Originally Posted by
star_world
My response was intended to draw attention to the "warfare" / "tinfoil hat" mentality that is so prevalent on this board. Yes, I am genuinely shocked that anyone who travels regularly and has a reasonable level of situational awareness would ever consider that these extra steps were worthwhile. The ones that do are most likely the ones that enter every checkpoint in a hyper-sensitive fashion, just waiting for the chance to find something that violates their "constitutional rights". I honestly don't believe that theft by TSOs or other passengers is a significant enough issue to warrant doing anything other than dropping a wallet (or watch, etc) into a zipped pocket.
But everyone's entitled to take whatever preventative steps they want - of course
Do you regard them as a bigger threat to your belongings at a checkpoint than other passengers?
I lock up my wallet and other valuables at a TSA checkpoint for the same reasons I lock my car and my house. Part of the qualitative reason why my truck has never been stolen and my house has never been broken into is that there are plenty of other people who leave their keys in their cars and their houses unlocked in high-threat areas.
And, yes -- there has been enough documented evidence to make me conclude that screeners are a bigger threat than screenees.