Change your gloves, please!
 

Anyone ever asked a TSA inspector to put on fresh gloves?

I don't want gloves that might have been pawing through someone's dirty laundry & stinky underwear 2 minutes ago picking through my stuff, e.g. my toothbrush.

Can we make a habit of demanding that they don fresh gloves?

I want clean gloves on their hands for the same reason they're wearing them in the first place!!!

Brother, you hit the nail on the head! If TSA screeners indicate that they are going to paw through my bags, I insist on clean gloves. I do not want cross-contamination to make me sick because TSA is conducting a search without probable cause or even reasonable individualized suspicion of involvement in criminal activity on my property.

BTW, TSA screeners have told me that they wear gloves only to protect themselves. I have responded that I do not give a rodent's rear end about them, but rather am concerned about my health.

Yep! Request 'em!!! I was in MIA juat after 9/11 on holiday and requested them back then. Of course, I was met with a dirty look and a "It's going to take a while". I said "No problem. I'm early. I'll wait." :rolleyes:

I've rarely been through hand inspection, but I'll make sure I ask next time.
Thanks! ^

Both times they went through hand inspection, it was at ONT ( ^ ) they put on frsh gloves automatically. However this was a JetBlue Red-eye, so most going through security was for that flight.

Mark

P.S. ONT usually has REALLY good TSA people.

Has anyone's health been affected by these actions ?? Worse yet, has anyone die?

Are there that many germophobics out there??

Just curious....

Cheers,

J

I always insist on clean gloves. I don't want them pawing through your dirty underwear, then touching my contact lens solution.

Cool ... That was just a random thought as I was getting ready to leave for the airport. Didn't get inspected this time, but I will demand clean gloves when it happens, and so will my wife! :D

I saw that the screener was taking an awful lot of time in LGA last week looking at my carry-on on the screen so I expected to have to have my bag hand searched. I was right and was ready to ask the screener to put on clean gloves and he did it automatically.

Yes -- I do it all the time.

Even if you don't particularly care about the health aspects, make them change gloves just because you can.

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I highly doubt latex gloves are going to transfer some obscure disease. Anyway I always see the searchers put on new gloves...

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I stand corrected... :D

I can tell you at least this much. The number of persons whose health has been affected or have died is no fewer than the number of passengers that the TSO's at all of the TSA airport screening checkpoints have caught and been prosecuted for trying to hijack or take down a plane. :D

In light of SARS, assorted virulent strains of e. coli, and bird flu, I would rather TSA not contribute to the spread of pathogens. If TSA screeners insist on searching my bags that do not alarm or contain anything that appear even remotely dangerous, then the least TSA screeners can do is to wear clean gloves. I do not want to take a chance on catching a disease due to Kabuki security.

Not OK with me. I want to see you walk over and extract a new pair from the box so I'm reasonably sure they're fresh.
Not sure the ones in your pocket have not been used previously. Or what you may have had in your pocket that could have contaminated the gloves.
Nothing personal here...just my take on this and I thank you for the question and concern.

Exactly what I was thinking. I want to see it, not take their word for it.

^ And this is one way we can resist! :D

Well, thanks to the Great Water Ban courtesy of TSA, our personal hygiene items (aka liquids) in checked luggage will now be searched where we don't see it, so I'm pretty sure that this will be done with gloves that have been in contact with quite some disgusting stuff. I'm not sure how this is supposed to make us (feel) safer, but then again, I'm a bloody foreigner, so what do I know?

So, are you telling me that if you had seen a TSA swabber sneeze into his gloved hands, then proceed to pick his nose, THEN go right back to rummaging thru a passenger's open suitcase (hopefully yours, btw) in front of him w/o changing his gloves, as I did @ LAX a year ago, you would be ok w/that???

OK, now I'm truely disgusted.

The TSA's might try what lab rats do, put on several pairs of gloves and peel them off as they get contaminated.

The prudent approach would be to assume that the gloves are contaminated by each passenger's luggage. Gloves should be changed after each search.

Absolutely!! Also, think about this-so many people on this board are, rightly so I believe, disgusted by what is on the floors of the checkpoints that we are having to walk thru in our stockingfeet-where do you think all those germs are coming from? The same dirty socks & underwear the swabbers are rummaging thru, so it's safe to assume that the gloves they are wearing have the same germs & bacteria on them as the floors do, even if they haven't changed colors as someone stated above.

MrsM and I ALWAYS request new gloves. We do not accept the " I just changed em" excuse. I have told this to large groups of people during speeches and all of our friends do the same.

