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This sounds like a "just doing our duty" argument.

If you work for the TSA you're not just contributing to the problem, you are the problem.

I don't think it is quite a Superior Orders defense, but it certainly does seem morally equivalent to me. "I did it for my starving family" and "I did it because my commanding officer would shoot me otherwise" are probably pretty related (some regimes do their best to blur the line between these), but I feel there should be another name for it.

If anything, the "commanding officer would shoot me" defense is greater than "I did it for my starving family". In the first case, you know for certain that you and your family will die if you don't do what you're told. In the latter, your family may be uncomfortable but it's highly unlikely for anyone living in America to actually starve.

What makes this more damning is any TSA employee made a conscious choice to do morally reprehensible work. They had a choice. No one forced them to do their job.

In this light, the TSA employees come off as more morally bankrupt than military officers that had a gun to their head. They choose to be active agents in destroying society in trade for their own comfort.

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