Originally Posted by IAD_flyer

One of the few positive changes TSA made after 9/11 was removing the "Did you pack your bags yourself?" & "Have your bags been out of your possession?" ticket counter agent questions stateside.

I still remember traveling with my mother as a child pre-9/11 after a cruise when she answered the question honestly no one knew what to do. The ticket agent at the next desk was telling our ticket agent just to refuse our baggage. At least in the end a supervisor later just had my mother search our bags and then accepted them. The whole affair took half an hour and this was in MIA which has a large share of cruise customers.

I have only been to TLV once, the security agent phrase the question as "Did you pack your bags yourself, and have your bags been out of your possession? The reason I ask is that our concern is that someone could have concealed explosives in your luggage." I personalty think the agent was just tring to see if I had any reactions to the word "explosive".