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.