Business bans TSA agents – will more follow?

February 19, 2011

KC McLawson works for a cafe near Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, and since the body-scan and patdown controversy last November, she says her boss has taken extraordinary measures to ensure the TSA knows of his displeasure.

“We have posted signs on our doors basically saying that they aren’t allowed to come into our business,” she says. “We have the right to refuse service to anyone.”

Banning TSA from a restaurant. Seems a little harsh, doesn’t it? (Here’s an update on the story.)

McLawson (an apparent pseudonym) explains:

My boss flies quite a bit and he has an amazing ability to remember faces. If he sees a TSA agent come in we turn our backs and completely ignore them, and tell them to leave.

Their kind aren’t welcomed in our establishment.

A large majority of our customers — over 90 percent — agree with our stance and stand by our decision.

We even have the police on our side and they have helped us escort TSA agents out of our cafe. Until TSA agents start treating us with the respect and dignity that we deserve, then things will change for them in the private sector.

I wondered if putting TSA on the no-visit list was somewhat extreme. I mean, what have they done to deserve this? And then I reviewed the week’s troubling news.

TSA agents accused of stealing $40,000. Two New York-based TSA officers, Persad Coumar and Davon Webb, were accused of stealing the money from a piece of checked luggage containing $170,000 inside an American Airlines terminal at JFK. The charges include conspiracy, grand larceny and possession of stolen property. We already know that TSA has a little crime problem. But what about the passenger who checked a bag containing $170,000? Isn’t that asking for trouble?

Another TSA agent pleads guilty to stealing. If you think that’s just an isolated incident, then meet Michael Arato, a TSA officer at Newark airport. He admitted last week to swiping thousands of dollars in cash and other valuables from unsuspecting travelers, mostly non-English speakers. He also confessed to taking kickbacks from a subordinate officer, who stole between $10,000 and $30,000 over the course of a year while Arato reportedly agreed to look the other way. Most troubling, the crimes were committed after passengers were subjected to “additional” screening.

And speaking of Newark. The Newark Star-Ledger last week reported numerous security lapses at the airport, including knives and other dangerous objects that eluded screening. Perhaps the TSA officers would have noticed the contraband if it had been wrapped in greenbacks. But the problems aren’t limited to Newark. An armed officer was able to get through a body scanner in Dallas without being detected. Let me repeat that: A passenger with a gun slipped through one of those controversial full-body scanners that’s supposed to see everything. I guess it only works if you’re looking at the screen.

Senate hammers scanners. Lawmakers passed a measure that would make misusing body scanner images a federal crime punishable by up to a year in prison. It would prohibit anyone with access to the scanned body images from photographing or disseminating the snapshots. Besides a prison term, violators could be fined up to $100,000 per violation. Interestingly, I spoke with a reliable source about the images generated by these scanners, and he suggested that they are very detailed. I believe he may have used the term “pornographic.” Why hasn’t anyone objected? “It’s possible that the resolution was turned down when they showed the machines to reporters,” he told me. Ah, so they really can see my family jewels in crisp detail. Nice.

So why do passengers hate the TSA? Perhaps a better question is, “Why not?”

I asked McLawson if I could talk with her boss, but she declined. She says she hopes telling her story will raise awareness of the anger felt by small businesses across America toward the TSA.

“Maybe more businesses will step up to the plate and do the same,” she says.

(Photo: grend el khan/Flickr Creative Commons)

Tagged as: AIRLINE, CAFE, HATE, TSA

Edward H.

