Agents are being more friendly
 

I noticed the agents are being more friendly lately. Asking questions and commenting.

I do not talk to them at all.

But how do I know if it is a REAL security question that I must answer?

Jim

You do not have to answer any question directed at you.

remember, less than 3% of TSA clerks tell the truth...

There's nothing you MUST answer, and TSA wouldn't know a "real" security question if it bit them.

I'm polite to them, without answering any of their questions.

~~ Irish

And the TSA, in response, does not have to let you pass the checkpoint, either. It's not like you're under arrest at the checkpoint. (Most of the time.)

I don't mean to be snarky about it. But TSA has been deliberately vague regarding what questions you must answer in order to pass the checkpoint and what questions you may decline to answer. Failure to answer a question has, at times, been interpreted by TSOs as "failure to cooperate with the screening process", which is sufficient cause to be denied permission to pass the checkpoint.

I wish, as with many things about TSA, that there was more clarity on this issue.

I wish there was more clarity about everything to do with the TSA.

But on this issue, I'm clear. I don't have to answer their questions, and I don't. I'm not confrontational about it and I stand my ground, politely - meaning, I usually provide a polite non-answer. If that means I don't fly that day, then I don't fly that day. Tant pis.

~~ Irish

Is there a reference for this? I've never seen anything on the TSA website that says anything whatsoever on the topic.

It depends on the question. You do not have to answer any question put to you by any TSA employee prior to the screening station; that includes the BDOs and the TDC. You probably will get the Super Secret Squiggle on your BP if you refuse the "chat" resulting in a random[sic] secondary screening. At the screening station you should answer questions arising from the contents of your person or bag.

I will answer "where are you going?" since this is a pathetic little attempt to elicit a mismatch with your BP :rolleyes: . To "what is the purpose?" I'll respond "personal business", and if pressed "personal personal business". Anything else and I decline to answer (but see Squiggle, above) and if that upsets them I refer to 18 USC 1001 accusing them of trying to trap me.

It rarely (actually only once IME) comes to that. Once they figure out you're not willing to play, which can take a while, they usually move on to more compliant shee... people.

Be Polite, but say little
 

I am almost never stopped by traffic police. It happens about once every 5 years or so. When I was younger I was chatty. As I grew older, I realized this was unwise.

The last two times I was stopped I lay my registration, license and proof of insurance on the dash before the officer got to my window. I asked him why he stopped me. I didn't answer any questions. I gave him the documents he asked for and I took my ticket politely. (I probably did commit the "rolling stop" as he claimed). He asked a barrage of questions, none of them of the type I needed to answer.

It really is possible to evade questions politely by smiling vaguely and asking the questioner to repeat himself a few times. Acting dumb as a stump and deaf as a post is a legitimate strategy as far as I'm concerned. It's easier than getting in an overt power struggle with a goon.

I think that sharing as little information with the TSA screeners and forcing them to waste a lot of time digging for what little they get is a good idea. It should be possible to eventually discern what they really must be told before you can be shut of them.

Well, I think that's deliberate ... if TSA's website doesn't say anything on the topic, then they've achieved their goal of being vague about what is actually required.

A quick scan of the TSA website revealed the following:

Of course, "belligerent behavior" is incredibly vague. Refusing to engage in small-talk, or offering non-revealing answers to questions, could br (and has been) interpreted as "belligerent behavior".

So, we're back to the original point. You're under no obligation to say anything at a checkpoint; they're under no obligation to let you pass through the checkpoint. How that standoff gets resolved is ... well, your mileage may vary.

Without being there or knowing more, just based on this there is no doubt in my mind as to why you got a ticket;)

I think it's time someone was arrested and charged for it. I don't want to be the one, but I'm a fairly good candidate. I'm mild-mannered to a fault, fall well and have a high tolerance for pain! It may as well be me.

"I'm sorry. What was your question? What am I towing? Why nothing of course. Oh - 'going'? Why didn't you say so? You did? Oh my. Goodness, what a lovely coffee stain that is on your tie. It looks rather like a kitten. What were you saying? Do you think I can buy a Tylenol once I get past the checkpoint? Tylenol's safer than Aspirin I think. Do you? Oh my, there's a hole in my sock. People just don't darn socks anymore. I wonder why. It's more frugal, don't you think?"

Problem is unless your "belligerent behavior" involves actual assault, you won't be arrested. They'll make you miss your flight (that'll teach her !) and possibly impose an administrative fine of some sort. Might involve a LEO to participate in the game, do an NCIS check, give you a good talking to etc. etc. :rolleyes:

Declining to answer impertinent questions might get you into the above sort of trouble, but simply demurring politely probably won't. Unless you encounter one of the real TSA *****/*.

On the two or three occasions where the questions have started, my response has been, "I don't discuss my travel."

