I will probably venture to FLL for a few hours to get a gage of how things are going. The nice thing about (at least) the B and C checkpoint is that there are always people waiting for family/friends getting off planes, so I can blend in there...D is a cluster**** and I'm not sure about E,F,and H but I wouldn't touch the Spirit concourse with a 10 foot pole and, let's be honest, 99.999999% of people flying on Spirit don't have a clue about anything, let alone airport security

I think we may see less invasive pat downs like were done in the past, with back of the hand and asking you to turn down your pants waistband. That gives the impression that they're still looking for terrorists but avoids the public spectacle.

Separately I'm guessing the LEOs will be asked to vigorously enforce the photo/video policies of the airport. Since it's not clear when you walk in the terminal if the airport authority allows recording, we'll probably hear about a rash of phone/camera confiscations.

What will make it even more interesting is what the news outlets will do. Will they try to broadcast from the checkpoints? Will the airport authority keep them far away? Will we see a lot of feel good reports with smoothly running checkpoints and happy passengers accepting the AIT scan?

I fly on Thursday, hopefully it's a quiet day.

Not at PHL. I saw a report yesterday and they have one MMW scanner and they rarely used it.

THIS is the only forum you need monitor tomorrow.

Perhaps I am pessimistic, but I don't think tomorrow will be much of a problem for TSA. First of all, they don't care - as a government agency, they are not responsible for a bottom line or a product, and I'm fairly certain supervisors are not compensated based on turn-time. But more specifically, I don't think most travelers are even cognizant of NOOD. Many of those who are peripherally aware don't care, or even overtly support NoS. Sadly, I fear strong opposition to current TSA practices is largely a phenomenon reserved for frequent business travelers who have to put up with this madness week after week rather than once in a blue moon. I foresee the overwhelming majority of holiday passengers smiling as they walk through the NoS.

Perhaps it would have been better to have an opt-out day on a heavy business travel weekday - a non-holiday. Perhaps a Thursday. Fewer strains on TSA and airports, but a higher percentage of opt-outs. I don't have the answers by any means, just thinking out loud.

I thought about that; however, there are plenty of people that legitimately cannot pass through WBI without requiring a pat down. So in your line of 20+ protesters that theTSA is punishing by taking their time, now have to queue up anyone in a wheelchair or with a metal (ex: hip) implant.

How is that going to look when grandma/pa misses her flight home to thanksgiving because the TSA was too slow ? She submitted to WBI after all. You sure can't put her ahead of the line of the queue either without an uproar.

I thought the same. I thought their behavior to date has been so outrageous that it wouldn't have surprised me too much.

In the end it is very simple: As TSA team lead, relax the pat-down rules (inofficially) a little bit for tomorrow, make sure that there are no bad scenes (especially if there are cameras around) and then increase the security level on Thursday again. I would not ever officially state that the NoS are not going to be used but I would just take it down a notch.

In the end you as the TSA want to be able to say: "we didn't alter our policies a single bit" and you want to news media to say: "it's not all that bad even on Thanksgiving there were no bad lines".

Let's face it: the TSA has not yet ever caught a bad guy(TM) so they can easily relax security for one day and then claim that all went well and all is fine. I would also avoid by all means to give the impression that opt-outs are punished tomorrow and wait with the retaliatory pat-downs for Thursday....

But then, it's the TSA and who knows, maybe they will try to proof a point tomorrow and that would be a nightmare.

As I said, separate lines. One for those who are unable to go thru the scanner due to disability, like Grandma, and those who go thru but alarm. A different line for those who just choose to opt out. And as long as anyone is waiting in the first line, I process them ahead of anyone in the second one.

Fair? No. Uproar? Maybe, who cares.

But it meets the TSA's dual goals of avoiding bad publicity and discouraging opt-outs.

This.

NOODists will show up sporadically throughout the day across thousands of checkpoints at hundreds of airports. Most Ma & Pa travellers will view the pamphlet distributors as they do Hare Krishnas, and will either ignore them or politely take a flyer without ever reading it.

Unless NOODists band together to make a well-coordinated and concentrated strike, tomorrow will be just as ineffective as those one-day gas boycotts that never seem to go away.

I've got some news for you... the TSA has been charging you $2.50 per enplanement for nearly a decade. If you examine any ticket you've bought recently, it should have a line marked "September 11th Security Fee" or "AY." The airline just collects the money as part of your ticket purchase and remits it to the TSA.

The charge is levied per enplanement, so if you take a 4-segment roundtrip, you just paid $10 for the privilege of being scanned, ogled, and/or groped.

http://www.tsa.gov/research/fees/passenger_fee.shtm

The TSA has already won the battle for tomorrow. No matter how long the lines are, they will blame the NOODists. I'm nervous that a large percentage of Kettles end up missing their flights and blame the NOODists, whether or not anyone actually opts out. The media will eat it up.

Mike

you may be right, I think another element to the day should be more civil disobediance, carry large bottles of water and leave them in carry-on, leave metal in pockets for multiple WTMD attempts (then opt outs), not just opt outs to be treated 'second' but lots of 'forgetting' the 'rules'...

With all due respect, F*** them. They probably wanted Rosa Parks to sit down and shut up too.

I'm thinking something like Critical Mass in NYC and other places. Difficult to do at airports but maybe something similar to CM could get traction.