Not to beat a dead horse, but there's a reason TSA sticks you in a plastic booth

[hedgehog]

if the agents want to take a closer look at you:

Do you like a little wind in your
hair? Then you won’t mind the
Transportation Security Administration’s
latest security equipment
at the airport. The new
explosive trace portal machines
(aka “puffers”) are walk-through
booths that blow bursts of air
on the passenger, then check the
air for explosive-type particles.
Not all passengers are “puffworthy”—
only those selected
for secondary screening. TSA
says the machines will reduce
the number of hand and bodywand
searches.

www.writeideasacramento.com/pdfs/SacMagAirport_May06.pdf

[CherokeeDem]

1. Had Experience with This in 2006....

My company put Debbie instead of Deborah, as my DL says, on my ticket; TSA at the Ft. Lauderdale airport didn't take kindly to my name being different and I was subjected to the box. I was just happy they let me get to NY for my meeting. It's a weird sensation but over very quickly; however, standing in the box in front of all those people is really bizarre. It was a new search at the airport so people were staring at everyone they put in it. This was in 2006 so Ft. Lauderdale must have been a test site for it.

[treestar]

6. Since many Deborahs are called Debbie that seems a useless

reason to suspect you more than anyone else.

[tammywammy]

10. As of now, your DL and boarding pass name must match exactly

They just started implementing this within the last few months.

[cwydro]

16. I fly a lot

and I would put Fort Lauderdale at the top of my list for worst TSA agents. I went through there a couple weeks ago and the woman checking the IDs was a complete ass.

Tampa is never a problem, nor Fort Myers. In Palm Beach they were very nice.

A few of them have attitudes in Charlotte; I've seen them in action.

At the end of every checkpoint though, there is a place to pick up comment cards and you can mail them to the TSA if you have a complaint.

[Toucano]

17. I experienced it at MIA in 2006 as well. n/t

[mainer]

2. I've been through those puffer boxes several times

It was just random selection. They'd send every few passengers in one direction, to the boxes. Only a problem if you're claustrophobic.

My biggest gripe is with passengers who don't know how to get through TSA. I was just in an airport where a young woman was trying to carry on a bag stuffed full of liquid hair products. I'm talking a WHOLE CARRY-ON BAG full of giant bottles. When the TSA agent told her she couldn't carry them on board, she looked at him as if he was insane. Obviously, too many Americans have no idea how to prepare for a flight.

[tammywammy]

7. I have friends that were heading back from Orlando to DFW

They had two bags that looked exactly the same and checked the wrong one. When they got up to the screener the guy pulled out a big bag full of full sized hair stuff, shampoo, conditioner, etc. Anywho, they were embarrassed because they realized that bag was meant to be checked, and she just said "yeah, I checked the wrong one" and they threw it away. The funny part was another passenger walked by when the TSA guy held up the bag and said "WOAH!"

[ixion]

3. the TSA is un-American, and should be disbanded... imo

[SallyMander]

4. On a marginally related note

Is this for real?!?!?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UUHvpszbilc

[backscatter712]

5. True story...

One of my friends had a job for a while as a traveling inventory auditor for an agricultural supply company. Meaning he had to be around substances like fertilizer, and carry funny looking measuring tools in his luggage.

One day, on the job, he slipped and fell into a big pile of potassium nitrate fertilizer, getting it all over his clothes. Later that day, he got some diesel fuel splashed on him. He was tired as hell, didn't do his laundry, thinking "I have a set of clean clothes for flying tomorrow."

Needless to say, the TSA pulled him aside and asked him why the bomb detectors were going nuts around his luggage. Fortunately, he stayed cool, he was wearing his cap with his employer's logo, and showed them his tools and explained his job to them. They gave him a talking to about washing his clothes so they don't set off the bomb detectors and let him go.

[beyurslf]

9. Glad to know the bomb detoectors work like they should :)

[Gormy Cuss]

8. That's nothing. Wait until passengers realized that they're expected to walk thru an imaging machine

that takes this view:


or if you're aware enough to have found and understood the signs that are supposed to be posted prominently, you can "choose" to have a full body pat down instead. This in spite of the fact that you arrived at the checkpoint with your shoes and jacket off, your liquids in the the quart size bag and all of the metal off your body so that you would clear the metal detector on the first try.

The puffer machine is poorly understood by infrequent travelers but it's benign compared to the full body imaging systems, and the TSA plans to install 150 more over the next year, bringing the total to nearly 200 -- that means most major airports will offer you this "choice."

Honestly, I think the government is trying to kill the airline industry.

[hedgehog]

12. Maybe it's because I've gone through childbirth six times,

which pretty much takes care of any false modesty, but what's the fuss about these images? Angelina Jolie might be concerned that her image turns up on the internet, but no one is going to want to check me out. So the screener sees an image of you if you were photoshopped as a naked solver robot. What's the big deal?

Here are my concerns: Is this an effective way to keep weapons off planes? Have they upgraded the computers and radar systems in Air traffic control? Are the people there being given enough breaks? Are the pilots and flight attendants getting enough time off to do their jobs properly? Who is maintaining the planes, and how well are they supervised?

[Gormy Cuss]

14. "False modesty" -- now there's a judgmental description.

What's the fuss? If you've see larger copies of these images it's pretty clear that genitalia are well defined and that alone makes very many people uncomfortable. It's called modesty, not false modesty, and a fair number of people in our society have it. Then there is privacy. People who have deformities or mastectomy scars, and some survivors of sexual abuse who may not be keen on having total strangers view and scrutinize their bodies on the slim pretense that it's necessary for airport security. Although the TSA assures that the storage, copying, and downloading capacity of these machines have been disabled, I predict there will be an "Angelina Jolie" incident within a year of national implementation.

The ACLU's statement on this issue:

There are some security measures that are extremely intrusive and should only be used when there is good cause to suspect that an individual is a security risk. See-through body scanning machines are capable of projecting an image of a passenger's naked body.

Passengers expect privacy underneath their clothing and should not be required to display highly personal details of their bodies such as evidence of mastectomies, colostomy appliances, penile implants, catheter tubes and the size of their breasts or genitals as a pre-requisite to boarding a plane.

http://www.aclu.org/privacy/35506res20080603.html

The goal now seems to be to use these machines as PRIMARY screening devices and that is way over the line in the minds of privacy experts.

[ipaint]

11. Creeping normalcy

If you drop a frog in a pot of boiling water, it will of course frantically try to clamber out. But if you place it gently in a pot of tepid water and turn the heat on low, it will float there quite placidly. As the water gradually heats up, the frog will sink into a tranquil stupor, exactly like one of us in a hot bath, and before long, with a smile on its face, it will unresistingly allow itself to be boiled to death.
—Version of the story from Daniel Quinn's The Story of B

[Stinky The Clown]

13. Those gizmos have been employed at CN Tower in Toronto for a loooong time

*puuufffff*

Next

[EmeraldCityGrl]

15. Just to show what hypocrites TSA employees are

A friend of mine has a medical pump he carries with him when he travels and he travels a lot
because of his job. The pump is connected to a catheter which is connected to him.

He always approached the agent with this information when he goes through security. You would
think this would be something they would seriously want to check...but hell no!
For $15 an hour or whatever they make they aren't going any where near anything medical. They
are afraid they're going to "catch" something. At the most he gets the wand thing, but they don't
even want to look at the pump which is about the size of a walkman.

He always gets such a kick out of this. Here they are shaking down Gramma's in wheelchairs
but they don't want anything to do with him.