adocann

Join Date: Jun 2010

Posts: 1

Welcome to FT.

Side note: This thread is really bringing them out of the woodwork!

Have you any evidence that snapping my fingers three times a day is not what keeps me from being eaten by a tiger?

The difference is, I'm not making anybody pay billions of dollars a year for me to snap my fingers.

I think the answer to that question can be found by looking at how many people have been charged and prosecuted for violations of TSA rules.

Edit to add...

While we wait for a list of TSA originating prosecutions.

There is no system that will work since we have had our lives "controlled" by potential terrorists. They are dictating the rules we must follow. My wife was subjected to an illegal search and her body "invaded" by an incompetent female agent who accused her of smuggling drugs in her leg brace. A medical message was provided and ignored. I personally know a person whose job included testing the current systems in place. She brought a bayonet, work, a 45, and a long knife through inspections in the mid-west. All were reprimanded and "retrained" using the same incomnpetent methods that let them work without knowing what they were doing. We appear to use methods to catch the past, but fail to use methods that anticipate the present or the future. I also know someone who had a high level security clearance who was stopped regularly because of his name. I took three years to remove his name from the list of dangerous people. Because of the level of theft as you are being "inspected", I always watch what is going on very carefully because a $3,000 computer is a very tempting target for them to take because I carry it on with me anytime I travel. We need to have a real screening process in place before these individuals are hired, "trained" and released to misuse power and mistreat people!

jaweiss


Join Date: Feb 2005

Posts: 2

Thanks for posting. Maybe don't wait another decade before your next one. :)

Maybe the poster has been busy.

There are lots of systems that will work a lot better than what they're doing now.

They include "nothing".

15SEP15 EWR Terminal A Gate 24 PreCheck Lane
 

I need medicines that need to be kept cool so I travel with an insulated bag with a freezer pack and the medicines.

A. I think it is funny that the two 'gel' freezer packs are not questioned. I won't get into how ridiculous that is.
B. Usually I say to the first agent scanning you that I need the water bottle for medicinal purposes as it contains not only the 15 ounces of water but one of the medicines. Normally they swab it to test for explosives and all is okay. Today was different, the first agent I told was no problem, the xray tech-pointing to her-will target it. She asked me and I told her, no problem the next agent will swab it. This agent, who could barely speak English, swabbed the bag and said I had to throw out the bottle, in fact holding it away from me and saying I could buy another inside. No matter what I said he insisted I could not have it. [and it's like $130 a shot medicine that I am sure Hudson News does not sell] I kept asking for a supervisor and he kept saying no. I restated it is medicine and the other two agents agreed I could keep it. He finally asked the first one and then did call the supervisor who told him to swab it and pass it.
C. We sat down in the Red Carpet Club and my wife found a bottle of water in her pocketbook that she forgot about.

So no, I do not think it is effective, nor will it ever be until they allow profiling and the full body scan machines be set back to the original full settings and used for every passenger.

What do you mean by having the full body scan machines set back to the original full settings?

The bigger issue in my mind is that passengers have no one to turn to while at the checkpoint if things are going wrong or seems out of order. TSA employees usually stick together or as in your case would not summon a manager.

Travelers need some means to contact someone in a senior TSA position outside of the airport chain of command and make a complaint, then and there while at the checkpoint and the TSA screeners need to be held accountable for their actions right at that moment.

Some form of a Hotline available to travelers that reaches into TSA HQ might be the start of correcting the abuse of power and authority at outlying TSA checkpoints.

wws2

Join Date: Jun 2007

Posts: 2

Welcome back. But I'm not sure I can agree with you on the full body scan machines for every passenger.

At some point, I call the police and tell the officer that the idiot is holding onto prescription drugs for which I have a prescription and they do not. I ask to have the DEA called to make the arrest.

It's never gotten quite that far.

And then they'll be able to find the bottles that they ignored in the x-ray machine? And stopping me from bringing back the bottle of water that Delta gave me on a plane in the first place makes who safer how?

While that may be true, the real problem with the GermanWings incident is that the cockpit door was hardened and the Captain of the flight could not get back in to overcome the renegade, suicidal copilot. That was a post-9/11 security measure.

it is not that it "may" be true - it is true.

Hardening of cockpit doors was discussed long, long before 9/11 but business managers chose not to implement doing so earlier because of cost. Another example of what we know to be true - that businesses will do what is in their customers' or society's best interest and not the business' own short term interest.