Yeah, well, she's got a couple of options:

• Keep insisting that the lines are long even when they're not. (in the style of Iraqi Information Minister Muhammed Saeed al-Sahaf , cousin of TSA's own Bloggy Bob); or
• Order TSA checkpoint staff to slow the lines down deliberately (relies on them being able to carry out instructions, so this is risky); or
• Take half the TSA workforce, put 'em in civvies, and have them spend all day repeatedly going through the (now depleted) checkpoints to make the lines longer.

I'll take option 3.

Today I had a chat with a TSA supervisor at SMF...I was complaining about the excessive lines at the 3 open AITs, with 7,8+ people waiting- and the ONLY people getting the meagnetometer were employees.

He stated "Headquarters has told us 100% AIT". I asked if this was a written directive and he said yes.

Being the cynic, I'd say headquarters is tryng to jack up the appearances of lines... but hey, I'm a cynic.

They were also doing 'noob training', so many milling about in confusion- and my bag had to be rescanned due to a Dell Power Brick. (seriously)

So I opted out and was able to successfully pass with 6 ounces of black tar heroin on the bottom of my feet...




Anyone hearing/seeing the same as a policy? I did see this previously, but more along the lines of "we use AIT as primary", but not "headquarters says 100%"

Absolutely seen it recently where in the past I might have seen the WTMD opened up to slightly ease traffic flow.

Absolutely, DCA and BOS come to mind as some recent airports I've been through where the WTMD was roped off. BOS wouldn't even open up the WTMD while the MMW ran through it's calibration cycle. I was forced to wait 1-2 minutes until it was done. Meanwhile, my bags had gone through the x-ray and a TSO called a bag check on them .

Always lock your carryon bags until you've cleared the checkpoint....this is just one more example of why you should.

I find it interesting that they are starting the new knife policy right as the sequester hits. I would think having clerks measuring knife blades will surely contribute to slower screening......and thus will legitimately result in longer lines. Thoughts?

This was my first thought, but not related to the sequester. Imagine that every knife will need to be measured to a precision of 1/100 of an inch. This from folks that approximate 100ml to 3 oz, a margin of error of 12.7%.

As I am a machinist by trade, I would consider it smart if they would create and issue go/no go gauges and remove any possibility of error.

If they were smart.

It is sort of self-answering. Consider it rhetorical.

PreCheck is being hit at IAD. It took 20 minutes to clear Precheck last Monday at IAD, and the ID checker was interrogating each passenger as to final destination and asking to see all boarding passes. Only ONE x-ray open, and the single paired WTMD. I've had much faster trips through the premium regular lines. Much faster.

At BOS (the UA/B6 terminal), only half the lines had the strip-search machines running, though the B6 "faster" line was so slow that the moat dragon took a group of us down to the UA Premium line & let us go through there. Total time to clear BOS, no precheck (and for those that identified the correct lines - no scan), was about 10 minutes.

The games the government is playing now are fundamentally dishonest and show how governmental actors view citizens as pawns to subject in a game where pawns have no value for time and only deserve whatever whimsical opportunity the government unilaterally decides is appropriate while denied otherwise.

I am disappointed that again we have gotten a government that repeatedly disappoints for no good reason. Perhaps again we have gotten the government we deserve. Unfortunate all around.

BNA was pretty good today even with the spring Break Weekend. Maybe 2 minutes longer than usual.

They had a table set up announcing the coming of PreCheck as well. I hope WN signs on. At BNA, there won't be many using it if they don't.

At the other end, MDW, it was backed up to between the E and F sign, almost the full run of the ropes. Priority lane was wide open.

they have already budgeted a one-time $50-million-dollar budget for such devices.

TSA a victim of the sequester was dangerous for the White House because people who hate TSA might like the cuts?

You go Jerry!
http://www.jaunted.com/story/2013/3/...llide+with+TSA

Back of the envelope numbers but I could make and sell them for about $50 each and make about $40 each in profit. Add a little red and green LED and we are up to about $25 each, my cost. I could outsource them to China and get them for about $2.95.

Of course, you would want to manufacture them EXACTLY to spec, so that a few months from now, you can lobby your Congressman to lobby TSA to modify the rules - slightly wider/narrower blade, mm longer or shorter. That way, TSA would have to completely replace the useless tools and you would be able to cash in a second time around. Of course, your profit would be marginally lower, because you would be expected to 'donate' generously to your Congressman...

Or, better yet, manufacture them not-quite-to-spec and accidentally discover the problem after all checkpoints have been equipped. Ask for a big $$ infusion to study the problem for a solution, announce that there isn't one, and manufacture a new (flawed in a different way) set.

I forgot that expense in my calculation. That probably gets me up over $100 each.

Seriously, an adjustable gauge with certified calibration would be about $50 to manufacture given the number of airports X the number of lanes, wild guess of 50,000 needed. So, $2.5 million, and that is at a normal tolerance of .001". At 1/10" most good machinists could make them with an ax.