Searching Luggage: Sanitary?

[wonderlust]

I wonder if anyone here knows whether this issue has been considered or addressed by those in charge of searching luggage at the airports:

Employees wear gloves and handle underwear and whatever else they find within a suitcase. They do not change gloves between suitcases. That means that the filth from some stranger's dirty underwear, or whatever, is being smeared onto my things.

I've tried placing my under-lovelies in transparent ziplock bags, but they still open up the bag and rifle through them anyway.

I realize that they wear gloves for their protection, not ours, but I can't believe that this is a standard practice when it is so clearly an unsanitary intrusion.

Does anyone know more about this practice?

[naita]

I wonder if anyone here knows whether this issue has been considered or addressed by those in charge of searching luggage at the airports:

Employees wear gloves and handle underwear and whatever else they find within a suitcase. They do not change gloves between suitcases. That means that the filth from some stranger's dirty underwear, or whatever, is being smeared onto my things.

I've tried placing my under-lovelies in transparent ziplock bags, but they still open up the bag and rifle through them anyway.

I realize that they wear gloves for their protection, not ours, but I can't believe that this is a standard practice when it is so clearly an unsanitary intrusion.

Does anyone know more about this practice?

The amount of filth transfered is so utterly insignificant you'd have serious problems finding evidence of it on your underwear.

[PatriotX]

The amount of filth transfered is so utterly insignificant you'd have serious problems finding evidence of it on your underwear.
cite, please

[wonderlust]

The amount of filth transfered is so utterly insignificant you'd have serious problems finding evidence of it on your underwear.How do you know that? I assume there's a reason we wash our hands after using the bathroom.

[UncleBeer]

There's a Bullshit episode by Penn & Teller which attempts to quantify the amount of biological contaminants that adhere to people's hands and asses after using public lavatories. The conclusion was that your ass is much cleaner after taking a shit than your hands were before you even entered the restroom. There was a very low amount of matter transferred to your hand from your ass. I don't see why that would be different for a simply panty inspection by the TSA.

For more related info see:
http://www.straightdope.com/mailbag/mtoilet.html
http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a4_220.html &
http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a1_279.html

[Acsenray]

How do you know that? I assume there's a reason we wash our hands after using the bathroom.

What proportion of your fellow passengers do you suspect of packing feces in their luggage? I can't imagine that there would be a significant amount of biological matter on packed underwear and I would be surprised if it were easily transferred by glove from one suitcase to another.

[UncleBeer]

What proportion of your fellow passengers do you suspect of packing feces in their luggage? I can't imagine that there would be a significant amount of biological matter on packed underwear and I would be surprised if it were easily transferred by glove from one suitcase to another.
Given what are often the conditions of the crapper here at the office, all of 'em. How much will U.S. Customs let you import before having to delcare it, anyway?

[wonderlust]

I've done laundry for enough males to know that I don't care to handle their underwear unless I have to. Personally, I'd rather they didn't handle someone's sex toys and then my things either. I don't want someone else's anything on my things unless I invite them.

Aside from just being argumentative, doesn't this bother anyone but me?

[tremorviolet]

Aside from just being argumentative, doesn't this bother anyone but me?

Do you ever shake hands with anyone? How do you know they wash their hands? What if they washed their hands but the guy they just shook hands with didn't? What if that dollar bill you just got as change was in a wallet that accidently fell in a toilet? And was dried off and then used to buy a burger? By a guy who doesn't wash his hands?

You know, at some point, you either have to let it go or go live in a bubble with Howard Hughes.

[Lamar Mundane]

I've done laundry for enough males to know that I don't care to handle their underwear unless I have to. Personally, I'd rather they didn't handle someone's sex toys and then my things either. I don't want someone else's anything on my things unless I invite them.

Aside from just being argumentative, doesn't this bother anyone but me?
This kind of stuff never even enters my mind. I am sure there are far more germs transferred from the airplane seat, the tray table, and the airline magazine than there are from the TSA inspectors, not to mention if you use the airplane toilet.

I think this qualifies as a phobia rather than a legitimate, rational concern.

[Acsenray]

Someone was passing around an article in the office that the most germ-laden objects in an office are keyboards and telephones. So, yeah, I'd go with the tray tables, armrests, onboard radio volume knobs, light switches, fan knob, door latches, and other hand-operated items as being far more dirty than the items in someone's suitcase.

[Ty Cobb]

They say the majority of $100 bills in major cities carry traces of cocain, mostly from being in cash drawers at banks where they run into those used to snort the stuff.

[wonderlust]

Now, if someone were to sprinkle $100 bills into my suitcase I wouldn't object...

