The last few times through LAX it has been a very obvious, "in your face", deliberate, orchestrated work slowdown. I'm going to film it, with commentary about how long they are taking per person to perform trivial tasks, and post it on YouTube next time I go through there. This situation is 100% deliberate and intentional sabotage.

I realize you said "uncommon" not "never", but for the record, I have a lot of hair, am not black, and have never had a pat down without having them stroke my hair. I find it more invasive than any other part of the pat down. I've also seen them doing it to other non-black women with varying amounts of hair.

The major problem is that in the public eye security=TSA. To say "we need to reduce TSA" or something similar will instantly be pounced upon by the other side as "Candidate X is not in favor of securing our airports against another 9/11 attack!! ". The standards/procedures of TSA, there's room to quibble there. But the absolutely dreadful part is the execution of them by TSA, and that's why TSA needs to go. But in a sound bite world, that's a tough distinction to make, especially to a very fearful public.

I'm not black (or "black") don't particularly have a lot of hair, and have had it happen as part of a patdown.

The number of people to whom it happens, and their race (or perceived race) does not make it any less creepy to the pattee, or stupid as a policy.

Indeed. My next-door neighbors are VERY infrequent flyers - they travel at most once a year for vacation. They are reassured by the countless blue-shirted, badged people they see when they go to the airport, and are convinced that the procedures they must go through to board a plane make them (and everyone else) safer.

Their memories of pre-9/11 airport security are fuzzy, but they are quite sure that 9/11 was somehow an airport security failure.

They are college-educated middle-America right-wingers who otherwise rail against government spending and waste, but they believe anyone who thinks airport security needs a major overhaul is a loon who wants terrorists to attack us.

I submit that they represent, in many ways, a majority of the voting public when it comes to TSA.

Flying out of LAS today, will update on how the lines were and if I see a slowdown. I've been hearing bad things about LAS all week

I think Boggie Dog might have been through LAS recently. IIRC, it depends on the terminal (as well as time of day, of course). Good luck!

LAS on 5/13 around 1 PM local. B gates regular TSA line was not to bad, B Gate Pre line was a walk up and go.

A,C,D gates screening looked swamped. Don't know about Pre at that checkpoint.

It's just crazy seeing how passenger screening works globally without customers (yes. Last time I checked, air travelers were still customers of airports, airlines and the TSA) going through absolutely annoying and in parts degrading procedures.

And here in the US, they even get approval by many people. We'll have to face at some point the fact, that air travel is save. There's no chance, that we'll see airplane bombings and hijacks in the future if we stick to thorough checks with loosened security rules (taking of shoes, etc...).

Terrorists aren't going to hit us at airports or in planes but on popular streets, on commuter trains, subways, in stadiums and concert halls - in short places without security control (see Paris and Brussels for that matter).

If and when terror attacks start shifting to other venues, I don't know how the rest of the world will respond. I am confident that the US will double down on airport security while rapidly expanding TSA everywhere - probably militarizing TSA at some point. That will be scary.

Checking CLE wait times on EF, I noticed low numbers for "B" checkpoint, which has been closed for a month. I asked EF support. Here's their reply:

"It's the last piece of data on the checkpoint, the TSA doesn't necessarily remove it."

Could be a one-time oversight. I guess.

Terminal 3 only had 2 lines open and a 3rd which was precheck. I had precheck and it still took me 30 minutes as every other bag was screened once and then they took it out and put it back in to get screened again. They also put "random" people in the nude o scope machines. Miserable experience with passengers getting barked at to comply or else.

Sounds exactly like the TSA we have come to know and detest.

To me this is all politics, they are gearing up to get more funding and convince more people to get precheck. My parents are signing up just because of the news reports and they only fly once or twice a year

Wife and I haven't signed up and both of us had Pre on our last round trip. Trip before that was only for one half of a round trip flight. Not ready to pay for something that I think should be the standard level of screening. TSA already has plenty of money to operate if they used a little common sense.