A strong reason to restrain the size and authority of the TSA

[vla1ne]

well, the overall picture is that the TSA has again gotten too big for it's britches. I have no words that aren't insulting, and as such, the only thing i can do is post the video.

 

[Progenitor]

I mean....

How would restraining the authority of the TSA stop situations like this from occuring?

From sifting through Fox's usual batch of leading questions and other such crap, it seems like this was just a total misunderstanding.

Until the video is released, who's to say that most of the injuries occurred as she awkwardly fell to the ground?

Who's to say that by the time the mother could say anything, her daughter was already on the ground?

Because if that's the case, then everything they did was actually correct. If the girl resisted compliance and forced the active TSA member to step in, they cannot just let her go because her mom says she's impaired, even if she is.

Why? Because there's a chance she isn't. They have to make sure. So they put her in "jail" until they can confirm or deny these notions, THEN they release her.

 

Put yourself in the shoes of the TSA agent. The mother made no attempt to explain that this person has special needs before she started to panic and do SOMETHING that instigated action from the residing officer. Only after she was brought down did the mother attempt to do so. So was excessive force used? Yes, probably. However it was wielded unintentionally. She wasn't beaten while down or abused in any other way; the reality is most likely that it was an aggressive take down that ended in a very awkward landing position and caused some not too pretty injuries.

 

And once again, even if I'm wrong about all of this, what will limiting their authority do? TSA need the ability to act at the drop of a hat in order to restrain actual threats. If you take that away from them, they might as well just be disbanded entirely. So how would you limit them? You can't is the simple answer. It's just something that happens from time to time, and it's unfortunate. But there is fault on both sides. If the mother had educated herself on TSA special needs policy before hand (something you DEFINATELY should be doing as a parent) and/or made more clear of her daughter's condition before anything could escalate, then it never would have reached this point.

[vla1ne]

I mean....

How would restraining the authority of the TSA stop situations like this from occuring?

From sifting through Fox's usual batch of leading questions and other such crap, it seems like this was just a total misunderstanding.

Until the video is released, who's to say that most of the injuries occurred as she awkwardly fell to the ground?

Who's to say that by the time the mother could say anything, her daughter was already on the ground?

Because if that's the case, then everything they did was actually correct. If the girl resisted compliance and forced the active TSA member to step in, they cannot just let her go because her mom says she's impaired, even if she is.

Why? Because there's a chance she isn't. They have to make sure. So they put her in "jail" until they can confirm or deny these notions, THEN they release her.

 

Put yourself in the shoes of the TSA agent. The mother made no attempt to explain that this person has special needs before she started to panic and do SOMETHING that instigated action from the residing officer. Only after she was brought down did the mother attempt to do so. So was excessive force used? Yes, probably. However it was wielded unintentionally. She wasn't beaten while down or abused in any other way; the reality is most likely that it was an aggressive take down that ended in a very awkward landing position and caused some not too pretty injuries.

 

And once again, even if I'm wrong about all of this, what will limiting their authority do? TSA need the ability to act at the drop of a hat in order to restrain actual threats. If you take that away from them, they might as well just be disbanded entirely. So how would you limit them? You can't is the simple answer. It's just something that happens from time to time, and it's unfortunate. But there is fault on both sides. If the mother had educated herself on TSA special needs policy before hand (something you DEFINATELY should be doing as a parent) and/or made more clear of her daughter's condition before anything could escalate, then it never would have reached this point.

you are correct, restraining their power might harm their ability to deal with actual threats, but at that point, tell me, what misunderstanding could there be to lead to this kind of damage? even if their overall power isn't toned down, there need to be protocalls in place that equire them to get as much information as possible before doing something like this, maybe not in actual emergencies, but i cannot think of any way this person could have been enough of an emergency that they had to do all of this just to restrain her. and there's multiple videos like this, this is just the most recent one. the TSA has too much leeway in it's actions, type in "TSA stealing", or "TSA beats down" to find all manner of videos of the TSA doing, and being, little more than a hassle, i get it, safety for the american plane passengers, but fox isn't the only place you hear and see this from, all news outles, big and small have multiple videos of the TSA abusing their power, and multiple smaller blogs and youtube channels have testament upon testament of the TSA being little more than empowered thieves. even former TSA employees tell about how the TSA abuses it's power, it's not just fox.

 

I can see this possibly being an accident, but accident or not, the TSA has too any corrupt, and overeager members, there needs to at least be better restrictions, or more potent penalties for actions that result in harm and/or loss of property, the same has been said of cops, even if you don't restrict their power, you have to supervise it, and enforce actual consequences when those who are in positions like this step out of line be it by accident or by intent. of course, for honest accidents, the punishment can be lessened, but how many accidents are on purpose, and how many are true accidents? until you actually put something like a body camera on the people who are supposed to be trusted with the possessions of the people, you will never know. it's not just this video, it's not just fox news, it's all of the videos, and all the unrecorded moments, and all the events similar. sure, the mother didn't educate herself, but who expects their kid to be slammed into the ground hard enough to draw blood from their skull? mistake or not, there has to be some form of consequence, be it minor or major.

[Dad]

This is another case of people being put in charge of too much at once.  While airports are already heavily policed (this is not a bad thing), having the TSA act as a second deterrent should feel really good.  However, I find that because they have so much power, it's hard to limit what they can and can't do.  At the same time, cutting their power would be to place a number of people (specifically the whole God damn country) in potential danger.  So this isn't as easy as trimming the fat.  You've got zero margin for error and the minute the TSA lose power there's gonna be backlash from not only the TSA itself, but from everyone behind them.

 

This is literally walking on egg shells.  But it's possible.  Make them ask more questions before physically engaging with people like the one in the video.  If they're struggling to communicate, there shouldn't be a funking kneejerk reaction to throw on the ground.  But if they're refusing to communicate (which is usually visible in facial reaction) that's totally different (but does not justify abuse).  I feel like this is similar to police in that TSA should have much more training.  They are effectively the first line of defense when it comes to people coming in and out of the country.  They have very little training from what I know and that's problematic, leading to things like the above video.

 

Perhaps things need to be more clear in terms of TSA regulations.  But limiting the TSA any more would be too chaotic.