TSA going through wallets now?
 

I just got the oh so lovely pat down yet again at SEA and had a rather new experience. The TSO told me he was going to do a 'visual inspection' of my wallet. and proceeded to open my wallet and tried to rifle through it. I've been through quite a few pat downs, but have never had this happen. Is this new, or have I just managed to avoid it so far?

Probably just looking for something to steal. There's nothing that'll fit in a wallet that could conceivably be used to threaten flight safety.

We've all heard the stories about concealed razor blades, sharpened credit cards, etc., but they simply do not present a credible threat post-9/11.

You've managed to avoid it. Get used to it happening more often when you opt out. :mad: Guess you are supposed to totaly empty your pockets so as to give the TSOs with sticky fingers a chance at taking what was yours and making it theirs.

I've worked in areas that authorized the use of lethal force and had the people there to use lethal force. Funny thing is that it took less to access those areas than it now does to fly.

And then they start taking notes? - and if you tell them to stop? It's 'do you want to fly today?'

The reality has become - if you wish to fly (or travel) then be prepared to give up ALL your rights.

Each new SOP pushes the boundary back another inch... The question is not, "what will you permit them to do?' but "at what point do we stop flying... Traveling?"

Something somewhere has to happen to bring this issue to a boil.

We have become a world of simpering cowards.

I've been subjected to the ridiculous wallet inspection as well. Did it go something like this?

I assume they're checking for either "contraband" or what they deem to be an inappropriate about of money. They best way to avoid it is to pace your wallet in a carry-on that goes through the x-ray and hope they don't decide to do a bag check.

TSO: "I can't believe that worked!"

Would like to stop all air travel, but my job requires it. Before saying 'find another job' remember that I am over 55 and good paying jobs are hard to find when you are that old. Got the wallet check once and I told the TSO doing it that I trusted him as much as he trusted me. Said 'you think I am a terrorist and I think you are a thief.' Got the D.Y.W.T.F.T from him over that.

Just because we want to travel doesn't automatically make us suspects. I would expect things like this out of Nazi, Germany or Stalinist, USSR, not out of the US. Some of us have personally witnessed TSOs stating that the checkpoint is a Constitution free zone. What's up with that? I never signed away any of my Constitutional rights by needing to fly somewhere.

Last week, I opted out at IND. My wallet was in my pocket and I was told they needed to examine it.
I was given the choice of it being run through the x-ray machine or a manual inspection "that would require them to dump everything out into a bin".
When I asked what the motivation was for the procedure, I was told it was SOP and could not shared with me. :rolleyes:

After having my wallet checked at Manchester-Boston in 2009, I changed two travel habits.

My wallet is now locked in my carry-on and I no longer fly out of MHT.

I did not know that Barny Fife had so many brothers and cousins until I had to deal with the TSA at this airport. Second only to Bloomington, IL.

Not new for SEA, the home of "we can do whatever we want".

Oafs (is 'oafs' OK ? ) :mad:

I recently had yet another encounter with the TSA where they would not let me pass through the WTMD unless I removed my wallet. Only problem was, the x-ray belt / machine being used was not within my line of sight. All other items had already been sent through.

In this case I requested a 'visual inspection' and was denied the 'visual inspection' - I was carrying a decent amount of cash in a few currencies and just did not feel it was safe to separate myself from the cash and have it out of sight.

This particular checkpoint had two lanes feeding into one x-ray -- one cancer box and one walk-thru metal detector. Agent tried to assure me it was "safe" because this checkpoint was for international passengers only who had already cleared customs.

Long story short, I was forced to put my wallet in a coin container and sent it thru the x-ray. Thankfully I wasn't held up with an alarm or secondary and was able to rush over to claim my wallet and then my belongings.

Wallets going thru an x-ray machine in the open (and out of pax site) are perfect opportunities for criminals.

OT - but noteworthy: I have a cousin who dropped out of High School, he got his GED in jail, but he apparently can't read at an adult level; he has a long criminal rap sheet as well. I was traveling with his mother (my aunt) about a year ago; we had just attended a family funeral and we were all on the same flight to ATL .. from ATL we went to SDF while she went onto DTW.

