So...splain me this.

Last week we're leaving out of FLL terminal 1. They have moat dragons standing in front of every WTMD in order to prevent people walking through them (other airports tend to just rope them off). 2 AIT running. Very, very, very slowly.

They finally opened up 2 more AIT, but never the WTMD - except for airline & TSA personnel. They went through WTMD. Hubby's carry-on gets grabbed for secondary, the clerk tells him that he has to take his pad and his kindle out of the bag in the future. They hand inspect everything in there, then put it all in a bin, and run it back through the xray. ...? You've already hand-inspected it, why does it have to go through the xray for a third time??

Then the people were walking through the AIT and after they walked out, they had to step over to another set of footprints where yet another clerk was patting down their sides. What is the purpose of THAT?

And explain to me why the TSA personnel coming into the airport were allowed to run their drinks (including clearly open bottles) through the xray machine in one of those change bowls? If that's safe for THEIR drinks, then I want to put MY drinks through there too instead of having to spend money in the "secure" (sic) area to buy water that isn't scanned, either.

When I was a government contractor many years ago I was taught something that I think would help us to handle the TSA.

"Get past the why."

Do a search for Jonathan Corbett & you will understand why...

No explanation needed other than it's Act <insert your number here> of the new Broadway smash hit, "TSA Security Theater"

Reminds me of a funny. I was quoting TSA's SOP to them and they started complaining. I said to them "I don't write the script, I'm just trying to play my part in this production of Security Theater." A couple of other flyers laughed, but not the TSOs.

Yeah, but at least you were a /helpful/ government contractor.

Hubby is flying to SFO on Sunday. What are the odds he takes his Kindle & his pad out of his bag, as the clerk at FLL insisted he must?

Somewhere between 0% and fat chance, is my guess.

I do have to say that the opt-out patdowns seem to be less invasive, for the most part - perfunctory, in fact, in most cases.

That is because their purpose seems to have changed. When they first started, they were certain that opting out was a clear indication that we had something to hide and they were certainly going to find it. After thousands of times of not finding anything (like somebody is going to opt out knowing they will get the grope when they are hiding something) they changed tactics. The rubdown is primarily to get a sample on the gloves to swab for explosives. If I remember correctly, at the beginning there was no swab check just the grope. They really are not looking for anything. They just need to get a good sample and running the swab stick down your waistband is just too wrong, for now.

I'm sure you're right, Ink, but I also firmly believe that the opt-out assault is also the ultimate retaliation for "contempt of TSO authoritah!"

Many folks have reported belligerent attitudes from TSOs when they declare an opt-out. Additionally, opt-outs still routinely wait 10 minutes or more for a designated groper to arrive, while scads of TSOs stand around c/ps in plain sight doing absolutely nothing; yet we have not heard of any special certification needed to perform an opt-out assault. So what makes the opt-out gropers so special? Why do we have to wait for them? Is a TSO assigned to be the groper at multiple c/ps and opt-outs have to wait till he makes the rounds? Why can't any available personnel perform this task?

I think it's because TSA upper management still wants to make opt-outs as unpleasant as possible to discourage them as much as possible and force as many people through the AIT as possible.

What I want to know is, with the removal of backscatter and use of WTMD only until MMW units are installed, how is the TSA going to explain the fact that no planes have been hijacked or exploded due to lack of WBI?

TSA screening is clearly not based on risk, more along the lines of punishment.

It's a variant of Russell's paradox

The TSO is a man/woman at the airport who checks those and only those men/women in town who do not check themselves.

They pull the same thing in ROC. Everyone through the cancer box unless you opt-out or are crew/vendor.

In my experience, WTMDs are generally NOT roped off, but blocked off by a TSA employee. I was at LGA last week and they enforced the same setup. The body scanner line was really long (I was still at the x-ray, which was also super-slow), so I asked the guy if they open up the metal detector lane when it gets backed up like this. Said no. A minute later, they opened it up and I walked through the WTMD. Go figure.

Usually, they say it's because there was something blocking or blurring the image that needs to be resolved with a physical check caused by movement, multiple layers, or something else. Seems to defeat the purpose, but it is at least a focused patdown and not a full patdown.

That's just stupid. I agree that if they have the rule, it should be uniform. An x-ray of a drink doesn't tell you what it's made of, which is their rationale for having the rule in the first place.

I've flown out of FLL a few times and never had to remove my tablet. I've only been asked to remove it once (at MSP, I think) in the last year, which includes at least 25 US airports.

This has been my experience at most larger airports. At RIC, it was pretty thorough, although I had a nice conversation with the much older gentleman performing the search.

Was this FLL T1 West or East (WN)? If West, there is a non cancer box lane (lane 1) on the extreme left (counter intuitive to using the premium line, but you can bully your way over after the ID thing).

at PHL (B, C & E, at least) they're roped off. And when the AIT line gets slow, they open them up. At FLL, we were so backed up for AIT that they were holding up the ID check lines. Until they finally called for more help to open additional AIT.

Nope. EVERYONE went through the secondary pat down the sides, they even had the 'footprint' pads set up outside the AIT for you to move to. And i never saw any of the clerks change their gloves once.

Yep.

And his carry-on is an electronics pouch - all that's in there is his kindle, his tablet, and his cell phone. It's smaller than a woman's purse.