secondary screening
 

What triggers secondary screening? My husband and I travel often, are grandparents, have no criminal records, have never carried anything illegal and yet we are subjected to secondary screenings? Is this the airline's fault or some higher power? If we are on some list of suspicious characters, how did we get there and how can we find out? :mad:

jad1,

Welcome to FlyerTalk!

There are a number of things that cause secondary screening. Not getting in a frequent flyer number to your reservation prior to ticketing is probably the biggest reason. After that, last minute changes to tickets, particularly one-way tickets is next.

Whose fault is it? It is the TSA's fault for using these ineffective, un-American methods to harass the traveling public. However, it is also the airlines' fault for not standing up to the government and telling the TSA to go to hell.

I don't have a record. Knowing nothing about me, would you pick me up on the side of the road and give me a 5 hour ride with your family?

Ok.... Thanks for the non-sequitur.

Pre-9/11, SSSS almost never happened. All this SSSS harassment post-9/11 has not prevented even one act of terrorism.

here Officially, there is no way to find out if you are on the watchlist of suspicious characters. I actually thought that my name was on the list because I got repeatedly SSSS'ed for a period of 6-9 months. There is a supposed "procedure" to go through if you think your name is there mistakenly.

EPIC was able to obtain some information about the watchlist through a FOIA request. Their results are available here:

If you do suspect that you are on a watchlist (you are not on the "no-fly list" because you were able to get a boarding pass) you should fill out a complaint at the ACLU's website: No-fly or watchlist complaint The ACLU has filed a lawsuit seeking the discontinuation of the no-fly and watchlists until such time as the government provides transparent procedures for finding out whether an individual is on one of the lists and for being removed from the list if your placement there is in error.

You should also send a complaint to [email protected], demanding to know whether you are on the watchlist. They'll send a form letter back and refuse you the information you seek, but it's good to do this anyhow.

Are you political activists? There have been repeated complaints that activists are being placed on watchlists. For example, see here and here.

Give me a break - if that were the case, everyone would be going through this nonsense.

Everybody is going through/or subject to this "nonsense." We don't have a poster of you in our break room.

One thing that is important to remember here: One of the biggest reasons for long "SSSS" lines is this:

When a flight is cancelled and you are re-booked, you are an automatic selectee. This is a computer glitch that the airlines are supposedly working on.
If it weren't for all of the unnecessary selectees, the "SSSS" line would be faster than the regular lines.

Not true!

It's not a computer glitch, it's because a last-minute, one-way reservation without a FF number is a factor for SSSS harassment.

One can make one's own re-accommodations and greatly reduce the risk of getting SSSS harassment by making sure one's FF number is in the record of the new reservation prior to ticketing.

This isn't the airlines' fault. It's the TSA's fault for forcing the airlines to select some of their passengers to be harassed, though the airlines are to share the blame for not standing up to the thugs who run the TSA.

Thanks - that's what I wanted to know. Our flight was cancelled and rebooked, but no one told us that. It would have made the procedure much more tolerable - for the time being anyway.

Once again, you know more than I do Spiff.

By the way, I've been trying to stay calm, but it's hard to do with the way some of you act around here. Thugs, Nonsense, BS, Workfare, Rape, Harassment blah, blah, blah...

Not that you guys will care, but I may have to make an exit. I deal with enough of you people at the airport. Why should I deal with you on my off time?

In some areas, I do know more than you do because I travel a lot more than you do. I am on the receiving end of your agency's ridiculous, un-American policies of harassment and I'm a pretty quick study. I have no qualms at all about sharing my experiences in the hopes that others can avoid this idiocy.

Sorry if you don't ilke to hear it, but those in charge of the TSA are indeed thugs, and that's putting it mildly. Whether you feel that the insults directed towards management also apply to you is your call. And if you're getting treated so poorly at the airport, hasn't it dawned upon you that many people despise what your agency is doing? Perhaps a better application of your talents elsewhere is in order.

I'm happy with my job. I've seen the TSA go from crawling to walking. It's getting better. I do my job well, and take pride in what I do. I work with many others that feel this way.

I've said it before, but I don't expect everybody to agree with what we do. It's a necessary evil. When I was in the Army, I was told that I had to sacrifice my freedom to preserve it for others. I've sacrificed my freedom before, and I really don't think it's asking too much of passengers to sacrifice a little of their own freedom to ensure the safety of themselves as well as others.

You think our checkpoints are bad? We had a Serbian woman come through our checkpoint not too long ago and she was in hysterics and crying. Shaking too. We took her to the side and after she calmed down a little, she said that it wasn't us she was afraid of. She was just having flashbacks of the horrors of other checkpoints she had been through in her life.

