Randomizer in action @ BOS

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Ok. I saw The Randomizer today at FLL. It is an iPad running the app. The app has blue screen and it actually says TSA Randomizer on it. The iPad is installed in between the Pre and regular lanes. The TSA clerk first asks how many people are traveling together and then touches the screen. The iPad the shows a big white arrow pointing to either lane. There were also like 5 other TSA clerks of different caliber standing around and telling people what to do.

:)In ABQ if you tell the smurf manning the Randomizer you are traveling with someone you are automatically sent to the NoS (apparently the tewwowists only travel in groups :rolleyes:) Those traveling alone & sent thru Pre, from the Randomizer, then have to get past 3 smurfs doing hand swabs (I refer to them as 'waste, fraud, & abuse' or WFA for short). After getting thru the Pre WTMD, there is still about a 50% chance of being randomized for another hand swab-I've actually seen at least one guy getting swabbed by WFA & again after the WTMD :td:

DEN uses the same system. I got the correct arrow and was directed to the pre check line.

What a freakin' waste - unless, of course, it has begun to dawn upon the TSA that their swabs alarm uselessly and they are actually trying to gather info on how often they do alarm. Tell me again, how many people carry explosives have been caught by the swabs? None, you say? That's what I thought.

TSA has publicly gone on record and indicated that their plan is as follows: as enrollment in DHS "trusted traveler" :rolleyes: membership programs increases, the randomizer and other "managed inclusion" approaches are to correspondingly decline.

Not a surprise, but it's becoming quite clear that the "managed inclusion" is being sold to some as a TSA cost-saving move. TSA head-count reductions are facilitated by this, but that may mean even slower PreCheck lines.

Apparently fourteen hundred employees and some 20-25% of FAM field offices are slated to be eliminated.

This mentions some of that: http://www.businessweek.com/articles...ors_picks=true

I find this line from the linked article a bit difficult to swallow:

I don't think TSA requesting less money is implausible. Given the almost totally negative publicity TSA has been getting, and increased hostility to TSA starting to develop in Congress, TSA might've been facing a much larger budget cut. If TSA gets out ahead of the story and requests a small cut in its budget, and says "look, we're making cuts, we're being responsible", it might save TSA from even deeper cuts --- whether or not those deeper cuts would be appropriate.

Randomizer was in use at DTW North terminal last weekend. I skipped right to the front of the TDC for PreCheck, but pax randomized into PreCheck each got a hand swab. Took maybe 2 mins to go from TDC > grabbing bags off the X-ray belt.

Could it be that TSA now has reached its target number of NoS units and is no longer spending the $1.4 billion or thereabouts that it pissed away over a three or four year period on procurement costs? That might account for an decrease in overall budget, if you're not splitting procurement costs out from operating budget.

The new setup in Terminal 2 at FLL has 2 lines both going to Precheck. There is the randomizer installed in between of those lines and TSA clerk is randomizing people between the two lines. Last time I was there both lines were empty but he still hit the randomizer and sent me to one of the lines saying they are both the same anyway.

Seriously? :confused:
They buy this fancy "randomizer" (because they can't keep themselves from "profiling") and it chooses which of the two lines to send the passengers through, which both have the same level of "security" theater?
TSA = What a JOKE!

Yes. They have 4 lanes there. Left to right: regular, first/priority, 2 TSA Pre. The randomizer was installed in between the 2 Pre lanes.

1) It's notoriously difficult for people to produce "randomness" without external aids such as a fair coin or die or some other device. People who think they're acting "randomly" usually act with some bias --- and in many cases are completely unaware of it.

2) I think the TSO may have been trying to make a subtler point --- frankly, the same point that many here make. Passengers who go through the PreCheck line are no more likely to cause a terrorist event aboard an aircraft than passengers who go through the "ordinary" line. In that sense, both lines provide the "same" level of security.