Dealing with mandatory shoe carnivals
 

I'm taking a few trips in the next two months and they involve what seem to be infamous shoe carnival airports: IAD and SFO, and HNL later this summer.

I've been following the shoe carnival airport thread a bit and I'm curious as to how most of you experienced folks handle the mandatory carnival ... ie ones that DEMAND you take off your shoes. SFO was notoriously bad on my last trip. Haven't flown thru IAD in a couple years.

Do you typically just ignore the screener and walk thru with your shoes on, politely refuse, or make a scene? Also, what's the best way to deal with a secondary?

I'm guessing a secondary doesn't mean getting your bag dumped, rather just a wanding and grope, correct? How long are you delayed? And do you always ask for a complaint form?

BWI was inconsistent at best ... they didn't say anything when I walked thru last time (didn't even ask actually), but my cohorts at work were saying that they were running the carnival just a couple weeks ago.

Also, are shoe carnivals common in airports abroad? I thought I remembered some saying that FRA did it for flights going to the US. Any tips there? Currently, I figure I'll just comply there as I don't want trouble when I'm not on native soil.

I've already checked my sneakers at the WTMD at work and they didn't set them off. I'm hoping that helps.

Any tips are appreciated. I'd like to get thru without taking my shoes off. :)

Super

I just tell them I want the free massage and walk through. Sometimes I get the massage, some time I don't.

wear slip on shoes

Nine times out of 10, you'll get the retaliatory groping should you not remove your shoes when they ask. Especially in DEN and SEA.

The wanding and grope will take about three minutes.

I usually ask for a complaint form even when I do remove my shoes. DEN has had so many complaints about various things (though someone will tell me that's an opinion), they have gone to a small card that directs people to the TSA e-mail address instead of the local FSD. Some other airports have done that as well. SEA is not one of them, you still mail it to SEA.

Shoe carnivals are not common abroad. MUC is the only European airport where I had to remove my shoes. I see a few people mention FRA as a carnival, but I have never had to remove my shoes there (and I've been there several times in the past 12 months). CDG, Richard Reid's departing airport, has never required shoe removal in my 10 trips to Paris post-Reid.

ORD, BOS, LAX and JFK are some of the larger airports that do not have shoe carnivals.

first
 

Let me say right off the bat that TSA doesnt retailiate against you for not removing your shoes. If they are over the profiled criteria for sole height, you are asked to emove them. Some screeners seem to think that all shoes should be x-rayed (they like to xray everything) and some cant tell height very well. Such being the case if your shoes are picked to be removed by the screener and you dont, you will get sent down to secondary screening to ensure that you dont have anything hidden in them. The amount of time it takes is dependant on who busy the screeners are at the time that you get sent down. Another way to look at this is to say that those airports that you walk right through the checkpoint with high heeled shoes, are not doint everything that they should be doing to protect the passengers on the planes. Hey we dont make this stuff up. If it was a credible threat or had not been tried we wouldnt be doing it and we dont do it just to hassle you. The airports that dont do it are not being nice, they arent doing their jobs.

Opinion


What is it? Profile, or screener incompetence? If the shoes do not meet the profile, there should be no groping. PERIOD. If any screener thinks all shoes should be x-rayed, they should be FIRED, since that is not the SOP. Same goes for any screener not intelligent enough to determine 1" of thickness.


This is the retaliatory part.


It is NOT a credible threat. Anyone who thinks such has NO idea about how to provide security.

I can't tell you how many times, passenger look me in the eye and say, "These shoes do not fit the profile," when it's clear that they do.


Getting sent to secondary is not retaliatory, it's good screening. Profiled shoes need screened. It is your choice how that screening is to be handled. Your choice - to removed then and get them screened via x-ray or go through secondary to get them xrayed or swabbed.

My shoes are 0.75" in thickness at thickest point, yet I am still sent for groping at many airports. I don't care what other Pax do, I care what the overpaid, poorly trained screeners are doing wrong.



My shoes do NOT meet the profile. Thus being sent for groping is 100% retaliatory.

Regardless of "profile", the entire policy is idiotic. Shoe thickness is NOT an identifier of a credible threat.

At IAD, due to the general madness there and unpredictable delays, I generally give in and have my shoes off by the time I get to the belt. I just don't have time for a secondary grope-down and need to get through security as quickly as possible.

