Writes Matt Allen:
I’m a world history teacher in a small town in Illinois and I wrote the following letter last night and sent it to a tour company that I will be using to take a group of my high school students to Europe. I have flown quite a lot over the years and have some very real concerns about subjecting my students to the TSA’s harsh and totally inappropriate behavior. As I point out in the letter, I’m a mandated reporter. This means that by law I must report to the police any physical abuse or sexual abuse I even suspect any of my students have experienced. If any of my students opt out of the body scanner when we are at the airport and are groped during a pat down, how does this not qualify? Am I not required by law to report this sexual molestation of a minor? I guess it’s just that special government uniform that makes it all okay.
My reason for sending this to a private business instead of the TSA is that I’m hopeful that if enough private businesses start standing up to the TSA they will have more influence. Perhaps not, but surely they have more pull than I do.
Dear EJ Tours,
I’m writing about a concern that has arisen among students and parents.
In talking to students in class this has come up, and it came up in my meeting with the parents. And this is the TSA. I’ve flown quite a lot both in and out of the country. By far our security personnel are the most rude and pushy of all security I’ve encountered. It’s not even close. The worst part of my trips have always been dealing with them. Well, lately they seem to be getting worse. The rules have changed again (as they seem to constantly). There are now these x-ray scanners. Two points of concern here. One, we have teenagers -- underage minors -- who are not interested in being scanned so someone can see what’s beneath their clothing regardless of how accurate the image may or may not be. The other concern is that it is an x-ray. Some media and many pilots have voiced concern over health issues. And while no one is saying that going through one once will cause cancer, it doesn’t help--especially for those who may have a family history of cancer. To them it seems a needless danger.
For those that feel this way, they can opt out. Opting out of the scanner would be fine except that we’ve been hearing of some really unpleasant stories from people who have opted out. The stories we have heard begin with hostile workers intimidating and sometimes humiliating the traveler almost as a way of sending a warning to the others not to opt out and just go along. Then from there the stories range from a brief pat down with the back of the hand to many many stories that are surfacing of what can only be called full-on groping that would land a person in prison if they did that anywhere but in an airport while wearing a government uniform.
Again, I’ll be traveling with under-age minors, and as a teacher I’m a mandated reporter. What this means is that I’m actually required by law to report anything of the sort and would most definitely lose my job if I didn’t report it. That is if it were anyone but a government official doing this.
So why am I bothering EF with this? Well I think you need to be aware that your business is very likely being negatively affected. How many of our kids won’t go because of this? Honestly, I don’t think that will be too high of a number. Maybe no one. But it is being discussed. Some of the kids don’t care at all, but a few do quite a lot. This is surely the same across the country. If one kid per school pulled out of going because of the TSA, I suspect that would make quite a dent in your profits.
I don’t have a source handy to back this number up, but I believe I heard recently that tourism to the U.S. is down by 1/3 since 9-11 and this was a result of how much more difficult we have made it to get into our country. It’s a real hassle. Now it’s becoming a real hassle to leave our country. This is certainly going to hurt your bottom line.
The TSA doesn’t care at all what I think, my students, or their parents. As a business that relies on working with the airline industry, maybe you have a touch more influence than we do. This might be an instance where EF and your competitors should stand together. The economy is already tight; this can’t be helping any of you.
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