I noticed that the TSA website doesn't say anything about what color of shirt I'm allowed to wear. Does that mean they've "achieved their goal of being vague about what is actually required"?

This is so tiresome. I'm rarely stopped by traffic cops because I am very careful to obey traffic laws. It's easy enough to go along to get along. The cops know full well which questions I don't have to answer, and they don't really push it. Cops are professionals, and even when they're being jerks it's clear they know where the limits are. When I go on base the gate guards are professionals too. Even the "rent a cops" on gate duty have reasonable standards of behavior to adhere to. (Think about it. For over thirty years I've come and gone from military bases without half the drama of going through a TSA checkpoint.)

These TSA checkpoints seem totally unregulated. There's so much wrong with the situation that it's a total crap shoot. I don't have to travel by air for a while, and I'm glad. Maybe a few boundaries will be defined for the TSA/air traveler before I have to deal with it again.

If the next congress doesn't fix this, they are so fired!

If that continues to work, then there's no problem. That is as it should be.

It probably helps that I always use my brown official passport for official travel. Regardless, one has to assume that every question is designed to build a case to search you and/or to turn you over to the cops. They've got nothing but their culture to blame for earning this distrust from the American People.

You could be deaf - they won't have an ASL interpreter available. You could speak any of 200 languages they won't have an interpreter for. You could be mute and not able to answer except by writing it down. You could have Tourette's Syndrome and not trust yourself to speak in a way that wouldn't be misinterpreted as hostile.

TSA just has to quit engaging folks in conversation when they aren't fully prepared to enforce a (made-up) requirement to communicate with them.

Well, it's not exactly about the color of one's shirt, but ... how many times have passengers gotten into "trouble" at an airport merely because of their shirt?

• There was the MIT student at BOS.
• There was the Iraqi architect at JFK.
• There was the guy with the Transformers T-shirt at LHR. (Ok, LHR security isn't run by TSA, but the story fits the same general theme ...)

Yes, if they could stop you from flying based on the color of your shirt.

Be worth it though for $240,000.
http://www.aclu.org/free-speech-raci...nation-charges

Personally I'd avoid smurf blue or jetblue er.. blue. You might be mistaken for an idiot.

As you imply, they can't. But they also can't stop you for refusing to answer questions. And both of those are for exactly the same reasons: there's no law or regulation saying they can.

Would that that were the case but when did the absence of a law or regulation have any effect on a particular type of screener ?

They make stuff up y'know.

^ Smart lady...

I just ask point blank if I'm required to answer the question. This puts them on notice that I'm going to provide info as required but won't be responding to anything like "How was your trip" or "How's the weather" with anything more than one syllable.

I don't consider these people my neighbors. I don't need to jawjack and be friendly with them. I resent them, and there's no reason for me to hide that fact, as long as I'm not overtly hostile.

(It does always slay me when they act miffed when I'm abrupt, as though I have some obligation to chitchat. Sorry, lady. If I weren't legally required to speak to you, I wouldn't be doing it at all.)

There's also no law stating that they can stop you from flying for refusing to be patted down. The regulations only state that: "No individual may enter a sterile area or board an aircraft without submitting to the screening and inspection of his or her person and accessible property in accordance with the procedures being applied to control access to that area or aircraft under this subchapter." § 1540.101. And "No person may interfere with, assault, threaten, or intimidate screening personnel in the performance of their screening duties under this subchapter." § 1540.109

They don't specify the types of screening or any criteria in determining who can board a plane. It's all TSA SOP, which is unavailable to the public, unless they feel like making it available.

As an aside, reading the plain language of that regulation, is TSA violating its own regulation by not screening all ground personnel every time they enter the sterile area?

My point is that they should NOT be engaging in trivial conversation, they should be checking to see if the person's picture on the ID matches the person in front of them. They rarely do that. Jim

I really like ElizabethConley's approach of responding to the question without actually saying anything.

Where are you traveling today?

Oh, I just love traveling, don't you? The excitement of going to the airport. . .and on and on with the nonsense patter until they move on to someone else or die of boredom. Don't let them get a word in edgewise, though. You really have to keep it up non-stop.

It's called interrogation, and by god you will answer their questions.

"Do you want to fly today?"

:confused::(

A regulation that the law requires to be issued has the force of law for that purpose.

No, because the "procedure being applied" need not be the same for everybody.

I disagree with that for a couple of reasons. First of all, people aren't machines. They do their job better if they find it interesting. If somebody finds it interesting to attempt to engage a passenger in small talk, I see nothing wrong with it so long as they respect a passenger's uninterest in replying in kind. And, you never know, it might elicit the kind of response that even an untrained person might consider suspicious.

Sounds like Emily Littella from SNL :D

There is no regulation or statute that specifies the details of the screening or inspection. No regulation was ever promulgated authorizing the use of scanners or patdowns to get on a plane. No regulation was ever promulgated stating what items are prohibited in carry-ons or that there's additional screening of "bulky" clothing. These requirements for the screening and inspection are all SOP, they are not regulations.

