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Blaze Reporter Shares Detailed TSA Experience — And It’s Likely Not What You Expect

Aug. 31, 2012 3:37pm

Mike Opelka is a 20 year veteran of New York City radio and television. Mike has produced for Fox and FX television networks. He is the editor of FireWire, […]

Mike Opelka is a 20 year veteran of New York City radio and television. Mike has produced for Fox and FX television networks. He is the editor of FireWire, TheBlaze daily newsletter.

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mike@theblaze.com

Blaze Reporter Mike Opelka Details Good TSA Story

The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) has certainly taken its lumps. However, today we salute the men and women who work at airports and transportation hubs around the country. Thanks to a diligent and thoughtful TSA worker, this reporter was able to recover one of his most essential possessions: a briefly-lost iPhone.

If you don’t think that a smartphone is vital to a reporter on the road, consider the information it holds.

Phone numbers — especially those dozens of new contacts added during the convention — the ones not yet backed up on your laptop

Audio recordings of interviews conducted during the week for stories to be written later.

Photos and videos from the previous day – priceless pictures captured during magical moments during the final night of the RNC. For example:

Blaze Reporter Mike Opelka Details Good TSA Story

Yes, that is me with CNN regular, James Carville. He did claim to know TheBlaze, but would not put on a Blaze branded cap for the picture. There are more photos, dozens more, from the convention that would have been forever lost, had the TSA not been so helpful.

Here’s how the phone went missing, was recovered by the TSA, and returned to me in less than an hour. (Apple computer should get some of the credit. After all, it was their technology that allowed me to locate the phone and send a message to it.)

Early this morning. (we’re talking before 5am), I was trudging through the familiar travel ritual of returning a rental car, checking baggage and then navigating the security screening maze at the Tampa airport. Despite my post-RNC, sleep-deprived condition, I had passed through all of the check points and was in the US Airways gate area when the realization hit me — my phone was missing!

After searching my computer bag and pockets twice, I decided it was likely at the bag check-in area or the rental car. Approaching a TSA agent for advice on how much time it would take to exit, go outside to the rental car return and again go through security, I was told hardly any time at all. My ticket had already been validated by an agent. All I needed to do was show my TSA agent-initialed boarding pass and I would be moved to the head of the screening line.

First I sprinted through the terminal to the Hertz counter. No luck.

Next was a stop by the baggage check-in desk and the friendly US Airways rep who remembered me, but had not seen my phone.

All hope seemed to be lost. Back through the security gauntlet (and the TSA did scoot me past dozens of others, right to the head of the line) and on to my gate where the flight was due to start boarding in minutes. And then, I remembered that I installed an app on my computer, iPad and iPhone called “Find My Phone.” Quickly opening up my MacBook Air, I logged into my iCloud account and hit the Find My iPhone page.

Apple describes the free software this way:

If you misplace your iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, or Mac, the Find My iPhone app will let you use another iOS device to find it and protect your data. Simply install this free app on another iOS device, open it, and sign in with your Apple ID. Find My iPhone will help you locate your missing device on a map.You can then choose to display a message or play a sound, remotely lock your device, or erase your data on it.

As I was reading this, the airline started boarding. Carrying the open laptop onto the plane, I logged into my account and saw my device listed as “enabled” and I clicked on the “Find My iPhone” button. Within seconds, I was staring at a map of the Tampa Airport showing a blinking light indicating that my iPhone was very close. (image re-created for this story)

Blaze Reporter Mike Opelka Details Good TSA Story

And yet, the plane was boarding and scheduled to take off within 15 minutes. Thankfully, the Apple tracking program did offer some options.

Blaze Reporter Mike Opelka Details Good TSA Story

With the jet now nearly full, and take off just minutes away, I fired off a message to the phone:

Blaze Reporter Mike Opelka Details Good TSA Story

If there was no answer to my plea, I intended to hit the “Remote Wipe” option.

It could not have been more than a minute that my other phone was ringing. (Yes, I am one of those geeks with two cell phones.) The TSA was on the line announcing the good news, my phone was in safe hands. Explaining that I was already on my flight and in my seat, just five minutes from our scheduled take off, the agent simply said, “Gate 88, no problem.”

In minutes my phone was delivered by a smiling, uniformed TSA agent who turned around and took off so quickly that I could not offer the reward promised in my message. Hopefully, someone in the administration will see this (there must be at least one Blaze reader on staff), and let the Tampa office know that their work is appreciated.

