Its absurd the profiling going on with the TSA. If I dress well, I get rushed through the lines quickly. If I dress like a slob, I get subjected to additional baggage checks and pat downs on a regular basis while TSA agents bark orders at me like I'm incompetent. This article makes it sound like they are trained to do this under the guise of "behavior detection". Once I got precheck, I started getting treated like a human being.
Fuck the TSA. If we need to provide jobs to dropouts, give them something meaningful to do without subjecting the rest of the population to their "authority".
Curiously, I haven't had a TSA line longer than 45 minutes flying from places in NY, CA or FL (I mostly flight late evening/disgustingly-early morning though) in the last few months.
PS: laxatives, you mention being treated like a human. Why not help by not referring to TSA employees as "dropouts"?
Yeah you're right its not fair to call them dropouts.
Having said that, these rules are usually not strictly enforced.
https://www.faa.gov/about/office_org/headquarters_offices/as...
One lighter on a person means a problem will be relatively small and quickly noticed.
All this because I had a box of poptarts that apparently looked like a bomb.
Your having LEOs violate your rights and go thru your belongings - for someone thinking your box is a bomb - is no different than a cop stopping a driver for thinking the driver's Coke can is a Budweiser and searching their car.
1. Or literally the TSA: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/06/us/tsa-expands-duties-beyo...
Our small satchel bags and bodies did not get x-rayed, but the large suitcases did. I forgot I had a pocketknife in there (as it's fine usually for airport security as a check in bag). Somehow, when my suitcase got scanned, they mixed up the order and the person behind me got stopped for having a knife. By that time, I was making a quick getaway to the platform as I didn't want to lose the knife.
I could have just had a knife (and bomb?) in my satchel bag, so was pretty confused by the whole x-ray suitcases only situation.
It's not exactly airport style - at least in NYC and Philly they swab you for explosives and check your ID. No X-Ray or nude-o-scope. You're free to not go through the checkpoint (but you won't board your train).
the TSA smurfs are NOT an LEO! They are roughly the equivalent of desk clerks dressing in clothing designed to confuse people about this. They neither have the rights nor the competence of an LEO.
(Also, of course, there is a semblance of due process with traffic stops)
Took me all of 5 minutes to resolve. Guess some tsa agents are just not very good at their job.
The supervisor and the girl came back and I laughed and said 'clearly you have spotted my giant chocolate bar', and volunteered all the standard answers (yes I packed this myself, it's been with me the whole time, etc) and they calmed down. I was worried they were going to want to open the package which was a gift and I didn't want them all riled up.
We all learned something that day, they learned that big ten-pound chocolate bars are a real thing and I learned that terrorists can probably carry bombs on board as long as they are sealed in a Ghirardelli box. TSA didn't even bother with the swabs or sniffer dog.
Bottom line is that TSA agents have no skin in the game, if they miss dangerous items it's the passengers who suffer the loss, not the agents standing safely at their posts on the ground at the airport.
Probably depends on the metric you're using to evaluate that.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/06/01/tsa-fails-95-percen...
The second time through security, they said they saw a blade on the x-ray.. turns out they were right. I forgot I had left a multi-tool in my bag.
Thankfully, they just trashed it and let me continue on my way. The story still flabbergasts me, though.
After feeling around in the bag we discovered some fabric cutting shears had apparently been accidentally been sewn into the lining by someone on the factory line (they looked something like this if I remember correctly: http://imgur.com/ZKlsjJw).
We just cut them out, handed them over and went on our way. Was a really strange experience though.
On the other hand, I remember when I was a kid in the 90s and accidentally took my pocket knife (3" blade) through screening, and they found it but let me bring it on the plane...
Do you have a source for that? Because for as long as I can remember they have had to be checked, including in the 90s.
You always could, and still can, check a firearm into luggage on a flight.
I was flying out of Beijing, you know... that country with terrible human rights... To be clear: there are multiple human rights issues in China, many of which are far worse than the US. Just not everything.
So noone is looking at the toolbox that I'm standing right next to. I could easily have grabbed a knife or two if I had wanted to.
And once they finished patting him down, he grabs his tools and walks on.
And I'm just standing there, gaping at the stupidity of it all.
Only in the days when we didn't lock the cockpit doors. Now that the cockpit doors are locked, even an actual gun wouldn't be sufficient to hijack the plane (the cockpit doors are essentially impossible to open from the outside, at least not without equipment that would be impossible to bring on a plane and would be rather conspicuously slow to use during a flight).
