Originally Posted by Bart
Send your letter to the Federal Security Director, or FSD, of the airport.
Thanks for the suggestion. Is there a way I can find out his/her name and specific work mailing address, or should I just mail it to "Federal Security Director, c/o Seattle-Tacoma International Airport" at the airport's general mailing address?
One recommendation, however: refer to "shoe policy." If you call it "shoe carnival," you're not helping your case and will most likely be dismissed, in a courteous and professional way, as just another whining passenger.
Absolutely. I use the term "shoe carnival" here simply because it's become FlyerTalk jargon. My letter will be polite and professional.
What screeners are not supposed to do is pass the wand over until they finally get a beep.
This is what happened. Thanks for letting me know about it being improper--I'll be sure to mention it in the letter.
In all fairness to screeners, however, you also have to keep in mind what's going on around you. Sometimes a screener will hear the wand beep but not be sure if it was his wand that beeped or another wand being used by another screener hand-wanding someone else close by.
I'm pretty sure that wasn't the cause. The private "room" was located well away from the two open security lanes and the public secondary screening areas then in use. (It was about 9:00 p.m.)
Wand beeps, there's metal in there somewhere. You just don't realize it. Zipper tabs, zippers, button snaps, metallic hooks, rivets, etc will alarm because the hand-wand is being passed closely to your body.
But the
legs of my pants, around knee level? I actually just got the pants out of my dirty laundry, turned them inside out, and inspected them carefully. I can neither see nor feel any metal below the zipper fly. Also, I don't have any metal pins surgically implanted in my leg bones or anything like that.
No. It is not proper. If you didn't alarm and the screener pats you down, then you should notify the supervisor. When you alarm, the screener should first ask you if you have anything in the area that could cause the alarm. Frequent instances are, for example, a piece of tinfoil, a penny, or other small item that the passenger is not aware sets off the hand wand that's inside a pants pocket. After the passenger removes the metal item, the screener re-wands the area. If it alarms again, then the screener will pat down the area.
Thanks for letting me know. I'll keep that in mind during future screenings.
Now that I think about, the one other time I was patted down in any way (just my wrist at IND--I'd totally forgotten about my watch, which was under my sweater sleeve), the screener didn't ask me about the alarm. The wand beeped, and he immediately patted down and pulled up my sleeve. Maybe SOP was different back then (October 2003)?
General rule of thumb is this: before touching you, a screener must explain the need to pat you down.
In my experience, the screeners always explain before the wanding that they'll pat down any area that alarms. Is this "general warning" sufficient, or is the screener supposed to do it
after the alarm?
The other thing is, and this is common with frequent travelers, that they don't want the verbal explanations, they just want the screener to get on with it. "I fly all the time, you don't have to explain it to me. Let's go and just get this over with."
Fair enough. I did once have a screener ask me if I was familiar with the process before he started, presumably to figure out if I was a frequent flyer who didn't need an explanation.
Yes. That's why they're called private screening. It means that for whatever reason, you prefer not to be screened in public. And that's okay. It's your right. However, to protect both you and the screener, a second screener is present as a witness.
Don't know what you mean by "done differently" other than location.
What I meant was, are private secondary screenings supposed to be any more intensive than a public secondary? Or does the SOP differ in any way, aside from the privacy (obviously) and the witness (whose presence makes sense)?
Thanks for your helpful and informative reply. While I do have my issues with the TSA as an entity, I've found that
most of its employees are good people who are polite and professional. And you're obviously in that group.
