Here you go:

I was just reading that, no surprise, TSA cannot keep up this act forever. In another post of mine, I relayed that I was telling a buddy of mine how friendly the smurfs were and how smoothly the checkpoint experience was (no nudo-o-scopes) on Weds the 23rd.

He replied by saying this, in part "there are all kinds of addicts, just like someone being addicted to alcohol or someone being addicted to gambling, TSA is addicted to itself and the power to abuse the public and now it seems to be addicted to groping men's ****, ***** and ********* and like any addict they find changing on a long term basis almost impossible"

(Please note that I heavily edited my friends response, the first time I posted it in another thread it was "edited" by one of the moderators as being "tasteless", so send me a pm and I would be glad to tell you what my friend said UNEDITED and UNCENSORED)

Yep, TSA, just like most addicts will very soon return to its old ways

The TSA agents at PHL were back to normal yesterday. That being rude and condescending to air travelers. The City of Brotherly Love?

It's a great question and I am looking forward to hearing what people see on Sunday.

There's some suggestions for observers in http://iwilloptout.org/2010/11/26/su...y-of-the-year/

jon

My wife has a theory on this: she suggests that, to prove they are not racially profiling, the TSA dudes want to balance the young, possibly arab looking guys with an at least equal number of older, middle aged women. And, of course, to make sure they don't get caught short when someone they know they really ought to search carefully comes by, they want to keep somewhat ahead. And that is why, in this theoretical construct, middle aged women seem to get searched. As a late middle aged guy, I am in the middle and that is good. For me only. I also can look really cross if I decide to. And, believe it or not, that seems to help.

I hope they return to normal tomorrow - then the once a years will actually learn.

There are already multiple reports on here that indicated that TSA went back to the status quo as early as Thanksgiving Day.

well think about it, any news station worth its own, had a crew at its local air port... all the major networks were there... so of course the TSA is going to behave. But now that no one is looking too closely at them, and all the news crews left, now the public is REALLY gonna get for punishment for making them have to be 'nice'

Lets hope, and then the once a year travelers will start getting a taste of what frequent flyers have been getting all along.

I agree. lets hope all airports will running back to normal routine again. Elimination all body scanners/MMW immediately.

I think you have the wrong end of the stick. It doesn't take long to become accustomed to performing acts that are not societal norms. Say, high school wrestling. It's certainly not homophobia. I don't think screeners have a universal coping mechanism for being required by their jobs to violate others personal space. I'd be interested in hearing how they are coping with the stress.

ypu bring up a valid point. Going TSA could be really ugly especially since reports I have seen says they go thruogh zero security.

There have been lots of stories about TSA abuses throughout the agency's history. I wonder if some of the media outlets are going back through old tips and stories that they originally dismissed now that this is a hot topic. It seems that even on this board, many of the anecdotes being posted were actually discussed a year or two ago, but they are re-surfacing as a large crowd of people unfamiliar with the issues hear the stories for the first time.

I think what you are seeing now is a LOT of people coming forward with stories of abuses from the past few years. People who thought, "Oh it was just me" or "It was just one jerk screener" or "I'll be forbidden from flying if I complain" are now realizing that the problem is pervasive and is getting worse.

For the vast majority of Americans who fly less than once a year, travel is stressful and confusing. A bad experience at the TSA checkpoint is equivalent inconvenience to the flight being delayed or canceled due to weather or the display listing the wrong gate so you have to run a mile through a crowded terminal. If you fly on a regular basis, it is easier to differentiate between "stuff happens" and "a pervasive pattern of abuses and absurdities". I think that since FT is a board for frequent fliers, we are more alert to anomalies and abuses of the system, so searching back through historical threads in this forum will yield a lot of information.

But to answer your question, "what is normal?", every time an attack has been attempted, TSA responds with increased 'security' measures. Shoes and liquids were inconvenient, but I think that three things in the recent past have really upped the stakes:
1) The court gave some sanction to TSA's 'administrative' searches in US v. Aukai, and TSA has interpreted this as a blank check to ignore the Fourth Amendment.
2) The Christmas/underwear bomber gave TSA/DHS a black eye - there were more red flags on that guy than a used car lot, but he slipped through TSA's 'layered security'.
3) The Obama administration is afraid of looking 'soft on terror', so they are overcorrecting - ignoring/facilitating the increased encroachment on civil liberties. (I'm not 100% sure on this one, Obama also seems to have a fundamental belief that government should reduce risk for its citizens so that may have a role here.) In any case, he appointed Janet Napolitano, and I think most people on the TS&S forum would say the TSA has become noticeably worse during her tenure.

