comes a week after two reports of TSA worker theft, including one that was released by the screener’s employer.

In the first incident, at Hancock International Airport in Syracuse, TSA supervisor Jeremy Hemingway was observed stealing pills from a passenger’s luggage, which we wrote about here. The Post Standard obtained an email from Syracuse Police outlining that they had escorted Hemingway and his belongings from the airport after a videotape showed him removing contents from a bag he removed from the belt for inspection despite the lack of an alarm.

Hemingway, who worked with TSA for eight years, was terminated, but TSA spokeswoman Lisa Farbstein refused to comment other than to say: “The individual no longer works for TSA.” Moreover, Syracuse police declined to arrest or charge Hemingway with a crime, citing the lack of an owner to prosecute the case. There is no word from TSA or Syracuse officials about how many other items have been reported stolen during Hemingway’s term at the facility.

Then on April 26, 2013 — just days after the Syracuse incident — police in Columbia, South Carolina confirmed that TSA screener Eric Richard Dunlap was arrested by DHS officials at Columbia Regional Airport failing an “honesty check.” We reported this on April 29th. From the local news account:

Columbia Police Sergeant Joe Bernhard said the arrest took place after what he called a Department of Homeland Security honesty check. As part of the honesty check, a DHS official posed as a traveler gave Dunlap a bag with $500 inside, claiming he found it at the airport.

Bernhard said officials then saw Dunlap leave the airport Thursday morning with the bag and arrested him.

The DHS “honesty check” operation was launched due to mounting complaints from passengers that items were missing from their bags. DHS reviewed surveillance video, which showed Dunlap removing items from bags. Dunlap, who had worked for TSA several years, was arrested “on suspicion of stealing” and released on bond, but had not been charged as of the date of the story. As with the Syracuse case, there was no statement from the airport regarding the number of theft complaints during Dunlap’s tenure.

As we at TSA News are often reminding readers, there are many things travelers can do on the anti-theft front. First and foremost, of course, is the common-sense advice to pack light and bring along only what you’ll absolutely need. (Then again, if all you bring is what you need and those necessities get stolen, you’re out of luck.)

And if you’re traveling with one or more Mac electronics, you might want to consult this Mac user’s recent blog entry outlining how to recover a MacBook after a TSA screener steals it (depending on the model, this should work for iPads and iPhones, too — and as we know, TSA clerks love to steal iPads):

On a vacation with his wife and kids recently, Paul Deas opened his suitcase and found a rude surprise: his MacBook had been stolen. Paul eventually got his MacBook back, but his post on the matter is interesting food for thought, not only because it reveals just how common TSA theft is (there’s millions of Google results for “TSA Theft”) but how, even if you get your MacBook back, you’re not likely to catch the person who actually stole it.

Again, this is common sense, but it bears repeating because we all get distracted and even forgetful when we’re packing, particularly when we’re time-crunched: Don’t put your valuable computer equipment (or, indeed, anything valuable) in your checked luggage. And as for what you pack in your carry-on — which, sadly, may also be ransacked and stolen from while you’re separated from it during screening — consider locking your valuables together on a single cable inside your bag, as we posted about in How to Stop the TSA From Stealing Your Stuff.   [Some of our contributors now use, and recommend, this method. -- Ed.]

And you can further help reduce the marketability of stolen electronics themselves: if you’re considering buy a used MacBook or iPad (or any electronic piece) off Craigslist or eBay, request some sort of proof of ownership from the seller. This also protects you from unscrupulous sellers who describe a 2-year-old piece as having been bought “just a couple of weeks ago,  so it’s like new!”

How disheartening, though, that the blogger seems resigned to accept that the TSA will steal from us and we all should anticipate that thieves – whose salaries we pay – will be ransacking our belongings.

Despite the ongoing and oftentimes hilariously inept (or else Orwellian in their doublespeak-saturation) efforts by the TSA to improve the agency’s image — and even after having been repeatedly criticized by citizens, consumer advocates, celebrities, and even certain government officials — the TSA’s abuses, including sexual abuse and theft, persist.

Worse, a large swath of the populace now seems resigned to being assaulted and/or stolen from as a standard part of the air travel experience.

As recent events have demonstrated, patterns of misconduct do eventually get exposed, often on a national and even worldwide basis, and even the most artful spin by the TSA’s chief propagandist Blogger Bob can’t prevent the truth from surfacing.