[Shagnasty]

This kind of stuff never even enters my mind. I am sure there are far more germs transferred from the airplane seat, the tray table, and the airline magazine than there are from the TSA inspectors, not to mention if you use the airplane toilet.

I think this qualifies as a phobia rather than a legitimate, rational concern.

Agreed. This is just an example of focusing on something that seems icky to some while ignoring its trivial nature in the overall scheme of things. It does sound like bubble talk.

[MaryEFoo]

Well, the whole reason for Homeland Security searching your things is that they may contain tools of terrorism.

So what's wrong with objecting that HS may be spreading disease?

[naita]

How do you know that? I assume there's a reason we wash our hands after using the bathroom.
I don't know that, but even smelly underwear contains very little actual "contamination", and I doubt customs people roughly rummage through actual soiled underwear without dumping their gloves afterwards, if at all.
So assuming normal dirty underwear there is very little that adheres to the gloves. I'm sure you could find some bacteria there, but not a whole lot more than you find anywhere humans touch, airplane seat arm rests for instance... or airplane toilets. Then they pick briefly through your undergarments to make sure there's nothing underneath. They don't pick one item up and rub it vigourously to get as much contamination in one spot as possible, they just quickly search through your suitcase. I doubt the amount of contamination from that exceeds that from you taking said items out after touching door handles and such, unless you wash your hands before unpacking.

Feel free to prove me wrong with some experiments though, I'm only theorizing. :D

[UncleBeer]

So what's wrong with objecting that HS may be spreading disease?
It's irrational?

[wonderlust]

Thanks for all the comments. And the unsolicited psychiatric diagnoses. :dubious:

I guess what bothers me most about the searching procedure is the lack of courtesy. It's justs now dawning upon me that an entire generation is growing up accustomed to and even relaxed about various intrusions upon privacy, both physical and electronic: from body searches at concerts, to government eavesdropping, to airport searches, to internet spyware, overpopulation, traffic, and advanced medical technology. While some of these "intrusions" are welcome in an effort to be healthier, I wonder whether the threshold for indignation at intrusion of privacy has been lowered overall in the general population. IMHO, taken to its extreme, this could make us ripe for dictatorship or theocracy.

It's horrible enough that some stranger is pawing through our things, but if he/she must do so, then the lack of a courteous glove-changing is just a further insult. While I recognize the delay that would cause, there might be some other way to ensure minimum intrusiveness.

Perhaps this is evolving into an IMHO discussion of our gradual tolerance of privacy intrusions. The Numbing-Down of America.

[Acsenray]

I can get behind the general sentiment against government intrusion into our privacy, but in my view, the sanitary argument just trivializes it and phrases like "the lack of a courteous glove-changing" not only trivializes the argument but also marginalizes it, like the old guy at the city commission meeting who goes on and on about "courtesy" and then adds how courteous the space aliens were when they anally probed him. Maybe he had a point that the cops should have to pay him for unjustifiably shooting his dog when they mistakenly executed a drug raid on his house, but the valid point is harmed by the extraneous stuff about sanitation and courtesy.

[wonderlust]

Such extraneous stuff is how human minds work. I repeatedly found myself pissed-off by the unsanitary issue, and only through discussing it here, realized that it had more to do with the larger issue. The evolution of thought or ideas is what discussion is about, right? I certainly didn't set out to trivialize a larger issue.

[Nickrz]

What about all the filth and bacteria they leave in your suitcase on the little card they deposit to show they've rifled and fingered yer dainties?! What if the man (or woman) just whacked off and had semen on their hands/gloves/nose and got it smack dab in the crotch of your shorts and you got pregnant!? (Assuming female searchee). What about when they don't have the key for your particular bag and they break / force the lock? When was the last time those lock-picking tools saw the inside of an autoclave? Really.

[wonderlust]

Allright, already. Got the point, folks. I intentionally didn't post in the debate or pit forums, where ridicule and psychiatric diagnoses happen. I just asked for info. Crimeny!

Can we just end the thread now?

[xbuckeye]

Someone was passing around an article in the office that the most germ-laden objects in an office are keyboards and telephones.
Or articles being passed around an office?

Seriously, though...the amount of cross contamination would be minimal at best. They probably breath more germs onto your stuff than they will transfer from the previous bag. One of the nice traits of most disposable gloves is that bacteria don't really stick to them. I put my hands into your food without gloves and the government is fine with that so I doubt the TSA is going to worry about touching your clothes with "dirty" gloves.

[K364]

BrightPenny - I'm with you 100%

I don't know why you are getting so many "other peoples excrement doesn't scare me" responses.

[Scarlett67]

Geez, doesn't anyone have an immune system anymore?

If you're (generic you) worried about germs from the inspectors' gloves, you'd better grow all your own food, too, to avoid the government-allowed 12 ratshit parts per billion in your can of Spaghettio's. Now that oughta keep you awake at night.

