Regarding buying another ticket to "evade" security -- let's stop and think about this for a moment.

If you buy another ticket (normally refundable but that part is not relevant), and it doesn't say SSSS, then what is the BFD about using it to go through the security checkpoint? It's plainly obvious that you aren't a SSSSelectee when you present a genuine, un-altered, non-forged boarding pass without the SSSS on it.

This point was mentioned a while ago but seems to have been lost, so I thought I would refresh it.


Besides, the practicality of doing this is very limited. A last minute purchase increases your chances of getting SSSS as far as I know. I suppose one could buy a refundable ticket shortly after making the initial, cheaper, non-refundable ticket, and refund the other one whether or not you turn out to be SSSS. Not only is that a lot of transactions to keep track of, but you increase your chances of getting SSSS because one of the factors in getting SSSS is ... drum roll ... buying refundable tickets and refunding them! (according to what I read)

So the bottom line here is that we should just SSSSuck it up and go through the patdown when we're SSSSelected for SSSScrutiny.

I feel like the SSSSnake from Disney's Jungle Book.

Correct!

Something else I would like to add is that evading SSSS is not, in my opinion, a form of civil disobedience. It is cowardly, because no one will know that you did evade it.

I have gotten SSSS several times recently, after the pat-down policy was introduced. Rather than evade it, I face the injustice head-on. I bite my tongue and maintain my composure. I have broken down a little (I am male after all) after it's over, because it's very sad that we allow this to happen in our own country, but I am still being positive and look forward to the day SSSS is struck down by the courts as unconstitutional.

TSA screeners who are SSSSelected while on personal travel but say they don't mind do not surprise me. When your job involves violating people day in and day out, being violated yourself should be no big deal. :(

I don't think it's cowardly to avoid SSSS. Any more than it is cowardly for you to oppose it but allow it to happen. The only 'ideologically' pure position here would be to get the SSSS boarding pass, refuse to allow the extra screening, get arrested, and get into the court system and hopefully have it decided in liberty's favor by the Supreme Court. Absent that, everyone has his/her tolerance level and shouldn't be criticized for acting upon that.

I doubt you'd be arrested. You just wouldn't get on the plane.

According to some posters on this forum, they're practically arresting me for having a few Indonesia stamps on my passport. ;)

Well said! The best way to publicize how easy it is to evade the SSSS would be to talk a news department or an investigative reporter into doing it and making a big deal about it on 20/20 or something. I'm not sure I'd call it cowardly -- just kinda' wasted civil disobedience if nobody knows about it.

Agree, but I think it would be difficult to get arrested in a very narrow context in which the SSSS and subsequent intrusive search were the issue. You could get arrested for flashing, but then, the court case would be indecent exposure and/or interfering with screening. The only thing I could think of would be to very carefully think through (with a good civil rights lawyer) how to put a screener into the position of committing something amounting to sexual harassment or some other sort of illegal act (sorry about that, screeners). I think the only way to pull this off would be to either get the screener or one of his/her bosses arrested (rather than you) or else figure out how to back them into a corner so you have a civil case.

I just don't get what all of the outrage over SSSS is. It's pointless, yes, but are we really feeling violated by it?

How is SSSS any more abhorrent than when US Customs pulls random pax out of the green lane for inspection? They've been doing that for years, and I don't think that anybody would argue that it's illegal.

Two words: breast palpation. By strangers. In uniform.

If you need an explanation about why a woman would feel violated by that, you have deeper problems than can be addressed on FlyerTalk.

Customs is dealing with people entering the country. SSSS is harrassing people who are inside the country and thus, supposedly, have the right to be free of unreasonable search of their persons and belongings.

The definition of "reasonable" is up to a judge, of course, but personally I cannot possibly imagine how today's SSSS could be considered reasonable:

• the criteria is secret
• they pat you down as if you're a criminal
• they read your papers (sometimes, not always)
• your belongings sit at the end of the X-ray conveyor belt, out of your reach
• they rummage through your wallet (cash, receipts, etc.)

