Originally Posted by
bdschobel
Then he turned his attention to my son. Neither of us had spoken a word yet to the TSA guy or to each other.
TSA guy: "Timothy. Is that your name?" [Hey, he's 14, knucklehead; don't talk to him like he's a 3-year-old.]
Tim: "Yeah."
TSA guy: "How old are you?"
Tim: "14."
TSA guy: "I'm sorry. Could you speak up? I couldn't hear you."
Tim: "14."
TSA guy: "Who are you traveling with?" [I'm still standing there watching this. Who did this moron think my son (same last name) was traveling with?]
Tim: "My dad."
TSA guy: "OK, have a nice flight."
What kind of idiocy is this?
IMO TSA is trying to acclimatize youngsters to questioning by government agents at checkpoints. Whether this process is policy or just what some TSOs want to do is irrelevant to the outcome.
Starting over the next few years, there will be a growing population of American adults who have no memory of flying without presenting government ID and passing through a government checkpoint. With the new ID rules, TDCs, SPOTters, and BDOs, they will have no memory of not having to interact with government agents to fly.
If the patriots and civil-libertarians don't start to turn the tide on these issues within a few years, it will be much harder to reverse in the future. The de-sensitized younger generation will have no problem accepting checkpoints on their daily commutes or to enter a shopping center.
And they probably won't care about stories from old codgers (their parents and grandparents) about the days of free (as in speech) travel without government permission or interviews. They'll just see those as stories of a "lawless" and "insecure" past no different from how we now look at the "wild west."