What a bunch of whiners here on this board. Everyone with complaints, no one with solutions. Or better yet, if this is such an important topic, who here will join up in the TSA and try to affect change ? Anyone here willing to make a sacrifice to the country and go to work for the TSA to help institute new and better policy ? I didnt think so, its much easier to whine and complain about how bad it is, rather than actually do something. Then again it cant be so bad, everyone here keeps traveling by plane.

Thank you so much for that totally inane statement.

There is NO NEED to harass passengers. Why is it that people seem to think that we have to look like we're doing something and spending money? The cockpit doors are secure. The magnetometer works. The x-ray works. Shoes are not the only place that explosives can be hidden. What "solution" are you looking for, other than waste more money and drive more passengers away with harassment.

Join the TSA and effect change from within? You gotta be kidding. The regime is not going to hire one of us to work at the top where change can come, despite my offer to do that worthless sack of @#$% James Loy's job for 1/2 his current salary and I don't have enough of the fascism gene to harass my fellow citizens at the checkpoint.

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

Yeah, Ken. Great idea. Let's all go sign up for the TSA. Is it such a "sacrifice" to stand around and twiddle your thumbs while there is a 1/2 mile line in front of you? No, Ken. Changes aen't made in the government taking a job with them. Do you think the Vietnam protesters should all have applied to high-ranking positions in the US Government to try and effect change?

Ken, does your wife work for the TSA or something? I'm not sure why you take such hostility to our complaints.

Idiocy is plain to see. You don't have to join in it to see it.

There will never be a 100% foolproof method of stopping a terrorist. However, there are ways to do things quickly and efficiently, and the TSA hasn't found them yet.

And yes, Ken, some of us HAVE to travel by plane. We don't have a choice but to grin and bear it.

Great attitude! No doubt you are pissed off that they won't let your board the plane with your shotgun.

Why is it so difficult for you to appreciate the fact that the efforts of the TSA are your primary defense against hijacking?

I cannot believe how much people on this board whine about removing their shoes. How much of an inconvenience is it to take off your loafers (5 sec) and send them through security, as opposed to setting off the alarms and causing a nice backup for the rest of us?

What is it with you and shotguns? For some peculiar reason, you seem to think that those of us who object to stupid security want no security and that we have some desire to carry a shotgun onto the plane. I'm not sure how you're drawing this conclusion, perhaps you'd care to enlighten us?

In this case, many of us treasure our civil liberties enough that we do not want to be strip searched just because we want to fly. This is especially true because the removal of shoes adds nothing to security because it makes the faulty assumption that shoes are the only place that explosives can be hidden, just because some idiot tried it once. What would you be saying if Reid had put his sloppy bomb in his underpants? Drop 'em and spread 'em at the checkpoint?

Finally, many of us have shoes that do not set off the magnetometer so it's not an alarm that causes delays. It's the TSA's asinine policy of harassing people whose shoes do not set off the magnetometer because of the faulty assumption in the paragraph above.

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

[This message has been edited by Spiff (edited 08-05-2003).]

Additionally, many of us have conditions where we're not supposed to take our shoes off. Diabetics come to mind, for example. This "shoes off" policy puts diabetics with any form of nerve damage at risk.

Picture this -- diabetic with neuropathy takes their shoes off at the request of some TSA drone, steps on something or gets stepped on, doesn't feel the injury. That's pretty dangerous, all in the same of "safety".

HAH!!!!!!!

Spiff is great.

To echo, pointing out stupid and inefficient security does not infer we don't want any.

The problem is not taking off your shoes, its the stupidity of the entire process.

An example is, in PIT the shoe devise said there was metal in my shoes (I know there isn't) but I complied and ran them through the X-ray. The guy running the X-ray told me "in the future you don't need to take of these shoes, there isn't any metal in them." COnflicting stories in the same line.

Once in SUX I took off my shoes, and security told me to put them back on, we only require AA passangers to take of their shoes not NW.

These are the reals problems, not the extra time it might take to take off the shoes. The system is stupid. I have boarded a plane at DCA without showing my ID once to anybody. TSA at it's finest, at what is to be the must heavely secure airport in the country.

BTW the ID I use that is carried around my neck, and the strap says US NAvy on it lets me pass many lines with out showing the ID, they just assume I am milatery. It also gets me discounts at vendors at many airports. Also the ID is difficult to read, and the phot is twenty five (25) years old and I was 40 pounds lighter, and had brown hair then. TSA looks at and grins, and I am often asked "What is a Merchant Marine?" I don't think many people in Salina KS see many cean going ships. For that case the entire ID could be fake, and they don't know.

