This was last Thursday, 2/16 around 8:00pm at the far left checkpoint. After showing my ID to the Airline Revenue Protection Contractor, I purposely chose the line with the walk-through ETD. The landside TSA employee was telling people to keep their shoes on in that particular lane. Something I never thought I would hear, to be sure.

So I step in, shoes and leather coat on. The machine blows some air, takes samples, clears me and opens the gates. The TSA guy on the far side then apologizes, saying that he should not have allowed me in with my coat on. My response, of course, was along the lines of, "do you know what this machine is for?"

Needless to say, I had to walk around and go through the machine again, this time with shoes on but coat through the x-ray. Keeping shoes on is progress, but, really, get with the program and understand that the purpose of the machine is to detect explosives and that keeping a jacket on in perfectly reasonable. I'll definitely arrive a bit earlier next time so I can engage in some dialogue with the Screening Manager about this.

Edited to add: my roommate, who was right behind me, was made to take her shoes off.