Originally Posted by deephouse
1) Whom should I contact to complain about the SEA "shoe carnival"? Calling the TSA Contact Center seems useless--I already did it to complain about a previous SEA shoe carnival incident (different pair of shoes), and although I was asked for a telephone number, I never received a return call. I followed up with an emailed and snail-mailed letter to the TSA's Customer Service Manager at SEA (his name and email address were posted on SEA's website) and again got no response. So I don't consider either of these to be worth a try.
2) Is it proper for a screener to repeatedly run the wand over the same area? In the past, I've had screeners do just one pass over each body part, with a quick pat-down of the area if necessary to resolve any alarm (e.g., the time I forgot to remove my watch).
3) What's up with the wand repeatedly beeping in the absence of metal? A faulty wand, perhaps?
4) Is it proper for a screener to pat down the belt area if the wand doesn't alarm there? I'd never experienced that before.
5) Are private secondary screenings supposed to be done differently from their "public" counterparts, aside from the additional screener to serve as a witness?
One other note: I may have seemed suspicious to the TSA screeners because I was jittery. I had intentionally sleep-deprived myself in preparation for a red-eye flight and was running on caffeine, hence the jitters.
Thanks in advance, especially to the helpful TSA-affiliated folks who post here.
OKay #1 There is an ombudsman that you can complain to. It is the same one the we complain to but they are swamped. The thing with shoes now is that if they are deemed (by jusdgement call) to be over a certain thickness then we have to screen them. (thanks to Richard Reed) I doubt that we will ever go back to letting non metal shanked shoes with thick soles into the airport bording area. (fool me once shame on you..fool me twice shame on me) So unless you are wearing very thin flip flops or moccasins you are going to do the shoe thing.
2. This is another judgement call. The wands only cover a certain area and if you are broad then multiple passes are required. The experience of the screener comes into play here also. Maybe he was expecting something or he was new or he was being watched so he was very redundant.
3. The wands are subject to having false alarms when they bump something like a ridge or seam on your clothes. (I wont go into why) But you said that they were close in this time around.
4. With the recent downing or aircraft in Russia it is apparant that the females who did it were wearing the explosives. Some screeners pat the waste area for plastic knives also.
5. No the only difference is that it is done out of sight of the public for embarrassment reduction.