Schumer Proceeds With Advocate Bill After TSA Delays Action

I don't trust Schumer any farther than I could throw his fat (expletive deleted). However having an advocate, even a TSA one, would almost certainly increase the complaint count. Currently the complaint mechanism is deliberately onerous and most people are too intimidated, ill informed or lazy to follow through with a complaint. TSA use this situation to claim successes that aren't really there.

Any mechanism that makes the complaint process readily accessible at the time of the incident would be an improvement.

Internal Affairs at Police Departments is far from perfect but at least provides a venue to air complaints.

 

I doubt it. A TSA-controlled "advocate" would likely round-file complaints, thus adding not one iota of value to the traveler's experience - much like the current TSA adds not one iota of "security" to their travels.

 

That was the first thing I thought of.

Rather than require more Thousands Standing Around, data-wise I think it would be more effective to require handing out "How Am I Doing?"/complaint cards to everyone who goes through, with the ability to request video sent to a forwarding address, which go to a neutral--not TSA. This is fundamental.

I am conflicted because it is so necessary to assist people, but 1) TSA just will not be part of cutting their own throat, 2) I would hate to add layers of pseudo-reform. People in the process of abuse need to be able to have assistance, but TSA just cannot be it.

Office of Citizen Complaints, not Internal Affairs, is a better model.
This legislation should also require some reckoning, as Barbell stated--to get at isolated incidents(TM) BS-- such as regular reporting and measures. Better yet, scrap this agency.
What is certain, is that this legislation needs major, major work--otherwise it's a softall to Pistole.

 

I still think most people -- or at least many people -- aren't going to complain, either because they don't want to be bothered, because they do but think it's a waste of time, or because they're afraid, rightly or wrongly, of being further hassled in the future. We all know the TSA is too incompetent, so far, to maintain a list of people to harass for having complained. But we also know that many passengers believe such a list already exists, and they don't want further trouble.

 

In my conversations with people, this is, by far and away, the biggest reason people don't complain to TSA about TSA.

It's as if the whole world knows they're inept, incompetent, self-important bullies, and just laugh it off as, "oh, well, at least they're doing something. Who am I to complain?"

This isn't going to solve anything. I can't tell you how many times I've been told, when requesting a manager:

1. She's too busy to talk with someone like you.
2. She won't be available for another 4 hours. (oh, rly? You know her schedule right off the top of your fat head?)
3. I need to photocopy your id. We need to make sure (after you've already been screened) that you aren't a terrorist that's going to assassinate him. (seriously? seriously?!?!?)
4. We don't have managers here.

I'm not making these up. These are actual excuses I've been given.

 

And yet Stacey Armato was singled out and harassed for having complained before.

Probably because she was flying weekly, and seeing the same protosimian blue shirts at the checkpoint every time, so they knew who to target.

 

Yes, they recognized her. Same airport, same frequent flying out of said airport.

 

Those aren't excuses. Those are lies, just like anything else you might hear coming out of the mouth of a TSA employee.

 

And constructing a whole aparatus within TSA to assist passengers is a lie. This thing needs to be opposed as-is and the reasons articulated loudly.

 

Adding any "passenger assistance" apparatus to the TSA would be like adding a "customer ombudsman" to the rail lines leading to Rohwer, Manzanar, or Tule Lake.

It's like putting a badge on a TSA employee. It's a lie in and of itself.

 

The most effective strategy would be to have a separate LE force stationed at airports to monitor TSA as Giannis originally proposed. I think he was going with NY State Police.

If their mission was to bust TSA employees, they would get them to meet their performance metrics. That would put them on their best behavior. The Schumer bill is a watered down federal version that satisfies TSA by enlarging it already swollen workforce.

 

It's the most dangerous place on planet Earth.