I’ve done that; I discussed it with one of my two Senators, face to face. I’ve emailed my other Senator, my Representative, and I bitched about it to one of the State Secretaries who serves under the Governor (granted he was Secretary for Corrections, but what the heck…)
If everyone who was dissatisfied with the process did this, I expect things would change. Maybe not quickly, but it would happen.
I wouldn’t advocate acting out at airports, though. Choose your battles and your battle sites.
At San Jose, you line up for the security check in the parking garage. After the proctology exam, travelers drag their belongings and clothing across the main thoroughfare of the airport to the seating area at the nearest gate to get dressed and organized again. And this is in the NEW terminal.
That’s obviously the fault of the anencephalic airport planners/designers, none of whom had even seen an airplane, let alone traversed an airport to board one, so I don’t blame this on the TSA. Sadly, the new terminal was just finished a few years prior to 9/11, so we’re stuck with the stupid design compounded by the security requirements for eternity.
I can’t even imagine being handicapped or traveling with small kids or elderly folks. Hell, just bringing my grandson a toy car got me searched one time because the screener thought the toy car looked like a knife on the x-ray screen.
As for being foreign, or gasp Arab-looking, again, I can’t even imagine. My Pakistani friends get to the airport 4 hours before their flights because they - even the developmentally disabled 7-year old girl - get grilled and searched and grilled again, repeatedly.
What a waste of money and time.
My husband has enough hardware in his right leg and back to make a spare suit for Iron Man. Know that scene in the first X-man movie when Wolverine walks through a metal detector and it goes berserk? That’s what my husband does to a metal detector.
Thing is, he doesn’t have a special little card - they weren’t issuing those when he had all that surgery done. He was told to go back to the operating surgeon(s) and get a card. Which would be difficult, as those guys have been dead for a couple of decades!
This has a lot to do with why we don’t fly commercially.
<crosses San Jose off as potential place to ever visit or fly through>
I wonder when a case is going to go to court for the racial profiling that goes on. I am leery of any institution or body that acts with impunity, even the TSA.
I have also seen this in several news stories so it’s not exactly a secret.
And thanks for the welcome. Good to see you here too.
That’ll bring in the tourists I’m sure! :rolleyes:
One more T-shirt for the no-fly list.
There are signs and announcements. Big signs at the entrance to the line, and throughout the line, that indicate the rules for photo ID and the 3 ounce, 1quart, 1 per traveler rule. You’d have to live under a rock to not be aware of the existence of restrictions, and if you are not a ‘seasoned traveler’ like my ‘august self’ you can pick up the telephone and call your airline before your deaprture date, or if you are somewhat intelligent and have internet access… you can Google and get all the info right from the TSA website.
If you get them back. And that is a mighty big if, given the reliability of the airlines and the number of bags they ‘misplace’ or ‘lose’.
I carry everything i need for a week in 1 carry on bag. All of my work stuff is in the laptop bag. If I need to stay longer than one week continuously, I buy more of whatever I need. Because of this, I don’t spend half an hour plus standing at the baggage claim for bags that might not have made it.
Fuckin’ A it will. While I wouldn’t classify myself as one, due to the fact that my only child is an American, I happen to fly there often – three times this year already.
OTOH, I am so sick and tired of the abuse that I’ll have my son fly to wherever I am at the time. In fact I just refused joining my sis and Co. in their two week stay in Miami. And they offered to pay for the plane ticket…
Wanna touch someone’s genitalia, fine, but it won’t be mine. Never mind the additional on-line BS…
You can pack a week’s worth of clothes into a single carry on bag?
Oh, and on the subject of airport design and security checkpoints: A few weeks ago I flew out of the Raleigh airport and when I got to the security section there were two separate lines, one for “experienced travelers” and one for “novice travelers”. Aha! I thought, I can get into the “experienced travelers” line and not have to worry about being behind someone who is not familiar with how the security procedures work, and having to wait while they empty their pockets of metal objects (mine were already in my carry on) or search for their ID and boarding pass (mine were already in my shirt pocket).
