I have to rise to Bart's defense here. The man has bills to pay and a family to feed and if it's "Do it or get canned" he had no choice. the fault is with the screeners who don't know the difference and the bureaucrats who dream up these indefensible schemes. I have no doubt anywhere that Bart doing this sickened him to the core. The fact that Americans are forced to do this to other Americans is the sin here. Write your congress-gerbil, they are the only ones that the TSA needs to report to. Everyday citizens are powerless and ignored in the name of "National Security".

--PP

What I don't understand is how we can be forced to walk on filthy, dirty, germ/fungel infested floors in our bare feet! I have no problem at this time going through, sitting down, and giving them my shoes to go through the scanner - and even subjecting myself to a body search - just to avoid walking on those floors. What do I do with the socks if I use them? Put them (now infested) in my purse? Or do I just throw them away, wasting more and more money?

I just went through on Friday out of LAX, and didn't realize until I was home that I had a tube of lipstick in my purse - they sure missed that potential bomb.

There is one massive problem with this "discretion" issue. The USA appears to demand that all other countries flights to the USA conform to TSA edicts. With the TSA changing its mind every day and giving discretion, that's just way too hard. Security in other countries will simply take the hardest, most unreasonable line so as to guarantee comformance with the TSA. The TSA edict against small tools is still in place here, even months after the TSA revoked it.

(That whole issue is a complete mess and totally illogical. The authorities have stated that there is no evidence at all of Australia being involved in any of the latest scare. There is no reason why we shouldn't carry liquids on board trans-pacific flights to the US and then repack them into checked luggage for domestic US connections. Instead, we are being forced to carry no liquids on planes to the USA, because the USA somehow believes it should have jurisdiction over other countries and our governments are too gutless to tell them where to shove it. ... or, more importantly, have the same FUD agenda.)

Deleted

You can go to any medical supply store (and most large pharmacies) and buy yourself some of those paper booties, use for security and throw away, simple and not overly expensive.

That's the heart of the problem. I was visiting Australia -- my favorite country in the whole world -- until August 4 and got the distinct impression (correct me if I'm wrong!) that it is a sovereign nation, not a U.S. state. The degree to which other nations kow-tow to the U.S. is truly revolting. If I were a citizen of Australia -- and perhaps one day I will be -- I would let my government know how disgusted I am with them.

Bruce

There are (at least) two issues here. The political one is that our leader has his head so far up Dubya's rear that he's suffering sensory deprivation. (We're even about to send more soldiers to Afghanistan to try to contain the US-created mess there!) The other is that the USA is in such a prime position for its part of the world. The UK has massive restrictions on its outbound pax at the moment, but even it isn't trying to enforce that stupidity on other nations. If it did, no doubt everyone flying to other parts of Europe from here would simply re-route to avoid the UK. However, almost every single flight from this part of the world to the Americas goes via the USA. If our government were to ignore the TSA edicts, would the USA prevent planes flying there? I don't know, but few of those flying to other parts of the Americas would have a viable alternative, and that greatly increases the USA's power over us.

Yes, I see your point. Still, some diplomatic complaints would go a long way, I suspect.

Bruce

The (chiefly US) obsession with bare feet always amazes me. Unless you're planning to stick your foot in your mouth, it's such a non-issue. The wonderful bacterial breeding ground on the handles of shopping trolleys is vastly more dangerous to you.

Bart, really appreciate you communicating the latest, both with straight talk, but also some context.

Don't mean to turn this into an "Ask Bart" forum, but I haven't been able to get a straight answer on this one (even asked some folks at DCA yesterday, got nowhere), maybe you can give a quick answer. I usually travel with MRE's -- are they now verboten?

Thanks, Bart
 

Great idea, we should all carry lots of food to prove we are not terrorists. After all, a guy planning to blow up the plane 3 hours after takeoff won't waste the time and energy to carry 48 hours worth of food, right?

Seriously, the only bright light in this Water Carnival is reading a post from Bart. Showing there is AT LEAST one sane person at TSA. We can only hope perhaps there are more. Unfortunately Bart is not in Washington at mail stop number one. Thank you, Bart, for being an island of sanity in a sea of discarded water bottles.

You hear that said, but it clearly can't be true. Athlete's foot, plantar wart virus, and other foot diseases are both very widespread, apparently very difficult or impossible to control, and highly contagious. As we travel online, we don't get stupid pop-ups for expensive medicines to control hand fungus caught from shopping carts but we're assaulted by nasty foot fungus pop-ups sometimes several times an hour. Why? Because there are so many people who have had these conditions of the feet for years or decades. I have never seen a person with a similarly contagious condition of the hands. You? The diseases we catch on shopping carts are self-contained contagious diseases like colds and influenza, which may occasionally kill us and get it over with, but never hang around infecting us for years on end.

It's like the old saying that the human mouth has more germs than the dog mouth. Fine. I'm still not going around letting every friendly dog on the porch tongue-kiss me!

Obligatory on-topic comment: Thanks, Bart, for a voice of sanity from the trenches. I am taking your advice about the socks. Indeed, I often travel with an old pair of socks that I can throw away once I get safely through security and on the airplane, replacing them with a nice clean pair.

However, people tend to wash their hands much more than they wash their feet. If their hands had touched that filthy floor, you can bet they'd be washing them. Where, at the airport, is there an opportunity to wash one's feet?

Many years ago, I had dealings with Chertoff when he was a young attorney. He was an a**h*** then, and he's even more of one now.

Because companies want to sell stuff. And because we create the conditions for those conditions to thrive. APMA says of Athlete's foot: "The fungus most commonly attacks the feet because shoes create a warm, dark, and humid environment which encourages fungus growth." The shoes are the main culprit. (And, yes, I'd rather catch something I can just buy a remedy for than the flu.)

I like taking showers myself, but the availability of those in airline lounges in the USA is very poor compared to what I'm used to in Australia. I usually try to fly in/out of SFO to shower in the UA Arrivals lounge (not for Y pax tho) incoming and the SQ SKL outgoing.

However, my main point is that compared to not being able to carry innocuous personal items on board a plane, not being able to carry deodorant, not being able to carry a drink, not being able to carry toothpaste on a 24-hour+ trip (yuk!!!), not being able to carry a screwdriver, etc, taking my shoes off for 20 secs is way down the list of things which I believe are worth worrying about.

deleted