@kirvin: You said: “There are plenty of court cases demonstrating your choice is illegal and discriminatory.” However, you did not cite a single case. Please cite at least a few of the “plenty of cases”. I would be very interested in reading them. By the way,The Civil Rights Act of 1964, as it applied to restaurants says:
TITLE II–INJUNCTIVE RELIEF AGAINST DISCRIMINATION IN PLACES OF PUBLIC ACCOMMODATION
SEC. 201. (a) All persons shall be entitled to the full and equal enjoyment of the goods, services, facilities, and privileges, advantages, and accommodations of any place of public accommodation, as defined in this section, without discrimination or segregation on the ground of race, color, religion, or national origin.
Though is has been expanded to include some prohibitions against sexual and age discrimination. As far as I know, the law specifies grounds on which one is prohibited from discriminating, (denying service) rather than banning all discrimination except on certain specified grounds.
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Feronia

If this eatery was in my town, I’d patronize it.

TSA employees that don’t like being ostracized for sexually molesting people need to look elsewhere for a job. The ones that remain either like what they’re doing, approve of it, or are too lazy to look elsewhere. If or until the TSA pulls it’s head out of its caboose, TSA employees can expect to be perceived as the inhumane perverts that they are.
not worried

I generally support a business’ right to refuse service but I think this guy went overboard. I have been refused service based on my race/ethnic origin and it sucks. TSA is a bloated ineffecient organization but to single out the peons for discrimination seems wrong. Maybe the guy has a family to feed, maybe he is not one of the thieves. What if he is the most professional agent on the job?

Discrimination is wrong and the hatred being foisted upon the TSA employees just is not right. Comparing them to NAZI’s serves nothing but to diminish the evil of the real ones. It could even be considered a hate crime depending on which US attorney you ask.
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Morgan

Go for it. If everyone did this, maybe someone would get the message?
Farn Isaar

The TSA are the nearest thing to the brainless thugs of the Gestapo America will ever see. The defense of ‘just following orders’ does not apply when said orders are unconstitutional and therefore illegal. The TSA are scum and bottom feeders on power trips – they are as dangerous as the Gestapo were in Nazi Germany.
You Americans have no understanding of ‘repression’ – what it looks like, how it behaves when it begins, or what happens at the bottom end of the slope when its allowed to expand without revolting against it. In some ways, America’s naivety deserves the brainless bulked-up fake policemen of the TSA. Obey those orders, right into the concentration camps, why don’t you…
Tim Osman

You people who think that it is wrong to discriminate against TSA agents just don’t understand America and freedom. In a free country, people are allowed to associate with whomever they please.

Kivrin: I thank God you are not “teaching” my children. You are clueless as to how the world works and are but a parasite on society. If I could figure out a way to discriminate against you, I would so so. In Washington State it is legal to refuse service to someone because they are leaches, working for the government. I know that is redundant but I wanted to make the point of how worthless you and your life are.
Martina Campbell

Maybe everyone at the cafe should put the TSA through a pat down before they can come in…let them see how they like being groped just to walk into a place.
Ian

God Bless this store owner. The only reason the government (it’s not really “our” government – it belongs to Israel) gets away with the blatant criminality it perpetrates is BECAUSE WE LET IT. This person took a stand against them and he or she ought to be an example for all of us. NO MORE WARS FOR ISRAEL. NO MORE JUDEO-SUPREMACIST POLICE STATE. God Bless America and God Help Israel
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http://www.fantazine.net/dajpage Davol

I think I’m not the only one who can see the irony that with thousands of stolen dollars, laptops, strip searches, humiliating UNCONSTITUTIONAL searches, and virtual boob shots piling up for some pervert out there, and 40 billion dollars just spent on more of this S#@#t by our cash-strapped SSI-gunning government that the TSA has not only failed to make America more secure, but that they are a treasonous reason for America now being much less secure. Cold day in hell that I ever give any of my business to the airlines because of this crap. America has nobody to blame but America. Way to vote or apathetically stay home you dumbasses, and who’s big idea was it to cancel all anti-war protests because Obama has a peace prize. If we wern’t that stupid then why do they succeed by playing US that way?
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Donna

Who you work for or what you do for a living is not a protected class in regards to discrimination in this country.