Times that I've been on a less-tight schedule, I have tried to go through with shoes on of various sorts--from sandals to tennis shoes to my comfy Rockport shoes I wear to work. I've been told to remove the sandals, allowed through sometimes with the Rockports and tennis shoes, and once been allowed through with tennis shoes and then been sent back through by a different screener than the one at the WTMD to put my shoes on the belt (after the one at the WTMD let me through!) :confused: I've never actually gotten the grope-down at IAD (only at MSP, MCO, JAX, and XNA over the past few years), although I'm sure if when told I had to remove my shoes I flatly refused, I would have been sent over.

Of course, IAD's video screens have people continually advising you remove your shoes, and then some TSA guy will always shout over it, "You must remove your shoes, shoes off, please!" Great consistency! :rolleyes:

IAD and DCA are two of the least consistent airports I've seen in terms of shoe removal. Sometimes it's all shoes off, sometimes they don't care.

At IAD it seems like the shoe carnival is in greater force at less busy times, when the screeners need something to do. (i.e. "continuous screening" that we'll call random but is really retaliatory for not removing your shoes.) :mad:

Continuous, random screening ...
 

Funny story -- flew through IAD yesterday on my way to PHX and was wearing a pair of retro Adidas from the 60s. The sole is just about .25 inches thick across the entire shoe -- should fit the thin sole shoe exemption, right?

Well, I go through the WTMD and the TSA agent tells me all shoes must come off. I respond that these soles are super thin and walk through. The agent just shakes his head and promptly sends me to the penalty box. I tell him to get a complaint form and mention that the TSA website says thin soles, etc. etc.

So while I'm waiting for the massage and wand, a manager comes over with a complaint form. I asked her what the story was, pointed out my shoes, etc. and while I'm doing this, the first (referring agent) steps in and says "Sir, you weren't selected for shoes. It is just continuous, random screening." :eek:

Some days, you just can't win.

Hoya

Remove your shoes, Don't remove your shoes it's up to you. Since you have followed the other posts and threads you should know what to expect. If you feel this or any policy is not right you can "protest" in any way you see fit as long as you are willing to accept getting SSSS or hiring a lawyer....

I for one file a complaint EVERY time I'm told I HAVE to take off my shoes, or the screener is over the top when it comes to rudeness, etc. I don't ask for the form anymore, just use TSA.gov. I always try and get a name if warranted.

To date I have emailed 9 complaints and 1 complement(MKE)

IMO feedback overtime will show patterns that can be addressed.

Idiocy. They pulled the same trick on me at IAD a few months ago.

Just to play devil's advocate, doesn't it take more time to fill out a complaint, etc. than to take your shoes off and walk through? :)

ahhh
 

Nope,point of view.




Ah narrow minds! The groping is a dead issue. You arent groped either anymore. As far as profile goes, it is a JUDGEMENT call.




Retaliation is something that is done to get back at someone. TSA isnt getting back at anyone. IF your shoes are deemed through interpretation or judgement, necessary of additional screening, then you get sent for the screening.




IF that is what you believe then so be it, that is why you are not in the TSA and I am. Just ask the infamous shoe bomber why he thought it would work, just ask the EOD people that took the shoes for examination. I have seen the videos on it, it would have worked had he had time to light it.

SHoe Carnival and retaliatory groping
 

Ah narrow minds! The groping is a dead issue. You arent groped either anymore. As far as profile goes, it is a JUDGEMENT call.

Retaliation is something that is done to get back at someone. TSA isnt getting back at anyone. IF your shoes are deemed through interpretation or judgement, necessary of additional screening, then you get sent for the screening.

IF that is what you believe then so be it, that is why you are not in the TSA and I am.
**********************************
I don't know about anyone else here, but I'm not in the TSA because I can't take the pay cut and I have a lot better things to do with my time than provide flaccid window dressing to a problem that you are doing nothing to solve.
**********************************

Just ask the infamous shoe bomber why he thought it would work, just ask the EOD people that took the shoes for examination. I have seen the videos on it, it would have worked had he had time to light it.[/QUOTE]

**********************************************
Come on, sonny. Let's all grow up and get ourselves into the real world here. The TSA screeners, when "suggesting" or "recommending" that you take off your shoes and you don't, you're going to be deliberately inconveniencced because you did not follow the dictums of the reichstag.

