and TSA is working towards a frequent flyer program that would aloow those who qualify a speedier, less invasive way to get through security screening. was thought of because people got tired of waiting in the long lines. Kind of like what happened at the DMV. Analogy is looking better and better.

All you have to do is give them all your info and allow them to poke around in your background. Then who knows what list you could end up on.

See something they don't like? Find out you're Middle Eastern? Could end up permanent SSSS for the reSSSSt of your life.

No thanks.

In fact, some other government agencies advised against it for its employees and contractors. You can probably guess which ones those are.

Gee, lordtigris. Thanks for all the suggestions about how I can travel if I don't want to fly. If you'd bothered to read ANY of my previous posts you'd know I DON'T fly any more and WON'T fly as long as there are TSA screeners waiting to make a public example of me without giving me any reasons.


Your patronizations are arrogant and uninformed. Go through the public lines of shame again? A line YOU might control? Dear God, forbid.

Most of you people seem to forget you are pledged in WRITING by the sorry agency you serve, to treat paxs with "Dignity and Respect". A HUGE and embarrassing mistake which will ultimately bring the agency down if anyone sane is still listening, as there is NO dignity or respect for anyone forced to go through a c.p. The written pledge of TSA does NOT obligate me to treat ANY TSA member with dignity or respect, however. At LEAST these laws are written, not easy SSI craplines to hide behind.

You bet I refuse to take this Communist-tinged insulting any more. TSA has done for many of us what the terrorists could not. Thinking about the public gropes you people give under the auspices of service to the country makes me want to vomit.

TSA is the main shame (yes, and anger) I have about my own country.

So the standard in your mind is at least the TSA is not the worst, perhaps only second? :D

What we pay is a specific fee for a specific service unlike income and sales taxes for example. As such, if we don't travel, the TSA does not get paid. Sounds like a "customer" relationship.

I flat out refuse to change my footwear OR take my shoes off and walk barefoot through the area. I simple smile sweetly and say "I'll take the secondary, thanks" when the TSA critter says "You shoes have to go on the belt" or some other such nonsense. The plain old undeniable fact is that you are never REQUIRED to tak your shoes off unless you set off the WTMD or a swab alarms for explosives. It's on their web site.

The MOST opting for the secondary has ever cost me on time is 5 minutes, and that was in SFO at peak travel. Usually it's 60 seconds and I'm done. It's been 18 months since I actually had to take them off (a nickel slid in between the liner and the bottom of the shoe and it set off the metal detector). If they are going to make me take my shoes off at all, it's going to be seated and in a less congested area, not jumping around and trying to move down the line at the same time.

I just don't do the hopping up and down trying to put my shoes on while standing at the exit chute of he x-ray. It's your right, its your prerogative, feel free to exercise both.

The TSA would rather you didn't, but they work for us, not the other way around. If everyone did this, the lines would be so long and the public outcry so huge, Thousands Standing Around would have to change its policy. We have some TSA employees here on Flyertalk that have brains, great ideas, think for themselves and apply common sense. They ought to be in charge over there. They are, sadly, far in the minority in that poorly run federal jobs program masquerading as a security force. Most of the balance is either people who are simply unemployable anywhere else, career bureaucrats, or people who want to think they are Law Enforcement Officers. We call them "All the fun without the gun."

--PP

A hooker.

Is that a perk of being UGS? ;) :D

Isn't it the other way around? ;)

Hey, give a guy a break after flying 12 hours! :p

Okay, a "john" then. ;)

12 hours in F? No slack for you. ;)

Only one question for you: did you have to remove your shoes to get thru security today? ;)

It's funny (or sad in some respects) - I go through the same security screeing area at ORD every week on Thursday or Friday at the same time. One time I really complained about the secondary procedure pretty loudly to anyone who would hear me, especially given the fact that my shoes have no heel and never beep.

Well, the same very people are there every week and when they see me they recognize me now and give me a free pass sans shoe removal. This has been this way the past month.

Fee for service = tax. Still sounds like "customer" to me. What's your argument?

When I'm at the DMV I consider myself to be a "customer" there, too.

I hope so, or I've been doing it the wrong way all this time! :D

Allow? Qualify?? Nuts to that.

It is none of the TSA's goddamn business who flies, when, where or why domestically.

Comrade Secretary Chertoff can take his Blackmailed Traveler program and shove it where the sun doesn't shine. Sideways.

Wrong again. NJ DMV is much improved in the last few years in guess what area: CUSTOMER SERVICE! They are polite and efficient. TSA is far, far worse, especially at EWR, than DMV ever was, even at their worst.

And, pray tell, where do we in NJ pay a tax to DMV? We pay fees, some of which might be considered exorbitant, but they are not taxes. If you don't have a DL or register a car, you don't pay the fee.

You, my dear, are just one tiny little fish in a huge pond of government employees and our taxes do pay your wages. That makes you our civil (get it? "civil") servant.

They must know you well enough to know you're not a terrorist then. Hell, they probably figured out there's NO way you're going to hijack a plane with pillows. ;)