The Today Show’s report on TSA procedures is mainly a bunch of crap everyone knows already, but we decided to edit together all the passenger interviews from the story to give a little dose of the current passenger mood regarding security lines. Takeaway: they hate them and would like to be able to bring on baby formula to feed their children.
We have to remove our shoes because of the failed shoe-bomber. We have to only bring 3oz on because of a never-really fulfilled plot to explode planes involving liquids. It’s a complete waste of time while any would-be terrorists are busy devising plots that involve neither shoe-bombs nor exploding shampoo bottles. The TSA is a farce and should be abolished.
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@snowferret:
Is she carrying more than 100ml? Is it in a clear plastic bag?
Ma’am, I’m sorry, but we can’t allow you to fly unless you come with us and get a mastectomy.
@overbysara: I’ve gotten on a plane with a lighter rolled up in a T-shirt in my carry-on bag.
Consumerist,
When I click “play” on a video, that button should not mean, “take me to the next page so I can watch it there.” I wish to watch it inline, otherwise I’d click to the post-specific page. While the site looks nice, the above problem, as well as the ghost links to your internal tags, are making the site increasingly frustrating to use.
I understand artificially inflating your page views is your goal here, but it’s resulting in a sucktastic website.
The TSA just gets what they pay for. They hire morons for low wages and expect them to be James Bond when it comes to detecting terrorists. It’s just not going to happen that way.
QUAGMIRE0 starting salary is $14.09.
These people are amazing, how quick they forget 9/11! If only for the daily work of our Nations Security Professionals at all levels, this has prevented another attack. My solution for the people in the report, if you don’t like the Security Measures- DON’T FLY….
@quagmire0: I don’t think they have any expectations. I really doubt they even care. What they care about is having bodies to fill the schedule to give off the above mentioned illusion of serving a noble purpose.
I just came back from a trip to Israel, and they know how to do it right. The lines move quickly and efficiently, they ask questions that are appropriate, and they’re trained to read into what you’re saying. Even better, they profile everyone. This way, the RIGHT people get searched/asked questions, instead of 89 year old grandmothers.
Simple answer:
If you have to forego privacy to do something, DON’T DO IT in the first place!
Then everyone has their privacy, and companies/governments have no option but to change their policies. Of course, this doesn’t work when there are millions of selfish people who only care about getting from point A to point B, regardless of the effect their complacency has on the rest of us.
The TSA is useless! 100% absolutely useless.
I’m all for true security, but the TSA is a barrier to actual security. Replace these overpaid, useless “screeners” with retired cops. You want someone who has experience interrogating and interviewing people, not someone who took a 4-hr study at home course from a Sally Struthers 3am infomercial.
At this point, I say let’s throw out the TSA entirely and bring back the old system. Maybe leave the air mashalls in place — they haven’t screwed up things badly yet. The number of hijackings pre-9/11 seems to be about the same as it is post-9/11. Granted, we’re only 5 years post, but 5 years prior to 2001 I don’t recall there being any hijackings of US-originated flights.
I’d say the TSA reminds me of the DMV, but the DMV has mildly improved.
@Murph1908: Just so you know, the “plastic Glock” thing is an urban legend that’s made the rounds so often it’s quoted as fact. It actually contains plastic (actually polymer – which is visible in scanners) parts, but about 83% is steel, so it would show up anyway.
@Ola & Murph1908
I thought the urban myth was a ceramic Glock, as per Die Hard 2.
Remember how the terrorists who destroyed the WTC traveled together? If that was happening today, what would stop them from EACH carrying a 3 oz. bottle of something dangerous and combining the contents on the plane?
These rules are to make the public FEEL safe, not about actually MAKING the public safer.
@crankymediaguy:
Or a few 3oz bottles in one ziploc bag
While I agree that most of the TSA employees are way undertrained. To say we don’t need it at all is to ignore the fact we haven’t been attacked by plane since 9/11.
You guys think that the terrorist just stopped trying ? not by a long shot
@telepod: BWAHAHAHAHAHA! I see you have been brainwashed by the current administration. Bush for President in 2008? Oh, that’s right, he sucks and there’s a two term limit. Oh well.
@miburo: Another brainwashed Bush monkey. Oy!
I’m with the “TSA is a farce” crowd. My wife works as a gate agent at Detroit Metro, she never has to go through security and has direct access to the flight crew. This is standard proceedure there and sound like an easy security loophole for terrorist to exploit.
“We have to only bring 3oz on because of a never-really fulfilled plot to explode planes involving liquids.”