I was at the shoe carnival at DEN and was told that I had a choice between taking my shoes off in the main line, or taking them off at secondary. THERE IS A MUCH PUBLICIZED STATEMENT FROM NORMAN MINETA STATING VERY CLEARLY THAT SHOE REMOVAL IS VOLUNTARY, so are you now going to sit there and defend a screener making up his own policy, causing someone with signed medical documentation of a back injury so severe it requires schedule 3 narcotics to manage pain to writhe in pain taking his shoes off?

It's retaliatory. Some (not all, but some) screeners are running their own little fiefdom. And unless you have a lot of time (which no one does at DEN) you'll miss your flight. Now that my back is cleared up, I make a big damn deal about taking them off and take up as much time and space as I can putting them back on. One mouth-breathing screener at EWR told me "Move down, you're holding up the line" and I looked right at her and told this gum-cracking reprobate "If we weren't forced to disrobe, this wouldn't be anissue, you want the shoes off, deal with it, lady."

If other flyers want to be ordered around like cattle, that's their choice. America was founded ont he concept of freedoms and rights, and the TSA is violating both on a regular basis.

"I have seen the videos". Wow, is that what you folks do behind the doors of the training rooms? WATCH VIDEOS? Perhaps they could show you videos on:

1) Not cracking gum in front of passengers
2) Getting all TSA screeners to learn to close their mouths all the way when not speaking. Honestly, some of you look like you're missing a chromosome.
3) STOP COMPLAINING ABOUT WHEN YOUR NEXT BREAK IS. If you were REALLY all that concerned abotu security, you'd pay attention to what you are doing and stop obsessing over your next break. I have not gone throguh ONE TSA check point in the last year and a half where I did not hear at least one of you fine, fine, highly trained "professionals" grousing about breaks, schedules, or supervisors. And by the say, let's look at the term "professioanal" here. A DOCTOR is a professional. An ATTORNEY is a professional. When was the last time you ears your physician or your lawyer complain that they were late for break, or cracked gum in your face?

Reality stinks. You may in fact be the one person in the TSA that follows the rules and acts in a truly professional manner, but the rest of the crew of a 5 billion dollar joke. If this is the case, I hope your high standards of safety and comportment rub off on everyone else with the white shirts and sewn-on badges, becasue there is a LOT of work to do.

Just curious, if the TSA crew is so incredibly professional, why did we hear about felons having to be fired from the ranks, and I wonder how many people now protecting us from our shoes were on public assistance before this giant jobs program got launched?

The point of complaining is to make it known that we don't agree with the haraSSSSment that is the shoe carnival. It doesn't matter that it takes as long as removing shoes would, because the principle at stake is that things like the shoe carnival do nothing to improve our safety and simply act as an inconvenience to travelers.

Personally, I never have the time at IAD to stop to fill out a form OR to go through SSSS, so I remove my shoes--it doesn't matter how early I get to IAD, I'll always be pushing it getting to the gate and don't have time to mess with complaints or SSSS :(

[QUOTE]So while I'm waiting for the massage and wand, a manager comes over with a complaint form. I asked her what the story was, pointed out my shoes, etc. and while I'm doing this, the first (referring agent) steps in and says "Sir, you weren't selected for shoes. It is just continuous, random screening."

I hope you realize you were lied to. I would have added that to the complaint form.

[QUOTE=FliesWay2Much]In legalese, the term is "pretext", basically substituting a lawful reason for an illegal reason.

Keeping score
 

To exerda and others who sometimes comply with the remove shoes order and other times choose not to comply, if you are wearing the proper shoes, have you ever kept "score"? Do you never get secondaried (providing you've played by the rules and bought your ticket 3 years years in advance, etc., etc., etc.) and do you always get secondaried when you refuse to remove your shoes?

It would be interesting if some FF's would take up the challenge to keep a written record, with a photograph of your shoes with a ruler showing exact size of the heel/sole, and at some point in time, send that record to the TSA, your Congresspeople and local news media.

well
 

So are you saying that we should just give up? Flying should be a calculated risk?

The suggestion that you remove your shoes comes from several things. One, you could be reminded to remove your shoes based on two things. The thickness of the sole and the other is the chance that it has a metal shank. The thing that comes into play here is that you are outside the sterile area and while being there means that you are going in. IT doesnt mean that TSA can force you to remove your shoes. This is a choice. IF you are suggested to, to remove your shoes and you dont, you get sent down to be checked. There are screeners that suggest to everyone that they remove their shoes. This isnt the goal of the agency though but if you are asked to remove them and you dont, a reason for secondary screening becomes apparent. That reason is that you may be trying to hide something. THere is a sign out of the checkpoint that says that all shoes must be screened. There are three types of screening: Visual, xray and secondary. Secondary includes handwand and etd swab. So as a screener makes a judgement call during the visual to suggest that you remove your shoes, you counter with a reason not to. The screener counters with the other choice because of your choice.

