Originally Posted by
N965VJ
That's exactly what the OP did, and even offered to give the screeners masks.
Nice selective quoting there - no, that's
not exactly what the OP did:
Originally Posted by
Nahrain
...I was at the TSA stand getting my ID checked within 10-15 minutes.
The TSA employee stated I needed to remove my (n95 medical) mask while standing around the other passengers in order to "confirm my identity" (I clearly stole the ID of someone with exactly all my other features, but I'm hiding a different mouth under the mask...) At this point, she put the dreaded "SSSS" on my ticket even before I could respond.
When I stated that I could not do that, the employee said she would have to call her supervisor, who naturally took his time and then some to arrive. Upon arrival, he told me that they'd "have to see my face" and dragged me in front of other passengers to the front of a screening queue to put my bag through the xray. he then picked up my belongings on the other end and walked off with them. Apparently, TS"O"s don't have to worry about waiting in line like everyone else, because they're special and all the people behind us had absolutely nowhere to go anyways. I felt pretty freakin' rude line jumping.
The employees then proceeded to fight over if they'd take me to "see my face" first or search through my bag. they decided upon patting me down and then searching my bag first.
This was the most zealous bag search I've ever seen. They opened my (locked, and cleared by xray) file box and swabbed my -paper files-, along with my clothing, my medication, my phone, my two laptops, and my cane. I'm pretty surprised my cane didn't set something off because it touches EVERYTHING on the floor, and they swabbed the bottom of it!
They then proceeded to get into a fight with eachother over if they should give me my shoes back. Finally, they decided it'd be alright. When I tried to point out something they were looking for in my bag, the less sympathetic screener barked at me to not touch my bag.
I told the TSA employees that I would accept their (unreasonable, although I did not say this) demand to see my entire face IF the screeners saw me in a private room, and masked up beforehand. I offered my sealed, individually bagged, sterile masks because they insisted they "didn't have any." I repeatedly explained that because I am immuno-compromised, I cannot in fact risk even "a quick second" of exposure, which they repeatedly kept quoting because viruses apparently don't do anything in a second or two...
The OP didn't offer this until well into the process.
No excuse for rude TSA behaviour, but the OP handled this situation extremely badly. Apparently they fly regularly - surely this is an issue that arises every single time? I've seen plenty of these masks - if a TSO is told to sit at a desk and match IDs to people that arrive at the checkpoint, there is no way they can do that with even a minute level of certainty if they are wearing one of these masks. I love the previous comments from other posters who immediately hit the "ID doesn't mean security! Never prevented any terrorists" macro button on their computers - what a load of nonsense. The fact is (like it or not) that the screeners are
told to check IDs - if they can't do it because the OP's face was clearly obscured, that is
the OP's problem.
All this talk about illnesses and circumstances and everything else is quite frankly, irrelevant to the situation at hand.
The very same would apply to a woman wearing a veil covering her face - I'm sure the regulars here would expect her to remove it, right?
