I got hassled by the TSA last summer on a business trip over a radio transceiver I was carrying. The TSA people in many cases are trained idiots who are clueless; it's just amazing to see how they handle a situation. They frisked me and ran my name thru BCI. They wound up causing me to miss my flight and getting back home at 2AM instead of 6PM. To make a long story short, I have cut my buying trips involving airplanes to zero. Couple the increasing airport hassles with higher costs, and it's no longer worth it.

I think that at this point, I'm going to have to charge an inconvenience fee to any of my customers who seriously wants me to fly for them.

>>>>...it has a system for bothering people...

That pretty much sums it up. It lines up with the social theory that we all join groups, and we get power by punishing other people who are in other groups. You join the TSA, and you get to watch non-TSA people submit to the power of your group.

Iwill never forget how Detroit Metro security treated my mother-in-law. Because she had Alzheimer's and Parkinson's, we had asked for a wheelchair. Security made this frail, confused woman get out of the chair to search her, and refused to let any of us help her. Like she was really a threat. They hire bullys who pick on the weak, but would never actually confront someone who was a real threat.

That is just disgusting.

In the case of some of these TSA workers, it's the typically powerless in positions of faux power.

Reminds me of the woman (not a passenger, perhaps there to pick somebody up) near baggage claim at 6am in Philly. She was marching back and forth shouting into her cell. I said "Shhhh," and I know other people thought it along with me.

The woman, a rather huge black lady, marched over to me and gave me a big lecture about minding my own business (which I'd been trying to do until she started bellowing hers). "You nothin! You nothin!" she shouted at me. Yeah, that's right.

And of course, in the case of the often power-drunk TSA workers, they so often don't find what they're supposed to. I accidentally traveled for a year at least around the U.S. with a very sharp cuticle trimmers (not an actual danger, but one of the things they're supposed to find and toss). They found it in Mantova, Italy.

Maybe the TSA people saw M. Night's "The Happening" and freaked out that the pilot might kill himself in an unseemly manner while flying the plane. And somehow confiscating a dull knife makes everyone safer? Yeahhh...

Does TSA not know that the flight crew has access to fire axes?

It seems as though TSA tries to humiliate travelers as much as possible. One Friday afternoon as I and thousands of others tried to get through security in Atlanta, a stubby little TSA tramp took me to task because my zip-top bag for liquids wasn't the correct size.

In a voice that seemed two sizes too big for her, she bellowed, "SIR! THE BAG FOR YOUR CARRY-ON LIQUIDS IS TOOOOOOO BIG!!!"

She went on and on, bellowing loudly about how it was supposed to be a quart size bag and not a gallon size bag and did I realize that I had the wrong size bag. As this was the return leg of my trip, I finally told her that if it really were such a problem, that she could keep it.

Only then did her volume lower to a normal level as she told me, "No, I just wanted to make sure you understood the rules about the bag size."

TSA has become dangerously farcical.

Never really had any major problem with TSA. Most are dumb as shit and I'm aware of this fact so I don't stir shit up. I'm also random bag check guy but do it with a smile and you get done faster. I'm still all for the TSA being eliminated. However when I had to fly pre-911 I had the same issues too. Same dumb as shit bunny humpers working the security machines, then they worked for the FAA or the air ports now it's TSA.

However the type of searches done by Israeli security would have every person in the country bouncing off the walls. They quite comfortably use racial profiling. Their searches are REALLY through and giving them attitude will garuntee a full body search.

Also if I may point out for all of the security they have in Israel they have far more frequent attacks than the US. Now I know all the arguments about why they get attacked more but if we are their main ally and we have the money why the hell are we not being successfully attacked more? Maybe the TSA is the decoy dip shit agent used to lull the enemy into a false sense of security. The more arrogant the enemy the easier they are to take out.

Unless I actually need to visit you, my neighbours to the south, I've vowed to avoid any stopovers in your country. If we can't get where we're going on a direct flight, we won't be going anymore. It's too bad there isn't some other hub to go through. Things are bad when I'd rather change planes in Mexico City than in Dallas!!

i hope one day somebody does some undercover reporting on the TSA. Full infiltration. getting hired, trained, etc...

..and then articulating how bullshit it is.

thus, when i have to go through the lines again, i can hand them each a copy.

my recommendation is to leave the security to the airports. you know...the people who own the building.