Screening at airports is indeed an necessary evil, however most of what currently passes for screening is unnecessary, un-American harassment.

Giving up freedom for temporary safety (paraphrasing Franklin) is a symptom of someone who simply doesn't appreciate or understand what freedom truly is and why it is so important not to compromise it.

I'm glad that you treated her with kindness and dignity. I'll admit to, once, after getting my tenth consecutive SSSS, breaking down into tears at a checkpoint. The screeners there at BWI's selectee lane took turns laughing at me and yelling at me, calling me a baby and offering to bring me a diaper. There were at least four screeners involved in this incident.

However, the Serbian woman's response begs the question: why did your checkpoint remind her of the ones at which horrors had occurred? What do internal checkpoints have to do with security? Internal checkpoints are great for government control of people's movement, but these internal checkpoints seem to have high failure rates, according to recent reports, at what they are ostensibly supposed to do: find concealed weapons.

Your employer is the bane of my daily existence. Deal with it or find a new job.

Nice.

Who are the thugs again?

Bad post, FWAAA. Let's give this guy a break. He seems to realize what it's all about, but is doing what he is told. As long as they are respectful to the respectful passengers, and not groping them, don't assume they are all bears.

Speaking of non-sequiturs...

pre SSSS we had 9/11. Post SSSS we've had.....nothing.

How do you know what is has and hasn't prevented?

www.m-w.com

Look up the word "specious".

There is zero evidence that SSSS harassment has prevented terrorism any more than magic rocks or chanting.

Thanks for the dictionary reference, but it's not necessary.

In the absence of any airline terrorism since 9/11 (and the introduction of SSSS), on what do you base your assertion that it has not prevented any terrorism?

Exactly, it's a circular argument that ends up nowhere. I just don't see the point of all the colorful adjectives....

Hi Rufus102,

This is an old argument on Travel Safety/Security. There are two facts: passenger screening has gotten more invasive, and there have been no incidents of airline terrorism except Reid since 9/11. Causality between these two observations can not be proven and can not be disproven.

However, here's another fact for you: The GAO and other neutral government bodies have determined that the TSA not only fails to detect guns, bombs, and knives on a regular basis, but also has faulty or no procedures in place to test themselves. You can read it for yourself here and here. This latter fact suggests that whatever reasons the government has for wanting to harass us at checkpoints, those reasons do not include detecting weapons, since they don't do a very good job of that.

The GAO has also proven that the security was bad starting more than 10 years ago when the FAA was in charge
http://www.securitymanagement.com/library/000539.html. The real ironic thing is that those FAA individuals in charge of security migrated over to the TSA. :( It won't get any better until there is a change of command at the top.

I do not believe that SSSS will EVER EVER catch a real terrorist.

Why? Because we always give the traveler advance notice. If your boarding pass tells you that you are about to get the screening, why would you proceed? If you have bad stuff, you give it to another traveler or skip the flight. Duh! How stupid do they think these guys are?

Some of the other measures MIGHT catch someone, but SSSS will never work. And based on how they went through my bag during a recent SSSS, I could easily have a knife or other pointy thing in my bag. Really.

There you have it. Terrorist attack thwarted...

As far as handing stuff off: Just becuause you're not a selectee doesn't mean that we're not going to look at you or in your bags.

Oh, whatever.

All SSSS does is tell the person with it on their BP to put the bomb in their pants.

SSSS has not and will not ever stop a terrorist attack, except for maybe those Terrorist Gumbo Attacks or those Terrorist Breast Milk Attacks.

SSSS is a way of helping terrorists avoid the intensive selectee screening. Here's how: bad guys take their pool of volunteers on test flights to see which itineraries and persons match the SSSS profile and which ones don't. Then they send a clean person on a clean itinerary to do the dirty work and they have lowered or eliminated their chances of getting SSSS.

Need proof? See this MIT paper, "The Carnival Booth Algorithm for defeating Passenger Pre-screening".

So that the screeners will find it while they rape you with their wand?

You people are crazy.....

Another content-free post!

That's two in one day. Care to try for three or four?

###First of all I worked with the airlines and they had ssss before 9-11 which there was a number of reasons on why you where put on that list, so actually it isn't TSA's fault at all. Its actually the airlines computer that picks out if you are a selectee or not so your shouldn't point fingures unless you know the whole story.

Welcome to FlyerTalk.

SSSS has been around pre-TSA. It's use has gone through the roof. How many pax were harassed pre-9/11? 1? 2? per day? Now it's more like 1-2 per row.

The use of SSSS should have been eliminated, not increased. It's a disgrace. The parameters that get one flagged for such SSSS harassment have been expanded, rather than decreased. This was mandated by the TSA, not the airlines.