You dont have to take them off in secondary either, unless they cause an alarm of the handwand or the ETD. The question is of course how the person with the documentation handled the situation.

Its not retaliatory, its reactionary! Viva la difference. As far as time goes, why was the person so late? You are aware that it is recommended that you arrive 90 minutes or more before your flight. You are late? Its not TSA who's at fault.

Show me where it says that you have the right to fly in US constitution?

I have managed to ignore most of your insults till this point. You arent showing anything by name calling other than your limited intellectual resources. As far as professional goes, the problem doesnt lay with the front line, it extends up the chain of supervision. TSA hires people of all mannerisms. IF that offends you, then walk to your next trip destination. As far as chatter about breaks is concerned, please pity the screeners that have to deal with the likes of whiners like you for hours on end.

That is correct. Put up or shut up. WYSIWYG this is how airport security is and you are aware of it so take it or leave it. An attempt to make ammends for all your snide remarks? A little too late! I cant get in with the crowd of amazingly adept supervision because I tell it like it is.

Ah another cheap shot from the bleachers. Well if you had followed the hearings that were on the subject that you mention, you would know that the ramp up to meet the required staffing over ran the capacity of the agency doing the background checks. As far as a jobs program is concerned, I was working at IBM making very good money before the IT industry bottomed out. I was on unemployment for 8 months before TSA called to hire me. You cant judge a screener by the shoes that he wore before he joined the ranks of those people patriotic enough to do something to try and make a difference.

Did you call BS at that point?

All of life is one big calculated risk.

"Physical travel and the First Amendment are inextricably intertwined.* If you can't travel, then how can you exercise your right to Assemble?* You can't Associate either, because you won't be able to get anywhere.* Your right to Free Speech is also affected.* You can say what you want, just not at that conference you wanted to attend but couldn't because you weren't allowed to get on a plane. " - John Gilmore http://www.papersplease.org/gilmore/case.html

Ask the residents of Alaska and Hawaii about the ability to redress their legislators (both Federal and State) without flying on an airplane.

Just because there were no airplanes in 1789 does not mean they are not covered by the U.S. Constitution.

Much as in the way that the freedoms insured by the 2nd Amendment do not only apply to 18th-century muskets and pistols.

"The right to be let alone is the underlying principle of the Constitution's Bill of Rights." - Erwin N. Griswold (U.S. Solicitor General 1967-1973)

OH the IRONY!!!!!

If we can't judge a screener by the shoes he wore, how does TSA dare to judge us for the shoes we wear?

People patriotic enough to do something to try to make a difference my .... The federal government's solution to 9/11 was to make all screeners federal employees ... like just the mere acting of being paid by the government would magically resolve the security problems.

Saying you're patriotic just because you work for the federal government is ludicrous. Does that mean that federal janitors and cafeteria workers are patriotic because they make a difference by serving lunch and cleaning the toilets of those who truly are making a difference? :rolleyes:

If TSA really wants to make a difference, they first need to make a difference in how people see them. They need to make a difference in actually making people safe (most of which is done behind the scenes that we CAN'T see), and not making them feel harassed. If you stood on a street corner and asked random people what their least favorite part of traveling was, I'd bet dollars to donuts that they'd say security.

Nope, Opinion. Plain and simple.



When someone other than my wife puts their hands all over my torso and belt line, it is groping. PERIOD

Typical TSA copout. The criteria is 1". If the screener is not smart enough to determine 1" of thickness, they should be fired. There is no judgement at all, it's either 1" or it is not.


The soles of my shoes are 3/4" thick. If I am sent to secondary by a screener not smart enough to determine 1" of thickness, it is retaliatory.


You are correct, I do not work for the TSA. I know far to much about REAL security to lower myself to that level. Anyone with one ounce of security knowledge knows that there are many more places to hide explosives than the soles of shoes. Focusing on shoes and defending that focus shows you and your agency to be frauds.

Just like every good lemming should????? :td:

> Let me say right off the bat that TSA doesnt
> retailiate against you for not removing your
> shoes.

eyecue: That is not the case in IND - when you don't take your shoes off - secondary automatically and it would appear its retaliation. It makes me sick. Happens at Terminal D (US/UA) and Terminal B/C.