America deserves better. The TSA and DHS are our employees: our tax dollars pay their salaries. We must demand that agency officials and employees be held accountable — not just for the thefts themselves, but also for the lies, covering-up, and narrative-spinning that invariably ends with some variation of “We hold our employees to the highest ethical standards but cannot release more details of these incidences due to national security matters. But hey, it’s all okay — everything is just to keep you safe!”

(Image via withbeans.)

As long-time readers know, when I say I refuse to submit to (and thus tacitly support) the TSA and its unconstitutional search-and-seizure policies, I really mean it: I refuse. I haven’t traveled anywhere by airplane since the summer of 2009; neither have my husband and sons.

Now, my family and I — passionate civil libertarians, all — are fortunate to be in a position to put our collective foot down thus: none of us needs to fly for work, or — thankfully, currently — for medical procedures. So, boycott the airlines is what we do.

Take that, airlines, said the British-born, Caribbean-and-Central-America-raised girl who comes from a long line of itchy-footed wanderers and who longs for the return of sensible, respectful security policy so she can get back to enjoying the world — hell, the country, even.

But although we know, with certainty, that a short-term boycott of the airlines by a large enough number of people — for just a couple of weeks — is all it would take to bring the airlines to their knees and to get Congress to heed our request for sane, effective airport security policy, here at TSA News, we’re not about shaming people who can’t protest exactly the way we do. Rather, we’re hoping to set an example by not flying, while also entreating those who must fly to cut back on air travel wherever possible.  And reminding them, when they do fly, to opt-out of the electronic strip-search machines and document any “pat-downs” with video, as you are permitted to do by law and as you are encouraged to do by civil liberties activists, this blog included.

As our colleague Lisa Simeone (currently on her own no-TSA vacation!) has often said, Everyone can participate in a campaign to effect change, as there are many ways to protest besides not flying. One VERY important thing you should do, right now, is head over to the public comments submission site and state why you oppose the government’s use of electronic strip-search machines on innocent citizens traveling within their own country. (We’ll keep the link posted in the upper left margin, too. Tell your friends.)

In the meantime, another summer fast approaches. And the TSA is still irradiating and groping Americans, with no end to the madness in sight–not yet, anyway.

“It’s going to be another inferno,” my husband said glumly. “It’ll be hot everywhere, but it would be nice to have a little break, a change of scenery….”

“South Beach?” I ventured. “It’s ridiculously drivable. Stay in one of the old Art Deco hotels; take the boys to art museums and vintage shops; hang out in cafés?”

“Get real! That sounds more like a girls’ weekend than a vacation for the lads, Deb,” he said. “Keep thinking.”

We pondered our options. Although we certainly live right in the midst of Family Vacation Central, with Disney, Universal, Sea World, Busch Gardens, and Cape Canaveral all within a couple of hours’ drive, our general attitude on that front tends to be Been there, rode that, and all we got were these lousy (and profoundly cheesy) t-shirts.

We were looking for something different, something . . . not in Florida.

Suddenly my husband perked up: “The Smokies! We’ll drive there. We’ll rent a house, load up the family truckster, and be there in eleven hours or so — which is not that much longer than it would take if we flew there, once you add on all the security wait-time and car-rental wait-time and . . . .”

Sold.

And he’s right: road-tripping it versus flying starts to look pretty good once you factor in the time it takes to drive to the airport, park your car, take the tram into the airport, and go through security (which represents a significant amount of travel-time, even when everything goes smoothly); and then factor in your actual time in the air (assuming takeoff happens as scheduled and there are no delays on the destination end, either) and the time it takes you to hop the shuttle bus to the rental-car lot and wait in line to get the keys to your vehicle (another time-suck, in our experience: we were once held up for nearly three hours in Los Angeles when the car-rental computers went down and all the reservations had to be processed manually); and finally, add on the time involved in driving the last leg of your trip, that is, from the airport car rental lot to your hotel or house, which will invariably be located in a different part of town.

Driving from our house in west-central Florida to the Smoky Mountains will be a TSA-free cakewalk in comparison.

And just think:  no sexual assault by people who are unhappy and embarrassed at best; surly and abusive at worst. No being separated from our luggage and having our belongings ransacked and the pricier items among them stolen. And no restrictions on liquids–other than adult beverages, of course: we’re not anti-common-sense and anti-safety. Just anti-Security Theater.

