TSA Blog Lets Travelers Air Grievances

WASHINGTON — Frustrated by long airport-security lines? Certain those screeners aren't paying attention? Wondering why your grandma always gets frisked? The federal government wants to hear _ or at least read _ your gripes at the "Evolution of Security" blog the Transportation Security Administration introduced Wednesday. And it promises those complaints and suggestions won't vanish into thin air.

The blog, at , is getting a rather "blah" response from aviation analysts and passengers advocates who say it will do little to improve process or perception. http://www.tsa.gov/blog

"This will just make it easier for them to receive complaints for them to ignore in the name of national security," said David Stempler, president of the Air Travelers Association.

In the blog's initial post, TSA Administrator Kip Hawley said the goal is to provide a forum for the agency to explain why travelers must go through certain steps at checkpoints since interaction at airports is often harried and halted, resulting in "feedback and venting ... circulating among passengers with no real opportunity for us to learn from you or vice versa."

"We will incorporate what we learn in this forum in our checkpoint process evolution," Hawley wrote. "Our postings from the public will be reviewed to remove the destructive, but not touch the critical or cranky."

Terry Trippler, a Minneapolis-based airline expert, applauded the idea but said TSA "was in the right church, just not the right pew yet."

And that church could become anything but sacred. Trippler said he envisions the blog quickly degenerating into an online vacuum where a handful of habitual complainers force TSA officials to respond to them, while other self-appointed security "experts" pontificate on the best ways to improve the process.

Even worse, he said some travelers will avoid the blog for fear of retribution from the government.

The TSA already is fighting an uphill battle in the court of public opinion.

An Associated Press-Ipsos poll conducted last month found that only the Federal Emergency Management Agency, still dealing with its mismanagement of Hurricane Katrina, ranked below the TSA among the least-liked federal agencies. TSA tied with tax collectors in the ranking of a dozen executive branch agencies.

The AP poll found that the more people traveled, the less they liked TSA, but also that 53 percent of air travelers though the agency did a "very" or "somewhat" good job. Their top complaint: the inconvenience of security.

By late Wednesday there were 29 comments on the blog, mostly from TSA employees and moderators. One anonymous poster asked why some airport body scanners stop him due to a hip replacement while others do not.

The response from "Christopher," identified as an "evolution blog team member," said answering those kinds of questions in future posts was why the site was started and added: "Come back on Friday to check out our post on the top three questions security officers get from passengers."

Comments

[realitytrumpsbull]

Yeah, ok, here goes, commercial air travel sucks, airports are stockyards where you're encouraged to 'go VISA', I wish they'd bring back ocean liners for high-volume traffic, I don't care if it took a week to get to europe,
just make travel more economical. I think you could probably run a cruise liner off of hydrogen and/or natural gas, too. Wouldn't that be a trip, figure out some sort of way to get a ship to generate enough hydrogen to propel itself plus cargo forward at some sort of respectable speed. Wouldn't THAT just burn Branson's ass....wanna go to europe? Cool! Cost ya 50 bucks. Takes a week, weather permitting.
I think you'd get some takers...let the peasants roam FREE....can't have THAT
hehehehe

[skihigh2002]

As a pilot, I experience the constant harassment of the TSA every single day. These goons are not intelligent enough to qualify as a rental cop at the mall... yet day in and day out they "protect" us.

These idiots are so concerned with "bag checks" for shampoo that I'm confident someone can smuggle an AK-47 through. But don't bring your shaving cream!!! Terrorist!

I sympathize with the above commenter. A 94 year old woman? I mean, honestly TSA! What are you doing? These are bullies from high school on a power trip worse than the local police department.

[JAMES GORMAN]

i spent 3 days in a series of airports last summer to do
a trip that is normally 4 hours home from Rhode Island.
We circled Chicago three hours--and were herded like
gaunt cattle into pens to wait over one day--with rude
and obnoxious "gate keepers"--one lady had an honest
to-God heart attack, and burst into maddened rages that turned violent. My letters later to the transportation people, and the airlines, were of course all ignored.
The fox is guarding the hen-house--that commission is
full of air-line executives--nothing will happen.JGorman

[wadenelson1]

Great. Instead of giving people better air travel they give them a forum to whine.

Blogs are the new opiate of the dissatisfied masses.

Figure, give someone a blog to whine about Bush, they won't pick up a pitchfork and head to D.C.

[Crozier]

Surrounded by family, and travelling through the US, my Canadian mother, age 94 later this year, was given the full frisk treatment.

Yes, this treatment is uniquely American. Canadians do not frisk ninety year old great great grandmothers....or grandfathers for that matter.

We travelled on holiday to Argentina and Uruguay last week and their security was not predicated on fear and trembling in order to establish a fascist state. Neither is Canada.