This is one of those times I was glad the TSA had its hands on my personal property.

Back to The Blaze »

Comments (56)

grayling646
Posted on September 1, 2012 at 2:24pm
We’re supposed to applaud a failed bureaucracy because they found some reporter’s iphone? Do you hear me clapping? NO

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- Lamarr01
  Posted on September 1, 2012 at 10:15pm
  Carville failed to mention a TSA agent had stolen the phone when Carville was going through the scanner. The TSA agent returned it because the phone’s alarm was making a racket in his pocket and he didn’t know how to turn it off.
  
  Report this comment
- muffythetuffy
  Posted on September 2, 2012 at 1:54pm
  NAZI GASTAPO AGENTS WERE NICE GUYS TOO
  
  Many death camp guards were polite to Jews arriving for their showers. Does that mean you would want to scrub behind your ears real good? I do not believe this story.
  
  Report this comment
- Sara123
  Posted on September 3, 2012 at 9:19am
  Glad you are happy with TSA for doing their job. It is cause for celebration! There’s hundreds of innocent people coping with the reality that Jan’s TSA perverts grabbed their croches and boobs at the airport that day.
  
  Report this comment
Fisher1949
Posted on September 1, 2012 at 1:51pm
This press release is nothing more than TSA PR drivel to distract attention away from the tens of thousands of people these creeps harass every day. One good deed does not undo the strip searches, thefts and child molestation by TSA workers.

Taxpayers should not be paying a TSA employee to deliberately lie to the public and news organization in an effort to make a corrupt and scandalized agency appear reputable.

In the past two months 35 TSA workers fired or arrested and 66 more disciplined for misconduct.

TSA allows a known pedophile, Thomas Harkins to remain employed as a TSA Supervisor in Philadelphia allowing him to search children (CBS 3 Philadelphia 5/24/12). What kind of agency turns a known sex offender loose on children?

There were a total of 98 TSA workers arrested in the past 20 months including 12 arrested for child sex crimes, over 26 for theft, 12 for smuggling drugs and guns through security and one for murder. This month two more screeners were indicted for smuggling drugs and guns through security making this the fourth incident in a year and a half.

Media pandering to TSA and excusing the agency despite four incidents of smuggling drugs and guns through security, nearly a hundred criminal arrests of screeners and hiring over a dozen pedophiles slows progress in making needed reforms and makes air travel less secure.

Opelka is a piece of garbage and a pitiful excuse for an American

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- Mike Opelka
  Posted on September 2, 2012 at 7:20am
  Fisher1949 – You are free to have an opinion and also allowed to make a case about the problems within the TSA — based on facts. However, you are kinda out of line with the “piece of crap” and “pitiful excuse for an American” stuff. (I actually vote regularly, pay my taxes — always, and even volunteer in my town — when I can.)
  
  As evidenced by many of the comments posted here from TSA workers and family members, good people do exist within this (and other government agencies).
  
  Do I support everything the TSA does? Nope. That is a different article for another day.
  
  Keep the comments coming… I simply ask you, for the sake of maintaining an honest and positive debate, please leave the baseless personal attacks and shallow insults at home. Those are reserved for my family members!
  
  Report this comment
teddie888
Posted on September 1, 2012 at 1:44pm
And if he didn’t have to get undressed & empty all his belongings and leave them in a bin, this wouldn’t have happened. So all I take away is if it were in the bin,how could he have missed it? And tsa are good deliverymen

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watashbuddyfriend
Posted on September 1, 2012 at 1:15pm
Another Dems add?

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southernloyalty
Posted on September 1, 2012 at 12:26pm
Hey why don’t we just get rid of the TSA and get on planes unchecked again. Yeah thats a great idea. Then we can all just get blown up again. Going through TSA is a small pain, but is it really that bad? You people sound like a bunch of whining babies. Last time I flew it took me all of about 2 minutes to get through security. Oh no I had to take my shoes, thank the shoe bomber not tsa. Oh no I had to through away my giant gatorade or my 10 water bottles even though I know I cant take them on a plane and tried it anyways, thank the 2007 liquid bomb plot not tsa. Perhaps profiling would be better, but the minute tsa profiles is the minute you people start whining about tsa profiling.