At any rate, I was telling her about the cancer boxes ... she didn't seem to think they were an issue, in fact she thought they were a great idea because of a joint replacement; during our conversation she tells me that most of "cousin's name" friends work out at DTW as TSA screeners. Sadly that didn't surprise me, and let me tell you, these are not people you want working at TSO's. :td:

If you do a search on "wallet" in this forum, you'll find lots of threads on the topic of TSA demanding to go through them. I've had that experience maybe a dozen times and made a Federal case out of it every time. They never get to walk away with my wallet until I've removed everything of value. They still carry away the empty wallet and x-ray it. How idiotic!

Bruce

WIN the wallet check game!
 

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IF this wallet check is a regular part of tsa's procedures then make them play by your rules. Carry your wallet with a minimum amount of cash, id, and credit card. One $20, one passport card(if poss.), one minimum amt prepaid credit card mt for show. ;)
Put all regular money, credit cards and other id in a stamped, sealed, addressed envelope(to whoever you want) and place it with your carryon.
Its ideal if its addressed to someone in the vicinity of where you are going.
I can't believe they would insist on opening your mail for you to fly when it can easily be x-rayed.
IF they do I would vigorously protest and ask for a supervisor to justify it.:mad:

Many of us already have -- join the club.

My wife & I were in the air 30 weekends a year plus a vacation or two. Between the two of us, that's about 200 flights not being flown in 2010.

The airlines collectively will end up reducing their schedules by ~2 flights annually to compensate just for us. The more people who quit flying, the more they will have to cut back.

The current economic situation only compounds this:

• Due to higher fuel prices, airlines need more passengers paying higher fares.
• Due to higher fuel prices, fewer passengers can afford to buy airline tickets.

The bottom line is that right now the airlines need every paying passenger they can get. At some point they will realize that a large portion of their customer base has been alienated for reasons other than energy costs.

It's awesome there is no an acronym assigned to their increasingly popular coercion tactics to take away all of our rights.

Like many of us have a choice. This is why they don't do this stuff at malls, because people DO have a choice to go to malls, and they simply won't go.

How do we falsify DY...T?

Who really has the authority to block a passenger from flying? Is it at the FSD level or Supervisor? Can the molester actually block you from flying or does it have to be escalated? To block you from flying, what specifically do they need to do, show, or prove?

I think on my next flight (won't be for awhile), I'm really going to get into this with them. The authority to block you from flying, the mechanics behind it. That really is the key thing here. The TSA asserting that it can prevent you from using public transportation. They say you "must complete screening", but that's not really what they are doing when they say this, they are making a much more broad claim that they can prevent you from using public transportation (without probable cause).

Usually, a 'bring it on' type comment gets them to back off. When you start mentioning getting the FSD, GSC, LEOs, they rapidly back down. They don't want that sort of scrutiny on their operations.

If the x-ray did not show any "anomaly" in the image of your wallet, then they cannot look/rifle thru your wallet and tell the TSO to stop! If you are threatened (n.b threatened as that's what it is) with d-y-w-t-f-t, inform the TSO that you will only have your wallet looked thru if 2 TSO's are present for dual custody purposes and that they are witnessed by an independent 3rd party and insist that the 3rd part be a LEO.

And I'm sure that's how it works at the checkpoint..

In any case, I would bet that if they find you are carrying a large amount of cash, specifically foreign currency, which I do on all of my trips, then that is grounds for being suspicious :rolleyes:

+1

I am still amazed that we have to have conversations like this. You would think that somebody higher up would have grown a pair over the last ten years, and kicked TSA and their Hawaiian counter parts to the curb.

The Screener would be guilty of tampering with federal mail-would that (legally) work?

I'm sure one of the TSA agents here would come up with an argument that they are exempt-but that aside, if they opened the envelope in which their name was not on it, would they be at fault?

They airlines are headed for the abyss. I dumped all of my travel stocks in December and that was one of the best moves I've ever made. For the past ten years I always had at least one airline and two other travel related stocks selected on the basis of my experiences while traveling.

It's funny that some folks think that predictions of eminent airline decline are guesses rather than financial analysis. This is a certainty that has yet to play out.

