As far as I know.. no background check has yet been designed to tell if a person will commit a crime >in the future<.

That would make for a good movie... oh wait...

What should happen is the following:

You should be directed into the holding area (or "pen" as you described it) where you can still view your property as it comes out of the x-ray tunnel. In some airports, the secondary screening takes place inside the holding area and should be done in such a manner that you never lose sight of your belongings. However, if you are screened in a separate area, then a screener is responsible for picking up your belongings and taking them to the screening area. Again, you should be positioned so that you never lose sight of your belongings.

This is TSA policy. It's written in the SOP, and there should be no deviation from it. If you encounter a situation when a screener threatens you, demand to see the supervisor. Screeners do not have the authority to threaten, coerce, intimidate or otherwise confront passengers. They are, however, supposed to calmly explain the process to passengers which includes explaining why they are not allowed to handle their belongings until they've been cleared by secondary screening.

One of the problems that may contribute to some of the frustrations of waiting inside the holding area until cleared by secondary screening is a combination of not enough screeners to handle the passenger flow and screeners at the WTMD who fail to properly control the flow of passengers into the checkpoint. In other words, if a passenger has been waiting for secondary screening for an unreasonably long time (a judgement call), then the screener at the WTMD can halt the flow of traffic into the checkpoint until that passenger is screened. This not only allows screeners to catch up with all the secondary screening, but it also ensures that the property of the passenger awaiting secondary screening doesn't inadvertently get picked up by someone else. Does it work this way all the time? Of course not. But that's the SOP. The reason it doesn't work this way is because passengers outside the checkpoint get impatient and managers inside the checkpoint don't want to see any interuption in passenger flow. It's a classic Catch-22.

To answer your question more directly, anytime you feel mistreated by a screener, demand to speak to a supervisor.

Scary, ain't it.

We have developed a plan (not able to get someone to install it) where a sheet of Plexiglas would be put on the passenger side of the rear roller cage of the X-Ray. If a person is sent to secondary then their bin(s) are put on top of the cage and can be seen through the Plexiglas. The bin(s) are now high enough to see with passing passengers and allows for the speedier flow of non secondary screened passengers because the bins won't back up as much on the belt. The Plexiglas prevents someone from reaching and grabbing an item.

Anybody who goes through a TSA checkpoint on a routine basis at JFK or LGA knows they hear the same "song" out of the TSA employees they heard from the "rent-a-screeners" prior to the TSA taking over the duties:

"He wants me to work Saturday? I told him I'm not working Saturday night.....?"

"____ you have to take your break at 1." "One o'clock! I was told 12:30. Why do have to wait till she gets back to take my break."

All while looking for that knife in your carry-on. I saw one screener sitting in front of a computer screen while mine and 3 other bags came, and went, on the screem while (s)he was looking at their time assignment sheet intently. Tell a supervisor? What supervisor.

It's just the same employees in a different uniform, now with a federal badge. Nothing has changed. Only the the payroll stub. And if you think that that is going to keep their hands out of the luggage or prevent them from putting out a tip jar, like they did at JFK-T9, I'd like to know what the color of the sun is in your world.

Sorry to be so cynical but let there be know doubt in anyone's mind, anyone with a $50 bill and a mission can breach security there in a NY minute.

Based on what I have heard about these two airports unfortunately you are probably right on the mark.

Since you live on Long Island have you tried Long Island MacArthur (ISP)?

I thought they had only taken a few items. There are table loads of this stuff! They have one of the TSA guys on camera removing belongings from bags. It's disgusting.

It's my favorite NY area airport. Short lines, no Shoe Carnival, no random harassment, and the personnel there are actually quite nice and polite. They could give some lessons to the DL staff...

Been flying out of there on and off for many years. Now, its only when I need to (have to) fly WN. The TSA agents tend to be older, more methodic and more polite than JFK/LGA - just an observation not a correlation.

I noticed that palms up approach watching The Discovery Channel when they were mentioning about crooked dealers. I thought it was a great idea and since we have a camera directly over us, I've made it a point for all screeners at my airport to do that after each search. It has come in handy in one incident of suspected theft. When the video was seen, it showed the screener had absolutely nothing on them and even showed the screener looking around the work area to make sure nothing was left behind (another point I instruct the screeners to do). Turns out that she had the bracelet at the bottom of her purse.