Originally Posted by L-1011
I had a situation where I was sent to secondary screening and couldn't see my belongings coming out from the machine. I wanted to wait walking over to the screening location until I was sure my laptop wouldn't be picked up by the passengers standing in front of it, but the screener threatened me with calling the police if I didn't move immediately!
What is your take on the screener's action in this case? Could/should he have allowed me to remain in the little "pen" until I had a clear view of my belongings, or should I have walked over to a place where I had even worse chance of seeing my belongings?
What should happen is the following:
You should be directed into the holding area (or "pen" as you described it) where you can still view your property as it comes out of the x-ray tunnel. In some airports, the secondary screening takes place inside the holding area and should be done in such a manner that you never lose sight of your belongings. However, if you are screened in a separate area, then a screener is responsible for picking up your belongings and taking them to the screening area. Again, you should be positioned so that you never lose sight of your belongings.
This is TSA policy. It's written in the SOP, and there should be no deviation from it. If you encounter a situation when a screener threatens you, demand to see the supervisor. Screeners do not have the authority to threaten, coerce, intimidate or otherwise confront passengers. They are, however, supposed to calmly explain the process to passengers which includes explaining why they are not allowed to handle their belongings until they've been cleared by secondary screening.
One of the problems that may contribute to some of the frustrations of waiting inside the holding area until cleared by secondary screening is a combination of not enough screeners to handle the passenger flow and screeners at the WTMD who fail to properly control the flow of passengers into the checkpoint. In other words, if a passenger has been waiting for secondary screening for an unreasonably long time (a judgement call), then the screener at the WTMD can halt the flow of traffic into the checkpoint until that passenger is screened. This not only allows screeners to catch up with all the secondary screening, but it also ensures that the property of the passenger awaiting secondary screening doesn't inadvertently get picked up by someone else. Does it work this way all the time? Of course not. But that's the SOP. The reason it doesn't work this way is because passengers outside the checkpoint get impatient and managers inside the checkpoint don't want to see any interuption in passenger flow. It's a classic Catch-22.
To answer your question more directly, anytime you feel mistreated by a screener, demand to speak to a supervisor.