Originally Posted by
janetdoe
In any case, there is definitely a vocabulary disconnect when people claim to be randomly selected 10 times in a row - if that is really true, they should be filing a complaint/lawsuit against TSA for harassment. Routed through the NoS is generally different from TSA-defined 'random selection', but I think people are using the terms interchangeably.
I thought surely my example (where every few dozen people, they would open the NoS and direct one person through it, instead of the WTMD) surely counted as random selection. I guess I'll just wait until TSA publishes its definitions.
While there are still many checkpoints without scanners or <100% scanner use, I haven't heard anyone claim scanner selection was only 3%. That rate I think is increasing faster than patdown rate. If you are constantly selected for a patdown without opting out or setting off the metal detector that is another issue. But the 3% patdown rate is for all passengers and is going to be higher for those who opt out and set off the wtmd. Without the scanner selection rate, probably for the specific airport(s) where one feels harassed, it's difficult to say. It's nit clear that TSA knows these numbers themselves. And any human 'random' selection is not random.