I don't go around seeking other people's feces either, but I also accept that Life Has Germs. I even keep my toothbrush out in the open in the same room as the TOILET! I kiss the top of my dog's head with my LIPS! (Not on her lips, though, and not because of germs but because her breath is worse than mine.) The horror.

[xbuckeye]

BrightPenny - I'm with you 100%

I don't know why you are getting so many "other peoples excrement doesn't scare me" responses.
We're more saying Shit happens and the amounts in which it happens vary and in the general scheme of the amount of shit that can happen, the amount of shit transferred from a stranger's ass to a stranger's Jockeys to a stranger's luggage to the TSA screeners gloved hands to your luggage is low on the shitometer.

I think you would have a valid arguement if a fellow traveller was packing an actual measurable quantity of shit that became smeared on the screener's gloves and the gloves weren't changed before the screener used your Jockeys as a finger towel.

[wonderlust]

I think you would have a valid arguement if a fellow traveller was packing an actual measurable quantity of shit that became smeared on the screener's gloves and the gloves weren't changed before the screener used your Jockeys as a finger towel.The point is: I didn't didn't post an argument. This is not a debate thread, nor a pit thread.

Mods, second time now: Please close this thread. This is just fucking ridiculous.

[wonderlust]

Is the point of these posts to shut down members from speaking their thoughts? If so, then you'll just end up with a core group of assholes arguing the same issues over and over.

So much for courtesy.

[Shagnasty]

Employees wear gloves and handle underwear and whatever else they find within a suitcase. They do not change gloves between suitcases. That means that the filth from some stranger's dirty underwear, or whatever, is being smeared onto my things.

Your OP wasn't phrased in the form of a simple question. It was phrased in the form of a paranoid rant. This board is dedicated to fighting ignorance. Germophobia is a common form of ignorance that needs to be addressed. It is an example of a little knowledge being misapplied. People were merely responding to your somewhat hysterical tone.

A discussion more fitting of GQ perhaps would be what types of daily germ transfer mechanisms actually put people at risk verus those that just send people into hysteria based on superficial features.

[wonderlust]

Hysterical rant? Please.

Consider this member gone for good. Shame.

[xbuckeye]

Is the point of these posts to shut down members from speaking their thoughts? If so, then you'll just end up with a core group of assholes arguing the same issues over and over.

So much for courtesy.
No, the point is to discuss with an open mind and you failed that test at your second or third post. A bunch of people who know more about the topic than you told you not to worry and your reply was to beg for the the thread to be closed. Thanks for trying.

[3.885AM]

I work both baggage and checkpoint for the TSA at a Cat-X airport. We do, in fact, change gloves quite frequently. Not always between each bag, but usually so. Even at a busy terminal there is a break between bags, and the gloves are uncomfortable, so they come off right away.

[xbuckeye]

I work both baggage and checkpoint for the TSA at a Cat-X airport. We do, in fact, change gloves quite frequently. Not always between each bag, but usually so. Even at a busy terminal there is a break between bags, and the gloves are uncomfortable, so they come off right away.
So...you open a bag and there is something gross in it. You change your gloves or go to the next bag with gross on your gloves?

(Admit it...you keep a pile of feces under the counter to smear on people's under-lovelies when nobody is looking)

[Uvula Donor]

Hysterical rant? Please.

Consider this member gone for good. Shame.

Would you mind wiping down the doorknob as you leave? It's got your filthy germs all over it.

[Kalhoun]

Do you ever shake hands with anyone? How do you know they wash their hands? What if they washed their hands but the guy they just shook hands with didn't? What if that dollar bill you just got as change was in a wallet that accidently fell in a toilet? And was dried off and then used to buy a burger? By a guy who doesn't wash his hands?

You know, at some point, you either have to let it go or go live in a bubble with Howard Hughes.
Hence, the movement toward not shaking hands.

I'm not much of a germophobe. I know that some occupations demand a higher standard, and if I had one of those jobs, I'd be sure to disinfect, but for day to day life, I just haven't found it to be an issue. I'm never sick, my husband is never sick, and we exercise just average hand-washing hygeine. We don't use disinfectant soaps.

[jjimm]

A Howard Hughes-esque meltdown. In GQ.

Glad I re-subscribed. :D

[Rico]

<mod>

Let me come in and spread my nasty Mod germs everywhere.

Thread closed.

</mod>

[samclem]

brightpenny. Just in case you revisit this thread, a piece of advice. If you want a thread closed, hit the "report this post" button at the top right of the post. It looks like an exclamation point in a triangle. You can't find one in your own post, but hitting one in someone else's is OK. That's the best way to get us to close a thread.

samclem GQ moderator