I once got my revenge with TSA Agents, though it was quite unintentional. I was in Miami, heading back home from a business trip. I was at my hotel, packing, and running incredibly late. So I just threw all of my dirty laundry on the top of everything else in my suitcase (normally I have a bag for it but lost it somehow).

Arriving at the airport, I learned that each bag was being hand inspected, in front of each passenger.

A TSA Agent, a very large woman, had the "honour" of inspecting mine. When she opened it up, she winced backward a bit, turned her glaze on me and gave me a look that I'll never forget!

Hey, I'm a clean guy but a week's dirty laundry, sitting there in hot and damp Miami, well . . .

"However the type of searches done by Israeli security would have every person in the country bouncing off the walls. They quite comfortably use racial profiling. Their searches are REALLY through and giving them attitude will garuntee a full body search."

Yeah. My sister recently traveled from Kenya to Isreael to Europe. On her last day in Kenya, she donated everything in her suitcase (except for 2 changes of clothes) AND the suitcase. Israeli securty was suspicious that an American tourist was traveling with only a carry-on sack with a few shirts and a skirt (and that she looked as she did--unwashed hair wrapped up in a headscarf). She was immediately taken aside for questioning (about everything under the sun, from what she studied in college to her family).

They don't mess around.

Silly incident.

Not sure I'd call the Israelis experts in security though. When I think of people who *don't* get bombed much, the Israelis are not the first that come to mind...

"From what I hear, the main thing keeping so many people from flying is how unbelievably stupid and filled with stupid indignities it is, from start to finish, and the TSA is perp number one in that division."

Disagree somewhat. I think the worst part of American flying is the absolute lack of any comfort for the waiting passenger. Just got back from Thailand and I have to say the best part was that both Thai Air and Bangkok Air featured actual lounges with comfortable cushions, fresh-brewed coffee and tasty snacks for waiting economy passengers. They made the 90 minute waits more than bearable. One could even fully recline and catch a little shut-eye without looking like a transient.

Forget the snacks, even. If airports could do this one this one thing and switch out the hard chairs for the lounge-style benches and couches, I would forever forgive any TSA hassles. Throw in the snacks, and I wouldn't even complain about delays.

Amy said: "In the case of some of these TSA workers, it's the typically powerless in positions of faux power."

My brother worked for TSA.

This is completely true. The thought of my idiot brother actually having to do an important job terrified me. I could picture him bullying someone just because he "thought" they looked at him funny, or because they made a joke. He is the type of person that would be the ass that would try to intimidate you or make you embarrassed about whatever you're carrying in your bag -- because he can. He's just that kinda punk.

Luckily, he's never held any job longer than 3 months, so that power trip didn't last long.

I'm afraid we may be seeing the consequences of the 'uneducated generation' that is in effect discussed in Richard Mitchell's "Less than Words Can Say" essay. I suspect that the questions he raised are slowly starting to be answered, and the implications may be ominous indeed.

NicoleK:
Not sure I'd call the Israelis experts in security though. When I think of people who *don't* get bombed much, the Israelis are not the first that come to mind...
- - - - - - - - - -
Well that's the point, isn't it - despite constant attempts on Israeli targets, there don't seem to be that many "successful" ones.

Israeli approach: the best judge of humans is another human. So well-trained humans meet each passenger face-to-face, ask them questions, and observe their response/behavior. This info is then crossed/backed up with physical search/detection devices.

American approach: we don't want to invest in people, we want to build a machine and hire burger-flippers to run it. So you wind up with a system that focuses only on the mechanical aspects rather than the human factor.

My opinion of TSA? There's a reason I don't fly anymore... and it has nothing to do with possible hijacking.
I simply refuse to subject myself to those blithering idiots TSA hired to work security. I mean I'm all in favor of 'Hire The Handicapped', but did TSA go looking for the stupidest people they could find???
I think I figured it out though, to work for TSA you must first be able to fail an IQ test (and of course it helps if you can trace your geneology to a snail).
Gunner Retired

TSA sucks. I flew from Denver to Vegas with metal nail file in my makeup bag (I had forgotten to take it out). Leaving Vegas to go home, the TSA agent saw something in my carry on that "looked" like a knife. I was standing there trying to figure out what the hell I had when he picked up the makeup bag, SEARCHED through it, and put it back. He was about to dump the entire contents of my bag out when it dawned on me what he was looking for. I told him to look in the makeup bag again and, sure enough, that's what he was after.

