Best way to get a very quick hand inspection ? Fill bag with dead animals. My wife was flying home from BOS with a set of very fragile tea cups her grandmother had left her. She couldn't find anything to cushion them with so she used an old mink stoll. The kind where all the heads, feet and tails are still attached. When the TSA opened it and about three heads popped up, it was quickly closed and handed back to my wife.

Reminds me of the time my parents were driving back to the US from a summer in Mexico, in the early 1930's. They got a couple pairs of some sort of local leather sandals which are cured or tanned in horse manure. Put those on top of their suitcase, customs didn't lift them to see what was underneath. (that was long before the days of latex gloves!)

I assume that if those sandals are still made, Bart sees (or smells) them coming through SAT.

I would be much more likely to ask the fast food worker to use fresh gloves than the TSA guy.

But I don't bother as it's all cleaner than the average house and certainly MUCH cleaner than a hotel room.

Sorry, I don't know where his gloved hands have been 5 minutes before he's touching my toothbrush. I always ask for clean gloves unless I see him/her putting on a fresh pair right in front of me.

1) Don't need probable cause... Don't even need reasonable suspicion... You want to fly, then you give up some of your rights...

2) Your health, I could really give a s___ less about yours, I am concerned about my health from the filth in your bags...

Flying is a privilege not a right... :D

Do you have any understanding that as a civil servant you work for the people you are screening?

Are you actually a screener? Would you care to share what airport you work at? While I know there are a lot of screeners out there with the attitude you have displayed in this and other threads, I'm finding it increasingly hard to believe you're for real.

^ ^ I second that-even for a screener, the attitude problem displayed here is way above & beyond.

What is a civil servant? ;)

I nicely asked the TSA agent to put clean gloves on today. He was happy to do so. Poor guy, his hands were big and sweaty and he had trouble removing the used gloves and putting on new ones. :D

Putting on new gloves benefits the screener too. If you rummage through a bag of nasty dirty laundry and you touch your eye, nose, or mouth with that gloved hand, you just contaminated yourself. If they take off those gloves right when they are done and put them on for their next victim, it's better for all.

Maybe they should consider posting the 4th ammendment at airports.

But TSA said we don't have rights at a checkpoint! :rolleyes:

Clean gloves, please
 

Connecting through LHR yesterday, I went through several security checkpoints. At one of them, after passing my bag through the scanner, the guard started to open my bag to check inside. I asked him to put on clean gloves. His gloves were white cloth, not disposable latex. He looked inside but didn't poke through it, then closed it up and walked away.
I couldn't tell if he was satisfied with what he saw, or was unwilling to start a dispute over clean gloves.

I don't know what the clean glove policy is outside the US, but requiring fresh gloves that you can witness them taking out of a box ought to be forefront in anyone's minds whenever anyone with a TSA uniform touches any of our stuff. It's the least we can do to return the favor.

I've merged these "clean glove" threads together so discussion can be concentrated in the original thread.

____________________

Cholula

Travel Safety/Security Forum Moderator

I do all the time.

I travel with a CPAP machine for sleep apnea, and this device always requires a separate screening. I make a point as soon as it leaves the belt area, that it's a medical device and will they please use new gloves. Never had a problem getting them to comply with this reasonable request.

I tend to change my gloves regularly as a matter of course anyway. I always change them after doing a pat down or looking through anything potentially messy like toiletries or cosmetics or searching dirty clothes or a dirty person. Like Bart, I never wear gloves at the xray in order to give my hands some air time, but I always disinfect my hands afterward. I don't usually wear gloves at the metal detector but I have before when I've had to swap in and out continuously with a male to the wanding area. Ironically, the one time I got a passenger peeved at me for wearing gloves was there at the MD. As I understood it, he took it personally as if I felt he was "germy."

While I can understand the desire of some here to aggravate TSAers, some people (e.g. the above) are just blowing things out of proportion.

No, you shouldn't lick your dirty gloves, but "touching stuff" is not contaminating yourself. The world is not a sterile laboratory and winding yourself up about hypothetical risks at a security checkpoint isn't going to help you on the other five hundred occasions you touch something every day or the food you eat. My god, haven't you looked inside a commercial kitchen?

If the risks of "cross contamination" of dirty laundry were so bad, then chambermaids and laundry workers would all be dead after a month on the job. No-one's going to die from walking barefoot across a floor that shoes have stepped on - for example, hundreds of millions of Muslims do it every day in mosques with no apparant negative effects.

Relax, people!

I want to know why all of these people are travelling with toothbrushes just lying around in their toiletry bag without some sort of protective cover on them. At least a baggie or something! I've had a small toothbrush head cover for years (yes, I wash it) and when I got married I bought one for Mr. Xine. I can't imagine just letting it roll around on the inside of a bag -- yuck!

Relax yourself. I often have food in my carryon and don't want someone opening it with the same gloves they used to paw through someone else's dirty scivvies.

I could care less what standards you set for inpsections of your own luggage. I'll apply my standards.

Either way I'm there 8 hours, I couldn't care a less if someone told me to change my gloves. It just delays the passenger, not me. I'll wear 10 pairs of gloves if you want me to.

I'm guessing you've never seen them open someone's toothbrush holder? I have.


I always ask for clean gloves if one (or more) of my bags are being searched. As many others have said, I don't know whose dirty laundry (or other stuff) they've been through before searching my bag (& I'll usually say that if they seem to not want to change gloves). Some screeners don't seem to mind the request to change, others roll their eyes & sigh but do change them.

Ever heard of "infection control" as practiced in hospitals? There's a reason for instituting such controls and the reason is to reduce cross contamination.

I'd be more than willing to put money on the fact that more than one person has become ill from some kind of cross contamination at an airport checkpoint, especially those travelers whose health is already compromised.

Do you also request a clean air filter in every aircraft?? Remember... you are re-breathing other people's germs. ;) I am sure there is treatment for germophobics....

Cheers,

J

Oh, I'm sure. I'm also sure that people get sick from "cross contamination" when car parking attendants don't use a new pair of gloves between touching each hand and steering wheel. The world is not a sterile environment and there's no point in trying to introduce hospital practices into every sphere of life in some futile attempt to make it one.

Has any TSO's health been affected by not wearing gloves ?? Worse yet, has any TSO die?
Are there that many germophobic TSO's out there??
Just curious,
Cheers,
17d

Interesting that you use this example. After our car is parked in "valet," I
certainly do take an antibacterial wipe to the usually-touched surfaces.

--LG