Pre-9/11, the airlines could also deselect a passenger. Now they cannot.

I do know the story and I do know where the fingers should be pointed (TSA) and where the shoes should be planted (in the rears of the TSA admin. repeatedly.)

The airlines HATE SSSS. The TSA forces them to use it.

TSA, Airline - does not matter.

SSSS will NOT stop or find a terrorist - other than the possibly totally stupid one.

I think everyone agrees it is stupid in its current form, so why do we keep doing it?

### What if it was your family that was in the twin towers than maybe you would look at things different, There are many of people that thanks us everyday for what we are doing. I have had many of people tell other passengers they are glad we are here cause they lost a loved one in the towers. But than again there are those people who think nothing is ever going to happen to them.

How about this one:

You are a hypocrite (bomb in their pants?) and you will never convince a fair-minded person of your point with the way you make it. All you do is whip up frenzied support amongst those with the same extreme one-eyed viewpoint.

I'm done with you. At least GradGirl can sometimes make a argument based on something other than emotion.

Very true. So why am I being told uncategorically that it HASN'T prevented an attack? :confused:
Well, I would never even try to say it's perfect - or even close - but it would certainly deter SOME from trying something, and you don't propose an alternative. You just complain about what is there. A vocal (small) minority you could say.

It might help if you suggested a reason why the goverment wants to harass us.

Circle logic at its finest
 

I have taken the time to look through this post and I think there have been fine examples of cirlce logic on both sides. Example since no planes have hit buildings or blownup SS must be working. Or Since not bombs have been found in shoes in the US SS must not be needed. While both are interesting points neither is completely correct or incorrect.

My point is that SS as it is today is not were it needs to be, since most of the reasons you go to SS seem silly (I am not saying those who set the detector off should not go through the screening). If I buy a one way ticket I am subject to SS. Therefore anyone wanting to commit a violent act will buy a round trip with a credit card (since cash may do it also, besides it is cheaper and that saves money for the others to use). If I make a last minute reservation I go to SS, these people plan months and years in advance.
THese are just a few of the reasons you go through SS that can easily be avoided and will be by those whising to do harm.
Hmmm 'SS" isn't that a interesting term makes you think ! :eek:

sorry, for the bad spelling and grammer for those of you who look for such things. :rolleyes:

Two things: first of all, the chain is only as strong as its weakest link. There is no sense in doing these extremely invasive searches at great cost to the flying public, both in dollars and dignity, when much wider security holes remain unplugged. The plotters on 9/11 were excessively, amazingly, well-trained and well-prepared and well-informed about the security measures in place. To give a small example, people mention that less invasive screening is applied to airport concession workers. Thus, there is no point in applying any more invasive screening to passengers holding tickets, because any bad guy with any sense will just get a job in airport concessions.


I believe the reason the government wants to harass us at checkpoints is to make us feel better. To give the illusion of security. And also, to soften us up so that we won't fight the biggest proposed surveillance plan on law-abiding citizens ever - CAPPS II. The government background check trusted traveler plan that keeps resurfacing actually sounds good to me after what I've endured at checkpoints. Under normal circumstances I would never consider paying the government to give it a blank okay to create a dossier on me!

Cool, it's been a couple of weeks since the old "Twin Towers" line.

FACT had the TSA been on the job on 9/11/2001 with the 2001 rules, the attacks would have occured. The private screeners did NOTHING wrong. I challenge any TSA apologist to point out any failing of the screening process on 9/11.

FACT had the private screeners been on the job with a credible prohibited items list (no knives or box cutters), then the attacks may or may not have occured. Why do I say may not? At the time, passengers and crew cooperated with Hijackers.

We do not need a government agency with over 100,000 overpaid employees to perform airport screening. We need private screeners under the guidance of the Secret Service or Marshall's Service to perform airport screening.

No, I would not feel different.

I have lost family in car accidents - I don't advocate stupid solutions like 20 MPH speed limits and speed regulators.

I'm sorry those people were murdered, but that's no excuse to piss away our civil liberties by engaging in un-American, ineffective "security" at airport checkpoints.

Excellent - I feel I am wasting text typing at you as well.

I may be many things but I am no hypocrite. Perhaps you might examine how bombs are actually constructed. Any volume of plastic explosives that can be placed in shoes can be placed in pants or in a body cavity. That explosive may be removed after clearing the checkpoint. Now, one only needs a blasting cap and a wire, as a voltage source is available readily. Wire - any electronic device. Blasting cap - hide a small one in a laptop.

Notice that none of these components have to go in shoes, though that is where the fools in charge of the TSA have their little fetish.

Yet another tired old argument in favor of symbolic screening, instead of real security.