I checked the market Friday and airline stocks are down over 37% against the Dow since 12/1/10. Coincidentally the week after scope and grope really got underway.

12/1/2010 4/29/2010 Change vs Dow
DJIA 11,052 12,728 +15.16%
DAL 13.88 10.33 -25.58% -40.74% Delta
UAL 28.37 22.82 -19.56% -34.73% United
AMR 8.56 5.87 -31.43% -46.59% American
LUV 13.42 11.75 -12.44% -27.61% Southwest

Based on the current barrel price of $128 gas will be $4.50 in most areas by mid-May. The current $4.00 prices are due to the $118/bbl costs a few weeks ago. Therefore the airlines will see a sharp spike in fuels costs mid-summer as their lock-ins expire and fares will increase or they will have to offset the losses through other cut backs.

Once the business traveler again becomes the visible and primary source of revenue for the airlines, they will be pulled into the TSA issue, assuming FFers complain en masse.

For now, the oblivious kettles keep the airlines flights full and allow them to sit on the sidelines except where the pilots and flight crew are affected.

My guess is that the airlines will be in serious trouble toward the end of the third quarter and they will be grasping at every opportunity or issue that will improve ridership. We need to make this a hot button topic with the airlines when that time comes and let them know that TSA is why we aren't flying.

The correct procedure is to run the wallet through the x-ray. However, it is not unusual for passengers to request that the wallet be physically inspected in their presence instead. It's a tough situation to be in either way for both TSO and passenger.

My advice: place your wallet inside your carry-on bag before you go through the AIT/WTMD (whichever applies at your departure airport). It gets screened with the rest of your property and will most likely be cleared by x-ray.

I do exactly this, but go even farther, I place my wallet inside my hard shell attaché case, which has a built in combination lock and lock the case. My attaché case does not have anything in it that the ......... working the x-ray machine would deem suspicious.

If for any reason the ......... would find any reason to open and inspect my attaché case, lets see now, maybe for retaliation purposes, the minute the ......... touches my wallet, I will demand they stop and get an LEO over before they open my wallet, and I have no compulsion about telling the ......... my reason for calling for an LEO, that there have been too many thefts at the checkpoint and I do not trust any of them at all.

Mr. Elliott

When I do not have to opt-out, I keep my wallet in back pocket, along with my passport or other type of ID I am using (NEXUS, pp card)

If I have to opt-out of the Chertoff Cancer Box™, I will put everything in my pockets into one of my carry-on's, and lock that section.

Have not had any problems, yet. During my first opt-out, I just tossed my wallet on top of my bin when I was about the get groped, and nothing happened to it.

Useful advice, certainly better than in an open bin, but not foolproof.

My wallet has been specifically removed from deep inside my carry-on three times at two airports. Nothing else was looked at, the same wallet in the identically-packed carry-on did not alarm at previous airports same day, and no "contraband" was ever identified. The wallet is thin woven nylon. It carries only folding money, plastic ID and credit cards, no coins.

Each time my folding money was fanned through and/or counted. When I asked if there is something specific about it that causes confusion (since obviously they are not finding anything) I received unhelpful responses that "we can search anything we want, we don't have to tell you why."

I agree 100%. I've been doing this since about 1978. It goes in there in the parking lot right after I put my parking lot ticket in it and comes out again in a men's room stall in the airside terminal. This is just good OPSEC, and I don't know why it's so difficult.

Good advice, and something I've been doing for years.

What I don't understand, though, is how TSA can justify a TSO leafing through someone's wallet and examining the cash contained within.

What the TSA is allowed to do and what it actually does are two entirely separate things. And until someone reins it in, we have a problem.

In the lawsuit that the ACLU filed against the DHS, in regards to the campaigner for Ron Paul who was carrying $4700 in cash and was detained by the TSA, to get the ACLU to drop the lawsuit, the DHS agreed to limit their inspections to WEI and not take out and count the money passengers were carrying, but it looks like the TSA feels it does not have to abide by this agreement.

I wonder if the TSA, or the supervisor on duty be held in contempt of court?

