Originally Posted by
star_world
If I ever need to feel lucky, I read threads like this. In the last 24 months I have passed through TSA checkpoints approx. 267 times, in 40+ different airports around the US. I don't hold a US passport, almost always just have carry-on bags (and therefore have packed a reasonable amount into them) and I can confirm that:
1. I have never once had any more interaction with a TSA agent other than "stop. go. let me check the size of that liquid container. let me see your boarding pass."
2. Never once have I been asked about my travel plans, where I'm coming from, where I'm going, what sort of mood I'm in, who I'm going to see, etc.
Having said that, I think the whole process is incredibly inefficient compared with travel through airports in virtually any country in the world (I recently spent a while in East Africa and was shocked at how polite and painless the whole airport process was) - there is a lot they could learn in the US. But for those of you who think that you are continually being monitored for the slightest reaction and have to have pre-rehearsed lines to make it through the checkpoint without being "detected" you are reading far too much into things! Don't forget - behaving like that just means they have won
I agree that the process is rather inefficient. It has been streamlined already but I found that Germany and England (Manchester in particular) are both more thorough and speedier.
I disagree with "behaving like that just means they have won". If one believes that this entire TSA thing is just a theatre to pretend security and a way to give jobs out and to privatize public funds by spending them on certain equipment, like I do, then anything that undermines the system and shows its inefficiency and pointlessness is good. If one simply let's them do all they want, just out of convenience and without critically questioning the whys and what fors, then they have indeed won.