Throughout human history, shunning has been an effective way for a people or society to express their disapproval of certain actions. This restaurant owner disapproves of the trampling of inalienable rights, sexual assault, and involuntary participation in pornography. He wishes to shun people that he knows either actively engages in it as part of their job, or enable it to happen and he has every right to do so. Since our elected representatives condone this behavior, shunning is the only legal response the restaurant owner has left.

Since I share this guy’s opinion about inalienable rights, sexual assault, and involuntary participation in pornography, I’d go out of my way to patronize his business.
http://www.cogitamusblog.com/2011/02/napolitano-strikes-terror-into-our-hearts.html Lisa Simeone

Farn Isaar writes: You Americans have no understanding of ‘repression’ – what it looks like, how it behaves when it begins, or what happens at the bottom end of the slope when its allowed to expand without revolting against it. In some ways, America’s naivety deserves the brainless bulked-up fake policemen of the TSA. Obey those orders, right into the concentration camps, why don’t you…

Farn, some of us understand all too well, and we’ve been trying to get it through the thick heads out there what’s at stake. That’s why we keep writing and speaking out about this issue, not only on this blog, but all over the place. But it’s a slog. There is, as you point out, so much apathy, so much willful ignorance. Millions of people are only too happy to play their part as subservient in the Security State. They want the fantasy of 100% security, rights be damned.

I’ll quote longtime activist and Pulitzer-Prize-winning journalist Chris Hedges: “No system of total control exhibits its extreme forms at the beginning. These forms expand as they fail to encounter resistance.”
Jesse

I applaud them!

Hopefully other businesses step in and do the same thing to just to keep letting the government know how we feel about the way they are treating us.
http://www.Ckelley.info David Webb

Maybe the sign should say “no TSA Agents/Sex offenders allowed” since there isn’t a lot of difference.
Pairs

I am shocked and saddened that the most clever thing Seattle can come up with to let the TSA know we’re frustrated is a pathetic attack on its front line agents. Wow, Apocrypha, you’ve really struck a serious blow, haven’t you?
Tim Osman

What Carver and others don’t understand is that there is zero legal authority for about 90% of EVERYTHING the federal government does, including ALL of DHS which includes TSA. Therefor every employee of these agencies is receiving stolen money via fraud. Every employee is a criminal and should be shunned. This applies to EVERY federal employee performing a task not authorized by the US constitution. SS Medicare, Dept of Agriculture, PBS, NASA etc. They are all illegal and all their employees know or should know that they are operating outside the law and are criminals.
Unfortunately, most had “teachers” who were nothing more than union goons who themselves are profoundly ignorant of the law and only care about transferring wealth from the producing members of society to their own pocketbooks.
Deborah

Tim, oh boo hoo! You must be a TSA worker as it appears that the overwhelming response is thumbs up. As Ron Paul said to the TSA person checking his junk…what a despicable job.
I applaud this restaurant, if I lived anywhere near there I would stop in just to shake the hand of the owner…brilliant. You have my support. Another Freedom Fighter…something Tim just can’t grasp maybe he drinks the water. Brain duh!
Carver

@Tim Osman

Not sure why you chose to single me out, but i admire your cajones

Your lack of understanding about the US Constitution would be laughable except that there are others who are equally ignorant and many of you vote.

There are certain fringe elements within the country that believe as you do. Usually they can be found wandering the woods of Montana playing out their wet dreams of fighting the good fight against the US government and waiting for the apocalypse to happen.
GRemlin

The TSA – with it’s history of criminal abuse of passenger’s property and persons should not be allowed to participate in any of the activities that sex-offenders, thieves or known criminals are prevented from participating in.

In many states it has already been pointed out that their behavior is felonious (as in their behavior is a felony) and some airports have bypassed this by providing non-tsa security workers.

@kirvin – “So, go ahead cafe in Seattle. There are plenty of court cases demonstrating your choice is illegal and discriminatory.”

