Not since the days when the postal service mattered to anybody has a group of federal workers (Congress excepted) taken so much abuse as the agents of the TSA.
That the TSA performs a necessary function is clear. Their vigilance, study after study has shown, has resulted in airline passengers bringing aboard far fewer knives, handguns, and explosive devices than they used to.
Yet the abuse of TSA agents has become so pervasive it has been estimated that comedians such as Jay Leno (“Have you heard the TSA’s new slogan? ‘We handle more junk than eBay.'”) David Letterman (“TSA says they are going to crack down on the invasive pat-downs. In fact, one agent was transferred to another parish.”) and Conan O’Brien (“ I don’t mind being patted down by airport security, but I don’t like it when the guy says, ‘Now you do me.'”) would be hard pressed to get through their monologues without some reference to the alleged humiliation faced daily by the flying public.
Of course some of the abuse is well-deserved. There’s no evidence to show that grandmothers in wheelchairs are more likely to commit terrorist acts than any other group. And what kind of person takes a stuffed animal away from a four-year-old boy, even if the animal does turn out to contain gun parts?
But try putting yourself in the shoes of a TSA agent. (Admittedly, not as easily done, at most security checkpoints, as TSA agents putting themselves in yours.) The fact is that the two things the flying public finds most outrageous about the airport security experience – pat downs and body scans – are the two things that make it most difficult for TSA agents to come to work each day (that and most of them don’t earn enough to own a car).
“Everybody says airport security is a system built on fear,” TSA spokesperson Daniel Butts said, “But what they don’t say is that the biggest fears are those faced by the TSA agents themselves. To understand why, you just need to look at most people making their way through an airport terminal, picture them naked, and then imagine having to run your hand up the inside of their thighs. It’s not exactly a Ken and Barbie world out there.”
Considering the stress that results, it is a wonder, Butts said, that the TSA team holds up as well as they have. “Sure, there have been cases of verbal abuse, theft, drug trafficking, and dealing in child pornography, but at least nobody’s gone postal.”