So, are you and your loved ones planning some TSA-free travel this summer? Are you taking to the rails? Or else the road — as we are — all the while crossing your fingers that VIPR units don’t crop up along the way? Tell us about your plans in comments, and feel free to ask questions of–or offer suggestions to–your fellow travelers.

Bon voyage sans le déranger de TSA!  [Bon Voyage without the disturbing of TSA.]

*****

Image via Lego Minifigures Tumblr

Travelers love to complain about the TSA, and even though the agency assigned to protect America’s transportation systems claims to listen, most of us know better.

Don’t believe me? Try sending the agency an email, complaining about your last pat-down. Do you hear the sound of crickets? Me too.

But now a court has ordered the TSA to listen, and to pay attention — and maybe, if we’re lucky, to do something about it.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit has ordered the TSA to engage in something known as notice-and-comment rulemaking on its screening procedures, and specifically its use of full-body scanners. You can leave your comment at the Federal Register website until June 24th.

The TSA hopes the public it’s assigned to protect will approve of the scanners and the way they’re used. But it promises to “review and analyze” the comments to develop a final rule related to the use of airport scanners.

What could they do? That isn’t entirely clear. The lengthy document seems to suggest that four options are on the table:

1. Metal detectors and pat-downs. Under this scenario, the passenger screening environment “remains the same as it was prior to 2008.” Which is to say, metal detectors, not scanners, are used as the primary passenger screening technology. Any alarms are “resolved” with a pat-down.

What if it were adopted? That system worked before 2008, and it could work again. But it wouldn’t address the problems many passengers have with “enhanced” pat-downs as a method of “resolving” an alarm. Those pat-downs are sometimes said to be abusive and punitive.

2. Metal detectors and random pat-downs. Under this alternative, TSA continues to use metal detectors as the primary passenger screening technology, but it “supplements” the screening with random pat-downs.

What if it were adopted? Chaos, probably. Those selected for a pat-down would complain, there would be allegations that the randomness wasn’t so random, and at the end of the day, the airport wouldn’t be any safer.

3. Metal detectors and explosive trace detection screening. This option would see the TSA return to metal detectors but conduct explosive trace detection screening on random passengers. ETD screening is fairly non-invasive, and usually involves swabbing luggage.

What if it were adopted? This would eliminate the difficult choice passengers are often asked to make between a scan and pat-down, and would replace it with proven technologies that could identify most threats. It’s the alternative preferred by TSA-watchers and privacy advocates.

4. Full-body scans or pat-downs. The final option would be to leave things exactly as they are: Using the scanners, which have already cost American taxpayers roughly $1 billion, and resolving any alarms with an “enhanced” pat-down.

What if it were adopted? This would be an unfortunate choice, because it would mean the TSA didn’t bother reading any of the public comments and doesn’t care what the American public thinks about the way it screens them. The current system costs too much, both financially and in terms of the constitutional rights we surrender at the airport, say critics. We can do better.

So what do travelers have to say about the TSA’s rulemaking so far? Plenty.

• From Matthew Richard Glucksberg: “Please remove the charade of security provided by full body microwave and backscatter X-ray facilities.”

• Sabina Gasper writes: “Nothing is going to make flying risk-free, but the TSA is arbitrary, rude and unprofessional in how it deals with the public — scanners or no scanners.”

• Patrick Pascal comments: “My visits to the airport bring back a childhood memory of the ordeal of crossing the Iron Curtain during the Cold War. After earning the respect of my community, my industry and my church, I deeply resent the unwarranted suspicion and lack of respect I regularly receive from the TSA.”

To be fair, there are a few comments supporting the body scanners and the way they’re being used. They fall into two general categories: The “if you don’t like it don’t fly” contingent and the “I work for the TSA and am commenting anonymously” crowd. Both deserve to be heard, of course, but they represent a very small minority.

What will happen?

After June 24, will anything change? Not immediately, and maybe not for a long time. The Department of Homeland Security will consider the comments in final rule, which could be months or years in the future.

Given that the life cycle of the scanners, from deployment to disposal, is eight years, it’s possible the TSA may decide to decommission its scanner program at about the same time the scanners have become obsolete. One way or the other, it seems the scanners are going to go away at some point in the future.

You can help make the policy change happen faster by leaving a comment on the Federal Register site now and urging the TSA to embrace option three immediately. It is the only reasonable choice.