Correct. Two weeks ago at IND, Ididn't want to remove shoes and sent to secondary. After being cleared, a supervisior came by to ask me if anything was wrong. We chatted about the shoe carnival and I showed him my shoes and point-blank asked him if they fit the profile. He stated that I should not have been singled out for my shoes alone. Period.

It must be easier
 

It must just be easier for screeners and not involve using perhaps non-existent gray matter to tell everyone to take off their shoes.

Deleted

I'll pick #3 and I'll tell you why.
Number one, blowing up your shoe, on the face of it, is a patently ridiculous and asinine way of bringing down an aircraft. A lot more bomb materials could be hidden in or on other parts of the body. Or carried onboard hidden in a variety of ways in one's luggage.
The problem I have with the shoe thing is that one moron, several years ago, tries...and try is the active word here...to blow up his shoe and since that point, we have inspected hundreds of millions of shoes only to find........nothing.
That alone tells me we need to be on the outlook for other, perhaps more creative, ways of blowing up an airplane and get off the shoe thing.
Does that mean nobody would try to blow up their shoes again? No. But there are so many, many ways to blow up a plane if one was determined and we need to get the focus off shoes. People have been wearing shoes on planes for decades. I'll wager there have been tens of billions of shoes on airlines over time and yet not one pair has caused a loss of life.
At what point do we get on with life and get off the shoe kick??

The Shoe Fetish and Carnival comments are about airports that obviously ignore the 1" criteria and require all shoes to be removed or an automatic secondary occurs.


A terrorist attempted to bring down an airliner. He FAILED. I do agree that terrorist are not dumb, in fact they are smarter than 90% of the management of the TSA. That's why the TSA should focus on other areas of concern. The next attempt will not be a shoe.


There must be a balance between the billions of dollars wasted by the TSA's actions (Not just the TSA budget, but money wasted by pax in terms of wasted time) and the threat. There is a very TINY threat of a shoe bomb (see above), therefore, the TSA should not be devoting so much time and energy to this "threat".



The money is there, the TSA management just will not allocate it properly. If this type of technology was deployed at every airport, at least one screener per checkpoint could be eliminated. That is a real cost savings right there. Additionally, there is far too much overhead at each airport as it is:

AFSD (minimum of 2 per airport)
Screening Manager (Unknown number per airport)
Supervisors (WAY too many of these)
Leads (With the above, what the heck is this position?)
5-6 Screeners per checkpoint

That is ridiculous. If the TSA would staff the airports properly, there would be plenty of money for this technology. Do I think this will ever happen, No. The TSA is top heavy with washouts from the Coast Guard. These washouts have no security experience, thus they will never run this agency properly.


It's more than 1 in a million. How many passengers have been screened since this incident? 100's of Millions? How many had a bomb in their shoe? ZERO. The odds are at 1 in 100's of millions and growing.


Here's your discussion. I honestly value your input here and have a question of my own:

Don't you think that we as FF's are tired of the whining from the TSA regulars here?

Handle the threat the way European airports do. Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport, where the so-called shoe bomber departed from, DOES NOT REQUEST SHOE REMOVAL for U.S.-bound flights, and does not send passengers to secondary screening if they fail to remove thick-soled shoes that don't set off the metal detector. No beep, no harassment.

At British airports, the security staff don't even allow passengers to put shoes through the x-ray machine. If you beep, you're wanded and the screener conducts a visual inspection of your shoes.

I've never understood why shoes with a 1" thick sole are supposed to be so much of a threat. It'd seem to me that a careful visual inspection of shoes (while the passenger is still wearing them) would show if they've been "fixed" to hide explosive material, if there's even enough room to hide explosives in one's running shoes.

Unfortunately, Bart, with your last few posts I've come to see you as one of those who see terrorists on every corner.

As someone said in another post said:
I'd take out the word calculated - life is one big risk.

Driving to the airport is more dangerous than flying will ever be, terrorists or no terrorists.

Making travelers remove their shoes is not making us safer - it's as simple as that, but I don't think you or anyone else at TSA understands "simple" just because you see threats at every turn. You have to or else you wouldn't have a job.

If a terrorist gets on a plane, he can't get to the cockpit to take over the controls and fly the plane into the Capitol.

And guess what, Bart - they know that.