Who the Hell knows if they just went through someones used Depends undies?

I only had a problem once, right after 9-11 someone said he wouldnt, I asked for supervisor. He made him change gloves.

Disclaimer: I'm not a TS&S crazy... I am not a conspiracy nut... I do believe in health and safety

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I'm with you Cholula!!!!!!

[QUOTE=mikey1003]MrsM and I ALWAYS request new gloves. We do not accept the " I just changed em" excuse. I have told this to large groups of people during speeches and all of our friends do the same.

If I get stuck in a line for swabbing, I make it a point to watch how many suitcases they go thru w/o changing gloves-generally, I'm the first one who demands the glove change.

I only had a problem once, right after 9-11 someone said he wouldnt, I asked for supervisor. He made him change gloves.

The biggest problem I've ever had w/the glove change thing was during that check-in I referenced above w/the nose picker. Thankfully, I didn't get sent to him, but did get sent to his partner, who hadn't changed gloves the whole time I was in line watching them. Since my bag is ALWAYS locked, 'Amber' had to come to me for the key, which also gave me the opportunity to tell her, very calmly, she needed to change gloves before she touched any of my belongings. She made faces & rolled her eyes @ me, but did it safe in the knowledge, I guess, her SUPERVISOR, 'Latrice' would soon be over literally screaming in my face, in front of the dozens of passengers trying to check bags in T4 @ LAX, that 'she don't have time for this'.

Yes, Bart, complaint letters went to TSA, for all the good THAT did, & the FSD @ LAX who at least had the courtesy to respond, albeit w/a form letter addressed to 'MR' txrus, which serves to confirm that our complaints not only fall on deaf, but also blind, eyes & ears.

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The TSA guys are handling shoes all the time (you know, the very same shoes we guys wear when visiting the airport urinals). After I saw some TSA joker emptying a vial of some guys rx pills into his hand and then puting them back, I decided to ALWAYS request new gloves for my traveling stuff.

MisterNice

It is now my SOP to demand just about everything I can any time I'm "selected" for additional screening. It used to be that I wouldn't take off my shoes - so I'd get a secondary. I'd always ask for clean gloves, then a new room, then another screener, etc.

I've had it happen 3 times so far - and hopefully with two trips this week it won't happen again. As far as going through my bags - I'm not really that picky.

-Chris

I had to remind the screener at the security checkpoint this morning at MCI to put clean gloves on please. He :rolleyes: and complied. LOL.

I am carrying on my 20 in rollerboard now, with no liquids/gels, and it's getting opened every time now. Are TSAs just being dicks in wanting to open it because I am not following someone's "Check all bags" idea?

I asked for fresh gloves at IAD Tuesday morning before a TSA rumaged through my toiletry kit. He rolled his eyes and begrudgingly complied. I suspect he would not have if a supervisor had not been standing right next to him. I also suspect that he took a couple of alcohol swabs from my kit as retaliation.

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I mean he took a couple of individually wrapped alcohol swabs (like you swab skin with before injections) out of my kit and told me they were forbidden. Interestingly, my tiny kit is almost empty these days: some contact lense solution, a toothbrush, a disposable razor, 2 individual packages of Alka Seltzer, a few alcohol swabs, a photocopy of my passport, and a couple of RCC passes. There were swabs in 2 of the 3 compartments, but while all compartments were searched, the swabs were only taken from 1.

I ALWAYS demand fresh gloves.

I once had a screener who said "I just did on my way over to search your bag" My response "I want to watch you do it" and he did.

Always demand fresh gloves.

no kidding...
 

I totally agree. Considering that behind-the-scenes video cameras constantly
capture service workers doing things like picking their noses and not washing
their hands when they should...I'm 100% positive that any TSA-checked
bag is full of germs I don't want to be exposed to.

BTW how do you know they even use gloves at all for the checked-bag
inspections?

I have found that glove decorum is not intuitive in most professions. In
science labs, for instance, there are often posters on the walls about how
people must un-glove in the elevator etc. (implying that otherwise, people
are happy to have the gloves protect their own hands, but don't realize
that they are cross-contaminating a lot of other things).

And who can count the number of doctor's office employees who glove and
then open drawers, throw some trash away, whatever...before doing the
procedure.

--LG

Are your pockets clean?

Sorry, but your criteria for changing gloves don't exactly match up with ours. In this case, what the People say rules. (The only other time this happens in America is on Election Day.)

Um, I think that's why he asked for your thoughts on the subject.

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