A mother flying from Grand Rapids, Michigan to a post-cancer checkup endured a so-called “chat down” by the TSA on Tuesday and felt compelled to divulge personal information in order to maintain her travel schedule and not be delayed.
The flier, who contacted The American Mirror and requested anonymity over fear of retribution by the unionized agency, says she faced a series of questions unrelated to the articles in her possession or on her person as she was trying to approach the ID check point.
“As I was standing in the line to get through security, I noticed a young timid TSA agent making his way against traffic through the line,” the woman says.
“I was not paying much attention to him until he approached and in a nervous, yet accusatory tone asked, ‘Can you tell me who you’re traveling with today, ma’am?’ To which I replied, ‘this is it, it’s just me.'”
According to the flier, “He stood in front of me for a moment taking an awkwardly nervous pause before inquiring, ‘What’s your final destination ma’am?’
“Not expecting another question I thought for a second before I remembered and answered. At that point he moved on to question the preteen girl behind me whose mother chimed in to answer those questions.
She asked, “Would my pause, which was somewhat of a stumble over my final destination have solicited a different response from him had I looked different?”
The woman added, “The whole incident left me feeling like if I didn’t answer his questions, which had nothing to do with the security of the airport or plane, I would’ve been further scrutinized and could have missed my flight.
“The consequences for not complying with their invasive tactics are high and potentially very expensive.”
The flier, who is a regular air traveler, said that was only part of the invasive experience with the TSA:
I moved on toward the luggage belt where a more confident TSA agent was demanding we remove shoes, belts, computers, the whole rigmarole. As we approached the full body scan, people were being reprimanded for the slightest infraction. Interestingly, though no rules are posted, we were made to feel like fools if we had even our hair out of place.
My pants had a drawstrings which was apparently not allowed to dangle and the whole line was clear by the time it was my turn up to the machine that I had not tied my pants tight enough to pass through the system at GRR. The poor woman behind me hair some of long hair in front of her shoulders which highly annoyed the TSA agent and the women was gruffly told to make sure all hair was behind her shoulders.
We pushed through like cattle taking our lumps knowing freedom from the control freaks of TSA was just within our reach beyond the final intrusion of the full body scan.
InfoWars reported in 2013 that the controversial TSA controversial “chat down” program, deemed a “complete failure”, had cost over $1 BILLION.
The TSA’s $1 billion dollar ‘chat down’ program, where TSA screeners identify suspicious people and talk to them, has been deemed a complete failure by a Government Accountability Office investigation.
According to the GAO, the Screening of Passengers by Observation Techniques program is “no better than chance” when it comes to identifying security threats, which suggests that it has been a colossal waste of time and money.
Steve Lord, the director of the investigation, said that the, “TSA has yet to empirically demonstrate the effectiveness of the program despite spending about $900 million on it since 2007.”
“I suppose the government figures that grumpy looking people with droopy faces are potential terrorists,” Steve Gunn, a Michigan columnist wrote after he endured aggressive questioning by the TSA.
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