Much of this SOP has been made public by the TSA. But many requirements, such as additional screening for "bulky" clothing were not made public on TSA's website, just like the website does not contain details of the SPOT program. TSA could include this questioning by BDOs as part of the screening or inspection, and refuse entry to the sterile area for failure to comply in refusing to answer the questions and thus not submit to screening. I have no idea if they would do such a thing, but the fact that none of this is pursuant to statute or regulation, and their SOPs are not public, suggests that they could and we have no way of knowing what their rules actually are.

I'm not at all sure they are violating that regulation. I was just posing the question. But there is absolutely no screening of the "accessible property" of the ground crew; their bags are not x-rayed or examined at all. The regulation doesn't specify the procedures to be applied, but it also doesn't exempt anyone from undergoing inspection or screening, even if the procedures used are different than those for passengers.

That's not really that helpful, and as others have noted you don't "have" to get past the security checkpoint.

I notice a bit of a division in some of the forum posts; some people advocate an Israeli - style interrogation, while others say that they don't want to answer questions and want everything formulaic; interesting as we are still all on the same side and agree that the current situation is terrible yet ineffective.

I take a very practical approach - I hate the cancer boxes, invasive patdowns, and general security theater, but a supplementary assessment with brief questions to ensure that you are of minimal risk I don't have too much problem (almost certainly they are making sure you can speak English, looking at your response, not actually caring where you went.) However, I have never been asked where I am traveling or anything like that.

I WANT the TSA to be able to look closely at somebody sweating or acting really, really weird while passing through a checkpoint. However, the policies set by the agencies regarding screening have been generally terrible, and as others have noted I don't trust the USA barely-high school educated agent to make intelligent screening decisions independently.

Since when is speaking English (or any other language) required?

That's a lot of the issue when people compare, say, security at an embassy with the airport. There are many orders of magnitude less people trying to enter an embassy each than fly. Things that can work very well in a small scale with highly-trained people can't work when you need tens of thousands of people able to do those things.

My own feeling is that we need some combination of a little of all of them. Clearly, any sort of "interrogation" that gets into things of substance has even more Constitutional issues than the searches (courts are much stricter on Fifth Amendment issues than Fourth).

Part of this issue was raised recently by the Blitz court. Most of the SOP is directed at TSA employees to say how to screen each person. One can argue there's a legitimate governmental interest in not disclosing such information. I'd put the "bulky clothing" issue in that section: people have to know they are subject to a pat-down, but there's no legitimate need to know the precise set of conditions under which they'll receive it.

However, in that case, the TSA characterized the SOP as containing not rules for TSOs, but rules that the public must follow and here the court clearly wasn't happy about the concept of secret rules. That point wasn't relevant to the motion at hand, so it's just dicta now, but could become relevant later and I think it's the TSA's weakest case.

But the "procedure" in the case of employees can just be "random screening". The term "screening" doesn't necessarily mean to look at each item.

It depends on my mood, my kids moods (I never fly alone, I have 1 or 2 children with me) and the person. For example, the agent that was obviously trying to make it seem like I was taking the kids from their dad ("their father does know where they are??") I ignored and started talking to my oldest. The one that was just being friendly, "You traveling alone? Need help with your bags. Your girls are cute, how old?" etc then I was friendly in response. Your nice to me, I'm nice to you, you are an ... to me, I act like you are some figment of my overactive imagination..
Of course last time I flew was about a year ago and they weren't being this asinine about security. Next time I'll be flying with my husband and he doesn't do small talk.. with anyone.. so they are likely to get the cold shoulder ignore from him.

Plus, they tend to be less than bright about understanding that some of us who are disabled sound different. I hate to harp on it but given that much of the TSA's recent changes end up singling out those of us who are disabled as targets of TSA agent harassment...and what happened to a deaf flyer as recounted in another thread...yeah. Difference is bad in the world of the TSA.

You might be able to sue, and maybe, after a few years, you'll win the case. The TSA can still do what it wants, including possibly stopping you from boarding your plane for a ridiculous reason in the meantime.

Blitz is irrelevant. It was oral argument on a motion, which resulted in an unpublished oral decision that did not even go the merits of the issue. You could possibly be correct about what TSA can or cannot do, but this stuff just can't be asserted as fact. It's all speculation.

+1

I have severe inattentive-type ADHD. Which means I have nearly no short-term memory and my problem is (much) worse when I'm under stress.

Guess what? I didn't leave that foil-wrapped gum in my pocket on purpose. I get that there are rules, but being screamed at and ridiculed EVERY time at the checkpoint does add up after a while.

I'm not interested in conversations with traitors.

Beware of Greeks bearing gifts.