If it happened to me, I would immediately demand the ......... stop their inspection, quoting the lawsuit settlement, and if they ignore me, demand an LEO be called, I would ask to LEO to document the inspection by viewing the tapes and I would then contact the Boston office of the ACLU as soon as I can and ask them if they could reopen the lawsuit because the TSA is still continuing to count passengers money in direct violation of the settlement.

Mr. Elliott

When I complained and they brought over a supervisor, she also told me "You don't get to tell me what I can and can't do".

She then asked the TSO if I had already had the pat down. If I hadn't already, I probably would have gotten the resolution pat down because I pissed her off.

Really at this point, if I didn't have to fly for work, I wouldn't be flying anymore.

I better start putting my license to carry up front in my wallet just to make them uneasy :)

The TSA seems to take the position that a court decision applies only to that one particular case. In this case since there was a pre-trial settlement it's not binding to anything else unless as cited as precedent in another case. TSA knows such cases are extremely rare and is quite prepared to deal each time to keep it out of court.

Then of course there is the well-documented disconnect between official TSA policies and what individual checkpoint workers consider their entitlement to do whatever they damn well please.

I loved pulling that in New York. In Texas, we're required to present both ID and concealed handgun license if an LEO requires our ID. Of course the ASSs aren't LEOs, but it's habit. So I'd hand over both, with the card with "CONCEALED HANDGUN LICENSE" in big red block letters on top. Without fail, their eyes would get wide and they'd start acting nervous...

Go further and search on wallet carnival. :)

Yup its always interesting to see the look of pure fear in there face, and how there ability to speak is all fubar'd. Then there is the obligatory question of where is my weapon or am I carrying at that time. My response depends on there attitude and my mood.

I have had A.S.S.es try and go through my wallet a couple of times, but when i tell them going outside of there SOP is going to cause all sorts of trouble and I need to see there State issued ID NOW! (not that worthless "SIDA" or TSA POS) as having been a victim of Identity theft I want to all the details on a individual who has looked at my personal data. That stops that PDQ as they know im not bluffing

A Texas Concealed Handgun License is a state issued ID and if I were you I would only show the TDC this, not your drivers license.

The TSA website clearly states.

"Drivers Licenses or other state photo identity cards issued by Department of Motor Vehicles (or equivalent)."

The state agency issuing the CHL definitely would fall under the “equivalent” portion of the TSA requirements.

And if they fail to accept your CHL, then file a complaint against the TDC and all the supervisors who the TDC will call because of the confusion, for failure to abide by their own rules.

Mr. Elliott

How do you know they're going outside of SOP?

And what's the justification for the TSA to look through someone's wallet, anyway?

Undoubtedly true, and I am sure that if the TSA lawyers fail in their motion for dismissal, they would rather settle out of court to prevent precedent being set.

But if someone decides to refuse the settlement and continues the lawsuit, it would be interesting how far the TSA will go, especially if the plaintiff has a really good lawyer who knows how to work the system and force the TSA to either keep upping the settlement, or is successful in forcing the TSA to at least show the judge their SOP so the judge can rule on the case.

It only takes one successful case in court to start the ball rolling in reining in the TSA.

Mr. Elliott

Because they can do whatever they want to do, this is what they will tell you.

Mr. Elliott

It can still be subjected to an administrative search, and is not "mail" in the sense that it can only be opened by the sender, recipient, Postal Inspector, etc. The same holds true when transiting Customs.



:cool:^ My money clip goes into a locked compartment on the outside of my rollaboard before I even get to the TDCer. Honestly, I wish more FFs would quit futzing around with keys, change, cell phones, etc at the checkpoint.

Truly? Say the envelope is properly address and stamped?

If so, geeze. Why bother spending money, time and sweat going to school to be a lawyer, doctor, LEO, judge, scientist, postmaster, inspector, etc. just join TSa and in 40 hrs, be able to do whatever the heck you want. No consequences, all you have to say to justify any action is "SOP, SSI." No law or constitution will apply.

It is officially mail only when in the possession of the USPS and after you get it out of your mailbox before you open it. Before it is mailed, it is just an envelope with stuff in it. If you mail it to yourself, they can only examine it if you open it. They can only force you to open it with a warrant. (My understanding of the law only as IANAL.)

They can still deny you access to the sterile area.