What is the point of TSA marking your BP?

Just going through some boarding passes from my many trips this year, I've always wondered why the clerk performing TDC duty uses a highlighter to check mark items on my BP, or stamp it with a silly stamp that says (DHS-TSA-TDC).. Is there any point to this? Obviously they might mark you as SSSS when you pass through, but it still seems pretty pointless.. Many times when I travel, I get a new BP on card stock, use mobile BP (which does not get scribbled on),use my OLCI BP which I kept in my bag, or discard the scribble BP, or just don't use it for the rest of the trip.. Pointless, huh?

Thoughts are appreciated.

who owns the company marketing highlighters to the TSA?

The point? It's a make-work scheme.

Exactly - make it look they have something important to do which justifies giving them government benefits and whatever pittance of a salary that you and I are paying for.

I think it's supposed to say as follows:

-Passenger presented at security podium.
-I matched passenger's ID to name on ticket.
-I checked that the ticket is for a flight today, out of a terminal this C/P goes to, on an airline that actually exists. In other words, it doesn't say Braniff.
-I verified that passenger has valid ID, it's not expired, or their Blockbuster card. I used that UV loupe to look at their passport or ID.
-I, Screener XYZ, did all this stuff.
-This isn't some random person who got into the screening line.

I think I'm okay with this. The markings are...well, I guess they mean something, they're usually kind of consistent. Also, if you have a Super Special Screening Spassenger, you can divert them to wherever the TSA does their Super Special Sexualized Screening at.

As far as I know, the only case when it matters is at airports that don't have separate lines for selectees, so that the WTMD person asks for the BP again. In that case, if TDC marks somebody a selecteee, they don't want the person to simply pull out a copy of their BP without that mark. I suspect the major reason is just that TDC having to actually do something with the BP makes them pay more attention to it.

That marking is for accountabillity.

So that TSA supervisor drones know that the TDC smurf drone was not asleep at the podium?

Riiiight.

I arrived from MUC earlier this month, and my second boarding pass had a scribble on it (I believe courtesy of UA at MUC as the rest of the world doesn't play the scribble game either)

When I approached TDC for my connecting flight, he was very confused. He kept saying 'you went outside' while looking at the scribble. I asked him how I was supposed to get to that terminal without going outside, and if in fact there was some way that I had missed all these years, to please tell me. The fact that I already had a scribble just seemed to stump him, and he said several times 'you went outside'.

Which begs the question - are unmarked mobile boarding passes evidence of non-accountability? It is a great example of nonsensical security theatre at work.

Yep. Fail proof infallibility, because it's a known fact that no one else in the world can gain access to the dreaded yellow highlighter.

And I was not aware that the meaning of 'accountability' was understood by TSA

In MSP, the mark is only the checkpoint number. I guess it narrows down who did the checking but they would have to review video to who checked me. I tend to clear very early or just under the wire, not the 60-90 minutes stuff.

I am also waiting to hear what security, not revenue protection, measures the name matching accomplishes.

especially since its a known fact that clerks have no clue as to who is on the NFL nor have memorized the hundreds of thousands of names on it.


Its sort of like UPS new policy for when you ship from the UPS store. they now demand you to show your ID but no where do they record it anywhere. So when the next plane goes boom they wont have a friggen clue, because i guarantee you the person behind the counter wont remember one person out of hundreds to thousands they see each day.

I sat at the local station for 30 mins last week waiting on a package to come back from being on a truck and watched this charade. Then when my package finally came it was brought out by the station manager because it had more forms then a IRS audit on it (customs, insurance,etc). I made mention of the stupidity of the whole "new requirements" and at first he said he was all for it as it "made things safer" till i pointed out the wholes the size of a 747-400ER in it and then the light bulb went off as to it being totally stupid and in reality back tracking it wouldnt be that easy.

Funny one was for a package worth $5K+ i didnt have to show any ID for because i had the door hanger slip.

Management determined that this was preferable to providing each TSA clerk with a clipboard.

Huh??? What does the lack of a clipboard have to do with making squiggly marks on a BP?