I guess that's what happens when someone here posts a thread like Screeners standing around - gives the TSA ideas as to how to keep the loafers busy. :D

They did gate screenings at MDW the day after the inauguration.

Figures.

I have a suspicion that all of this is a product of the leadership vacuum at the TSA right now. (Yeah, I know... there probably has always been a leadership vacuum at the TSA.) Local FSDs are basically unsupervised right now, and, I suspect that a lot of the inspections, audits, and guidance from on high has ceased. As a result, FSDs can do what they want, and are perhaps jockeying for position and pecking order for favor with the new Kippie.

We all know one thing -- none of this is being done for real security or in response to a real threat.

Gate screenings have never gone away since TSA was inaugurated, ID checks at the gate are much newer.
This may have started with threads where (and, full disclosure, I have done this) point out that an ID check at the entry to the sterile area does nothing to show what BP you used to actually get on the plane, (not that any of this ID farce matters in the least, or has any security value anyway). In this thread posters pointed out that entering with one BP and boarding with another (the reasons you might want to do this are apparent to most) might be thwarted by "at the gate BP/ID checks" by TSA they had seen performed in PIT, and CHA late last year.
I saw the same gate ID stupidity in effect last week at BUF on a NW flight, still performed in such a way that a pax can swap BP's between TSA gate check and plane entry.

The more TSA tightens up on this "check" the closer they get to federal officers enforcing commercial contract (ie airline ticket COC) provisions. I still have confidence someone will eventually wake up and recognize that this has zero or negative legal basis and is exactly opposite to the premises on which this country was founded.

It's apparent that the past few months' reductions in airline capacity and passenger load have not been correspondingly matched with reductions in TSA force or farce, and they are finding new ways to "deploy" their resource windfall :mad:. (Why am I unsurprised by this?)

Come on guys. Are we really at a point to where we think that there is NO threat to air travel? I think that is oversimplifying the case back to the Clintonian approach to anti terrorism. Ignore it and they will not bother us.

I just think that statements like "none of this is in response to a real threat" is MASSIVELY oversimplifying the case.

Terrorism works because people allow themselves to be terrorized.

That being said, no one should EVER have to show ID to travel domestically. It's disgusting beyond belief.

...unless you happen to read through the morning intel summaries...

I believe what FWAAA is referring to is in the CFRs. Now, it seems to have changed slightly since the last time I saw it, but I do believe what he's talking about:

(with, obviously, some underlining emphasis of the pertinent part of my own)

And, even though it seems written specifically for airport employees, the broad terminology has also included passengers with the previous entry in the CFR:

Usually, most people know the "measures" or "procedures" at the gates to be "nothing" and, occasionally, a TSO there to do an open-and-look (as the cursory gate search is called) on one's carry-on baggage. This... ID check thing was started, like, within the past week or two. We in HSV were told that it was for the inauguration, and have, since the inauguration, stopped doing it, AFAIK. We also only did it on DC-bound flights.

That would be incorrect. The ID check at the gate came from on high, as you put it, and there has been no change in the rate that guidance and instruction come from TSA HQ. It just has a different person's name at the bottom of the page now - the former assistant administrator, now acting-administrator, Rossides.

DFW to BWI January 20th
 

Four uniformed TSOs and a guy in a suit acting like a supervisor were doing ID checks at the gate on my midday AA flight from Dallas to Baltimore Tuesday, January 20th. It was annoying but I figured someone had decided checking IDs would provide extra security for flights headed anywhere near the inauguration ceremonies that day and didn't really think about it again after I entered the jetbridge.

Actually, I think it's more a case of career bureaucrats that know the new administration will force them to back down a bit. Therefore, they are making it as stringent as possible now so when they're told to back off.... they will merely go back to the way it was right before the election.

It's just like department store sales: "50% off original retail price" which is not the price you paid before the sale.

Kabuki theater to not only the public but also the Administration.

Your special. So go ahead and share. You seem to have the answers or believe NPR does.

I love the way people salt their conversations in this forum trying to make us feel like they are "important."

Anyway, I am waiting as you brought it up.

So yes, Gail Rossides is an Idiot too. :td:

Guess if you're Kippie's assistant, the apple can't fall too far from the tree.

If you're going to accept TSA's reasoning as "because we see intel" and "because we say so" why not accept Flies'?

He probably can't share because it's SSI. :D

Having known Flies for quite awhile and also was in the "industry" myself, let's just say he's right.

Believe it, don't believe it, it's up to you.

Maybe one of the TSA realized that they didn't mark a BP and had to complete the process :confused:

last 2 times I've seen this, every pax was checked.