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The Least Popular Agency

By Patrick

As I sit in the Seattle airport I read that TSA (the airport security people) are neck-and-neck with the IRS for status as "most disliked government agency." Apparently, they are also likely to surpass the Post Office as the butt of jokes.

Which was on point for this traveler, because TSA was in fact the MOST disliked government today at noon when he was subjected to a "random security search" at Pullman, Washington. (That always happens to me, by the way. Is it that jaywalking ticket, the fact that I never check luggage, or just proof there is a God and He hates me?)

The article above consists of a piece of investigative journalism, followed by boiler-plate denials and mission statements by TSA -- the he said/she said content is not particularly informative. The two questions I had (only one of which was addressed by the article) were:

Why does TSA rate out so much lower than law enforcement agencies with comparable missions and practices? And, aren't the invasive, cumbersome, time-consuming airport security procedures a good reason to be irritated, in face of the fact that they are also expensive and obviously arbitrary and ineffective?

I can't bring myself to engage in anything other than polite cooperation with airport employees who slave away for about 30,000 per year (I also would like to board the freaking plane!) but the spokesperson who lied to the AP about complaint response policies (first linked article, above) and managed to tell readers exactly nothing about the agency's perspective on the issue . . . is that really the voice of the agency in charge of keeping the skies safe?

Anyway, Happy Holiday.

Full post as published by Nuts & Boalts on December 26, 2007 (boomark / email).