I don't know about the United States, but pretty much everywhere taking videos of airport security check is prohibited.

You can in the US.

We don’t prohibit public, passengers or press from photographing, videotaping, or filming at screening locations. You can take pictures at our checkpoints as long as you’re not interfering with the screening process or slowing things down. We also ask that you do not film or take pictures of our monitors.

I was videoing a checkpoint during a lock-down and was told by the port authority/airport police that I wasn't allowed to point my camera at the 'secured area.' This was at Newark just this last January (when they locked it down because someone ran through the 'secured area' exit).

Missing context:

However… while the TSA does not prohibit photographs at screening locations, local laws, state statutes, or local ordinances might. Your best bet is to call ahead and see what that specific airport’s policy is.

hmm... There were signs at JFK and also at SFO that prohibited cameras last time I traveled internationally (about a year ago). Where is this quote from?

I saw that quote at New Wark and Cincinnati.

I wish I could upvote the idea about videotaping the proces and downvote you belittling those less fortunate than yourself.

A job is a job is a job.

Many TSA workers are on a power trip. Get off your high horse.

Maybe it's a coping mechanism. I mean how else could you do that job? If you and 50 people you work with are assigned to pat down strangers in an airport terminal, would you say no? Or would you find a way to deal, and just do it?

Don't they usually want your phone on the conveyor belt going through the X-ray machine? How do you videotape the circus at that point?

> If my son gets upset, I plan to tell him "this is why you're going to take trig seriously; do bad in school and you might end up with this crappy job".

That is a horribly disrespectful thing to say in front of someone who is doing their job. Would you say something like that to a proctologist as they stuck a finger up your butt? I doubt the TSA people like this either, perhaps some will even resign over it. But that person has a job and they are doing it as they are instructed to do. That is the job they use to pay their rent and bills, so that they won't need to go on the dole and have their bills paid by your trig-savvy son.

Bitch about the policy all you want, and do what you think needs to be done to change it. But don't belittle the TSA worker, they can't change anything.

If you have the job that forces you to feel up the crotches of children in order to encourage their parents to send them through a machine that takes naked pictures of them without probable cause of having committed any crime, then I suggest you quit that job.

Are plenty of hardworking people going to have their feelings and self esteem hurt by this process? Good. Systemetized violations of our most private areas should cause all sorts of pain.

I might feel differently if these were sworn law enforcement officers we're talking about, for a number of reasons. I'm generally very respectful of law enforcement. Fortunately (or not), I'm not forced to confront that conundrum, since these aren't police officers, but low-skilled "security" contractors whose sole purpose is to harass citizens in order to create the illusion of control.

By the way, in the history of all-time worst rationalizations for behavior, do we even need to talk about "that person has a job and they are doing it as they are instructed to do"?

>If you have the job that forces you to feel up the crotches of children in order to encourage their parents to send them through a machine that takes naked pictures of them without probable cause of having committed any crime, then I suggest you quit that job.

Thank you for making my day. That is all.

>If you have the job [...] then I suggest you quit that job.

Very easy to say.

I also like how you attacked with full prejudice anyone who might attempt to contradict you.

You're attacking the wrong people. Did these TSA people in the terminal get up one day and decide that they wanted to do pat-downs on everyone? I'm pretty sure it's been very hard for some of them to stay in their post with the new conditions but they're there because they do have families to feed and rent to pay, etc.. They're people too.

So, yes we do have to talk about the reason that you think you can dismiss people for not simply quitting their jobs because of enforced change that is not their fault and not their choice. We do have to talk about why you feel they should be potentially impoverished.

Why don't you leave your job in protest? That would be as effective as a TSA officer leaving theirs I'm sure.

Yes if all people in your country refused to do security pat-downs then this wouldn't happen. Also no flights would leave the ground (for at least a time).

IMO if you feel so strongly that you're demanding other people leave their jobs then you need to be doing 2 things. You need to be directly supporting those people leaving their jobs financially, and you need to be lobbying hard for a change in the rules/law.

If you're doing both those things then more power to you, TSA people will be happy you're paying their wages whilst they find work.

So, there you have it, in your opinion the "[worst] in the history of all-time worst rationalizations for behavior".

I wish I had the ability to up-vote more than once. This deserves to be printed and framed.

I'd just like to point out the difference between this and some comments below that basically say "LOL NAZIS JUST DID THEIR JOB" -- 134 points and counting vs. -4 and probably even lower in fact.

This is how you make this sort of argument. And I'm not just saying that because I agree with it. (That's what my upvote was for.)

Awesome.

Well, presumably proctologists are making a decent living, right? Certainly more than TSA reps, or am I mistaken?

I accidentally upvoted you. TSA is quite a far step from that. Don't suck all the oxygen out of the conversation.

In quantity only, not quality. If someone orders you to do something you consider immoral and you still do it, you're just as much to blame.

See the Milgram experiment and the Nuremberg trials. The "just doing their job" excuse isn't good enough for passengers or for employees, they should do the right thing and quit/disobey.

There's no simple reason. Who's to say that the enjoyment wasn't a coping mechanism? Who's to say they didn't think it was necessary to protect their country? I don't think they woke up one day and thought "today I'm going to torture and murder me some Jews", there was a very gradual manipulation process that led them there.

Have you seen the video of US marines airbombing journalists (or civilians? I don't remember). They seem to enjoy it a whole lot... We, of course, know this is nothing like that, but are we sure? In both cases people were doing what they thought was necessary for the good of their country (of course, it's much easier to see how killing people is justified when you think they're about to shoot anti-aircraft missiles at you). It's very easy to demonise people in retrospect, and say "we would never do these things today", but the guards in concentration camps probably said the same thing for other atrocities of the past, while actually doing the same thing themselves.

This is just a lot of speculation on my part, but I find it hard to believe that an entire country just happened to consist of monsters who would enjoy killing people or endorsing that genocide. I'm just saying that these are probably the same principles at play, but we have the benefit of hindsight and should take steps to nip this erosion in the bud.

Of course, that's very hard to do, so we'll probably just shut up and take this too.

  > I find it hard to believe that an entire country just happened to
  > consist of monsters who would enjoy killing people or endorsing
  > that genocide.

A couple of points:

1. The guards at the concentration camps were not 100% of population of Germany.

2. Did the general populus of Germany really know everything that was happening at the concentration camps? Did they know that Jews were being killed at stuck in mass graves or were they (the public) just told that they (the Jews) were being 'sent to camps' to 'keep them separated from the general population?'

Well, by that logic, TSA employees are not 100% of the population of the US either. I can't say how much they knew, but that makes it even worse, because the citizens of Germany were unwitting accomplices, whereas everyone knows what's going on in airports and still consents to it.*

* I'm not equating pat-downs to genocide.

People who win the lottery are generally not any happier six months later. Individuals seem to have a kind of equilibrium of happiness. I think it's reasonable that the guards would acclimate to a really crappy situation as well.

Yeah but it's true