CMK10

I went through JFK T5 last night. I was in the PreCheck lane behind a TAP Flight Attendant. When he went through the metal detector it gave its random beep. The TSA agent pointed at me and told me I'd been randomly selected. I said I hadn't been because I hadn't even gone through the metal detector but that the F/A was the random one. The agent said "he's an employee. You were randomly picked". I informed her that I'd go get screened by the wave machine (because what else was I going to do?) but that I certainly wasn't randomly picked. She offered me a pat down instead and I said my issue wasn't with using the different machine but with her definition of random. That ended our conversation. It strikes me as pretty dumb policy that if an airline employee is the "random" that they can just assign it to someone else, seems to defeat whatever methodology they're using to determine who gets the random extra screening but what do I know.

GUWonder

rickg523

So if the beep beeps, they have to put the next "eligible" into secondary? What if the whole crew is in front of you and it beeps on crew member#1?

Boggie Dog

Why shouldn't crew get a random screening just like anyone else, in particular, in the Pre lanes? Both individuals, crew and Pre Check passenger, have had background checks

yandosan

"Why shouldn't crew get a random screening just like anyone else, in particular, in the Pre lanes? Both individuals, crew and Pre Check passenger, have had background checks "

Good question.

yyznomad

It's really difficult to respect the security process, and the people administering it, sometimes. *sigh*

TWA884

They are:

rickg523

So it was just an agent doing a solid for a guy he knows. Sweet. That's exactly how things go wing.

Boggie Dog

Think you are looking for the term "Screener Discretion". That is responsible for much of what is wrong with TSA.

Yeah, so how's that working out. Policy is only as good as the policy implementors.

crazcarl

This same thing has happened to me before as well, but instead of crew it was a young (maybe 10?) girl traveling with her parents. I argued a little bit, but the agent was very rude, so I didn't press it.

I think they just made me go through the wave scanner thing, but didn't do any sort of searching through my baggage. This was at BWI.

yyznomad

AKA God complex
Same goes for here up in Canada and our version of TSA called CATSA.

jkhuggins

Part of the problem here is that very few people --- passengers and TSA employees alike --- use the word "random" appropriately.

I highly suspect that the screening selector (the thing that goes "beep") is not "random" in the sense that a mathematician would use. If it truly was "random", we would see certain unlikely sequences occurring periodically, such as the selection of several passengers in a row. With the millions of passengers screened every day, and a truly random selector, there ought to be at least hundreds of examples of consecutive passenger selection; the fact that we haven't heard people screaming bloody murder about it seems to suggest that this isn't truly a "random" selection.

So, no, the selector didn't "randomly" select the OP, but it didn't "randomly" select anyone else, either.

I suspect that the selector is programmed to make arbitrary selections based on both a periodic component ("wait at least N passengers between selections") and a randomizing component ("once you've waited, pick a random number 1-10 and use that passenger"). The goal that TSA wants to meet, I suspect, is some sort of statutory screening ("look, we forced X% of PreCheck passengers to undergo enhanced screening, so terrorists can't count on PreCheck as a free pass"). At that point, it really doesn't matter who gets screened, as long as someone gets screened each time the selector goes off. Hence, TSA can have rules about those exempt from enhanced screening --- e.g. flight crews and children, as reported above --- and simply select the next available passenger when needed.

At least TSA seems to have entrusted the selection process to a machine that isn't selecting passengers for enhanced screening based on human, subjective criteria --- either unverifiable criteria like SPOT, or prejudice (e.g. "flying while Black"). Granted, we don't know the criteria for skipping passengers, but the observations here don't seem to suggest that passengers are being skipped for unreasonable reasons.

BSBD

This has been discussed here previously. There's really nothing "random" about it. As I mentioned three years ago TSA doesn't call it "random" anymore, they call it a "quota alarm." They have a quota of additional screening victims selectees per time period, so the machine is pseudo-randomly set to beep a certain number of times per time period in order to fill the quota.

As also mentioned a couple of years ago the SOP for quota alarms is that when a "special" person (KCM, airport employee, VIP, etc.) gets hit with the quota alarm, the next person in line is picked to take the special person's place. This is because it isn't a random alarm - it's part of a quota, so they need a body to fill the quota.

petaluma1

Thanks for this. It's obvious that TSA has quotas for everything - but for the most part, they claim they don't keep track of the results of "quota alarms". So, in my mind, the question becomes: is TSA more interested in actual security or in meeting quotas?

Boggie Dog

It's not security, if it was they would do the higher level screening on the employee if they are selected. Also TSA would have some form of screening, at least Pre Check level for all airport workers entering the secure areas of the airport.