[parenthephobia]

> Where did the TSA go wrong here?

Perhaps it was the bit where they held him for 18 hours without charge, due process, food, or water.

Edit: Misread the article. He was held for 3½ hours. Still, refusing to give him a glass of water was not necessary, unless water-activated throat-bombs are now a thing.

In a more general sense, TSA went wrong the same way they usually go wrong. Kafka-esque "you're not detained but you can't leave" nonsense designed to side-step due process, comically ignorant staff who think Islam is the only religion brown people can have, whilst not even being effective at detecting contraband.

[macspoofing]

>Still, refusing to give him a glass of water was not necessary,

OK. Sure. I suppose if you're held for 3 hours, you should have a right to water. Is the big problem here? If you're detained for more than 1 hour you should get a bottle of water?

[parenthephobia]

I think that water isn't such a rare commodity in New York that they couldn't just put a jug of water and a glass in the holding room and keep it topped up.

It seems obvious to me that refusing to give water is a calculated act designed to cause discomfort - not unlike unnecessarily giving multiple "obscene" pat downs [their words] - the closest TSA thugs can get to using the "enhanced interrogation" techniques that I think they wish they were allowed to use.

So it isn't specifically the lack of water that's the problem. The problem is the pattern of behaviour that the lack of water and the rest of the unnecessarily combative treatment are examples of. Too many TSA employees are on power trips.

[macspoofing]

>TSA thugs

Seriously?

[parenthephobia]

If it helps, you could read it as "thugs that work for the TSA".

No doubt there are many fine upstanding people working for the TSA, who don't abuse their power and are angry at co-workers that do. Those people aren't what's wrong with the TSA.

The people who are a problem within the TSA are those who deny repeated requests for water or refuse to allow a person who is not under any kind of lawful detention to use their mobile phone, for, I claim, no purpose other than to assert their dominance.

The mobile phone is potentially defensible, but I challenge you to present a reasonable national security justification for denying the not-technically-a-detainee water. Until you do, I'm going to call those people thugs.

[wayn3]

there is no reason at all to deny a detainee-in-fact water, either.