I told him to keep it, since it was a 49 cent metal file, and he says, "oh, no, you can have it" and GIVES IT BACK TO ME.

Why the HELL are you looking for it in the first place if I can keep it? And who the HELL taught you how to search a bag?

What morons.

I realized it was all bullshit about two years ago when the TSA pulled me aside and swabbed a package of frozen pork chops for explosive residue.

Clearly they're not being taught anything about the beliefs of actual terrorists.

OTOH, no one even noticed my digital countdown device with no power switch (chess timer).

Ben-David's comment about says it all regarding the TSA. The crash axes notwithstanding (and they are mighty sharp, BTW), the big picture as far as that story goes is missing from these comments as of so far, unless it was Amy's point:

Look, as a pilot, you don't need a serrated knife, you don't need the crash axe, you don't need a .40 caliber handgun, any of these, to kill everyone on board. You have two hands, there's a yoke, rudder pedals and throttles. Either of the pilots could put the thing hard into the ground on final approach and there's nothing the other could do! Sorry if that scares you, but that is the fact.

Now, the reason we have such safety as far as personnel goes is basically that people are in general not nutcases, and the pilot group even less so. I think it is not really direct, but the type of people who are unstable just don't make it through many pilot training phases (whether just private pilot instruction in a club plane or in a full-motion simulator training for a jet job, or even in a ground school class). This is a good thing.

But, the TSA must follow it's prime directive, which says: Common sense must not be allowed at any time on the airport premises. So, it's not those poor bastard's fault they act like assholes - it's a congressional mandate.

My friend carried a straight razor through security in her hairstylist kit. I've carried all sorts of forbidden objects through (mostly by accident) and never been hassled, and I've flown probably 20+ times in the last year. I've actually seen them look at the screen, frown, look at me and let it go through. It's a little sad that a smile and a jiggle works on people that are supposed to be protecting us.

"Either of the pilots could put the thing hard into the ground on final approach and there's nothing the other could do! Sorry if that scares you, but that is the fact."

You don't have to be on final approach.

The next time someone asks you what harm religion does, read the cockpit tape to them.

Radwaste, I know about Egypt Air (that crash, I mean). However, up at altitude, at least the other guy (or guys, if it's a real oldey with a flight engineer) has a fighting chance - for that see the Fed Ex "incident" some years back involving the pissed-off jumpseater; oh yes, I think it involved the crash ax too. It is also on the ntsb site - search based on airline.

Of course, that crash - back to
Eygpt Air was with an aircraft not manned with American crews - I remember something about you get what you pay for. Some of the Asian pilots - both training in the US and flying for Asian carriers are scary (not in the sense of the Eygpt Air thing, just airmanship-wise. They don't have near the experience that you can get from an American pilot with a general aviation background).

Dave, "Ask the Pilot" even has an article about pilot experience, and it says that you should be surprised there, too.

But the saddest thing about "airport security" is that there are ignorant Americans who actually say, "This is the way it should always be. We have nothing to hide."

I tell such people, "Bend over. You should get used to being presumed guilty right away."

Absolutely, on "what are you worried about if you have nothing to hide?" crap. Yes, I hear that a lot from passengers myself and just shake my head. I guess you could say this country deserves what it has coming, but, then, those who care about freedom have no place else to go. It ain't like the West isn't won yet.

I don't get your "surprised there too" part, Rad. What are you referring to, experience? Even the fact that some regional airlines have been hiring some 250 hour pilots still beats the way it works on many overseas airlines. The numbers will go way up very soon in America, or are already.

What I mean also, is that we have a big general aviation industry in America, not like in any other country. You do not have to be well off at all to own a small airplane, even though, with the gas prices as the are now, you can't be too poor, or it will just be a hangar queen. We have people flying as instructors, flying checks and packages in the middle of the night, flying skydivers, towing banners, flying pipeline patrol, aerobatics, and just boring holes in the sky - makes me think this is still a great country ???

I was flying home with my 2 tiny babies one time, we had one-way tickets, and they searched my 6 month old. Um, hello?? Yes, I get it, people hide cocaine in babies' diapers or whatever occasionally, but come on. You'll search babies, old people, and businessmen, but not the young middle-eastern man carrying a backpack. What is wrong with that picture? I am all for racial profiling. What is the problem with targeting those who actually COMMIT 90% or so of any given type of crime? Oh yeah, the problem is we muight actually lower the crime rate.........