I'd Rather Not
 

"I'd Rather Not Remove My Sneakers." These are the magic words, guaranteed to send you to secondary at a shoe-hell airport (I refuse to euphemize by calling them carnivals). But I have heard that theoretically you are not required to remove your nonmetallic shoes, so (if I have time) I have been known to utter the above Magic Words, thereby volunteering for the Full Treatment. The last time, I was retaliated against by having some stuff stolen from my carry-on.

Maybe one of the T-S-A'ers can point out why from a NATIOANL SECURITY perspective it it was ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY (and their SOLEMN RESPONSIBILITY) to search your non-alarming carry-on due to your refusal to removeyour non-alarming shoes.

I'm not taking my shoes off anymore, I've decided. Unless I'm running late, I'll take the secondary, private screening, the whole thing. If they're going to give me the treatment, I'll take full advantage of it. And eventually, if enough people do take full advantage, the system will screech to a halt and changes will have to be made.

uuum
 

Why did other passengers retaliate against you?

We'll have to let the OP clarify the circumstances and if he believes the items were lifted by a pax or a uniformed T-S-A agent.

But the idiotic policy that separated the passenger from his bag for non-compliant shoe removal is the sole fault of the T-S-A.

My understanding is that a passenger can request their carry-on be placed at the very least within sight. You can also request that you can watch it go in and then out of the machine to prevent tampering or theft.

Course this slows the process down which I'm sure the TSA loves.

In ether case during one instance at DFW while I was being searched due to my shoes I demanded that I would have full view of my carry-on in order so that I could keep track of my carry on since I was responsible for it.

Separated is one thing, taking it away is another.

-Stephen

I've only ever had secondary at EWR, but when I refused to take off my flip flops, they put me in a chair in secondary and took my shoes (yes, rubber flip flops) and ran them through the machine anyway.

It's a good thing the threat from those bombs, I mean flip-flops, was diffused.

I've been through a lot of punitive shoe penalty secondaries and they've never asked me to take my shoes off (at least not in the past year or two; the old security people did once or twice). They wand and when nothing beeps because I've got no metal, that's the end of it. Once or twice they did the explosives swab.

You can always request it. It seems to be up to the individual screener if he/she wants you to see it. When I asked to see my bag during a shoe check at DFW, the screener threatened with the police. He gave up on that threat when I thought it would be a good idea to have them there. The the screener just stood there until I could see my bag again, but it took about a minute.

The answer from TSA, when I complained, was that "screeners are trained to observe several things". Talk about smoke screens.