Post 9/11 passengers are not going to allow a guy with a razor blade hijack a plane, or even several guys with razor blades. Passengers and crew members now fight back and have the advantage of numbers.
Yeah, but what if _everyone_ on the plane were a hijacker?
Wait...
But of course you can break the plastic knife and fork they give you and still stab someone in the jugular.
You could even sharpen the headphones connector.
I think it's more of a roulette of circumstances more than a pattern of compliance/negligence, but it is curious to have 2 MIA data points.
I also flew Oslo->Lisbon->Sao Paolo->Rio de Janeiro->Lisbon->Oslo about five years ago with a 7" soldering iron in my hand luggage.
Then there was the time when I had my bag very thoroughly searched flying out of Geneva because of a highly suspicious loaf of bread.
These events caused me to put together a pre-TSA personal checklist, since I can't count on getting lucky again, and I really like that multitool. (:
I do know that flying _back_ to the US on my last few international flights, there was a second security checkpoint I had to go through. Very silly. I had filled my water bottle at a fountain at the gate and then had to empty it right out 5 minutes later.
Based on travelling in south America, south East Asia etc, this is sometimes correct.
There are lots of times when with domestic -> international flights (or even domestic -> domestic, in some cases) there would be terminal transfers required that would leave the secured zone and thus require passing through security again incidentally, even without a specific policy.
Several airports where I know this was an issue have been redesigned to alleviate this, but I'm sure there are some where it is still an issue.
I told her "we need to check those bags, otherwise they'll make you throw them out". She said it would be fine. And guess what? It was. Almost 4L of liquids in her carry-on and no one said a thing.
Really not cool. Probably justify it by saying it takes a lot of time to process paperwork (that they created the requirement for in the first place...)
Did you know that it also now costs $2350 for someone to renounce their US citizenship?
It also takes an undefined amount of time (typically 12+ months) and they publish your name online on a State Department shame list of ex-Americans.
A decade ago, it was free to renounce your US citizenship. Around 2009 they started charging $450, and then suddenly raised the fee to $2350 in 2014.
Not that it matters to the price/cost of doing it, but what do you think are the most common reasons for forfeiting US citizenship? I suspect it's tax-evasion.
There's a business model! Claim someone is a citizen, boom they owe taxes!
The neck comes off and it packs into a case that's small enough for carry-on. It has often struck me that a guitar neck with six metal strings attached would make a fairly effective weapon (at least, by TSA standards!) but I've never had any trouble getting through security, apart from occasionally having to put it together.
As Israeli security experts have said time and time again, if the terrorist gets to the airport it's already too late. Brussels is an unfortunate demonstration of this principle.
A sufficiently resourced-starved TSA might "succeed" at preventing attacks on passenger air travel by eliminating passenger air travel altogether. Once lines approach 4, 5 hours people will just drive.
There's nothing even close in the air travel world. Even Nexus people have to endure the occasional cavity search.
It's gotta be killed. Immediately. It's a horribly bad idea that's just sinking its claws in further with each passing day. In fact, the politicians have probably already figured out -- we're stuck with them forever. I just wish they'd come out and be honest about it: infinite money sink, longer and longer lines, security theater, and more bullshit stories. Year after year.
There are 2 kinds of people: those who think that more money will somehow fix everything (them), and those that think more money will only exacerbate the problems that have brought us to the current point of the debate (me). As a matter of fact, as I write this, I think that may be the single most significant distinction between "conservativism" and "liberalism," as practiced in the US.
Ugh.. no it's not. That's a massive mischaracterization of liberalism. Liberals, by and large, do not think that throwing additional funding at things (for the sake of additional funds) will improve systems. It's an unfounded and cartoonish view of liberal policy.
The wait times must be reduced regardless.
The situation for travelers is worse, not better, if the TSA is understaffed but still present.
Everything about security and law enforcement has some level of perverse incentives. People learn to game the system and their supervisors don't care as long as there's a benefit to them. I'm certain this guy knew it was a toy, but he wanted that gold star and his supervisor wanted a report showing all the gold stars that month were from his guys.
This is a classic problem in management. The real question is who can fix this? In government, perverse incentives eventually become the norm, not the exception, as everyone eventually gets in the game and there's no reason for anyone to upset the cart. Especially when the higher ups are riding the pension/public sector union bus and anything that could risk that or cause a political issue is just ignored. They're not going to be the fall guy here. The shitheads outnumber them vasty. More than likely these managers are just ex-shitheads who played the game better than the other shitheads in the past and got promoted.
