johnston21

Just now cleared @ CLT. Random hand-swab (new swab requested) which cleared, followed by 2 false pos on my laptop sleeve with other machine at end of table.

Got patted-down (new gloves requested), all carry-on was throughly checked and re-xrayed (at least) twice more.

Some questions asked, all legit, and TSO's were polite and well within "my" guidelines. No strip search.

Thank you CLT TSOs, you handled this extremely well.

GaryO3

Generally CLT is pretty decent as far as TSA goes. The A terminal has backscatter on the left, but it is easy to self opt-out to the right hand side. Sounds like you got caught up in some other stuff though, but glad to know they didn't give you the nth degree like I got in SRQ for a false positive a while back.

Mr. Elliott

I fly out of SRQ often, what was the problem there.

Mr. Elliott

gsoltso

^

nachtnebel

yes, but isn't this what *should* happen in every case due to the horrendously high percentage of false positives from their current test methods?

I suspect that if your body had alarmed rather than your luggage, you would not be posting such happy news. I suspect "You" would have been "resolved" much more thoroughly.

.

johnston21

I'm still surprised I wasn't "resolved" much more thoroughly., except

...in hindsight, it may have been a training exercise. The orig. TSO operating the machine looked new, and afterwards the Supervisor's Supervisor came over and somewhat thanked me (said I can go), but she hadn't previously communicated to me so I looked towards the Supervisor (before moving) and he affirmed I could go, and said "in cases like this we need to be extra cautious," followed a moment later with "you did nothing wrong."

??? Still, it's all good here...(just glad they got it all correct, whew). ^

nachtnebel

I understand the relief, but take a look at what you're saying. You are a citizen of the United States, supposedly protected from arbitrary actions coming from federal agents, and you are traveling within your own country. You have done absolutely nothing wrong, and yet these people could have taken you and given you a testicle massage based on a test that alarms falsely 100% of the time. They could swab you and do this to you anywhere in the airport, certainly anywhere at the checkpoint and beyond it. Yet we are so grateful when they don't actually inspect our private orifaces and sexual plumbing. When they can, any time they want, to the extent they want.

Who in the h*ll can live like this? Or would want to? And what is going to be a likely visceral reaction to the sight of those blue shirted people anywhere near one's vicinity?

Caradoc

Given the amount of practice the TSA has had in false positives, it would seem that the majority of their workforce is learning-disabled since they repeat the same mistakes over and over.

The OP appears to have found a TSA employee or two who isn't learning-disabled, which leads me to wonder why someone with any marketable skills is working for the TSA in the first place...

Fornebufox

Just as an aside, that cobalt blue used to be a staple in my wardrobe, but I've gotten rid of everything in that now cringe-inducing color.