The thing about soliciting public comments on a website maintained by the agency is that they do not create pressure or a legal mandate for change, the way such comments might do if submitted to Congress or filed as part of a regulatory deliberation.

In this respect, the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) may have conceived of a brilliant ploy to defuse public ire by creating a blog where individuals could log comments about the aviation security system. The blog was activated 30 January with much happy talk from TSA officials and from the 5-person team of TSA bloggers detailed to moderate the discussions.

Figure A

The TSA promises a video explaining its policy on shoes. In the meantime, says the blog, check out the post on shoes. “We updated it this morning with a picture of a really funky pair of shoes we found on a guy flying from Alaska this year.” No further explanation as to what was found.

First, the upbeat declarations from the TSA. In his welcome message, Kip Hawley, director of the TSA, announced:

“Our ambition is to provide here a forum for a lively, open discussion of TSA issues. While I and senior leadership of TSA will participate in the discussions, we are turning the keyboard over to several hosts who represent what’s best about TSA (its people). Our hosts aren’t responsible for TSA’s policies, nor will they have to defend them. Our hosts will have access o senior leadership but will have very few editorial constraints. Our postings from the public will be reviewed to remove the destructive but not touch the critical or the cranky.”

There was no amplification of what constitutes a “destructive” comment, but the whiff of censorship was in the air. The TSA moderators of the site introduced themselves in the “Meet Our Bloggers” section by first name only, with clear attempts to humanize them, as in these three examples:

From Bob: “I work at the Cincinnati-Northern Kentucky International Airport … [as a] supervisory TSA [Transportation Security Officer] and a Behavior Detection Officer. … I live in Southwest Ohio with my wife, 3-year-old daughter, and a 100 pound German shepherd named Clarence.”

From Ethel: “Hi! My name is Ethel and I’m from Wisconsin. I like music, I love ice cream, and I enjoy weird facts: Did you know elephants can smell water from as far away as three mile?”

From Jay: “I work as a Federal Security Director in the Midwest. … I’m married and have two daughters and one son. My hobbies are spending all free time I have with my family and exercising”

So much for the quotidian details. The tone of the public comments was distinctly different – ugly in fact – reflecting the traveling public’s fury over rules on shoes, liquids, rude screeners, and so on. Example: “You thought my banana was a bomb. My government is retarded.” And this:

“My wife had her cosmetics in a ‘clear’ makeup bag with a zipper and not a ‘BAGGY.” This was totally OK in Columbus, Ohio. However, when we came home from Portsmouth, NH, this same clear makeup bag was NOT acceptable because the TSA person aid that it was not a ‘BAGGY.’ Made her leave the line, go back and have her bag checked as luggage. This was without doubt an inconsistency and caused great embarrassment and inconvenience to us and the passengers in line. It is no wonder the TSA is the second most hate government agency in the country, even ahead of the IRS [Internal Revenue Service]. Can you believe it – the IRS????”

One comment questioned the process by which passengers were selected for secondary (e.g. more detailed) screening:

“I appreciate the work that TSA is doing – helping to prevent another 9/11 incident. However, somehow I’ve been added to their [secondary screening] list and I find it rather insulting.” The submitter, “Anonymous,” explained that he is an Air Force C-5 cargo plane pilot who flies troops and cargo “into the combat zone each month.” Some of his flights, he wrote, “include pre-positioning and de-positioning the President’s motorcade and Secret Service personnel” during President Bush’s trips, for which he has a “Secret security clearance.”

“So if our nation and government can trust me to carry the President’s vehicle, fly monthly into hostile territories and keep classified information to myself … do you think I can STOP getting secondary screening. Please remove me from your list.”

Shoes were the subject of numerous comments. Here’s just one:

“Some airports still require ALL shoes off, some don’t. I used to specifically travel wearing shoes I knew would be okay (flats or sandals) so I could get through quickly and not have to remove them. Now most airports make you remove even flip flops -- but some don’t. Consistency would be nice here so we know what to expect.”

By the afternoon of 31 January, public comments had really put a strain on Hawley’s introductory promise that critical comments would not be prohibited. For example:

“The TSA (Terribly Stupid Agency) seems to have the worst types of government functionaries working for it. Combine one part stupidity with one part aggressive bully and one part ‘I’m just following orders’ and you have the description of every TSA person I have ever met. … The next time you see a TSA official, tell them what you think, that they are worse than useless and helping the terrorists with their security ‘theater.’ I do.”

Words such as “scum” started creeping in to the dialogue. Glen, one of the five members of TSA’s “Evolution Blog Team,” acknowledged, “Frankly, we’ve been overwhelmed with the number of responses we’ve received.”

“More than 700 comments at last count and comment are still pouring in,” he said, characterizing some of the comments as “stream of consciousness diatribes.”

Not surprisingly, a notice popped up on the “welcome” page indicating that “New blogs have been disabled by a blog administrator.” Many of the comments apparently were too far over the top. “In the spirit of transparency, we plan to note how many comments we’ve rejected and tell you why,” Glen of the “Evolution Blog Team” wrote. “Mostly, the rejected comments include profane language, political rants or abusive posts that we just can’t print.” In other words, the heavy hand of blanket censorship will be applied, rather than just blanking out the swear words.

So much for the purpose of this effort, as described by the TSA: “This blog is sponsored by the Transportation Security Administration to facilitate an ongoing dialogue on innovations in security, technology and the checkpoint screening process.”

It seems the TSA is fighting an uphill battle in the court of public opinion. An Associated Press-Ipsos poll conducted last month found that only the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), still dealing with its mismanagement of the Hurricane Katrina disaster, ranked below the TSA among the least-liked federal agencies.

TSA and FEMA are part of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which did not fare well in a December 2007 “Executive Branch Management Scorecard” released by the White House. In five measures of performance, DHS was characterized as “yellow” in four (“some slippage requiring adjustment by the agency”) and “red” in the fifth (“unlikely to realize objectives absent significant management improvement”).

The general tenor of public comments in the TSA’s blog indicates that the agency has a long way to go if it hopes to establish confidence that its security measures are well thought out, and consistently applied by well-trained and courteous personnel. (For the TSA blog, see www.tsa.gov/blog; for the management scorecard, see www.whitehouse.gov/results/agenda/scorecard.html)