Are you referring to transportation staff who checked your passport to ensure they weren't about to facilitate your illegal entry to another country?

If you leave via commercial airliner the TSA will check to see if the name on your identification (be it a passport, driver's license, or other) matches that on your boarding pass. They don't, however, check to see if you're allowed to leave the country like most other countries do. They've never scanned my passport into a computer like every other country (besides Canada) does.