Reaching out...
"Agency officials have also reached out to the passenger to personally apologize for this unfortunate incident."
Wasn't that part of the problem in the first place?
Air travellers in the US can rest easy that they can happily pack sex toys in their luggage after the Transportation Safety Administration began a "removal" action on an errant employee. The TSA found itself impaled on the horns of a dilemma last week when Jill Filipovic, a New York-based lawyer and blogger, revealed that a …
Quick google shows her to be very active politically. Any "reaching out" is likely to be much more trouble than you expect.
Whoever did that was having a death wish and it was personal with regards to her, not just because some anonymous woman happened to carry a rabbit in her handbag.
It seems many people don't get it.
Writing that note was potentially offensive but it was not an invasion of privacy. The invasion of privacy was the initial, accepted search of the luggage to find the vibrator at all. There was no less invasion of privacy if the note had not been written.
Is it a matter of ignorance is bliss? It's ok if our privacy is invaded so long as we aren't reminded of this fact?
Certainly the TSA agent writing the note is unfit for the position if not being fired, but the actual offense is no greater than if you see a woman holding a vibrator up in plan sight and say "about to have fun with that". In fact, it was the supposed victim that actually gave up her privacy beyond that of any other passenger when she took an event nobody else would have known about and made it public.
Ironic.
"a New York-based lawyer and blogger"
And my sympathy meter is now wedged firmly at 0.
All seriousness aside, a friend once played a joke on an unsuspecting (and unliked) roommate by sneaking an aluminum foil-wrapped dildo into her carry-on bag. Those wild, carefree days seem to be forever gone, alas.
Or is it lawyers, or New Yorkers, who you automatically lump into the pile of people you can't have sympathy for, no matter the situation? Not all lawyers are amoral bloodsuckers. Not all New Yorkers are (also possibly bloodsucking) investment bankers. Not all bloggers are vacuous.
Please, provide an explanation of your standards for who deserves sympathy for government invasion of privacy.
Not to burst anyone's bubble, but I seriously doubt the people in charge of the TSA actually give much of a flying one what people say about them in the press or (shudder) the 'blogosphere'. If they did, they'd have given up long ago. They've decided to play this one nice for PR's sake but it's not as if anything will change either way.
I wonder whether any of these are electrically powered and whether some passengers packing them are the ones spinning an en(d)ordinate amount of time in the lavatory in the tail end of the plane. I wonder: can one bring an inverter with it? Drain the plane of electricity... cause brown-outs... I imagine many would take a dim or dimmed view on this -- especially if it led to aeronautic aerobatics in a confined space
CHECKED baggage is CHECKED-IN baggage, not luggage taken on-board into the passenger cabin, where, as you *so* eloquently put it, passengers can spend a lot of time at the tail end of the plane. CHECKED baggage is inaccessible to passengers.
The complainant checked her bag in, it was taken to the TSA scanners, where the bag was opened, inspected by hand, a note scrawled and put in the bag and the bag closed again before making its way through the baggage handling system to her plane.
Considering how often things "go missing" at such inspections, I am very glad to see the TSA starting to take this kind of report seriously.
Not sure what the actual problem and outcome was here.
Is it the fact that TSA screeners fondle people's personal belongings and invade their privacy or is it just the note?
It seems the only thing being punished is leaving the note, so if the screener had fondled with, giggled, tampered with (etc) the vibrator and *not* left a note, no one would be any the wiser and he or she would still be in Federal employment.
Why is leaving a note any more of an invasion of privacy than normal "screening"?
>Why is leaving a note any more of an invasion of privacy than normal "screening"?
It's not, except that we believe our own lie that our privacy is not invaded. Having a hand-written note of a sexual nature placed in your bag is not just a reminder of this lie, it is a flagrant breach of trust and etiquette.
Similarly, you can admire the cute derrière of someone walking ahead of you in the street, but if you call out and tell the owner of the aforementioned derrière what you'd like to do with it, you could be arrested for offensive behaviour.
Simple, really.
So it isnt an invasion of privacy until the person realises it has been done?
That doesnt make sense and certainly doesnt accord with legislation.
The analogy is wrong unless you think that is ok for me to go through your post, your voicemails, your emails etc as long as I dont let you know I have done it. If this is the case, we can eliminate the "damage" done by 90% of hacks by simply removing monitoring.
Sure, so is theft from baggage but there are still some TSA employees trying to upgrade their standard of living through theft.
I always use Pac Safe products, made in Australia but sold every where, as the TSA fondlers can examine the contents but not actually remove them from the Pac Safe which has a stainless mesh which is impervious to most everything other than torch cutters.
Flew home from the US a few weeks back using a bag that has travelled to NYC/DC many time before. It wasn't till I was waiting for the tube at Heathrow I realised that the lock was missing. Turns out that the TSA had broken/stolen(!) the combo lock to have a rummage round. They event left a note saying that if anything was damaged it's my fault not theirs.
No idea what they thought they could see in there. Though I guess the potential thief was annoyed that the iPad2 box didn't have an iPad in it, as it was in the cabin with me.
Am I the only one to find it curious that the sex toy having been discovered by the TSA employee she would then go on to blog about it on the Internet. Is this a generational thing, what with 'real` people appearing on reality television programs and where such concepts as the private or public space or personal morality don't apply anymore? Your sex life or what you had to eat in that curry house last night having equivalent value to blog about?
"Generation sex respects the rights of girls
Who want to take their clothes off
As long as we can all watch that's o.k"
http://www.lyricsmania.com/generation_sex_lyrics_divine_comedy_the.html
http://www.feministe.us/blog/archives/2011/10/26/note-leaving-tsa-agent-suspended/
Not at all I just don't see why I have to blog about it for the amusment of the unwashed masses. All this does is trivialize the subject. I call it the Oprahization of the culture (well not only me, I just looked it up). Whatever the subject euthanasia, stuffed cadaver sculptures, cannibalistic German chefs, we demand the right to all watch. It's sad watching the culture slowly sink into the slime (frogs boiling water and so on).
http://www.wordspy.com/words/Oprahization.asp