Project for Excellence in Journalism

Social Media Deride TSA Security Measures

December 2, 2010

Anger and frustration over the new TSA airport security measures boiled over in social media last week. And while much of the mainstream press reported or commented on that rage, those in the online community embodied those sentiments.

And, in a rare case of news agenda unity, heavy interest in the new measures cut across all three social media platforms studied in the New Media Index from the Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism. For the week of Nov. 22-26, more than half (54%) the news links on blogs were about the security measures, making it the No. 1 subject.

They were also the fourth largest topic on Twitter with 9% of the links. And, on YouTube, the new procedures were the subject of the second most popular news video as viewers gravitated to an element of comedic relief produced by a Taiwanese company.

Twitterers mainly drew attention to one specific incident concerning a cancer survivor whose urostomy bag ruptured during a TSA pat down. Links to the story were often accompanied by words of sympathy like Emi Lani Lee's, "Feel bad for him," and Billy Shih's, "I'm getting real tired of the TSA."

In the arena with the most discussion, the majority of bloggers emphatically agreed with -- and even went beyond -- two Washington Post columnists, Charles Krauthammer and George Will, who came out strongly against the airport security measures.

Krauthammer suggested that the phrase "Don't touch my junk" -- words adapted from an objection first uttered by an annoyed passenger in California -- had become a new political battle cry. Will argued that the TSA's measures are nothing more than ineffective "security theater" which do not make passengers safer.

Many bloggers made similar points with more direct language, built not so much around personal experiences as passionate feelings about privacy and government encroachment.

"Security? Not really," wrote Wake Up America. "Let's not kid ourselves, while it is promoted as the fair approach to force all passengers to equal screening at airport security in the end we are less secure, less efficient and out of pocket with tax $s.... The political correctness of today makes a farce of our nation and government." *

"If we want to get serious about checking out people who may be a threat to us, it is perfectly obvious to anyone with a lick of common sense that a three-year-old Texas girl poses no danger," added Ari Armstrong at Free Colorado. "In our era threats come from a small minority of those with ties to the Islamic world."

"These new TSA policies and procedures are political ‘security theater', completely worthless in providing any actual security. The public ‘will tolerate only so much idiocy,'" argued GD Critter. "The only solution is to disband the Transportation Security Agency and turn their responsibilities over to someone who at least has some concept of what the responsibility entails."

Some critics linked to an investigative USA Today report about companies that make body scanning equipment that have more than doubled their expenditures for lobbying Congress over the past five years.

"This whole x-ray thing is nothing but a money making scam and the ‘pat downs' being so intrusive will certainly cause many people to opt into getting the x-ray, thus more machines will be needed and more people will line their pockets at our expense," predicted Mountain Sage.

While in the minority, some bloggers challenged critics' arguments as short-sighted or hypocritical.

"Like most who favor profiling," wrote Raul Ramos, "Mr. Krauthammer is vague about who should be targeted by the TSA. But you can bet CK thinks those being profiled should be people who do not look like him. However, profiling is more than institutionalized prejudice. It's also dangerously stupid."

And Bob Cesca at The Huffington Post offered, "It's not a stretch to suggest that the post-9/11 fear-mongering and massively exaggerated anti-terrorism hysteria created this supermajority of acquiescence to flagrant government overreach and violations of privacy and personal dignity.... When you're detained and forced to either submit to a naked body scan or, heaven forbid, have your ‘junk grabbed,' thank a Republican."

And those bloggers who did share their experiences in the "pat down" line, reported them as not so bad in the end.

"I went through the full body scan at Houston Intercontinental Airport on my way to Bangkok and I had the pat-search on the way back at airports that did not have the scan," recalled Prairie Pundit. "I did not think either was any big deal and they both took about the same amount of time, although the pat down may have been a little quicker. It seems like a reasonable response to the underpants bomber attempt by al Qaeda in Yemen."

Continue reading the full report at journalism.org.

_{*For the sake of authenticity, PEJ has a policy of not correcting misspellings or grammatical errors that appear in direct quotes from blog postings.}