How very wrong you are. Discriminating based on employment / employer is not a protected form of discrimination. Period. Until you bother to respond to the other comments, and my own, with a cited court case that says a business owner can not refuse service to a patron except for the protected forms of discrimination then you are simply blowing smoke up people’s asses in an attempt to sound important or knowledgeable.

Also, throwing the “teacher” credential around is worthless. Once you unionized and fought performance based pay / employment status and bullied your way into benefits packages out of line with the rest of the non-unionized working world your opinion on governance became about as worthless as your teaching credentials.

TSA employees implicitly condone their superiors decisions and policies by not refusing to participate in them. If we make life as uncomfortable and asinine for the TSA as they do for us then maybe they will quit and get real jobs, that require real skills besides thieving and thuggery.
Deborah

Tim, you need to take your meds we went from a small protest to fringe elements and apocalypse happening. And fyi the government has lost it’s collective minds. But once again, you must be a TSA workers…fringe elements = the tax paying citizens of this once great UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.
Michael C. Scott

Robert Christopher Rowe (DOB November 9, 1975) was a TSA agent who kept his TSA job in Colorado Springs for an entire year after pleading guilty to one count of sexual assault on a child and one count of indecent exposure (case #04CR1996). He received a deferred sentence for this in December 2004, but was only fired in December 2005. He violated the deferral in October 2006 by getting caught with $500 in cash, $9000 worth of hard drugs and two firearms (case #06CR3401) in a vice squad raid. He is cerrently serving a three-to-life sentence in Colorado’s Fremont Correctional Facility. His DOC number is 135244 and he was denied parole in November 2010. His next parole hearing will be in November 2013. Robert C. Rowe is the face of the TSA.
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Cloak And Dagger

I support the restaurant owner in his right to refuse service to anyone he chooses.

However, I have a funny feeling that he is going to show up on a no-fly list in the very near future…
don

Thank you for this!!!

Thugs should not be allowed in the public place.
FJP

I find TSA security theater as ridiculous and annoying as the next guy, and I wish there were an effective way to weed out that minority of TSA agents who are on way too much of a power trip and missed their calling to be East German Stasi border guards.

That being said, the policy of this restaurant is just plain mean. It’s legal, but just because you can do something doesn’t mean you should. This is not the way to increase the level of civility in our society; rather, it degrades it further. Guess what, most TSA agents are just regular folks trying to feed their kids and pay their bills. Oh and by the way, Mr. Judge and Jury Restaurateur, how many of your other customers have ever been an A-hole at work, or otherwise? Do you know?

I suspect that most people who run businesses that serve the public would agree, that if you refused to serve every customer you found annoying in some way, you will be out of business pretty quickly.
Julia

I say good for them! Those TSA scum stole my most priceless heirloom necklace from me as I was returning from my destination wedding. When I was younger, they stole my gameboy advance with all my games and left a stupid slip in my pouch that said it was confiscated and I could fill a form out within 10 days to reclaim my belongings. Fast forward to present day and the same thing happened to my husband’s designer watch. Of course they wait 9 days to mail you the form and then they claim they didn’t get it. Scumbags. They’re no better than thieves who break into your house and should be spared no contempt from the public.
GM

Imagine these – shops/bars would stop to serve the troops – I mean Wall Street troops those who claim they are heroes after they dropped bombs on practically unarmed cities like Baghdad.

This is the time to boycott all Nazi like groups.

I’m puzzled that Chicago voters give over 50% to an Israeli/Mossad thug like Rahm Emanuel the form chief of staff in the White House.

Egypt, Libya, Yemen and many other countries show more spine.
hahahaha!

Flying is NOT a right, it’s a business. If you don’t like the rules then take a bus.
Al

Hey, they should get service…after going through a humilitating search and a healthy dose of radiation. Thanks to Seattle perhaps, I may be able to fly someday with my family. I cannot do so now, because I know I would end up in jail; I’m not about to allow anyone to subject my family to any kind of search, never mind what they have done. I cannot imagine, what is wrong with people who have allowed people to do this to their families, and smile. I am not so submissive.
http://www.cogitamusblog.com/2011/02/napolitano-strikes-terror-into-our-hearts.html Lisa Simeone

Mr. or Ms. hahahaha! wrote:
Flying is NOT a right, it’s a business. If you don’t like the rules then take a bus.

