Anyone else notice over the past several weeks that the TSA is no longer "guarding" the exits from the 'secure' area, and it's the private security firms there now?

i havent noticed.. i'll pay more attention next time.

It's been the TSA the times I've paid attention of late, at MBS, CLD, and IAD.

Easy to do ILLEGALLY in some places. Hilo Airport, for example, offers breathtaking eye-candy shots of the flora outside for paxs in the sterile area. Wander too far, through a no-door/no signs posted spot and you done been OUTED. No recourse but to have an armed marine escort you back into the sterile (and UNposted-as-such!) area. My first hint that TSA might not be the brightest bulb in the marquee. Unbelievable THEN. SOP now, as I'm understanding...

It's been private security folks at DEN and SEA. Forgot to look at SFO and AUS.

I noticed private security folks at Dulles (TSA were there formerly) startin in late May.

Are they there all the time? The downstairs (baggage area) door guards were in TSA uniforms on this past Saturday morning, or at least uniforms that looked an awful lot like TSA ones. Could have been private folks in wanna-be uniforms, I guess.

I was once delayed like 10 hours, so I thought I would have a little fun.

I decided to go through security a lot getting diffrent screeners, and giving them a hard time about taking off my shoes. (I know, I have no life.)

I was surprised because I would keep leaving then, come back, and leave again, etc...............................

The guy watching the exit was like are you okay because this is about your seventh time leaving. :-) It was not a TSA agent, but a private security person. Goes to show you that they may be doing a better job then the TSA.

TSA should have caught that. someone probing the security checkpoints for
holes in the system would be doing exactly the same. If they didnt stop you
or question you.. I dont think they are doing a good job. (as if they ever did)

^ to the private security person!

nop here at SFO its always one of us !! grant it we are not TSA owned but a private compny trained vigourusly by the tsa mobile screening fource and we enfource all ssi and sop policies as federalized tsa!! we even have very similar uniorms!!! but the exit is always manned by us!!! we get highly trained for this position!!
the only poblem we get is that the passengers exiting think we are mean because we are not supposed to talk or answer questions so they think we ignore them!!! but its not that jejeje we just need to be alert at all times!!

but I can tell you that I was surprised and very diapointed about the tsa exit agent at SJC!! the lady there was also helping out with the passengers bags geting into the xray leaving the rope open and unnatending the exit w/her back to us(I was dropping off my brother)if we ever did anything like that we would be fired.....not good!!!!!!!!!

My favorite is the automatic return-attempt-detector at the bottom of the escalator at LAS (next to a couple of baggage carousels). For fun, walk towards the bottom of the escalator.

"BZZT! YOU ARE ATTEMPTING TO ENTER A SECURE AREA. GO BACK DOWN THE ESCALATOR AT ONCE...."

Repeat until baggage arrives.

same thing at SNA by the security checkpoints. summertime with loads of little snot monsters running around and 4 gates directly infront of the secure area. that message goes off every 5 minutes or so.

This one's lost on me. Who cares how many times you exit the checkpoint and re-enter. There is nothing suspicious about that. At non-smoking airports, it happens all day long, especially whenver flights are delayed. Seems that announcements of flight delays prompts smokers to light up.

Here's the REAL question you should ask: did you successfully clear security each and every time? If so, then what's the problem?

By the way, this would be a dumb way to probe a checkpoint. The real bad guys want to keep a low profile instead of draw attention unnecessarily.

Not particularly directed at Bart, but here's what Strunk and White have to say about the phrase "each and every," from The Elements of Style: "Pitchman's jargon."

They were TSA at SLC Terminal 1 yesterday.

Thought it was overkill having 2 of them there though as the exit from terminal 1 is pretty narrow.