tazi

They are under very little scrutiny from what I have seen. In addition to the theft problems with leaving your bags unlocked, you can add to the list that some TSA baggage screeners have no respect for the property of others. They do not take care to try and repack items so that they will not be damaged nor to the take care to make sure that everything that came out goes back in.

I agree completely with JPT. I have no problem with the screening but we should be allowed to be present to observe the search and to make sure how bags are locked afterwards.


------------------
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety
deserve neither liberty nor safety." -- Ben Franklin

Dr. TSA

As a screener I do not object at all to you locking your bag as long as you know that if it alarms it will have to be cut. I agree that some in TSA do not care if it is repacked properly and hopefully TSA will take measures to correct this.

As far as letting you be present during this search:
Most airports floors cannot handle the weight of the baggage screening machines. This is why they had to be placed in the baggage area and not in public view as the floor there is reinforced. To remedy that situation it would cost the airports millions of dollars to upgrade the flooring and would take about a year to complete. This would also cause some of the airport to be shutdown and increase delays. We also cannot call the passenger down to the area we have them in for a couple of reasons:

1) That area is a sterile area that has access to the every part of the airport including the runways and the aircraft.

2) The airlines will not call the passengers to the area any longer.

3) If we had to call every passenger down that locked their bag it would increase delays ten fold or more.

As I said in a previous post if you have any solutions to these issues I will be more than happy to send them up the chain of command. All ideas are welcome. TSA wants to find the happy median between security and passenger experience. As someone has posted before, without the passengers or the airlines there would be no use for the TSA and if the goverment is good at one thing it is self preservation.

Dr. TSA

I would like to comprise a list of your complaints and send this up through the chain just to make sure that they are aware of all the issues. My time is very short right now due to a very ill family member. If this forum would allow it and if you are willing, it would help out if you could post just the issues and any suggestions you have to remedy the issues either here or in another thread.

I have no idea if this will help but it is worth a try.

haole

gentlemen and ladies at T.S.A., easy solution, you break the lock, you stand the jerk for loss/repair of the persons property. no need to pass the buck to the airlines, you made the rule, you live with the results. before you whine about this, think,,before the rules were put in place, why was not ant thought put inrto the implemintatoin and results of the decision? havig been in the military for over 21 years, i guess it just made good scence{sp] to someone to do it in the name of security. sorry about the spelling.

tazi

Dr. TSA, thank you for your very sincere offer to try and help find a solution to these problems. It is good to know that there are people like you working for the TSA.

It's late now but I will come up with a list of suggestions/concerns by tommorow.

Spiff

Once the bag has been inspected there is NO reason for it to be opened again. Zero. Nada. Zip. Bags should be relocked at the owner's discretion and never opened thereafter. Anytime a bag needs to be examined, the owner should have the option of being present. Too many owners being present slows everything down? Then you're opening too many d@mn bags.

------------------
"Give me Liberty or give me Death." - Patrick Henry

tmspa

It is impossible for the owner to be present all the time. Many large airports conduct baggage screening in the bowels of the airport (much like a factory setting). These areas are not accessible by the general public. Could you just imagine saying to an ederely disabled lady, "excuse ma'am, could you come with me?". And then taking her all the way down to a loud, hot, dusty area filled with large conveyor belts and big machines, asking her to please wear ear protection for her safety and then trying to resolve the alarm and ensure that she is completely aware of what is actually taking place.

Yeah, that'll happen. Ha, Ha!

porkyboy

I don't know what his point was, but I'd like to say that I'd prefer leaders who were a cut above the general US population. Leadership requires just a higher level of integrity and honesty. If you want to be represented by a felon, that's cool, but I sure as heck don't.

ACES II

My point was that our leaders certainly don't mirror the general population, they might mirror a few people. I would wager that the vast majority of people would not appear on that list of shame.

Dr. TSA

I can make one suggestion that may help until things get ironed out. Place a note in you bags with a lock asking that they lock your bag after it has been searched. I would have no problem doing that at all. One problem with that is that unless your bag get searched then we will not see the note.

Cholula

My point was and is that members of congress are no better...and I maintain, no worse....than what you'd see if you picked 535 people at random from the general population.
ACES ll , you chose to publish the old, tired Hall of Shame post above that has been circulating on the Internet for years. Who knows what validity there is to any of these statistics. For sake of discussion, let's say they're all true.
Should our leaders be held to a higher standard of ethics?? Certainly but they are who they are and you can thank your fellow citizens for voting them into office year after year.
Having said that and to get back to the original " Group of Idiots " charge in your 2/13 post , who else would you suggest we write/call regarding TSA performance?
BTW, this thread has covered more territory than Lewis and Clark but it's been interesting....

Spiff

The root of the problem is that you are opening too many bags. If you have a problem with a bag, it should be a rare, not a common event. When one of these rare events happen, you need to have a location to reunite the customer and their luggage and then have them open it for you. There is absolutely no valid excuse for pawing through someone's belongings without giving them the option of being present.

tazi

Yes, I can imagine it if the little old lady had no objections. I certainly wouldn't. It is my understanding that the installation of these machines is temporary and the next step is to integrate them with the baggage handling system. At the very least, when this is done it should be done in a way that will allow passengers to be present for the searches. It is also my understanding that they have managed to do so in London airports. Perhaps the tSA should take a lesson from them.



I don't find this situation to be the least bit funny. Perhaps after you have had your belongings mishandled by a TSA baggage screener you may not either. And in my case, it was definitely a screener, not a baggage handler.




[This message has been edited by tazi (edited 02-15-2003).]

tazi

You would have no problem with it but from what I have seen and heard, most of the baggage screeners would likely toss it aside. If they can't even bother to put a simple piece of packing back into a box, why would I expect them to take the time and care to read my note and put the lock on?

If nothing else, the whole process needs more monitoring by supervisors who will be held accountable along with the screener who isn't taking care with the property they have been entrusted with. Of course, this assumes that not all baggage screening supervisors have the same attitude of tsadude, if indeed, he is a supervisor.

Also, if the TSA is going to be asking that you leave your bags unlocked, they should be responsible for re-securing them. The tamper evident seals are a joke and another example of the tSA wasting money. They serve no purpose whatsoever. Something like this would be better:

http://www.mymiva.com/merchant2/merchant.mv?Screen=PROD&Store_Code=cil.co m&Product_Code=067-012738406

Or even those little tags utility companies use to lock boxes. I also like the idea of them being numbered. If each baggage handler was assigned specific numbers, it would be very easy to identify the person who searched your bag if there is a problem. Perhaps then they might take a little more care if they know they could be held responsible for damage or missing items.

In addition, as spiff said, if you want to be there for the search you should be allowed to watch the process.


------------------
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety
deserve neither liberty nor safety." -- Ben Franklin

[This message has been edited by tazi (edited 02-15-2003).]

ACES II

Those tags might work, but at $5 a dozen a bit steep. You think the gov't spends too much on the TSA now, add that to the bill.