Except that when I walked between the guide lines to the security checkpoint, there was only one person checking IDs for both lines, and after being approved by her there was no attempts to keep the sheep and the goats separated, so I still had to wait behind the people who had been in the “novice travelers” line. :rolleyes:
Sure can. I carry a Samsonite spinner. The smalllest one they make is carry-on sized. I fit 3 pairs of pants and about 10 shirts in it, along with 7 pairs of underwear, 7 pairs of socks, and a couple of bras. It also contains my flat iron and a second pair of shoes as well as all my non-liquid toiletries (Q-tips, Shout wipes, etc).
It’s especially fun when you get the family of 60 who all insist they must be together, one person is carrying all 60 boarding passes, and there’s no ID on any of 'em, and they’re in the black diamond lane.
The cards are worthless. My elderly father gets treated like a terrorist every time he flies. He has neural implants to control pain that set off the metal detector. He has the little card. He’s tried showing it to them in advance. He’s tried showing it to them after the metal detector goes off. He’s requested a supervisor and tried showing him the card. Same result every time: They tell him they aren’t interested in “that card,” they aren’t going to even look at it, and he needs to step out of the line so that he can be individually searched.
Dad spent nearly 50 years working in law enforcement and is of a somewhat authoritarian bent. Even so, he HATES the TSA and the way they do things. I worry that the fuckers are going to cause him to have a stroke or heart attack when they infuriate him over his implants.
Out of curiosity, because the subject has come up several times in this and other threads about TSA, I went to their website and did a search for “implant” and “card”. The only result was a reference to the section on “Hidden Disabilities” which recommended that people with pacemakers get a Pacemaker Identification Card which they can show when requesting a pat-down instead of going through the metal detector (which I presume can affect the pacemaker). There is no mention of any other sort of card to prove that you have any other sort of implant which might require special treatment, and pretty much implied that if you have an implant you are required to be patted down.
Oh, wise and honored one, please bless us with your wisdom!
I travel the equivalent of 5-6 times around the world each year, and I’ve had to put up with quite a bit, but, Sir, you have the patience of a Saint. I don’t know if I could have contained myself if I was asked a question as moronic as that.
“What’s Dis?” (you sure it wasn’t Detritus? Sounds like him.)
-“A toaster.”
-“An elephant.”
-“I’m sorry, are you talking to me?”
-“Look, Martha! It can talk!”
-“An intelligence test. You failed.”
-Grab the keys and shake them in front of her face, “Woogaa, woogaa, woogaaa!”
In my experience the TSA & Immigration A-holes ask a lot of questions to which they already know the answer and they are only testing your response. They also make comments or assertions which have no other purpose than making you nervous or insecure. They are also unnecessarily confrontational. It seems this is just the American way of exercising authority, specially with foreigners.
I believe a lot of those stupid questions are a way of trying to get you to fall into the trap of 18 U.S.C. Section 1001 which can send you straight into jail for the most stupid or innocuous fib.
America has become a police state and this is not only not opposed or resisted by all the gun nuts who were supposed to stop this from ever happening but largely with their sympathy and support.
I take Amtrak. I could carry on a bag containing a live ocelot wrapped in blocks of C4 and not have a problem.
For now - there are plans to extend the TSA to trains in the near future…
I’m not defending them at all, but I used to work for the T.S.A. as a screener for short stint. I will try to explain why there are inconsistencies in what they do, specifically with minor things, well, major to you, but minor to the screener.
Sometimes one airport will do something and a different airport won’t is because T.S.A. is always hiring and given the fact that they are hiring, they are always training. Therefore, some training requires more thorough investigation of the passenger. For instance, when I was training to be a baggage screener, before the baggage was checked to go beneath the plane, we were required (during training) to hold the passenger there, in front of the baggage, while we opened it an checked it. We had to go through every damn bag they had.
Now, once we were trained, we no longer had to do this. The passenger checked their luggage, it went into the basement and there we just screened it with an L3 machine and if it alarmed an ionizer. We rarely opened the bag and never with the passenger around.
So, for training purposes, they may make passengers strip down to nothing, just so they can become familiar with how to do it, just in case it ever needs to be done “for real” for the screener. And no, you won’t know who is training and who isn’t.
diggleblop, how was the pay?
And the background check?
I know a guy who could not be hired by the local grocery store chain due to his DUI from seven years ago.
I hope they are pickier than the folks who sell me produce.
And then subway trains, shopping malls, baseball games …