First, and more clearcut, I don't think ire should be limited. Those who voluntarily participate in enforcing the current system are not exempt from the fallout of their choices any more than much of HN would suggest engineers be exempt from the ethical decisions of our employment. Look recently, people are saying Microsoft employees should quit because MS sells office products to ICE. If that's the line in the sand we're drawing, "working directly for the TSA" seems pretty well and truly over it. (Full disclosure, I'm actually not sold on this "hard" stance, but TSA seems more of a slam dunk than office products in terms of complicity, and if I regardless put myself in the eyes of someone who DOES believe this stance...)

There's a fair discussion about "was the way you confronted them that of a professional adult" but at the end of the day, I'm finding it hard to honestly be too upset at the language used outside of a very token "tsk tsk". TSA has not had a history of treating my wife and I respectfully so it's difficult to reciprocate, and can even see the argument that by adding social friction to working there you erode their ability to push policies like this if workers go "wait this may be a bad idea that may make people really angry at us." ESPECIALLY now that there's no real legal recourse outside of petitioning congress.

(An anecdote: I was very sick going through security recently, extremely sleep deprived and falling over without support, they pulled us over to secondary screening and refused to let me sit down while they were checking my bags, ended up vomiting into a trashcan while the agent gave me lip. Turns out all this was over a pair of nail clippers the wife forgot she had packed... and on the RETURN trip.)