This is going to be very interesting for me. I intentionally avoid making eye contact with screeners, TSA people, etc. I found this to be an extremely effective way to avoid being pulled out for secondary gate screening back when they were doing that. The first few flights I took after 9/11, I sat in the gate area and specifically watched to see if there was any pattern to getting selected. The only one I came up with was that the people who made eye contact or smiled or somehow acknowleged the screeners were the ones who got picked. The people who focused on their boarding passes, their carryons, their companions or just stared off into space hardly ever were selected for additional screening.

I am, for the most part, not interested in making conversation with strangers and generally do whatever I can to avoid it. So if someone from TSA attempts to engage me in conversation, they're going to get the same response anyone else gets: the cold shoulder. I'm curious whether avoiding eye contact will continue to be effective as it was before.