Well, after reading a few comments from fellow FTers, I decided not to take off my shoes at terminal 1 at SMF. The "agent" was REALLY rude to me when I stood up and told him that I didn't have to take my shoes off. He told me that I would go through secondary if I didn't. Since I was late for my flight, I decided to let them win this time. But someone behind me heard what I said and didn't take off his shoes! He went through secondary and everything, but didn't get a complaint form. I stood around for a bit to talk to him about the TSA. Luckily we were on the same flight, so we talked a lot that has been spoken here. I told him about this site and hopefully he'll read this!

There's a simple explanation for all of this (when you look at it from a faulty government agency's point of view).... When the perverts at the TSA got the grope taken away from them, the only way they could cop a feel was to send people through secondary if they didn't take off their shoes.

from my understanding, you don't have to take off your shoes in the front, but if they want to check your shoes and you don't take them off... to the back you go, for a free wanding and patdown.

"if you don't take off your shoes here you have to be sent for extra screening"

"i don't have to take off my shoes"

"alright... right over here." [fill in the blank call for a check]

this isn't new people... 2+ years and counting.



if you don't take off your shoes, more often than not you're going to get "extra attention". wishful thinking aside, i wouldn't expect anything else.

Some of these whacko conspiracy theories and blanket accusations of screeners being "perverts" and such are exceptionally distasteful. It's one thing to disagree with a policy. It's another to villify soeone who is doing their job and following legal procedures.

There are far more "perverts" among the flying public than among screeners by sheer numbers. And yet screeners don't post distasteful messages on this (or any other forum) en masse calling all flyers "perverts" or other names.

If one can't make a point without resorting to making libelous coments, false accusations and resorting to petty, immature name-calling... then I guess you really don't have a point at all. Sad.

Considering that I've heard many TSA screeners make comments about wanting to search my significant other mearly for the fact that she has large breasts is reason enough for me to call TSA screeners perverts. She did nothing wrong, she stands in line just like the rest of us, she gets goes through the WMTD, and yet, several screeners would like to screen her because she has large breasts?

Comments such as that have no business being made at the checkpoint, and I make it well known to them and their supervisor that what they said is inappropriate. Screeners are there for one purpose to prevent "dangerous" items from being passed through the checkpoint. Any other activity beyond that, is unprofessional and unwarranted.

It's gotten to the point where both of us now carry an MP3 voice recorder set on high sensitivity just to capture what's being said at the checkpoint and it will be used for litigation purposes should we feel the need to pursue such action.

Regardless of what you feel I should call you, in my book, all TSA screeners are perverts and will be treated as such. You're more than welcome to blame your colleagues for what's happened.

I rest my case.

It's unfortunate that any screeners have made comments of the nature that you allege. It's unprofessional, to say the least. However...

If we're to split hairs, then that hardly qualifies them as "perverts" unless there is something inherently perverted about a male finding a female attractive. A pervert is, by definition, "one who practices sexual perversion." Sexual perversion is defined as "a sexual practice or act considered abnormal or deviant." I'm guessing that you don't consider heterosexual attraction a "perversion" so I'm not sure how you can consider a man attracted to your wife perverted.

If what you say is true, then the answer is apparently "Yes."

Some of the 45,000+ screeners are immature and unable to conduct themselves unprofessionally. That is an unfortunate reality. But those screeners are not all screeners. I still say it's unfair to over-generalize and paint all screeners with such a broad brush.

I agree with you 100% and I'm glad to hear that you did something about it. Hopefully your complaint was handled professionally and to your satisfaction, and hopefully those screeners also received at least letters of counseling (or the equivalent).

So you would prefer screeners not greet people, engage in any conversation unrelated to the screening process, etc.? I think that's a bit draconian.

That's not a bad idea.

You can call me Mark.

It's a shame that you take such an alarmist and unreasonable position. I think it will make your intereactions with even the professional screeners unnecessarily tense. (Interesting to note, too, that the same logic is used to justify racist and other stereotypes.)

Why should I blame law enforcement professionals, authors, graphic designers and book publishers for what happened to you?

If you're assuming that I am a screener I can assure you that your assumption is incorrect. You see, I'm not a screener. One doesn't have to be a TSA employee to view someone's accusations and comments about them as a group as unreasonable.

Mark Arsenault
Screeners Central
www.tsa-screeners.com

How so? Is there empirical evidence to back this up? Does the TSA do some kind of a psychological screening to eliminate perverts during the hiring process?

Otherwise I'd say it's reasonable to expect the distribution of perverts to non-perverts in a statistically random sample of TSAers vs. the flying public is the same.

Removing shoes as a variable of course

Har har. Oh, you TSA-haters just crack me up. It's amazng what one can find to post about when one has nothing better to do than to troll the web boards looking to start fights and bash TSA all day long.

Let's see. There are some 45,000 TSA screeners. Even if every single one of them was a "pervert" (which, by the ealier definition given compared to the story shared by the poster, is impossible), then that number would still pale compared to the total number of so-called "perverts" in the public at large.

That's SSI, I'm afraid.

Now you're saying that everyone is a pervert? Now there's a good basis for discussion.

Honestly, folks. There's a huge chasm here between rational discussion and emotional vitriol.

Many rational people, myself amongst them, think that it is perverted to threaten to, and/or carry through with, touching someone else's private body parts without explicit permission from that person. Maybe you don't care if your wife/significant other gets touched in this manner. But many of us do.

Glad you find this amusing. I don't.

Not my point at all. I am referring to the ratio of perverts in the general population vs. those that work in the TSA. Is there any statistical significance between the two groups? I will bet that nobody knows.

Since you don't work for the TSA I guess I wouldn't expect you to know the answer to my question about psychological screening. But I like the irony in your reply though.

Please reread my post and reconsider that accusation very carefully.

Your definition of "rational" and apparently differs radically from the accepted defintion observed by academics, society at large and dictionary publishers. That's fine, as long as you're straight-forward about your "deviant" definition (sorry, couldn't resist the pun). With that said, it's pointless to continue a discussion with you about this topic because of your unwillingness to agree to a baseline from which to begin discussion.

It always comes back to the personal attack with you people.

For your information, I was in law enforcement for 15 years and what you call "perversion" I can appropriate and legal. I conducted many pat-down searches in my day, on both males and females. Properly conducted, a pat-down search doesn't come close to the type of "perverted" behavior that you claim it is.

And as for my wife, she's conducted pat-down searches of others as well and has, herself, had pat-down searches on her. If she had such radical objections to the searches I haven't heard about it. Beyond that I'll let her speak for herself. You can contact her via my web site (tsa-screeners.com) if you like.

Mark Arsenault
Screeners Central
www.tsa-screeners.com

I find the unreasonable reaction and arguments of some posters amusing, not the overall topic, per se.

Then why should anyone throw out baseless accusations that all screeners are perverts. It's simply asenine and childish.

You might not expect it but you might be surprised.



It wasn't an accusation. It was an observation. And it wasn't necessarily directed at you. I can see where you might have assumed it was, but I intentionally broke that statement off as a separate paragraph so as to try to avoid confusion. I guess it didn't work.

Mark Arsenault
Screeners Central
www.tsa-screeners.com

Mark, in the interest of full disclosure it should probably be pointed out that your wife is a TSA screener, at least if I'm reading the background info on your website correctly.

And thank you for your own service to our country.

Now on with the spirited debate folks.

You read it correctly.

I appreciate it. It was my pleasure and, IMO, duty.

It's always personal attacks with 'you people?' What was that one about stones and glass houses?

Blindly and irrationally defending something that is clearly wrong will never make it right.