But the entire scan-versus-pat-down era, which historians will surely come to recognize as one of the darkest moments in our democracy, begs a bigger question: At what point is it acceptable to shortcut the regulatory process and not be forthcoming with the public when it comes to keeping America safe? Is it ever acceptable?

I would like to say “no.” You probably do, too. But no one knows what tomorrow will bring.

Private security firms are licking their chops over a potentially high-dollar government contract to conduct background checks on thousands of frequent fliers.

Our friends at Politico report The Chertoff Group and Clear are jostling for the privilege of prescreening America’s air travelers.

The TSA is said to be exploring the idea of putting a third party in charge of conducting background checks on passengers who apply for the agency’s expedited-screening program, known as PreCheck.

Chertoff, of course, has made millions by exploiting the paranoid fears of American taxpayers. Clear, too, has been complicit in creating a “papers please” state.

But the average air travelers may see this as nothing more than free enterprise in action — a potential public-private venture that will help keep the skies safer.

That would be a mistake.

First, we know how careless third parties can be with your personal information. In 2008, a laptop containing 33,000 names and other personal information from a pre-check program was lost in San Francisco. It was later recovered,  but no one appears to have been disciplined after the breach.

But an expansion of PreCheck raises even bigger questions. While you may support the current administration and its policies, giving the federal government and a third party your personal information means that any administration that comes afterwards, and indeed, any contractor the government chooses to do business with, will potentially have access to your personal data.

Do you really want that? Didn’t think so.

With the frenetic summer travel season just around the corner, here’s a little warning about a road hazard you might not expect: a checkpoint staffed by Transportation Security Administration workers.

The so-called VIPR teams (shorthand for Visible Intermodal Prevention and Response) are special TSA units that search — and sometimes detain — travelers at bus terminals, railroad stations, subways, truck weigh stations and special events such as NFL games and political conventions.

Peter Ireland, an entrepreneur based in Seattle, contacted me after hearing about VIPR teams in Emeryville, Calif., checking random passengers and luggage.

“This agency is out of control,” he told me. “It’s a cancer in the body politic.”

He’s hardly alone in that assessment, or in the suggestion that VIPR teams are turning America into a de facto police state. But the VIPR teams are on such shaky legal ground, and as you’ll see in the video below, many travelers can and do simply ignore the roadside checkpoints because there’s no legal basis for them. (Note: While these aren’t VIPR checkpoints, they operate in a similar way, so I thought they were worth including.)

Annoying and ineffective?

The real problem with the TSA VIPR teams isn’t that they needlessly delay travelers, but that they may be unable to stop a real act of terrorism. Consider the recent “emergency” on a Chicago train, where VIPR agents believed they’d found a dirty nuclear device.

A TV photojournalist who just “happened” to be at the scene captured the whole event, which ended up being a false alarm. Turns out one of the passengers had just wrapped up a medical test, which led to higher isotope readings.

Thanks, VIPR.

By the government’s own reckoning, these teams are useless. The latest Inspector General report questioned the effectiveness of the teams, noting that surface transportation security inspectors are not trained in behavior detection, have no training in passenger screening, are unable to detect explosives, and are not law enforcement authorities.

Ready for your VIPR check?

This upcoming Memorial Day holiday, as you take to the roads and railways with your own family, you may see a VIPR team asking you to pull over and submit to an inspection. I’ll be honest: The activist in me wants to keep driving. But as a practical matter, I pull over, I’m polite to the government employees and I answer all of their question honestly. My family doesn’t want any trouble, and chances are, neither does yours.

But as the inspection station disappears in my rearview mirror, I wonder: When will I say no? When the kids are old enough to deal with Dad getting hauled off and detained? When the TSA agents’ questions get too personal? Maybe when I’m asked to walk through a portable full-body scanner that’s set up along the road?

I think we can all understand having a checkpoint at the border or in front of a military base, but at a random truck weigh station? To check nine-year-old Amtrak passengers as they exit the train in Savannah, Ga.?

Maybe this summer it’s time to say enough is enough.

Mother Jones has a good post up today: America’s 14 Most Pissed-Off Comments on the TSA’s Airport Body Scanners.

It’s heartening to see that at least some of my fellow lefties are calling attention (however obliquely) to these intrusive, ineffective, and potentially harmful machines. (I’m not sure, exactly, why or how liberals began to regard the matter of Fourth Amendment protections–not to mention common decency–as the exclusive domain of conservatives and libertarians. I for one refuse to passively stand by and watch as my rights, and those of my children, are violated by agencies whose salaries are paid with my tax dollars. And as readers are probably aware, I’m as left-leaning as it gets.)

