cardiomd

Has anybody heard TSA screeners talking about upcoming change? Usually I feel that the field agents know less than the general public, but on THREE separate patdowns this past week (yes, was very unlucky) the TSA screener, while patting me down, said something like "this kind of stuff won't be going on much longer" or "yeah, I know this is stupid there are going to be some changes soon." The patdowns were also (thankfully) very cursory, near to the old style ones.

I'm not sure if it was just individual agents responding to my complaints, but it gives a lot of optimism that they see this is totally wrong, ineffective, and has to be reformed.

Fredd

Let's hope any changes are truly for the better, rather than for the worse, as in "remember the good old days when we could keep our clothes on at the checkpoint?"

cardiomd

Yep. I wouldn't put any stock into it but we did hear the same "chatter" before the grope was instituted little over a year ago, but it clearly forebode that the changes would be worse. Here there are some hints of an improvement coming down the line?

FliesWay2Much

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (BlackBerry; U; BlackBerry 9650; en-US) AppleWebKit/534.8+ (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/6.0.0.524 Mobile Safari/534.8+)

"Things will get better soon." is a common defense mechanism people use in order to deal with stress. He could have meant: "Soon, we'll be unionized," "Soon, everyone will go through the scanners and I won't be caressing genitals anymore," "Soon, you can sign up for the Trusted Traveler program and won't have to do this anymore," or, "Soon, I'll be working baggage."

I would place zero credibility on anything a clerk tells me about anything related to TSA policy or procedures. There's ample evidence to support this right here on FT.

edmali

Being a pessimistic person, I interprate "this kind of stuff won't be going on much longer" as meaning that the AIT will become manditory, no more pat downs.

Ed

cardiomd

That crossed my mind too, but that is not the way he said it. Like I said, a year ago they said the same things but it was accompanied by a sinister laugh.

I think the screeners were referring to Trusted Traveler implementation. They usually ask me if I've been groped before and I reply, yeah, about 60 times. Hands down this is the worst thing about flying.

studentff

There have been rumblings from high-level including Pistole and front-line people including FTers who work for TSA about "significant" changes coming as part of "risk based screening" (RBS), perhaps in time for the 2011 holiday season. (Already missed Thanksgiving, so they'd have to make the changes soon.)

There already have been some non trivial changes for some groups of people, but they're hard to notice unless you're a member of one of the favored groups. For example, children under 12 can keep their shoes on; there are even signs that say so in some places. And when was the last time you saw a family traveling with a small child have any family member sent through the NoS?

Personally I believe that changes are coming. We've heard these sorts of rumblings before, and they usually point in the right direction. I'm not naive enough to believe that changes will be all good, or even mostly good, or even benefit someone like me at all. And I fully believe that any benefits that help the "average" frequent traveler will come with increased demands for "cooperation with screening" in the form of interrogation by BDOs, background checks, etc, and that those who voluntarily "opt out" of TSA procedures like the NoS or chat downs will continue to get increased scrutiny/suspicion/retaliation.

The current pair of elderly women claiming strip searching at JFK (with the accompanying TSA denials that seem to be based on the fact that the women only had to remove *some* of their undergarmets, not all of them) might damage TSA morale enough that they start telegraphing these changes or even encouraging management to accelerate them.

jkhuggins

Well ... when our family went through a TSA checkpoint at SFO last April (two adults, two kids), they let one adult through the WTMD with the kids, but made the other go through the MMW. (Of course, this is a report from last April, and hardly can be called "recent" ...)

cardiomd

Yep that is ages ago.

There are a few of us who are ultra-frequent fliers here (I wasn't until recently, and now flying is almost my commuting due to a business position I have in a different city.) I know a few of the stewardesses personally now on routes I fly. I would recognize quite a few of the TSA agents, but they have almost 100% turnover every 2 months and there are about twenty billion of them at every airport.

The other guy is right though, I haven't seen as many families patted down recently. About two months ago I saw a case of "minority selection" though, with eight consecutive people of color (primarily a few Indian guys and African-Americans) lined up to go through the backscatter while a bunch of others were flying through the WTMD. Kind of funny actually, appeared to be far, far beyond chance.

I made a passing comment to the WTMD-keeper like "is that the colored people's line?"

Immediately I was talking to a "supervisor" (I didn't request one) and three or four of the people in line were sent through the WTMD. I didn't make a big deal of it because it may actually have been chance (but unlikely). Funny they were so concerned about the appearance and actually did something about it immediately.

WillCAD

Too bad you didn't take a photo. I would love to see a photo like that on the evening news!

"Tonight's top story: TSA denies racial segregation despite photographic evidence to the contrary..."

Global_Hi_Flyer

Pessimistic? Or just attuned to the realities of the Federal government?

N965VJ

You can never know with the TSA, but I hear Risk Based Screening may take some time to fully implement.

cardiomd

I would have, but I myself was heading through the WTMD, and said the comment as I crossed over... I obviously didn't have my stuff. By the time I retrieved my items from the Xray the "situation" had been "remedied" and the supervisor was in my face (he was friendly, but I actually didn't really want to talk to him. He was "explaining" that the selection was all random, etc, etc.)

One of the other blueshirts went to say something to the "selector" as he motioned three or so of the "random selectees" through towards the WTMD. The supervisor turned to me and said, "You see? It is random."

Interestingly, none of the selectees said "thanks" to me as they went through, but I think many were not paying attention or were too scared of retaliation.

It is actually really difficult to be random in choosing things like this. I actually don't think this was a systematic attempt to be racist, but the whole selection process is ridiculous.

TsaAbuseWatch

I hear terrorist chatter all the time.

It usually pretty innocuous, grumbling about their break, discussing whether a Nexus card is valid, or griping that the "fares" aren't listening to them.

They do seem to have gotten slightly better with young children, but they still molest teens.

Just this June, my 15, 14 and 12 year old had to opt out of the Back Scatter Cancer box.