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“Airline passengers who get frustrated and kick a wall, throw a suitcase or make a pithy comment to a screener could find themselves in a little-known Homeland Security database.

The Transportation Security Administration says it is keeping records of people who make its screeners feel threatened as part of an effort to prevent workplace violence.” - USA Today

Update on June 1, 2010 by

Frank@OBOW

TSA blog response:

You may have read or heard about a recent article on how fliers might end up in a TSA workplace violence database. The fact is, TSA screens nearly 2 million passengers each day at over 450 airports nationwide. Since we began the workplace violence program in 2007, we’ve screened over a billion air travelers and yet only about 30 passengers are included on this list.

Roughly 30 names out of the more than 1,000,000,000 passengers screened by TSA since 2007 made the cut.

So how did these 30 folks make the list? Two options:

The police got involved. In all but one incident, local police officers responded to assist in resolving the incident.

They got arrested. In the majority of these cases, the individuals involved were arrested or issued summonses by local law enforcement officers for allegedly assaulting a Transportation Security Officer.

In short, to join this select group, a passenger has to commit an egregious act that harms, or threatens to harm, either passengers, airline personnel, or Transportation Security Officers.