In the airports where you can watch and it is done in the lobby, it is true you are not supposed to be allowed to touch your bag after the screening process has begun. Certain circumstances will allow a passenger to retake possession of their bag like an instance where you decide not to check the bag or switch airlines. However, once we have finished screening the bag, you are no longer allowed to touch it, we will lock the bags for you, we will repack them in the exact instruction that you give us and we place them on the airlines belts. The reason you cannot touch them is because "we" are "afraid" you are gonna stash something in there when you have it in your possession. Before we started 100% baggage screening, we screened the selectee checked bags by hand. That was my job and how I ultimately transfered from the checkpoint into baggage inspection. But back to the point, when I was checking bags back then, I was allowed to let passengers repack bags as long as they were in my sight and I watched them closely to make sure nothing was added to the bag without my knowledge. As you can see, things have changed. For some reason, I have never had a problem putting everything back in a bag the way I took it out on the rare occassions I actually had to remove anything from the bags to go through them. Some of these screeners I've seen just boggle my mind at how they rape the bags by tearing everything out of them having no order in which they do it so the passenger gets upset when the bag is repacked wrong and all their clothes are wrinkled. Guess that's enough ranting for the moment. I'm also in the process of leaving to go back to school full time.