"You threw up ON Dean Wormer!!!" ;)

What would make sense is if they randomly asked you something from your ID or boarding pass, such as zip code, month of birth, or whatever. That way, if you were using someone else's ID, you would have to memorize all the information on it. Asking everyone for their last name is pointless.

Why are there some airports that still don't do this? Is it up to the local FSD to decide, or does the TSA decide centrally which airports have to participate in the name game?

What about "terrorist":) who are also ventriloquists?:D:D

It's all BS. Just last Monday @ HOU I stated my name, and I was asked where I was going. My mind went blank, and I had to think for about 5 seconds. (I travel to a different place weekly). No problems, went rght through.

Oh, that's a layer, right there, because if your mough is full of C4, you can't ventriloquate! :D

I would like to just say that the TSA does not have a "state your name requirement".

This is evidence by the many instances where individuals refused to speak but were still permitted passed TDC.

My guess that any perception there is a requirement is a local issue likely related to persons getting passed TDC who found expired BP on the ground.

I suppose any of the resident TSOs could dispell the myth of "state your name" being a TSA requirement as opposed to a localized issue related to reactionary officiousness that things are missed at TDC.

Perhaps you can help everyone else and explain the 'name game'. :confused:

Shortly after someone boarded a flight using someone else's ID, some TSA locations started to ask passengers to "state your name". Presumably to ensure that dozy TSA employees didn't make the same mistake again. It has not been established whether this is official policy (doubtful since most airports don't do it) or some localized management Good Idea.

And the idiocy of the name game is that it doesn't
1) account for people who don't understand the TDC due to lack of English skills, or inability to understand regional American accents
2) TDCs who do not know how to pronounce every variant of every single name on earth
3) the hearing impaired and the speech impaired

If I am tired ie off a long haul, or just finished a project, or didn't get enough sleep the night before, then my brain may produce speech in either German, French, or English (or rarely something else). If I have been out of the US for some time processing American accents is a challenge for me.

I have been told now many times that I am 'sayin' my name wrong' and challenged to pronounce it 'correctly'. :rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes:

I prefer the German pronunciation but the French is also acceptable to me, as I use both languages. However to have an American tell me that I cannot pronounce my own name correctly is insulting to say the least.

The 'name game' is one of my favourite stories to tell non-Americans about one of the many reasons why airport security is a joke in the US. The Germans and the French in particular are fascinated with the ways that TDCs believe that my own name 'should' be pronounced.

Had a variant recently--the TDC said my last name, I replied "yep", said my last name, same "yep", and let me through. Fantastic. No need to comprehend anything

Why bother analyzing the effectiveness of security theater? When you watch an action flick, do you complain that there's NO WAY the hero would still be running after 40 gunshot wounds, or the car is still driving after flipping over and down a canyon? No, it's called creative license. Let's extend the same to the TSA. Much better for your heart health. Real policy change will not come from being uncooperative with the plebs manning the checkpoint

I'm not sure I believe that. I think if enough people push back at the TDC and tie up the line, the policy will be shown to be untenable, and is far more likely to be revoked.

On the other hand, if everybody cooperates completely, TSA can quite honestly say, "Well, everyone's cooperating completely. That must mean nobody minds, so let's keep doing it!"

I'm honestly curious--has this ever worked for the TSA? What policy has been reversed because people didn't cooperate? It hasn't worked for any of the big ones--you can't opt out of shoe or liquids restrictions (precheck aside), and full body scanners are still in use. In terms of the latter, I think maybe they are being used less, somewhere, somehow, maybe--but if those are unpopular, it's due to other more general awareness, not because TSA cares when you wait 10 minutes for your freedom grope

Here's a devil's advocate argument: Gate lice are good because if they stuff up the boarding process so it's nice and slow, planes will leave late, and if they leave REALLY late (think line of scrimmage), the airline will correct the problem by installing 7 physically separate lines with automatic scanners at the front. Boarding priority will be implemented perfectly (at least as good as WN, say?). Next time, thank a gate louse--they're doing this for all of us

