wow. not a whole lotta love for TSA in *those* comments.

I'll bet goalie-mom could always tell when you were lying. RadioMom could (okay, she couldn't tell when you were lying, but she could tell when I was lying). Maybe they should hire mothers of teenagers as BDOs. @:-) OTOH, they wouldn't last long listening to the lies coming from HQ.
Sure, and if chatting up the BDO means that there would be a cure for cancer, or lasting peace in the world, or that TSA would buy me a pony it would change my willingness to participate in the program. too. And those outcomes are as likely as allowing the passenger to bypass their shiny, silly toys.

You can keep your shoes on and your laptop in your bag, while they're doing the NoS and/or patdown. That's the sort of tradeoff JP offered recently. Big deal.

+1

I fail to see the "benefits" from this. I'll just continue to avoid conversation, as I currently do. Unless I have to opt-out, I don't a word to any clerks that I encounter.

BDC (c=clerk): Let me get my sup

Great. Not looking forward to BDOs trying to chat it up with me...


I though this was an interesting quote:

Like the current screening procedures don't cause any controversy? Give me a break. I think the time-consuming aspect is valid, but saying that a security measure can't be rolled out because it is controversial is stupid. TSA has already done that!

So are they planning on having multilingual SPOTnik's at airports that are major Intl gateways???This just seems to have "trainwreck" written all over it.

They are going to upgrade a program that the worlds most respected scientific journal, Nature, already strongly discredited (in an article the TSA has been very successfully ignoring for over a year). Lovely.

I would change the BDO's response to:

"Your Fifth Amendement rights don't pertain at the airport."

I have heard a version of this before from a supervisor, no less:

"As soon as you cross that line your rights don't matter anymore. If you don't like it, don't come to the airport. I'm trying to keep people safe and won't let you disrupt my checkpoint."

As far as the topic at hand, whereas in Europe they ask a couple of questions and then leave the majority of passengers alone to go through perfunctory minimal WTMD security, I sincerely doubt that this will change anything in the U.S. We'll all still get barked at, we'll still have to go through the pornoscans, and we'll still be presumed to be criminals. Just like any big government program, the TSA racket will not voluntarily reduce itself. Get real.

The purpose of this new announcement is that now they can use a "bad attitude" to justify being hard on people who don't just roll over and acquiesce and justify it as part of "enhanced security procedures" or whatever. It was always informal and kind of scandalous when they retaliated against people who didn't roll over, now they're setting themselves up to be able to retaliate openly and hide behind procedure.

Things aren't always as they seem. This isn't an attempt to make things more efficient, this is just a vehicle to get even more control and less pushback at checkpoints from people like us who are vocal about hating this nonsense.

These questions are still in effect in CDG as of this week.

The distinction to me is that these questions are asked by AIRLINE employees on check-in, not government entities at random.

They're going to loop episodes of Lie To Me in the breakroom. It doesn't get any more scientific than that.

And furthermore the pre-checkin questions, while annoying, are far too benign for the current "style" of the TSA.

Bu, bu, but how can that be? We've been talked down to here by TSA apologists for some time that say FT is the only place where there is criticism.

The questions in Europe have been the same for decades. It's the same set of five to ten question before check in at European and South American airports if one is flying on US carrier. There is then a second, smaller set of questions at the gate.

ICTS and its subsidiaries have a standard set of "positive" and "negative" criteria for passengers. They establish if the passenger is on a watch list, the computer analyzes form of payment, time of purchase, etc. The agent reviews presence or absence of baggage, traveling with others, etc. Those with an excess number of "positive" points are sent for further screening.

It's clearly not a perfect system because the "Underwear Bomber" and Richard Reid both had to go through the same screening process and passed.

The agents are usually friendly and attentive (especially at CDG), but their purpose is to fulfill a US Government mandate. They also have the obligation to ensure that passengers have valid visas and passports so that the airline doesn't get fined. In other words, they're looking for document validity as well as security risks.

The staff at Tel Aviv are for more interactive. Although the questions have been the same for years, they tend to work in teams, and have a far more conversational approach.

The security system at Ben Gurion Airport works well for me. It's quicker than many US airports because I always get a "1" sticker. But it does not seem humanly possible to conduct a similar level of interview for each US passenger. We have far greater volume and a much larger, less motivated, TSA workforce.

I stand by "trusted traveler" initiatives. This would limit the need for many passengers to have an interview prior to each flight.

Unless you dramatically increase the number of SPOTniks, with the resultant hike in your budget @:-) .

Until I reach the 'papers' scrutineer I will talk to nobody employed by the TSA. Maybe not even then.

Just like their leadership, the clerks that post here are lying when they claim FT is the only place where people complain about TSA.


"Not a perfect system" is an understatement. That the same questions have been used for decades speaks volumes about their uselessness.