It is a demeaning procedure that should never be foisted upon someone who has not been charged with a crime. When you are a SSSSelectee, you are in a police state. :mad:

It has nothing to do with security and everything to do with an agency that is out of control.

They really do that? I thought that was only if you had an underwire bra that set off the detectors. I don't have breasts to be palpated, though, and haven't been SSSSed in months--maybe a year or more.

They do? Last time it happened to me all they did was wand me and look through my carryon. No hernia check or anything. Took about 2 minutes and I was on my way. I guess times have changed....

BTW, a little google search just pulled up this:

http://www.doi.gov/pfm/travel_newsletter/sep_2003.html

An excerpt:

Now why is that in a Dept of the Interior newsletter?

That's hilarious! They start by asking a question, then decide not to answer it.

And by the by, isn't the meaning of SSSS supposed to be secret? Is the DOI breaching national security?

Aha! Now we are getting somewhere. :) Get yourself an SSSS today, and you will see why we are so pissed off.

I am one of the last people in the world to get visibly upset when flying. I have slept three hours in a hotel room in Memphis rather than simply change planes, I have slept in the baggage claim area in ONT overnight because of a ticketing foul-up, I have stayed at the Wonderland Motel (former Econo Lodge) in Ithaca because Avis stranded me, and I have sat in Delta's awful coach legroom for nine hours because AA cancelled my flight. I wasn't happy, but those are things I can deal with. The airline or car rental agency doesn't intentionally screw me over; mistakes happen and all I expect is for them to fix it.

The secondary search these thugs are doing is not something I can deal with. It is intentional and asking the TSA to fix it goes nowhere.

The invasiveness of the SSSS search has gotten so bad that I am now siding with the ACLU, an organization with which I used to be diametrically opposed.

The last flight where I was flagged was also the absolute worst. First of all, I was sent to a private screening area. I didn't ask for one, that's simply where they put me. I should have protested the privacy, now that I think about it, since other people watching might increase awareness. There is an opening but I don't know if anyone else could see.

These two thugs went through EVERYTHING in my carry-ons. Every single ****ing item they fiddled with. I had a carton of cigarettes, and they opened the carton and fiddled with each pack. The dumb**** wanted to look through my camera and needed to know how to turn it on. It's a digital camera; you can't look through it!

My laptop bag has an inner bag that holds just the laptop to keep it from jostling around. It is attached to the outer bag on one side with a large piece of velcro. The screener removed the inner bag from the outer bag! I had to spend some time re-attaching it later because the laptop would not fit properly in the bag.

As I already mentioned, that they went through the contents of my wallet.

Everyone else on the plane was ready to go at departure time, and we left 11 minutes late because of me. It was demeaning to be led into a curtained area while agents of the government who claim to be protecting me rifle through my belongings like a gang of teenagers looking for pot. I held my composure during the search and on the flight but couldn't take it anymore and cried when I got to Pittsburgh. It is disgusting to treat people this way for no reason, and I am going to do what I can to put a stop to it.

I cried not just for myself, but for the people on "no fly" lists who can't prove their innocence, people sent to jail or slapped with fines for having common household objects on their person, and in general, the death of liberty, common sense and decency at the airport security checkpoint that will only expand into the rest of our lives if we don't stop it now.

SSSS and secondary search procedure changed drastically on September 20, 2004. The new rules allow breast touching, with the front of the hand, even when a woman doesn't have underwire on and hasn't set off any metal detector. Many women experience this gratuitous grabbing as a horrible violation of our bodies.


What you have expressed is a common sentiment, "Well, they never grabbed my breasts or rifled through my wallet, so what's the big deal?" I chalk this one up to the deliberate limiting of these disturbing invasions to only a few passengers per thousand. If they treat only a few people badly, then the rest of the people who didn't get treated badly won't stand up to help the ones who are being molested at the checkpoint. I'm reminded of the poem, "And when they came for me, there was no one left to speak out for me."