ETA: I think that TSA will moderate their current 'most offensive' behaviors until some of the political dust settles. For example, I opted out today, and received a very polite and professional patdown, back of the hands used around breasts, the groin check stopped when her hand brushed the top of my inseam - definitely no contact or pressure on my genitals. They were accommodating about letting me watch my stuff; they had me waiting outside the WTMD while they located a female TSO, and I asked if I could walk through to keep an eye on my stuff and they let me.

The only hassle was when a partially toothless TSO informed me that I shouldn't have been allowed to go through until they found a female agent, and "if they had known I was opting out, they wouldn't have let me put my stuff through the x-ray". It seems like there is always one TSO who feels compelled to get a few digs in while everyone else tries to be polite and professional. But I also think the toothless guy was correct: that TSA is trying desperately to avoid the 'double opt-out' scenario by describing the patdown thoroughly and obtaining 'consent' before you enter screening.

Why wouldn't they drive even with the old TSA procedures?

Let's figure a 30 minute drive to get to the airport (I think that is far below what most people need).

Minimum, 15 minutes from the time they park their cars until they get to the TSA line.

Let's say another 15 minutes to get to the screening, be checked, and get dressed again.

One hour has already gone by. They now need, say, 10 minutes to get to the gate and, if they arrive just as boarding begins, 30 minutes sitting on the ground until the plane is ready to back out. It has now taken them 1 hour, 40minutes.

Let's give it another 10 minutes on the tarmac until they are cleared for take off. Finally, after 1 hour and 50 minutes they are in the air.

A five hour drive would be about 250 miles, so this is a short flight -- say, 40 minutes. Let's give it another 10 minutes from landing, through taxiing, until the doors open. 2 hrs and 40 minutes are gone.

They do not have any checked luggage, so they have no wait for it, but it will probably take them 10 minutes to walk from the gate to the the front of the terminal. 2 hrs and 50 minutes.

They have no car, so they are probably going to rent one. We'll put it at 10 minutes until the shuttle bus arrives, another 10 minutes to get to the car rental, and a third 10 minutes to get the car, check it to make certain there are no problems, and to drive away with it. 3 hrs and 20 minutes.

Again, throw in a 30 minute drive from the airport to their destination. They have now gotten to 3 hrs and 50 minutes, door-to-door.

I think that it's fair to say that these times are minimal and it will probably take longer, but let's go with them.

Your co-workers have saved a total of 1 hour and 10 minutes. For this, they have severely restricted themselves as to what they can take with them (remember, checked baggage would have extended the time and many things can not be put in hand luggage).

Moreover, they have subjected themselves to all of the uncertainties of air travel. Will the plane they are planning to take arrive at their airport in time or it will it be delayed by weather at its departure airport? Will there be a mechanical issue which will force a delay? If it is such a short flight, they will probably be stuck in a Barbie jet -- do they like that idea?

All that for a savings of 70 minutes? Sorry, but I would take a car anytime for that distance.

I disagree with your numbers. For a short trip like DFW-HOU or DFW-CRP, I find it takes 2 - 2.5 hours for me to get from my home, fly, and be en route (via taxi or car rental) to my destination.

But let's assume your numbers are correct. I do live only 15 minutes from DFW airport. The extra 70 minutes you save by flying is actually doubled for the round trip, so it becomes nearly 2.5 hours of extra productive time in the middle of your workday.

I can fly DFW-IAH round trip easily in a single day, and have a nice long meeting in the middle. Leave the house at 7:30 for a 9:00 am flight, meet from 11 am to 4 pm, home by 6 or 7 pm. Less than a 12-hour day, and that assumes a 5-hour meeting. Plus it's easier to sit on a plane for an hour or so, where I can sleep, eat, or work, rather than concentrating on driving for 4 hours.

If I drove, I would leave the house at 7:30, hit Dallas traffic, drive 4 hours, hit Houston lunch traffic, two hour meeting, drive 4 hours and probably hit Dallas traffic again. I consider the uncertainty of driving in traffic to be equivalent to the uncertainty of airport delays.

In either case, I shouldn't have to include the possibility of a government agent groping me or seeing me naked as part of my calculus.