If airport security was run by a private company, the government could fire these guys and go with a different vendor if there was enough political pressure (or threaten to to get needed reforms), but because the TSA is the government, we're stuck with them.
As far as "connections" go, Theranos is imploding right now even with its deep government and military connections.
One of the vendors from the League convention I put on gave it to me as a token of thanks just before the event ended. I dropped it in my bag and forgot it until flying a few weeks later.
Bonus: My business partner was given the same one and the same thing happened at BUR. TSA asked if she wanted to mail it home, she said "toss it" and never heard another word!
Bonus 2: Cop asks me "who do you main?" (as in, what champion do you mainly play in LoL)
Free business idea!
UPS/FedEx/USPS packaging site at the end of the TSA line. When they say you can't take your cologne, knife, or toothbrush because it's too dangerous, you can immediately give it one of our helpful agents and they'll instead mail it your home!
[1]: http://static1.eclypsia.com/images/lol/champions/Sivir_Splas...
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Rotatable-LOL-League-of-Legends-Sivi...
I can imagine that looking really scary through the x-ray but it's definitely not a weapon.
I'm not indignant about being stopped with it - just about being treated like a criminal instead of someone who just made a mistake. It was like my 30th flight of the year and I had (real) status with 2 airlines, and I was in a tiny little PreCheck screening wing with maybe 6 other passengers and 10 TSA at 5:00 AM.
It just seems like everything lined up for this to be a simple process that would have been easily determined to be inadvertent and not a danger to anyone, but I still got hosed!
A grown man carrying a "throwing-star" toy through pre-check SHOULD BE banned from this privilege and feel the scorn of other pre-check folks who just want to go through smoothly.
"Did you know what you did was a felony? Did you know it's illegal to possess one of these?" - that's what I had to endure until the police arrived. For the crime of forgetting an item in my bag even existed after running a convention.
Of course it's my fault for not checking my bag before I left the house, if I was a weapons collector I'm sure I would've thought twice but I'm not.
http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/cgi-bin/displaycode?section=pen&gr...
The police, who are local and have at least a basic understanding of California's laws, immediately knew it was not a throwing star. I'm not sure if TSA is allowed to touch weapons, but they refused to attempt to handle this item even after police arrived.
If this sounds stupid it's because it is. Someone threatened me with jail time and then came back to haunt me even after the police said there was no weapon. I retained an ex-TSA attorney, learned the laws and fought hard to understand the process.
In the end I just got on the phone with my case agent who quickly Nerfed my violation soon after I sent the email. Nothing that can be done about the PreCheck ban though.
The TSA is not allowed to touch weapons, and the police are not allowed to perform the sorts of pat-downs that the TSA provides[0].
Incidentally, packing a gun in your checked luggage is supposedly the best way to make sure nothing ever gets stolen. If you pack a gun (even a flare gun will do), you are required to lock it with a lock for which only you hold the key, and the TSA cannot open it without calling the police in case they need to look inside. Not to mention, the penalties for them losing a piece of luggage that has a declared firearm inside it are way worse than the penalties for when they steal something from your luggage[1].
[0] Jurisdiction-dependent, of course - but police have to meet a much higher bar to pat people down than the TSA do.
[1] Which is to say, 'nothing', because there are essentially no penalties for TSA employees who are caught stealing, even repeatedly. It's absurd.
> As used in this part, a "shuriken" means any instrument, without handles, consisting of a metal plate having three or more radiating points with one or more sharp edges and designed in the shape of a polygon, trefoil, cross, star, diamond, or other geometric shape, for use as a weapon for throwing.
Could maybe qualify as a replica weapon regardless?
It is sad that TSA is just a bunch a phony-baloney security theater, but that's not going to change anytime soon. In the meantime please be careful about what you put in your bag so that you don't delay others. Airports are stressful enough already.
do what you must. bite the bullet on 1h plus for security, and opt out of the undocumented scanner.
your country thank you.
I always feel bad for the poor dude who had to feel up my junk with the back of his hand, but it's my tiny little bit of civil disobedience.
Edit: Ok, maybe not miles, but seriously, had to run to every plane.
Late last year while trying to fly out of LAX a TSA employee thought I was carrying a throwing star. They called the police, who correctly identified as a toy in seconds.
I thought the whole ordeal was over until I got a "notice of violation" in the mail from TSA 45 days later.
Now I'm banned from pre-check for three years, even though I have global entry and even though the fine was thrown out. It's a kangaroo court were the only two options are you pay the fine or they convert it to a warning.
Some shit head got a gold star for "finding a weapon" and I get fucked.
Please defund these 0-terrorist-catching losers.