Do not be affraid of their crap. How many times have I been told to put my watch, my wallet, my jewlery (in my pocket) through the Xray. My refusal gets a instant reaction, but then I tell them. I'm in no rush, and I'm all for security. They are welcome to call anyone they want, and check my valuables as long as they want, while they remain in my hands. But nothing will leave my possession. I tell them I have all day long if they want (not true, but sounds good).


Here's a tale of three attempts (of thousands) where I not so politely told them what I thought of their idiotic security measures.

1) Security is checking me and asked me to pull over for additional screening, even though I didn't beep. She called it "random" to which I exerted my doubts. Her buddy at the other table jumped in with his opinion on the matter. I told him to mind his own business. I was complying with the search, but insistent to be free from his interference.

Calling him an idiot didn't help. He threatened to call the police. I told him to go ahead, I'll just tell the cop what an idiot you are too! The "agent" suddenly had a change of mind and let me go.

2) Having a bad day, they took their sweet time on me... trying to push my buttons. They managed to get a "That's F*ed up" out of me, then immediately pounced on it. Supervisor held my boarding pass, walked me out of the secure area and tried repeatedly to make me read aloud to him the posted warning regarding behavior at the checkpoint, to which I flatly REFUSED. He then told me to bring a check-in agent to speak to him while he decided whether to let me fly. (After trying different checkpoints, to no avail) I got the UA checkin agent to leave her post and talk me through. My she was mighty pi$$ed of at him, not me. Of course, I caught my plane.

3) Lastly there was the questioning about liquids and stuff that I was trying to ignore just before putting my stuff through the metal detector. The "agent" took offence by my lack of friendliness and convinced a team member to send my bag to be resent through the detector... no big deal, right?

Refusing to take my eyes off of my bag forced me to take a step back. I guess the agent didn't notice that I could see. As my bag approached the Xray machine, it was picked up and moved back 3 or 4 spots on the belt, as it moved forward again, it was once again picked up and moved back 3 or 4 more spots, and again, and again, and again. What was I to do?

I did what I'd seen them do several times. I yelled "SUPERVISOR" at the top of my lungs. Until this point, only the few team members knew what was going on, but that was about to change. Her antics were nothing for me to fear. Yelling for a supervisor would frustrate the process, but not land me in trouble.

It took the super several minutes of explaining for him to see that it was I that was interfered with; that I needed his help to get out of the situation and prevent it from happening to other flyers. After the bag got through, and released, the two of us had quite the conversation about rogue security and the damage they are doing to the image of Airport Security. I insisted he follow up and insure that retalitory practices are not made habits.