1. I have submitted complaints, in writing, no response. Then I have then called the TSA customer line and they try to get a response from the FSD. Then I have written to the TSA Administrator when the TSA customer service line says "The FSD at that airport not only refuses to talk to you, he refuses to talk to us." Still waiting (after a year) for a response.

2. I have been to airports where they claim that they don't have complaint forms. In those cases I sometimes request the Screening Manager to be called. I feel that a direct comlaint, to the Screening Manager (not the senior person at the screening area - the next level up who works in an office) is more satisfying (and likely to have more positive results) than a written complaint which is ignored.

WOW -- that is probably the most troublesome comment I have read. Unbelievable.

I always wear the same sneakers (New Balance 608) and never get the secondary at the airports without shoe carnivals (BOS, LAS, etc), but ALWAYS get secondary when I refuse to remove them at the carnival airports (LGA, PVD, SAN, ELP, etc).

In my personal experience (which is too limited to be of any statistical value) I have seen *less* retaliatory secondary screening. I always decline to remove my shoes and my shoes don't trigger the alarm. In the past few months I have refused about six requests to remove my shoes (out of about 30 trips) and I was *not* sent to secondary on about 1/2 of those.

I have recently decided on a new tactic. I am going to include a 1" thick piece of wood in my luggage. When a screener claims that my sole "appeared to be 1" thick" (they are actually less than 1/2") I will produce the sample board and suggest to the supervisors that they obviously need substantial additional training.

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Knowing the TSA, they will confiscate that piece of wood.

I would suggest just cutting some measuring tape and compare it to the soles of your shoes after the retaliatory secondary.

I do appreciate the viewpoints of the TSA folks who post here. I don't always agree with you all, but I do appreciate your point of view.

But let's get to what we're complaining about here...

1) Somebody has decided that shoes with soles or heel greater than 1 inch in thickness need to be looked at more carefully. Nevermind that plastic explosives can be molded to any sort of shape or that someone with size 8 feet can wear size 12 shoes. (I can see it now... "sir, your feet look too big for your body, please take off your shoes".)
2) Shoes are either profile or they are not. If they are profile, we're not worried about metal; we're worried about contents.
3) You either alarm the WTMD or you don't.

What people complain about is being told that their shoes are profile when they are not. Ok, I'll allow that some of this is a judgement call, but that's easy to fix. Just like ORD used to have the Boy Scout metal detectors for shoes (and why they got rid of them is beyond me), you have a self-service device that allows the pax to check the thickness of their shoes. That eliminates half of the arguments right there and gives pax a place to go back to prove their point (or TSA to do so).

(But even moreso, as many here have suggested, the whole shoe thickness thing is a farce. Bart, you were in the military, so I'm sure you played with things that blow other things up. You know this intuitively. Yes, we have a precedent, but we also have a significant point of failure in the system. The time spent dealing with non-alarming shoes is time that we can't spend examining things that are higher risks. Screening shoes is easy to do and, as others have noted, makes it look like you're doing something. But at the end of the day, it is a point of failure because too many resources are being spent dealing with too small of a threat. Likewise, the match and lighter fiasco that is coming will result in a similar -- if not worse -- point of failure. We're narrowing focus to something that is a minimal threat, yet we're going to have more resources deployed to deal with it. And adding resources for these two "threats" means that money will not be available to eliminate the need for manual searches by using the bomb sniffer technology. The solution is simple -- we have technology which can assure us that the person does not have any explosive material on their person, yet we're going to expend millions of dollars doing more hand searches and slowing down the entire process -- costing pax and airlines money because of missed flights.)

So a compliant shoe should go through on the pax' feet and absent a WTMD alarm, we're done.

I don't think anybody here has argued about WTMD alarm situations. Something has set off the alarm and the pax has been given a chance to do the TSA Macarena and figure out what is setting off the alarm. Could be shoes, could be belt, could be bra, who knows? So I think most of us, even when we have shoes we know have no metal, will go through the secondary process because something clearly set off the alarm.

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Or take that 1" piece of tape and attach it to your shoe so the screeners can see it's exact measurement as you are approaching the WTMD.

But then again you just might get hauled off to the pokey for disseminating secret information.

Absolutely spot on. Compounded by the impression that many of those at HQ know nothing about real security.

And I agree with p1cunnin, the concentration on shoe screening (and upcoming lighter 'voluntary surrender') means that little attention is available for other possible threats*. Just watch what's going on next time you go through a busy checkpoint.

* whatever those may be - I'm not convinced there are any specific to boarding

I just looked up New Balance 608 and they look like they fit the profile to me. That's a pretty thick sole on there.

http://image.basspro.com/images/imag...000/76316b.jpg

LOL

Just like a LEO can find a reason to pull you over for something you didnt do... screeners can find a reason to pull you to secondary for ANY reason.

As a flyer myself, theres no arguing.... shoes look different from certain angles... and some people dont have bionic sight from 8feet away.

If a LEO consistently and repeatedly stops drivers for no valid reason whatsoever and repeatedly discovers no wrongdoing, there are at least nominally procedures in place to report/punish/discourage that activity. Monitoring of racial profiling and such.

There seem to be no mechanisms in place to protect pax from screeners who do so or to discourage this behavior on the part of screeners.

I was once sent to secondary for "scooting" through the WTMD in my plastic flip flops on my first attempt and "high stepping" on my second attempt after the screener said I wasn't allowed to scoot. It was clearly retaliation and clearly the screener just wanted to wand me for whatever reason.

I sent a complaint letter to the local FSD. While I was impressed that I actually received a written response, I was unsuprised that the FSD defended the actions of his screener as proper. I really hate this "blue wall of silence" crap, though I guess with TSA it should be called the "white wall of silence" or maybe the "white wash of silence."

There is a word for behavior like that described: pretext. This type of a stop can lead to personal liability and punitive damages against the LEO, or screener, engaging in this behavior. These cases are difficult to prove, but with unbiased witnesses, can be proven.

I've never been secondaried for "scooting" or "high-stepping" but I have been called to task for walking through the WTMD too fast. I guess I failed to notice the speed limit sign for the WTMD.
No secondary for that one. Was just told to walk back through slowly the second time.