Since I haven't flown since mid-September, just before the recent changes, I was wondering if someone could give me a brief synopsis of the real changes that the TSA recently made. I would appreciate both the official word from our helpful TSA screeners who contribute here, along with how those changes actually seem to have been implemented, as viewed by the FT community, including laptops and the show carnival. For example, I was 85% successful when I told a screener that my shoes weren’t profile, since they were less than 1” and contained no metal. However, I think I saw somewhere that the shoe criteria for shoe removal have recently changed, and I don’t want to make a fool out of myself if I am wrong. I did a lot of flying this summer and before, and I got very used those procedures. However, it seems that drastic changes, (like coats and pat downs) have occurred, but I haven't yet been able to gleam what these changes actually mean for someone at a checkpoint.

Thanks in advance.