So for the big problems (e.g. scanners), I think this doesn't really work. For small problems like the name game--well, it costs only a short delay, so look behind you, and if there's not too many angry faces, go for it. I admit that if I had time to spare I might play the mime game just for my own personal amusement

And we get to suffer the slings and arrows of the TSA screwing the proverbial pooch yet again :rolleyes:. Now don't get me wrong because as big as this screw up was (and it was big if you ask me), there was no excuse for it but there is also no excuse for us to suffer just because Johnny TSO can't read. :mad:

Well, let's see...

After the fuss caused by people protesting, TSA has changed the official policies to allow children to pass through the process without removing shoes or belts and to resolve anomalies with multiple passes through the WTMD. Pilots and flight crews, after enough fuss was made by their unions, now get to go through expedited - or non-existent - screening. MMW scanners are all being retrofitted with ATR after all of the Nude-o-Scope protestation. BSX scanners are being shuffled away quietly.

In addition, many of these absurd policies and procedures were initiated solely on the basis of public outcry following a security-related incident. The War on Water was put into place following the discovery of a group of morons who watched Die Hard 3 too many times and thought it was real. Scope and Grope was put into place after another moron decided to explosively self-castrate himself but was too stupid to build a functioning device. And the Shoe Carnival was put into place after the original moron tried to use the Ole' Put A Bomb In A Shoe Instead Of A Phone Then Get Pummeled By Passengers Because It Wouldn't Detonate Trick, which he must have learned from watching reruns of Get Smart on TBS. Very Funny.

I'd say that public outcry has had some definite, measurable effect on TSA and its policies. Let me be clear, however - direct pushback in the airport, with frontline TSOs, is only one small part of public public outcry. It's part of a much larger series of measures that we must continue, including lobbying with our public officials and their deaf ears, Media-Fueled Outrage whenever a granny, a disabled child, or a reality TV star is subject to this humiliating and un-Constitutional abuse, and constant, calm, rational explanation to infrequent fliers who don't understand what's going on because they haven't experienced it first-hand.

As Heath Leger once said, "It's all part of the plan...":D

Will, I agree that there was some (slight, very very slight) modification. But I don't have your faith in the American public right now, frankly, that you seem to have.

If you travelled as much as some of us, you would see how many people just give in and shrug their shoulders and say 'well, I guess that is what we need to do to fly and stay safe'.

I know that you do read a lot online; surely you have read people saying over and over that it isn't 'worth it' to question, or to resist, or to complain in a legitimate situation.

When I see every single week in places all around the world Americans insisting on removing their shoes because apparently it makes me safer when they do so, and whinging about the lax security because there is no scanner, I do think that this is somewhat of a lost cause.

I'm not argumentative at the checkpoint, but when in the US I travel as a woman, as a woman who wears a skirt, as a woman who wears a skirt who has physical limitations, as a woman who wears a skirt who has physical limitations who is not American, as a woman who wears a skirt who has physical limitations who is not American and doesn't always understand or speak 'American' English, I know the realities of how truly awful travel can be in America.

But the vast majority of Americans simply don't have concerns, and thus here we are more than a decade into this century with more and more layers of supposed security in America.

I said on another thread that the American public whinged enough and they got their wish - scanners for US bound flights (secondary only, optional) at the new FRA Z pier. We spent more than a year protesting on their behalf, our federal police turned down the scanners, but in the end the American government and the American public got what they wanted. And frankly, how much more should we fight on their behalf when they don't want to join in that fight? The first statistics from FRA is that the vast majority of the very, very few people voluntarily scanned are American.

I will continue to stand up for myself, and will continue to try and educate people on the futility of American-style security, and will continue to support the Pirate Party in various ways, but my voice and my actions are drowned out the the majority who are perfectly fine with how things are at American airports in December 2012.