Monday 1/10/2005; Checkpoint for D-gates (and others) at BWI:

Man in front of me in checkpoint line (late 40s, mild non-US accent probably of Mediterranean origin) wearing a pullover sweater/sweatshirt was asked to remove it prior to WTMD to "expedite" his screening. The garmet was not "baggy."

Underneath the sweatshirt he was wearing a thin white turtleneck undershirt. Man made a comment that in a few years we'll be stripping naked. Screener who told him to take it off said that will "never happen." I pointed out that two years ago we would have said making this man take his shirt off would "never happen," and the screener agreed. I asked the man if he considered the garmet an undershirt, and he said yes.

I have yet to be asked to remove a sweater (and normally would be wearing a sweater over a button-down shirt over an undershirt, so my complaint about being made to take my sweater off would be having to remove my glasses, not being stripped), but I have seen many people with "hoodies" worn as true outer garmets told to remove them. But this was the first time I saw a man stripped to his undershirt.

He was clearly unhappy but I didn't want to push him into filing a complaint. He and I did have a nice post-checkpoint chat about what we thought of TSA policies though.