The next attack against an airliner will come from the ground or perhaps from another plane - and that's something you can't defend against.

But, in fact, they probably don't want to blow a single plane out of the sky. They'd have to take out several planes to make an impact and the chances of their being successful at that are just about nil.

Making us take off our shoes is not going to remove that particular threat; it just makes the terrorists realize that DHS doesn't act, it reacts.

"There's this feeling that you have to secure everything possible in every way possible for every possible kind of terrorist attack," Garry L. Briese, executive director of the International Association of Fire Chiefs, said."

(The above from today's NY Times in reference to DHS wanting to remove signage from train cars carrying haz mat so the terrorists can't tell what's in a car and attack it.)

It can't be done. DHS needs to accept that and stop harrassing the traveling public.

Deleted

Tens of Billions of passengers flew in the USA prior to Richard Reid. No shoe bombs. Since then, over 2 billion more passengers have flown in the USA with no shoe bombs.

Yet those who derive their living from looking for shoe bombs need "a few more years of data" before they think the futile search for shoe bombs can be discontinued.

Excellent job, Mr bin Laden. You sought to change our way of life and like day follows night, you certainly have.

There are so many, many things in life to be concerned amount that, quite honestly, being killed by a shoe-bomber is not even on my radar screen. And it really shouldn't be on anybody's mind IMO. As the OP said earler, the trip to the airport is fraught with danger. Statistically, once one arrives in an airport terminal until they leave same at their destination is quite possibly the safest they'll ever be in this lifetime. Always has been and, IMO, always will be. We need sensible, non-invasive security to assure that the majority of the bad guys are caught but no matter how close we search there will always be those who will be undetected. Stepping up the scrutiny as we are progressively doing serves no purpose other than to frustrate the traveling public and run up the cost of security and airline operations.
As to the last part of your comment above about who's going to blame who if a shoe bomber actually succeeds in the future, I'm personally going to blame the shoe-bomber for the deed and not the TSA for failing to find same.
Others opinions may vary.

I'm going to throw my two cents in here now.

First off, a lot of things have changed with planes that have been mentioned earlier. You have reinforced cockpit doors ... which had these alone existed before 9/11 there probably would have been a drastic reduction in loss of life. The terrorists might have tried a hostage, a few people may have died, but 9/11 would have never happened.

Add in that some pilots carry arms and sky marshalls are patrolling the skies. Maybe not on every flight, but it'd be enough to make a terrorist think twice about the odds.

Lastly, you have pax that aren't going to stand for anything on a flight. Somone lights up, or if someone tries to storm the cockpit, people are going to bring them down.

Coming from the computer background, security is always an issue. However, this industry has learned that 100% security is a myth. It will NEVER happen. Even if it could be implemented, the system would be so encumbered that it wouldn't be able to serve the people and purpose it's intended to serve.

So you study the risks and mitigate the critical ones. You determine which risks need to be heavily fortified, and which ones need to be deterred, and which ones need minimal security, and go from there.

The question isn't will the bad guys get through the defenses. The question is when will they get through.

Terrorists are only going to strike when they have a high chance for success. Even if they did get on to a plane, they're not going to succeed. Pax won't let them.

TSA is trying to get 100% security, and they will fail miserably. They already are because our airports will never be 100% secure. Even tight government facilities aren't 100% secure.

TSA needs to seriously revisit security and determine what risks are the most credible. I think their vulnerability is in cargo screening and a bomb is going to be under the plane rather than in the cabin. Yet that doesn't get the attention it deserves.

Instead, they focus on the more minimal security risks, crank it up to the max, and cause serious issues for the people they're trying to protect: the pax.

I find it interesting that after the Unabomber threat passed, we went adjusted back and went on with life. I also find it interesting that it's easier to get into secure government buildings than an airport. Go figure.

I just take off my shoes every time and don't worry about it. I feel it is a superstition to say that people might catch some rare fungus or disease through a good pair of socks. To me, this is about as likely as those tin foiler types who say you could get mad cow disease from a chicken because one time some chicken ate some feed made from some restaurant scraps that might have had some hamburger in it. I mean, say what? If something has never happened before, it probably won't happen now. I'm not special.

A couple of times they have come over and asked me NOT to remove my shoes. I guess they were afraid I was holding up the line. But now I've gotten pretty fast.

And, in addition:

DHA needs a raison d'etra - ergo, they try to frighten the public into believing there are imminent threats from terrorists. It's called job security.