How smart is it to print "SSS" on the tickets to alert the agents to give them an extra search. SInce most people know what the "SSS" nmeans, and were to do something wrong, its a clue to try again. How about developing a more secretive way of alreting TSA to perform a secondy search, or just stop the dumb time wasting procedure.

Yes, taking off shoes is a pain in the A. That is not what bothers me, it is the stupidity of the enire process, and I do not feel any more secure than I did two years ago, and is some cases less secure because of the poor job TSA does screening the passengers. The only thing they are good at is giving paying passengers a hard time.

Agreed 100% with the last few posters.

But back on topic -- tonight @ PHL I checked in at the F terminal. No shoe BS. The TSA person politely reminded me to take out my laptop, asked me if my shoes were going to be ok, I said "yes" and she waved me through.

That's the way it ought to work -- politely remind me but take my word for it and don't hassle me. If they were all like this there would be nothing to complain about.

The problem is the self-appointed "experts" who (apparently) think they're making us more secure with these ludicrous made-up rules. These are the same people who were screwing up the random searches with their asinine selections. They need to be vigorously identified and purged at all levels of the TSA. They're not making us any safer -- they're sucking precious resources away from focusing on real security measures that would actually make a difference.

How many more posts must the whining continue until you feel good about yourselves? If you ***** for 5 posts will you feel better? I hear the same lame "The TSA is stupid, the process is stupid" arguement over and over, yet no one has any solutions other than to complain that they have to do _________ fill in your own complaint. It doesnt matter what the TSA does, you are going to complain and whine about it. Hell someone here even complained about a "health" risk for diabetics in taking off their shoes. They cant win, there is an idiot going throught he metal detector at every turn. If its so bad, do something to change it, not just whine about it.

As usual, you're right, Ken.

Ok, guys. Let's just forget about the TSA's problems and suck it up. Since none of us are obviously willing to "make the sacrifice" and join the TSA, we shouldn't dare talk about the stupid things they are doing.

The government is always right, anyway.

Again I'll ask why you see the need for some kind of additional solution beyond the metal detector and x-ray. Are you willfully choosing to ignore the fact that shoes are not the only place that explosives can be hidden, or are you just here to tell us to shut up and take off our shoes? Do you have some kind of shoe fetish like that putz Admiral Loy?



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

Positive step #1:

The TSA should uniformly train it's people at all stations to the same standards.

Positive step #2:

The TSA should ensure that employees do not take it upon themselves to add additional requirements such as "all shoes off"; "I strongly suggest you remove your shoes"; "non-removal of shoes is an automatic secondary screening" and so forth.

Positive step #3:

The TSA should form a customer focus group of frequent travelers to better understand how they can improve the job that they are doing.

Positive step #4:

Better ergonomics should be put in place at all checkpoints -- longer tables, with rollers, for preparing your carry-on items; chairs outside the check point for shoe removal (for those who need them); self-service pre-screening devices for shoes and metal in general. And so forth.

These are real improvements that could be effected if they weren't wasting resources on pointless and ineffective feel good "security".

Positive step #5:

A special line should be created for persons who like to feel more secure. Shoe removal, secondary searches and baggage checks will be mandatory in this line. Such persons would be well advised to report the airport the day prior to departure for a special security briefing including instructions on the location of the flight deck. They can proceed directly from the briefing to the checkpoint.

TSA Ideal Procedure (in effect at some airports):

TSA may recommend to take off shoes, but it is not required. If TSA personnel, for whatever reason, think you need to be subject to secondary screening, you should be taken to a second area with a second magnetometer and other equipment, so as not to inconvenience other passengers who are waiting for their flight. Do not send the same person who always has money in their pockets over and over through the same magnetometer until they release no metal means no metal.

Provide extra long conveyor belts at the end of the x-ray machines -- people take more time these days to 'disassemble' for the x-ray, including the laptop take-out and put-back-in procedure, so give them a bit more time to get it all together.

Provide a seating area along with some open space for those who want to keep the line moving but still need to get items repacked -- an example that comes to my mind is Norfolk, VA, where I try to keep the line moving by grapping my carry-on, laptop and laptop bag, but there are only three chairs anywhere near the screening area and hence I a often forced to crouch somewhere to get everything settled.

While some of the folks here have venom to spit at the TSA, most of it is deserved due to the radical differences of personnel, practices and attitudes at different airports.

Hope that's not too much whining.

To SPiff: No one is saying that Shoes are the ONLY place a bomb can be hidden. It can however be one of many places a bomb can be hidden, so why wouldnt you check the shoes ? And your civil liberties are not being violated by being searched before getting on an airplane. You have lots of travel options, car, bus, private plane or even walking. The choice is yours, and you can continue to whine about the TSA, as you do it so well.