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- Fisher1949
  Posted on September 1, 2012 at 1:56pm
  Another TSA shill heard from. Does anyone really believe that fondling a adult’s or child’s privates in public improves airline security?
  
  TSA is preying on people with a fear of flying that are vulnerable to allowing themselves to be humiliated and abused by a government in hopes that that will somehow make them safer.
  
  People who are too cowardly to resist this abuse or speak out against it do great harm to our liberties and those of our children.
  
  TSA. Because nothing says “Amerika” better than treating citizens like criminals for buying an airline ticket.
  
  Report this comment
- Freebird
  Posted on September 1, 2012 at 2:09pm
  How soon some forget,
  Remember the TSA agent who’s scanner wasn’t working,and he didn’t have a clue?
  Remember the TSA agent who broke protocol and spilled the ashes of the the passenger’s grandfather?
  Remember the TSA agent who told the breast feeding mother see couldn’t board with her breast pump?
  Remember the TSA agents who were indicted on corruption and drug trafficking charges?
  There are plenty more examples of this corrupt and unconstitutional agency.
  
  So PLEASE don’t tell me how I need to appreciate these big government agents taking away my 4th amendment rights.
  
  Report this comment
acovenantinblood
Posted on September 1, 2012 at 12:08pm
We should probably give them more power over us now that they found this iphone.

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Freebird
Posted on September 1, 2012 at 11:54am
I think a few of you are starting to understand the purpose of this article.It is nothing more than a propaganda piece for the TSA.

The sole purpose is to soften everyone’s opinion of this illegal and unconstitutional branch of government.

In much the same way that Glenn is working overtime to change everyone’s mind about Mitt,who by the way,will do NOTHING to abolish this agency.

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- Fisher1949
  Posted on September 1, 2012 at 1:58pm
  Just another TSA troll trying to convince us to accept this TSA garbage. Just like the Vichy French traitors in WW2.
  
  Report this comment
daveposh
Posted on September 1, 2012 at 11:25am
The TSA needs to be dissolved or “transformed”, but their ranks include some good people in it. With all the negative stories out there, it’s good to hear this one. Thanks Mike!

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TexasIndependant
Posted on September 1, 2012 at 11:11am
We Forget so Easily! In the Old Soviet Union the KGB protected the country! In WW2 Germany the SS Protected the Motherland. In America Today TSA protects the Homeland! I still Cannot agree with persecuting the victim of a crime. Next we will be puting rape victims in jail for thier own safety! After all if women who have been raped are in jail they can be protected. Where has my Consttution gone? Why are people so eager to throw it out the window?

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klevalt
Posted on September 1, 2012 at 10:46am
I think it is a great story…. one of honesty, offering me a little hope for humanity…. but If not the TSA, I am sure the same result could have been acheived.

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- Mike Opelka
  Posted on September 2, 2012 at 7:07am
  Thanks for actually getting my point.
  
  Report this comment
tajloc
Posted on September 1, 2012 at 10:30am
TSA should be dissolved. Each airline should approach the problem. Now if you were a terrorist just go to where all the people are standing and blow up the terminal. No one checks you yet and all are just waiting. It would be a selling point for the airline… I can see it now Fly SAFE air.

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unknown
Posted on September 1, 2012 at 10:28am
I can’t get over the fact that there’s a picture of James Carville. LOL

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adayrider
Posted on September 1, 2012 at 8:49am
They ran my Wife and little girl through the porno scanner last month but found my beloved Iphone this week. What a bunch patriots they are. IS THIS FOR REAL????

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toomuchgovt
Posted on September 1, 2012 at 7:54am
So your freedom is sold for the price of an iphone? I understand wanting to be grateful, but the iphone would have been found by someone.

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- aggiebrewer
  Posted on September 1, 2012 at 9:57am
  my thoughts exactly.
  
  Report this comment
- db321
  Posted on September 1, 2012 at 10:25am
  Don’t give Obama another ideal to get a segment of Voters. We already have birth Control Moms that are selling out their own kids future for free Birth Control, soon we will hear that Iphone user are not treated fairly by Republicans – Nobody loves iphone more than Obama.
  
  Report this comment
JohnLarson
Posted on September 1, 2012 at 12:24am
The TSA is a job filled by hard Americans just like any job, except they have to pass a higher security clearance.

It’s funny, how if you have a certain occupation, or you’re from a certain state or city, conservatives will be anti-American towards you.

