petaluma1

https://thehill.com/opinion/national...covid-19-world

Boggie Dog

TSA can help reduce disease transmission by relying on technology for screening people and things and stop with the crotch grabbing and most bag checks. If something in a bag alarms have the traveler remove the items of concern. Require screeners to remove gloves and use hand sanitizer before donning fresh gloves should they need a hands on inspection. Require that TSA provide to the traveler an N95 or equivalent mask if close physical contact is required. Minor adjustments but would go a long ways toward improving passenger health safety.

Better yet require that TSA demonstrate that their Orwellian procedures have prevented one passenger based terrorist attack directly due to TSA checkpoint passenger screening activities. If convincing proof can't be documented then reduce the invasive screening procedures.

Section 107

but that's not just a modest proposal, it's reasonable, too.

Ari

Oh dear; you've just rung the death knell on the government taking it up . . . .

Loose Cannon

I wonder are pax still able to opt out and go for patdown at checkpoints?

Ari

Feel free to try and report back. I suggest LGA or EWR as a starting point.

jfunk138

Has anyone actually been on a flight since the Covid insanity arrived in the US? Are they even using WBI at all or have they returned to 100% WTMD and wand? It seems like the high amount of touching required to resolve WBI alarms is incompatible with the current health guidelines?

Boggie Dog

You can pretty well bet that if it's the wrong thing to do then TSA is doing it!

Ari

I flew last week, a one-day roundtrip. WTMD only in the non-PreCheck lane (singular). PreCheck was closed. No shortage of male and female TSOs standing around to run the WBI sitting right there. They were not too busy, believe me. They gave the lady in front of me with a metal watch then shoes that had metal more than two tries. That was EWR on the way in. On the way out, I had a "random" in ORD in the (open) PreCheck lane. It was a swab, not WBI. Randoms are usually WBI at ORD.

They clearly don't want to get near people (not that most normal TSOs liked that part of the job before COVID-19, but apparently, they are avoiding that part of the job now like, well . . . the plague).

petaluma1

Won't this be fun:

https://www.usatoday.com/story/trave...es/5174300002/

Boggie Dog

TSA doing passenger temperature checks is outside of their security function. If the individual airlines want to perform this function then have at it.

goalie

Bolding mine: Just like they aren’t supposed to look for illegal drugs and large amounts of cash and I can’t wait for the thermometer to break or malfunction and folks are refused entry into the insecure area

Boggie Dog

Wonder if part of TSA training is extinguishing pants fires, they surely have plenty of that happening.

If checking people for fever is truly important then it needs to happen at every entry door leading into the terminal, employee and passenger alike. That clearly is not a TSA function.

studentff

I've posted in another thread and maintain my position that covid-19 is both the opportunity and the right time to basically get rid of TSA as we have known it for 19 years. Time for the entire TSA system/experience to go

Death by covid is a bigger boogeyman than 9/11. I'm not checking the math, but I assume covid has killed more people in NY in the last month than aviation-related terrorism has killed worldwide since the Wright Brothers flew in 1903.

The proposals in this thread are a start, but why not:

Precheck for everyone?

No more touching IDs starting immediately. Star with putting up plexiglass for pax to hold up ID for visual look. Then either proceed to abolishing ID checks (sane but unlikely) or zero-contact biometric ID checks that are free, privacy aware, and have a reasonable no-penalty alternative for those who cannot use them (i.e., holding up their picture ID for no-contact visual inspection by a screener through a plexiglass window).

NoS as an opt-in option for those who can't use WTMD or alarm WTMD, but never for primary screening due to high false alarm rate.

Passenger option to unpack/repack bags that alarm and send them back through x-ray (in a dedicated x-ray lane for secondary screening) to resolve most ambiguous bag alarms. (instead of TSOs <touching> your stuff.)

TSA should have an official, preferably legislatively mandated, goal of zero face-to-face or physical contact with at least 99% of passengers and their belongings. If 99.9% is feasible, that would be even better.

FliesWay2Much

When you combine the unbridled authority of the TSA enabled by the PATRIOT Act and the unbridled authorities of 56 governors and one mayor enabled by a number of federal and state laws to "protect" their residents from contagious diseases and everything else, anything is possible.