Unfortunately for all fliers, explosive liquids have been smuggled on airliners and detonated killing a passenger. That bombing was a test for a larger Al-Qaeda plot involving the destruction of ten airliners over the Pacific Ocean.
See [en.wikipedia.org]
“The “Mark II” “microbombs” had Casio digital watches as the timers, stabilizers that looked like cotton wool balls, and an undetectable nitroglycerin as the explosive. Other ingredients included glycerin, nitrate, sulfuric acid, and minute concentrations of nitrobenzene, silver azide (silver trinitride), and liquid acetone.”
“Yousef smuggled the nitroglycerin on board by putting it inside a contact lens solution bottle.”
Read the whole thing. It is truly chilling.
@CreativeLinks: You can get those from the EFF store. I’ve carried mine around for 2 years but I’ve never had to take it out (dunno if that’s a good or bad thing.)
I have served in the Army for 18 years now, and in November 2006 I had to escort the body of a friend from OKC to ATL for his funeral. At the security line, I got “selected” for “special screening” — even though I was in my Army green uniform, medals and all. I was forced to put my coat, shoes, and belt through the scanner, and when I explained why I was even travelling that day, the TSA morons got snippity and called their supervisor over. Of the 200-plus passengers shuffling through security at that moment, I was the ONLY one “selected” to be nearly strip-searched in plain view of everyone. Had the TSA morons continued, I would have been inclined to walk through in my underwear, uniform in hand. As I was putting my uniform back on, I told the agent that it was a sad day in our country’s history when an soldier traveling in dress uniform has to be subjected to such humiliation.
After the incident, another passenger said he told his TSA agent that I sure didn’t look like a terrorist, and replied, “Well, show me what one looks like then!” Idiot. I told that other passenger that he could rest assured I would not attempt to bring down any planes, especially the one with the body of my friend in its belly.
So, do you think I want them to start profiling? You bet your sweet ass I do.
Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both. — Benjamin Franklin
words never more true than our lives in the post 9/11 Era
@bambino: But I don’t think that the TSA isn’t racially profiling people already. They may claim that they aren’t but in reality you see a middle eastern man with a turban going through security and he is going to be rescreaned. I know because my friend goes through this every time he flies.
@prekrasno:
1. Everybody has to remove their jacket, shoes, and (if it alarms) belt. You were subjected to the same idiocy as the rest of us.
2. I can go on eBay and assemble an excellent facsimile of a military uniform, complete with decorations, certainly good enough so that a non-military person would never notice.
3. Someone who’s about to commit suicide by crashing a plane is unlikely to care about the fact that the cargo includes someone who’s already dead.
Bottom line, the fact that you were in military uniform is no reason not to apply the same security to you as to others. It doesn’t mean that security makes any sense (shoes, for example), but it shouldn’t get you a special pass.
@prekrasno:
By the way, the TSA agent was exactly right when he said “Well, show me what one looks like then!” Tim McVeigh was (a) a terrorist, (b) white, and (c) (formerly) in the military. Does that mean that all white male veterans should be suspected terrorists?
OK, justaguy2: how about sticking to the topic? Tim McVeigh (a) did not try to bring down any planes; (b) did not wear a military uniform during the commission of his crime; (c) was not under official orders when the act was committed and (d) was in fact a FORMER soldier when he committed his crime. All I’m saying is give soldiers a break when we’re traveling in uniform and/or under official orders.
Besides, genius, name one active-duty soldier who ever attempted to commit an act of terrorism like the subject at hand.
I didn’t think so.
Sure, any moron can buy a genuine-looking military uniform, even cut his hair and shave enough to look like a soldier — but can anyone reasonably assume that terrorists can fake a military ID *and* official orders? If you think military ID’s can easily be faked, then I’ve got a bridge to sell you. Verifying the veracity of a soldier’s ID card is simple and cheap.
All of you who think that it is reasonable to ask us soldiers to leave our country to defend you — yet not give us a little leeway when we’re on our way to suffer the horrors of war — should be ashamed of yourselves.
@prekrasno:
I was sticking to the topic. You seem to believe that a military uniform (as honorable a profession as that is) should insulate you from screening – it should not. If it were to do so, all we would need is for a terrorist group to find the one soldier who agreed with their aims, and they’d have a guaranteed ticket through security.
Attempts to focus on what terrorists “should” look like (i.e. let’s only target the brown men!) only create gaping holes if terrorists are able to find candidates who don’t fit those descriptions.