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- MontaraMissileMan
  Posted on September 1, 2012 at 9:46am
  Have you been through the TSA employee screening process? It really isn’t that hard…
  
  Report this comment
- Freebird
  Posted on September 1, 2012 at 2:46pm
  Your comment reminded me of the Jonah Falcon pat-down fiasco by these TSA goons.
  
  Report this comment
opiemuyo
Posted on September 1, 2012 at 12:19am
I work for the TSA and I am a bible thumping, gun toten’ conservative, and I work for all of you, regardless of wether you hate me or not, I will protect you, and I wish they would allow me to profile.
For the love of God hate the senior management and not me, the grunt on the front line. However, hold me accountable for ANY lack of respect for your human dignity.

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- Anadara
  Posted on September 1, 2012 at 12:48am
  Thank you for the post. We travelers need to know that there are dedicated and compasionate agents on the line.
  
  Report this comment
- TRILO
  Posted on September 1, 2012 at 1:25am
  Don’t personally hate you or your fellow TSA agents, hate the fact that our government considers its citizens all terrorists and treats us as such. You are just their useful tool. The ordeal that people must go through just to get on a plane is pure lunacy. While you may be a nice person, the TSA agents that I have come across have all been rude. When I have opted out of the body scanners every time the agent has made a big deal out of it, shouting “OPT OUT” to the entire world to hear. Then I get the third degree as to why I do not want to be scanned and have my personal image shown on some computer screen for some person hidden behind a curtain to view.
  
  Now the TSA is expanding its power and its reach; turning our country into a police/surveillance state.
  
  Report this comment
- jcldwl
  Posted on September 1, 2012 at 8:04am
  @Trilo
  I couldn’t agree more. I myself have opted out of flying all together. I will opt out of anything that involves TSA. I also don’t see where the headline is correct. It was the app he downloaded that found his phone.
  @ opie
  TSA = Lack of of respect for human dignity. You should do some serious praying about finding another line of work. I am sure there is something more uplifting a person of your caliber could be doing.
  
  Report this comment
- TexasIndependant
  Posted on September 1, 2012 at 11:18am
  Your a bible toting American, but apparently youve never read what you say you carry around. Truly Sad! Hypocrisy is intellectual dishonesty. Lets be truthful here Mr. Christian! Doesnt Christianity teach something about being intellectually dishonest. I believe it does Sir!
  
  Report this comment
Broncobuster
Posted on September 1, 2012 at 12:11am
My cousin is a TSA agent in Milwaukee,a real sweet lady .

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I_KNEW_Youd_Say_That
Posted on August 31, 2012 at 8:09pm
“today we salute the men and women who work at airports and transportation hubs around the country”

The TSA? Bush & Obama’s Nazi goon squads? Is TheBlaze “off it’s medications”?

I think you need a song to properly SALUTE the TSA — “We’re Not Gonna Take It”:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b_NqhTG70ow

No, We Ain’t Gonna Take It
We’re Not Gonna Take It Anymore

We’ve Got The Right To Choose And
There Ain’t No Way We’ll Losing
This Is Our Life, This Is Our Song

We’ll Fight The Powers That Be Just
Don’t Pick Our Destiny ’cause
You Don’t Know Us, You Don’t Belong

O-o-oh
O-o-oh
We’re Right (Yeah!)
We’re Free (Yeah!)
We’ll Fight (Yeah!)
You’ll See (Yeah!)

We’re Not Gonna Take It, (No!)
No, We Ain’t Gonna Take It
We’re Not Gonna Take It, Anymore (Just You Try And Make Us!)

We’re Not Gonna Take It
No, We Ain’t Gonna Take It
We’re Not Gonna Take It, Anymore
We’re Not Gonna Take It

We’re Not Gonna Take It
No, We Ain’t Gonna Take It
We’re Not Gonna Take It, Anymore
We’re Not Gonna Take It

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ENIGMA28724
Posted on August 31, 2012 at 7:37pm
Of the three times I have flown I have never found the TSA people to be anything but courteous and polite. Perhaps I have been lucky. The only larger city airport I went through initial screening was Charlotte NC and Fairbanks AK. Maybe it’s different in mega-airports but these seemed pretty big to me.