We’ve covered this only, oh, more than a dozen times, but in a nutshell: 1) You’re wrong. The Constitutional right to travel freely between states doesn’t disappear in a puff of smoke at the airport; we DO have a right to fly. 2) You don’t seem to be following the news: Napolitano and Pistole have trumpeted their desire to bring their abusive practices to all transportation hubs — including train, bus, and subway stations, and ports — so your exhortation to “take a bus” is meaningless.
Victor

WHERE is the Department of Homeland “Security”?
WHERE is the Transportation “Security” Agency?
Right now there is a HIGHLY emotionally charged “takeover” of a State capitol by 10′s of thousands of people. There are closely packed mobs including CHILDREN. Many are wearing puffy winter coats and other clothing that can easily conceal vest bombs, poisonous Anthrax and Ricen spreading devices, and other Weapons of Mass Destruction. Food is being indiscriminately passed about, and could easily be poisoned.
It was in this SAME city, not so long ago, that a Terrorist truck bomb exploded, killing a student researcher.
Why is the TSA not screening the crowd? The TSA takes minuscule amounts of shampoo from airline passengers. The TSA was “screening” all the Super Bowl attendees. The TSA even wants to screen BUS passengers! Yet 10′s of thousands crush together in Madison Wisconsin with absolutely no concern on the part of those who CLAIM to be working for America’s safety.
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http://blog.centralrestaurant.com/ Central Restaurant Products

While I totally get that you can deny service to whomever you please, this may border on discrimination. While I agree there are a few bad apples in the bunch, not all of them are out to get passengers. I would say the majority are more than likely just people trying to do their job and feed their families. What if the tables were turned and they could refuse service to every restaurant worker because they’d recieved bad service?

Maybe the answer is…don’t serve the TSA workers who treat you particularly bad and do serve those that are just doing their job.
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Brogan

@Central Restaurant Products
“What if the tables were turned and they (the TSA) could refuse service to every restaurant worker because they’d recieved bad service?”
Great start! could they pleas refuse service to every one? Just think… no more getting felt up, no more radiaton scanners, no more guilty untill proven inocent… Puhhhhleeeeze refuse to seve me!!!
cjr

Well, with a name like ‘hahahaha!’, it must be worthwhile reading… if only ‘hahahaha!’ wasn’t entirely wrong in the first place.
Gary

I think America needs more discrimination. The word has been horrible misused, to the point where no one is even aware of what the word means. I’m not calling for race discrimination, but we, as Americans, need to apply more acumen to our homes and our businesses. I live in a small rural town. It used to be one could go to the store in relative peace. Now? Punks with sub-woofers run the town. They move about the parking lots acting like thugs, cursing and hollering and acting very aggressive. Their skin color? White. So, again, I’m not talking about race discrimination! But we, as Americans, need to reclaim the right to throw off this trend towards thuggish behavior. Whether they be government agents or street hoodlums, it’s not going to get any better on its own. Some of us need to make a stand. Unless people now love and adore being pushed around and having their genitals groped. God help us if this is now the case.
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Good for you KC McLawson!

Good for you KC McLawson! if more businesses would follow her example and express their liberty TSA workers would start to realize the fed gov is making them act against their fellow citizens. Good for you KC McLawson!
1984_1776

No it isn’t excessive. This guy deserves the Nobel Prize for his peaceful resistance — much more so than our college teacher “president.” We need a photo of the sign to be posted on the internet. Its time to defeat the Gestapo/Stazi operations that are endemic to tyrannies, whether supposedly “left” or supposedly “right.” The left-right paradigm is over!
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