Originally Posted by
RdFltErr
To be honest, we were so dumbfounded by the whole situation and more thinking in terms of "what stuff was on the laptop? do we call our employer? are we going to miss our flight?" This was a business trip with a big client, and in our heads that was still the top priority. I'm not sure we had much of a plan for how to handle this situation.
In hindsight, I would probably have voted that one of us stays behind and be a little more of a PITA about getting some action on this.
But I do look at the TSA staff as the "authoritative" figures on what to do in these situations. So I was just totally shocked when it almost seemed like they didn't have much of a plan, either, especially if "this happens all the time."
One other thing I forgot in my original post - the TSA agent explained to us that people would use fake boarding passes to get into security, take the items, and just leave the airport. Is this a known loop hole? This seems really ridiculous if it's that easy... I think he was just making that up frankly.
TSOs aren't law enforcement officers. Don't let the uniforms fool you -- they are government clerks, no more nor less. Their only involvement in thefts is when one of their own commits one. This was a police matter and should have been handled by the police. As far as using fake boarding passes, yes -- it's a piece of cake to produce one. All TSA does is make sure the name on the boarding pass matches the name on the ID -- this is revenue protection for the airlines and has nothing to do with safety or security. When you check in on-line, you're provided with an electronic boarding pass to print out at home. All you have to do is print it to a PDF and edit it to say whatever you want. There was quite a ruckus a few years ago when someone put up a website that did exactly that.
The bottom line is this: when you travel, you're responsible for your possessions, in spite of TSA's screening procedures. I got into quite an argument with an x-ray TSO once (coincidentally at SFO) because she wanted me to push my possessions through the scanner while there was a line-up at the WTMD. I refused, she got nasty and called for a retaliatory secondary. I demanded to see the supervisor, who agreed with me and promised to pull the tapes and review the screener's actions (whether or not this was ever done is a different question). Keep your possessions in your sight at all times, and don't let TSOs tell you otherwise.