I searched for this topic in the forum and didn't find any hits.

My question is this -- is the TSA required to let me keep my carryon bags in view while I'm detained on the pre-screen side of the millimeter wave x-ray scanner? Yesterday in Seattle I was held for five minutes after opting out. A supervisor could not be found to do the patdown. In the meantime, my laptop, wallet, passport and other valuable material in my carryon bags was out of my sight and easily available for anybody to steal.

If there is a work practice standard that I could cite which requires TSOs to let me keep any eye on my stuff while I await the patdown, I'd sure like to know about that.