I was on the other side of the queue from you (I had the women shouting announcements) and I heard a discussion about opening the door. TSA eventually decided not to. They also had an issue with bathrooms, since the only ones were past security, or back behind customs, and customs didn't want to let people through without a blue form. Eventually they relented, provided that anyone using the bathrooms was escorted by someone from TSA. I can't imagine that that could have been very efficient.

I was trapped around 4:15 or 4:20, with a flight departing at 4:30. According to United.com, it left on time, so what TSA told us was clearly incorrect. Fortunately, United pushed me to the next flight (and let me keep my upgrade - a FTer has his priorities!) so I got where I was going. That was the last flight of the day, and I was afraid if I missed it it would be a hard sell to convince UA to put me up for the night. (Although I would have argued that had 975 not have been 49 minutes late, we wouldn't be in this bind.)