Even more heartening: there would appear to be far more people saying “Hey, wait a minute–isn’t this America?” today than there were a year ago.

Do head on over to Mother Jones and add your comments and ‘likes’ (where appropriate). There are still too many Americans out there who take an anything-so-I-can-feel-safe attitude, or who lamentably assume “if it hasn’t happened to me, it never happens to anyone”. A little education goes a long way!

Advocacy groups are renewing their push to keep small knives off planes, and the TSA couldn’t be happier about it.

Yesterday, nine groups threatened to sue the TSA to keep it from changing its policy, which was delayed from being implemented during the sequester-related furloughs.

The organizations, including representatives for TSA officers and air marshals, filed a legal petition with TSA and the Department of Homeland Security to prevent any return of knives into plane cabins, according to USA Today.

But what’s really going on here? Pull back a little, and it’s pretty obvious. The new knife policy is shaping up to be nothing more than a diversionary tactic to siphon public attention away from the real issue.

Focus on small, sharp objects — items that, oh, by the way, are already more or less permitted in the cabin — and you won’t have to worry about the bigger issues.

And those are? Well, as my colleague Wendy Thomson points out, the agency is fixated on how it will probably have to change its screening practices after a comment period on a court-ordered public rulemaking. Incidentally, you can still file a public comment, and if you haven’t already done so, you should.

By deflecting the public’s attention away from its its Constitutionally-challenged scannings and friskings, and focusing on a fairly inconsequential knife fight, TSA is trying — and, alas, succeeding — at drawing the public’s attention away from an even more important debate.

So go on, advocacy groups. Keep tilting at those windmills.

The TSA loves you for it.

Still open is the public comment period on the TSA’s AIT (advanced imaging technology) machines — more aptly called nude scanners. This public comment period will be open until June 24th.

While we at TSANewsBlog have been beating the encouraging-comment drum, Freedom to Travel USA (of which I’m a co-founder) received this comprehensive, superbly written statement from Deb, which I’m republishing in full and which I urge you to read and share:

Earlier today you guys asked us to share with you and readers what, if any lifestyle changes we have made regarding air travel. Have we really stopped flying? How much money are you not spending?

Well – I’m really not flying. At least not the way I used to. If my children need me or if it is truly urgent business, I fly. Otherwise no. It’s now maybe 2 round-trips a year instead of 10 – 15.

I’m not spending between 15k and 25k a year. That’s money that certainly would have been pumped back into our economy – hotels, restaurants, cars — business meetings that may have led to an exchange of ideas, and thus more business.

Since cutting out ALL discretionary travel and severely curtailing my business travel, yes my life has changed – but not nearly as dramatically as I assumed it would. I do not miss the exhaustion, delays, tension and anxiety that accompanied every trip through the gulag. I no longer worry I will be selected for the carcinogenic scanner, and thus endure another sickening episode (cannot call it a ‘pat-down’) which includes strangers placing their hands inside the waistband of my pants and all through my hair. Talk about just plain GROSS.

At least that’s what it is to me – disgusting, insulting, humiliating. For friends and colleagues with potentially embarrassing medical conditions or those who have survived assault it’s traumatizing and horrifying. Most of these people are done. Paralyzed. They are driving where ever possible – taking zero flights.

These unprecedented trespasses upon us are a violation of social and civil norms that have been with us for centuries — but were all somehow instantly undone in the Fall of 2010, without so much as a single conversation with the traveling public. How is John Pistole not in jail, let alone still in charge of this fiasco? Or maybe it was just part of some bigger plan – curtail every right – then charm the public with your understanding — returning one or two ‘privileges’ we used to take for granted. Who knows?

I voted for this Administration the first time around – never imaging that President Obama would not only not undo the unConstitutional policies set in place by the Bush Administration – but would instead deeply entrench them. I no longer identify with either major party.

Thankfully though, today I no longer waste time measuring and pouring my cosmetics into magical tiny bottles, or roaming around strange towns looking for a CVS at midnight, so I can replace the stuff stolen or summarily tossed by TSA. It may seem trivial – the fact that we can no longer travel with certain possessions, foods and cosmetics or count on the fact that our stuff will be in our checked bags as we packed them.

