In a hurry yesterday at IAD I ran to the elite security line only to find it was crawling along due to the newly installed TSA ID checkers. They had one checker at the end of the queue and one checker in the middle of the line. There wasn't enough space to get by, so you had to wait and have the TSA at the end of the line look at your boarding pass even the though the other person had approved it . There was also another TSA standing around at the end of line. So I tried to show my signed pass to him and got "What's the matter? Why are you in a hurry? Are you going to miss your plane?

The guy starts following me asking questions. Finally I say "I don't talk to SPOTs". The look on his face was great. He couldn't believe I had identified him. He stumbled around for a minute and finally got on his walkie talkie and asked what to do.

Of course I got secondaried and he wrote down the information on my ID. As two other guys went through my bags I told them what a bad SPOTter the original guy was. They laughed and said he's a pain to work with. They made several comments about how clueless the SPOTter was. They even had a nickname for him based on a physical characteristic.

This is not security. This is harrassment. In the future I guess the right comment to make to SPOTs is "Do I know you?"