Even kids know the TSA is useless
 

My sister in law and 10 year old nephew fly out of ATL a couple of times a month while my brother is working in STL for six months. Last weekend while they were in the precheck line, he asked him mother why people make such a big deal out stuff like tshirts with guns on them. She suggested he ask one of the
screeners, knowing they would give him the standard line about keeping him safe. Jack' s reply was "But what's unsafe about a picture on a shirt?"

Sometimes I think that TSA would be more effective it it was run by 10-year-olds... <sigh> :rolleyes:

I thought it was.

As for kids knowing about the TSA - kids don't see the flim flammery

And what was the TSO's reply?

Anecdotal, I see shirts like that all the time and grenades etc. Nothing is ever said.

If only everyone in the TSA had that kind of common sense. Unfortunately, some TSA employees have even freaked out over harmless words.

Not at your airport, but at other airports.

OTOH, your airport worries about the dangers of unlicensed canes that look like working light sabers. According to the owner of the cane, no other airport has ever worried about a large man's cane 'artfully concealing' a dangerous sci-fi weapon - in plain sight.

Your airport also has specific rules about canes - sorry, 'dual-purpose assistive devices' -that are not available to the public and that TSOs from other airports have never heard of.

Respectfully, I don't think most ordinary people would consider a cane that LOOKS like a non-functioning fictitious light saber is what most people would consider a 'dual purpose' device.

I'm not making it personal, eyecue, I know you don't make the rules and have little or no say in how they are enforced. I'm just pointing out that you have complained before about people showing up at the checkpoint unprepared - it's hard to prepare when the rules are secret.

I even had someone wearing one of the protest shirts during National Opt out day, we finished screening his stuff, spent some time speaking to him, even answering questions (mostly ones that were pertaining to the basic process they have to follow for opting out and one about which rock group we liked best). I never understood tshirts with funky/scary/gun themed print being a problem - even the tshirts making fun of TSA, what is the problem?

??

It's your agency, <deleted>. If you don't know the answer, wouldn't those in your agency who do support zero tolerance policies on images be able to answer your question better than an innocent pax?

It happens frequently enough (even if you don't do it at your airport!) that there is clearly a valid underlying security concern. It can't be just the over-reaction or tetchiness of an occasional 'rogue' screener, because this sort of response (to words or images) is routinely defended by higher-ups.

This would be a good question for Blogger Bob to address - enquiring minds, even ten-year-olds, would like to understand. @:-) (Unfortunately, the rationale is probably SSI and can't be disclosed).

The TSO told my nephew it was to keep him safe. He's travelled since he was a newborn and is very aware of airport security, and of course heard our disparaging comments.

TSA is not phased by pictures of weapons on shirts. It seems, that they are m:eek:st scared by stuff written in Arabic.

Images of a gun on a purse is a TSA Show Stopper.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/1...n_1125354.html

Apparently you've never met some of your fellow workers.

In my humble opinion? (Or my "not-so-humble" opinion?)

I think that TSOs are under-educated regarding what constitutes a legitimate threat.

Now, that could happen in a couple of different ways. One generous theory is that TSA's education program isn't "effective" --- in the sense that, at the end of the process, TSOs can't distinguish between legitimate threats and expressions of free speech. One more cynical theory is that TSA's education program is deliberately incomplete --- because then TSA has legal cover when an individual TSO finds a hidden stash of drugs, even though TSOs aren't supposed to be looking for drugs.

So, I'm assuming that TSOs are told that if a passenger says "I HAVE A BOMB IN MY SUITCASE!!", the TSO has to take the passenger seriously and initiate appropriate procedures for dealing with the threat. But are TSOs trained in how to distinguish between those things and expressions of free speech?

Apples and oranges, Boggie Dog. That replica gun is 3-D (even if it's still only exactly half of a replica gun).