Frankly, I didn't expect much different as a response, but I find it disappointing especially considering a similar conversation with a different TSO had here earlier today.

I can certainly make a judgement based on my own personal experiences at TSA checkpoints as well as at checkpoints around the world as to how well TSA in general performs, and what trends are like at certain airports.

Don't x-ray technicians LEAVE the room when you get an x-ray? Here's a brilliant quote from this website about one tso's reaction to the radiation risks:
http://www.lewrockwell.com/blog/lewr...ves/86199.html

UPDATE from Marc:
I flew from SFO to Long Beach Sunday night on Jet blue, which is located in the international terminal. When I got to the screening point the TSA agent was standing in the metal detector and motioning everyone into the porn scanner. I immediately said that I was opting out. I was told that I would have to �wait longer� and I replied �thats fine I can wait a little longer and take the extra few years of my life on the back end.� When it came time to do the screening the TSA agent, who was polite, asked what my reasoning was. I told him that I was a Chiropractor who was licensed to take X-RAYS and was very hesitant about unnecessary radiation. I also explained when taking X-rays I must wear a meter to measure X-ray radiation, and I asked, in a concerned voice, why the TSA staff wasn�t wearing these. He looked puzzled and at that point I explained that he and the rest of the staff should see an Oncologist every six months or so until the scientific studies come out fully detailing their safety. The TSA officials while amicable,actually look shell-shocked, as if they know they are stuck in a dead end job.

Dead ending job may be very close to the truth

I think I make a difference at my airport. I can't account for how things are done at other airports.

I think it's pretty arrogant of you to tell me how I can be more productive in your eyes. You could be more productive if you quit your whining and become more active in the community. How's that? Why don't you run for office and fix it from the White House on down?

Sharing ideas is one thing, and I'm open to a good discussion and exchange of different views. However, when you think you have the right to tell me how I can live my life better, I have a tendency to tell you to pound sand. So let's agree to keep the personal stuff out of it and just stick to sharing ideas.

And until that changes, TSA will continue to be viewed by the public as less effective than fast food restaurants. After all, I can walk into a McDonald's anywhere in the country and get the exact same experience as the McDonald's down the street from my home. Why TSA can't achieve that same level of consistency, with a higher quality work force, is beyond my comprehension.

You know what, they should be.

We should all be able to transit every airport and be able to expect exactly what will happen to us.

But instead, we get inconsistency. What I experience at RDU is miles different from what I expect at EWR or MCO or SAN.

And that shouldn't be the case. The rules are what they are, and they should be enfoced evenly and uniformly.

But that makes sense, therefore the TSA won't do it.

Until this happens, and until the SOP is released to the public so we can be aware of what is expected and what will happen, the TSA will practice security theatre instead of real security.

Let me clarify that I am not referring to 'consistent inconsistency' to fool the bad people.... (I think that is an excuse to cover poor training or reinforcement, frankly)

I am referring to the items which TSA lists on their website as permitted, and what they list as process.

Sometimes it feels as if the rules are made up as they go along. Airport A permits something if the sky is grey, there is an R in the month, and the screener is in the first hour of their shift. Airport B permits the same item only in months containing a A, the sky is blue, and the screener had chicken for lunch. Airport C permits the same item when the sky is black.

Yet the TSA website clearly states that the item is permitted.

As examples, take Nexus card, or the non-removal of certain medical devices. And here it is even more unclear - for instance the statement from at least one TSA poster than 1 gallon size bags are permitted at the checkpoint.

I understand that in the forum give and take there will be some heat. Yet when you talk like this, all I see is you in uniform getting in a passenger's face at the airport. gets in the way of hearing your ideas.

As I tell supervisors and leads in training, "read the prohibited items list; don't read into it."

Sorry, I don't buy it. If you didn't know I was a screener, you'd never bring this up. Because I was foolish enough to identify myself as one, you and others feel free to draw ridiculous notions such as the one you posted above. Comments like the one you posted also gets in the way of me hearing your ideas.

I'd like to set that aside and focus on ideas. Believe it or not, I use some of the comments I read in here for training purposes to help improve how TSOs interact with passengers. But it's hard sometimes to get past all of the silly rhetoric that some of these comments are laced with.

But that in itself is the rub as that is not done. You know it and I know it. Rules are interpreted differently and/or made up and without a simple interpretation of the rules (i.e.: if a, then yes or if b, then no*), the current screening process will never work successfully. Imho, the only way they system can work effectively is to have the McDonalds approach where everything is the same from at all locations.

*and changed to accommodate situations as they arise (i.e.: when orthopedic shoes became an issue) and properly transmitted to all stations and all employees.

This is how they should be trained - however, they don't follow their training and decide to interpret.

In some things yes and in some things no. For example, (and I don't want to lead to this turning into a merged thread), the TSO who patted down the six year old girl followed procedure to the letter. However, I believe that she should have had a degree of latitude specifically for patting down small children. Example: I agree that patting down the inside of the waistband was not necessary, and that patting down the waistband from the outside would have been sufficient. However, the TSO does not have that latitude.

As for prohibited items, yes, should be pretty black and white. On the plus side, you have to admit that this is far better than when we originally had to prohibit scissors, small screwdrivers, cigar cutters and other similar items. Of course, we took a step backwards when we decided to prohibit liquids, gels and aerosols.

Sickened. Pointless.

Here is your problem... groping children, giving people cancer, sexually assaulting peoples wives, and using sickening coercive psychology B.S. to force people to endure this crap... it IS PERSONAL.

I take it very personally. My kids aren't flying until the TSA, in its current idiocy with incompetent management is dissolved.

Get over this idea that doing this crap to people is somehow "not personal". It IS personal and utterly pointless and at an enormous cost to taxpayers.

The only thing I want to see happen Bart... is for you to lose your job. Its going to happen to. Napolitano and Pistole, their days are numbered as are the days of the colossal waste of taxpayer theft and PERSONAL criminal activity you people are conducting.

That is my honest opinion man. Every day you go to work and use coervice tactics to subject innocent people to radiation and molestation is a day you are a constitution violating criminal. Don't you ever forget that.