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- RobbieTLHughie
  Posted on September 1, 2012 at 10:06am
  The vast majority of whining is people who just don’t like to be inconvenieced, like many things in life it quickly evolves into a tall tale. Some awful things have occured but not most.
  
  Report this comment
AnonCmnt
Posted on August 31, 2012 at 6:52pm
I’m glad that that Mr. Opelka got his phone back but it’s entirely inappropriate to ever associate TSA (the organization) with any thing but reprehensible actions that would land them in jail in any other area of life. I’m sure there are some “ok” people that work within TSA but any organization that daily violates the 4th amendment to the Constitution and physically assaults men, women, and children does not deserve a “pass” for what they do. Please give credit – if its due – to a helpful individual; but never associate TSA with anything positive. This piece falls into TSA’s public relations stunt book in that it helps TSA deflect from the abusive things they do and the fact that they have not deterred a single terrorist act in their entire existence. TSA must be abolished and replaced by behavior based, airport controlled security measures.

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loveliberty83
Posted on August 31, 2012 at 6:02pm
have to beat some hate rich people lol—well yeah we poor people cannot afford all;; those expensive phones lol my answer this is America you can be all that you can in this great nation do not envy anyone except those who have great friends& families

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AllAmericanG
Posted on August 31, 2012 at 5:41pm
seriously, what has become of the Blaze? I thought the truth lived here. Now we are getting this idiotic story or what Chris Matthews said or how NBC reporters were mean to a Republican guest….. really? What happened to exposing the truth and hard news? You guys have become the worst of TMZ style political commentary…. It’s so sad.

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- Mike Opelka
  Posted on August 31, 2012 at 5:59pm
  — AllAmericang, What Chris Matthews says does matter. He’s a senior member of the media and has a responsibility for reporting the truth. My story is something of a shared experience – nothing more. It was meant to show a balanced bit of journalism as it relates to the TSA. As you can see, it lives on the contributors page…
  
  Report this comment
- AllAmericanG
  Posted on August 31, 2012 at 11:25pm
  Mr. Opelka, Please realize that I am very happy for your happy TSA ending, however what Chris Matthews says is only news because the Blaze and other “news” organizations make it news. Frankly this is silly…. I don’t watch NBC for a reason and I don’t need a recap from the site that is supposed to be delivering “real news”. I think it is demeaning to your organization and to me for you to focus on such small minds as Chris Matthews, Lawrence O’Donnell and the like. It seems to me that the Blaze staff cares more about what they have to say than the general public…. otherwise we would be watching them. If you ask around, Chris Matthews has about as much influence over Blaze readers as Joan Rivers.
  
  He’s an idiot, we get that… talk to me about real news like the 4th Amendment ruling that says you have no privacy on a pre-paid cell phone, of the anti-Israeli rabbis on the new Rabbis for Obama committee, or the 500+ American soldiers from KY that were sent to the Horn of Africa for no good reason. I want you all to investigate those stories, not what the idiots on the left say.
  
  If I am alone and you have found a winning formula, that by all means ignore me. However, I don’t believe I am wrong…. friends and I talk about it and they say they don’t even check out the Blaze anymore because if they wanted to know what NBC hosts had to say they would watch NBC. Give us some real news NOT tabloid style “he said – she said” crap.
  
  Thanks though for respo
  
  Report this comment
- AllAmericanG
  Posted on August 31, 2012 at 11:49pm
  Thanks though for responding. I appreciate the interaction.
  
  Report this comment
- The-Monk
  Posted on September 1, 2012 at 2:22pm
  Hi Mike Opelka,
  
  In a world where almost everything is negative it’s nice to hear something positive.
  
  Also, I learned something about iPhones and Apple apps today.
  
  Thanks for the story. : )
AllAmericanG
Posted on August 31, 2012 at 5:36pm
so we should think this is great because you got scooted to the head of the line?

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Walkabout
Posted on August 31, 2012 at 5:33pm
AzThunder
Not everyone in the TSA is incompetent or uncaring.

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- Fisher1949
  Posted on September 1, 2012 at 2:00pm
  No just most of them. Over 98% have a high school education or less and many have prior criminal arrests. Keep telling yourself that getting groped by criminals makes you safer coward.
  
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AzThunder
Posted on August 31, 2012 at 4:53pm
Stupid story

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- mercenary4freedom
  Posted on September 1, 2012 at 1:58am
  agreed, very lame!
  
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