The accurate term is “TSO screener.” The impolite, but equally accurate, term is “TSO screening clerk.”
And yes, TSO screening clerks often misapply / misunderstand / don’t follow the TSA procedures for handling CPAP equipment or other medical devices, medicinal supplies, etc. File a complaint every time, with a copy to DHS IG and to the airport’s FSD office.
That will be a superb way to insure I am put onto the TSA Don’t Fly list. I cannot afford to risk that because I fly for work.
I’ll just have to let them stumble through and be inefficient and inaccurate in the performance of their duties.
A little power is a dangerous thing.
Heh. Yesterday, I was the only person out of a dozen or more to be “invited” to have a full-body scan (I was the only girl in the whole line). I declined and moved to the standard magnetometer. A call went up for a female screener to “assist” me. 
She began her spiel about exactly how & where she would be touching me, and with what parts of her hand. She was made very nervous by my scrutiny of her badge, and when she asked why, I told her I was keeping track of her info. She called a supervisor over to watch her work.
It was a detailed-seeming patdown, or it would have been for someone who had never been professionally patted down before. Lots of touching but none of it targeted, with no verbal interaction with the “client,” which most competent security people will tell you is vitally important.
To top off the experience, she asked me why I chose to opt out today. I started out my explanation about how the gov’t had lied about the type & amount of radiation given by the full-body scan, so they really didn’t actually know… but when her eyes started to glaze over (too many big words), I finished up by saying that basically I just wanted to be a pain in the ass.
The funny part? I forgot about my husband’s multi-tool on my keyring in my purse, but LAX and SFO both missed it. :rolleyes:
Security theater is bad theater, and no one should have to sit through bad theater.
Works for me. Run the drug and explosive sniffers around and slot me through a metal detector/wanding and I’m good.
Issue everybody a taser and let the plane duke it out for superiority. Plop a box lunch and bottle of water on every seat and eliminate steward/ess entirely. Lock the pilots in their cabin.
I am another person that absolutely loves long road trips. Fill the tank, grab about $50 for random expenses [depending on the length of the trip] top off my ipod with music and a couple audiobooks and hit the road. I am strange because I take my pillow and blanket … I hate the nasty synthetic blankets and coverlets they have in hotels, and i need my specific pillow or my neck feels like shit in the morning. Not to mention, being a gimp makes the standing in line/wheeling around the airport and going through TSA inspections a pain in the ass.
How about printing out the way it is supposed to be handled from their official website and tape it to the equipment?
Bad Theater exactly. I have accidentally gotten a multitool, and one of those metal ‘credit card’ sized multitools through inspection a number of times.
I have actually been considering custom made wooden and plastic canadian crutches, and gimping through the metal detector. I wonder if I could get them to let me go through the rape-o-vision with them.
I may take an old set apart and see how they are made inside, to see if I can just take the grips off a set, it almost looks like the shafts are the only real metal parts.
I’m for everyone having an explosive collar around their neck. Send the right signal and ‘BANG!’: Dead terrorist. But, given how incompetently the waitresses operate the entertainment system, we’d end up with the thing just not working or every second flight sorting out which heads go to which passengers.
On FlyerTalk, there are frequent reports of the TSCs saying “The web site is out of date.” :mad:
I don’t fly often and I fear it. Both times I went through Atlanta I was checked
with the sniffer wand and when I went through LAX I was “randomly” chosen for
a pat down and my bag was gone through, the one I checked; they left a note.
Why was I singled out and could my fear of flying have made me seem suspicious?
I saw the news report about the settlement for the guy who was pulled off a flight due to his arabic t-shirt. I’m thinking a t-shirt with the bill of rights in arabic might make nice in-flight wear.
Or maybe Joy Division.
Okay so Nexus processing is fast too. Since I was already on the site looking up info for this thread on March 5th I submitted our applications. Sunday I got the email that we have provisional approval and just need to schedule our interviews. Next flight is going to be a happier one.
When I was doing a lot of knitting, I carried a printout of TSA regulations governing knitting needles in my bag. I always wondered why 4oz of liquid was a bigger problem than a nice pair of 18in stainless steel knitting needles. :rolleyes:
No idea, you could pith someone or do a pretty good shot into the heart with a knitting needle applied properly.
Heck for that matter my canadian crutches are giant economy sized tonfa, for what it is worth. I might as well be carrying matching clubs. Oddly enough, since I was a security guard, I actually trained for tonfa =)
“Debark” was in the quote, not in what I wrote
“Debark” and “disembark” are synonymous. From dictionary.com: debark
We mailed a bunch of stuff back home, but forgot to include the three knives I bought driving through new mexico- all in the carryon bag forgotten until we got home- and I was travelling with (The Horror)- brown people!
While alternatively, I have, while alone, had a guard search my bag, emptying everything out- for the metal thing that turned out to be the metal embossed logo woven into the bag. He was totally embarrassed about it, however, and apologized quite profusely.
I used to just travel with a tiny backpack with a single change of clothing and a book, but after being explosives swabbed every time I travelled alone, I started bringing unnecessary extra shit.
Oh, and I wanted to add- the last time I got on a plane with my daughter, they let her in the cockpit! I didn’t know they still did that!
Pretty awesome. Like the old days- I remember getting to go in the cockpit with my parents to meet the pilots when I was a kid…
Can’t resist…
Just the other morning I woke up and asked my girlfriend, “So, Johnny, have you ever seen a grown man naked?” 
<-------- Laughed right out loud. How’d your girlfriend Johnny react?
And what would she have said if instead you exclaimed, " Hey ! I know you ! You’re Kareem Abdul Jabaar ! "
She facebooked it, immediately! lol
My son fenced for a while - but not a level that would require us to fly! I understand that, when flying, fencers are advised to avoid calling the equipment by name - no “foils”, “sabers”, “guards”, etc., and most certainly NOT “swords”! Instead, they will repeatedly reply “sporting equipment” when asked what they are carrying.
ooh, ooh, pick me! Proud to say that in early 2002 I worked a buttload of overtime helping design the modifications for aftermarket 737s to the cockpit (now referred to as Flight Deck:rolleyes:) bulkhead and doors at Boeing. My personal contributions were hours spent on reinforcing that tiny horizontal bit at the top of the angled doorframe and redesigning the vent openings in the bulkhead of the models that have a lavatory adjacent to the flight deck so no teeny tiny terrorist can squeeze thru an opening and harm the pilot. It was fascinatingly detailed work, and I learned a lot about contortionists and physical skeletal limits. Sometimes I have a very cool job.
Unfortunately the amount of pain I live with means I can no longer fly and see the fruits of my labor, but sometimes more able-bodied coworkers bring me pictures and videos of my modifications being installed. I dread the day one of my parents die (and at 80 & 81 it’s only a matter of time) and I have to tell the other one I can’t fly across the country for a funeral.