But if you are a woman traveling on business, just try and look professional for your meeting the next day without most of the things you need. Or try and find a decent restaurant you can go to by yourself at a late hour. I used to pack my meals, not only b/c the hours were late but simply b/c it was cost effective, healthy and highly convenient. No waiting, no wasted time looking for a place that delivers, no over-eating. But most of what I used to bring along is not allowed anymore.

If the goal is to have us all show up for work the next day exhausted and looking a wreck, we can just add that to the pile of things wrong with a system that discourages free movement and entrepreneurial success – and encourages rampant theft by the very people charged with safeguarding. Better our time should be drained on tiny bottles, strategic wardrobing and packing for your inspection, inhaling crappy food, waiting in endless lines, changing in concourse restrooms (into your real business apparel), and doing hair and make-up there as well – lest we look at all attractive for the inspectors. Yup, real good use of our time and brainpower – strategizing just to “get through.”

When we add up all the stolen 40 minutes’ here and 3 hours there — and factor in the distraction and worry that these gauntlets create for many — what we get is a population that is less and less productive in their everyday lives. I breathed a very deep sigh of relief when I finally got off this nauseating merry-go-round – which essentially processed me like a criminal into jail simply so I could go from City A to City B to do my job.

A simple background check would quickly reveal that I am no threat to anyone – never have been – never will be – never been arrested – no problems at all – but instead our government wastes billions of dollars treating every last one of us like potential thugs. The theory here seems to be “we have no effective way to solve this, or make it LOOK like we’re solving it, so we’ll just punish everyone, all the time.”

Thanks but no thanks. I’ll stay home. I can absolutely live without the NFL, Disney, hockey games and all the other places where big crowds now bring out the security theatre circus. Why this circus is essential for the county fair but not the crowded supermarket has yet to be explained to me. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that processing everyone like a felon at every point in their every day, not only makes no sense, but would likely bankrupt us all.

Yes my life today is less mobile. Some relatives complain that they “never see me.” I’ve missed concerts, family events, vacations and the like. I’m compensating by upgrading my home and socializing in the neighborhood. My work today is less fancy – more local – but my costs are lower and I have fewer headaches. No, I’m not pushing boundaries anymore in my profession – no longer setting any agendas. I’m complacent and competent. While that’s maybe good for me, it’s bad for this country — much as our inept healthcare system keeps people shackled to jobs they detest and inhibits entrepreneurship.

We’re digging a hole here people. When we intimidate movement; when we remove citizens’ shoes and clothing and hold-hostage their possessions until they cooperate; when we tell people what they can and cannot bring with them, when we douse the public in radiation with machines we never bothered to properly test – operated by untrained hacks — when we teach children and teenagers that it’s perfectly normal for strangers to rummage through your handbag on a subway platform (‘for your safety’) or roam all over their bodies and inside their clothing in airports – we create a society that is the fundamental opposite of the one we have always known and what this nation’s founders intended.

To the foolish people who say “look how great the TSA is – they’ve been keeping air travel safe now for 11 years” – I say the usual: Air travel has been made inherently safer by locking cockpit doors and changing the traveler mindset of cooperating with high-jackers. That’s it. All the rest is mostly nonsense — all cargo and luggage is not screened and any one of the many thieves who so readily steal your iPad could just as easily plant something on any plane for a price. Saying that this cartoon circus of pretend ‘officers’ — many of whom appear otherwise unemployable — are “keeping us safe” – is like saying – ‘thank goodness for my local police – I haven’t been attacked by a lion in 20 years.’ If any of this was really about genuine ‘security’ wouldn’t we be hiring true security professionals?

When I look at all this lunacy and the people who endorse it – many of whom were friends I once admired — all I can do is be sad – and move on. Yet another part of everyday life now changed.

The real question is – what kind of country do we want to be? One that supports growth and interaction and bold ideas, or one in which people bow out of opportunities, throw up their hands and say ‘enough?’

It’s clear where we’re going — and it probably won’t change in our lifetimes. Can anything be done? I’m not really sure. I just know I don’t want to be part of what we are now.

A local Arlington, Virginia news site reported this morning that for the third time this week, a “suspicious package” was found near TSA headquarters.

The road leading up to the HQ was closed while a bomb squad inspected and found nothing amiss.

Here’s the article. But you’ve really gotta read the comments in the discussion thread — priceless!

(Photo: UNC-CFC-USFK/Flickr Creative Commons)