Edward Hasbrouck commented on my post about his TSA experience last month. He’s gotten a response from the TSA’s privacy officer, Peter Pietra, which he’s posted along with his own reply. (I do hope this goes on forever.)

My own attempts at writing the TSA caused only one irrelevant auto-response to belch from the agency. In complaints to daft corporations I’m usually able to progress to the next level, where a barely literate human at least punches a button or two to generate a topically correct but logically broken answer. With the gummit it’s a lot more like talking to a fax machine.

Only official cheesehead photography is permitted in security checkpoints.

But thanks to the public interest in his detailed and damning write-up, Mr. Hasbrouck was sent straight up to tier 6,412: the one and only TSA privacy officer. Pietra responds to the original post.

Except he doesn’t just respond. He rebuts—or tries to. It’s interesting that someone paid by the TSA to protect our privacy, the sole person with this responsibility, does his best gladiator impersonation when confronted with legitimate privacy questions:

As you well know from your own research linked to your blog, Airserv is a contractor to the airlines…

Whether a gladiator or a prissy high-school debater, that “well” is a fightin’ word.

(Isn’t it great that government officials must say “your blog” now? And, uh, Peter, it’s “linked from.”)

Of course Hasbrouck makes mincemeat of Pietra’s argument, and reiterates his remaining unanswered questions. In fact, I can’t find an honest answer in Pietra’s entire statement. This “privacy officer” had the chance to explain what happened, and who these Airserv creeps are, but he instead chose to engage in debate.

It’s rather obvious that Peter Pietra, instead of looking out for our privacy at the TSA, is serving as a hostile flack to counter the agency’s privacy flame-ups. Put out the fires, shut up the complainers, throw some halfway-decent quotes out there and move on. As a citizen, I’m disgusted to be paying this ex-Coast Guard lawyer to do exactly the opposite of his job.

But I suppose we’re lucky to have any TSA response to Mr. Hasbrouck’s story. I can only hope that Pietra is now penning his next missive, about how we “well know” all sorts of things we would never have known if this story were never published and threatening to become news.

Come on Pete Privacy Pietra, use the left hook. The left hook!