My experience with the TSA

[Les Habitants]

On Monday I flew to Atlanta from Toronto, than returned yesterday. In Atlanta, I went to the security screening area. The man there took my boarding pass and passport, and said "have a good day." Then, I went to the security line, put my bags through the scanner, walked through the metal detector and stopped in front of a big mennacing security guard who was standing in front of the porno scanner. "Oh no!" I thought, "could it be?! Must I have my genitels groped or viewed?!" Then he looked at me and said..."Have a nice day sir." And NOTHING ELSE HAPPENED!! The End!

Honestly people, chill out about the TSA already.

[Nark]

My experience with the TSA in SEA:

"Hey, captain!" and a wave of the hand.
After maneuvering my suitcase around a plethora of other passengers waiting in line ahead of me. He checked my ID.

"Have a good flight, sir."

After putting my stuff on the x-ray belt, walked through the fancy metal detector, and off I went to get a deliciously over priced coffee. (even after %10 off...)

In DC:

"Good morning sir, right this way."
beep beep beep.
"Oh yeah celphone" I said.
TSA screener, "ya, they'll do that"
Waiting for the belt to start moving so I could place my phone on it, the guy looking at the x-ray screen has a menacing look on his face, something to the tune of, 'I've found more than 3 ounces of liquid!!!!!'
"Is this you bag sir?"
"Yes"
Then the look of disappointment, "oh, have a nice day."

And then I did it. I compromised what I'd promise myself I'd never do. I said, "Have a nice day" as I put my watch and jacket back on to be on my merry way.


Traveling during the busiest travel week of the year wasn't as bad as I thought.

[ywgflyboy]

Honestly people, chill out about the TSA already.

Exactly. For those who know how to travel security is a breeze. It is the people who claim they "had no idea" they couldn't bring liquids, etc on a plane (how many years has this been around for) that are holding up the process.

All that hype about the boy who "had" to take his shirt off is non-sense too. The father of that kid took the kids shirt off to speed up the process and was never asked to take his sons shirt off in public.

I recently was going through security in Pearson on a connecting flight from the US and I walked through the metal detector with no beep. They then made me go back out (my basket had been pushed backwards off the belt) to put it back on. The second time I walked through (I did not pick anything up) the alarm went off and I then had to go over to the MRI line. Made me wonder...

[Siddley Hawker]

On Friday evening I was talking to a friend who was here to attend her mother's funeral. She had arrived from Washington Dulles On Wednesday evening. I asked her what her experience with TSA was, and did she go through the machine or take the pat-down, She opted for the pat down, because, she said, "No one is looking at my frickin' body on no x-ray machine." She said the agent was most polite, the pat down was done discretely and she in no way felt any embarassment about the whole deal.

[canwhitewolf]

TSA sucks



TSA, A Major Threat to Public Health?

http://www.rense.com/general92/maj.htm

The TSA is out of control

http://tinyurl.com/2dvqegt

We've Been Had!

http://www.rense.com/general92/had.htm

[canwhitewolf]

*********************************************************

On Monday I flew to Atlanta from Toronto, than returned yesterday. In Atlanta, I went to the security screening area. The man there took my boarding pass and passport, and said "have a good day." Then, I went to the security line, put my bags through the scanner, walked through the metal detector and stopped in front of a big mennacing security guard who was standing in front of the porno scanner. "Oh no!" I thought, "could it be?! Must I have my genitels groped or viewed?!" Then he looked at me and said..."Have a nice day sir." And NOTHING ELSE HAPPENED!! The End!

Honestly people, chill out about the TSA already.

*********************************************************************

chill out hell,

america is losing its sanity

theres a bigger picture that needs addresssing Les Habitants

[TopperHarley]

I've had great experiences with the TSA folks while working in uniform.

The ones that drive me crazy are the Catsa agents in YWG, YXE, YQR, and YHZ

[Dash-Ate]

[cdnpilot77]

For most of us married guys, having someone from the tsa grab our junk will be the most action we get in months :

[Tiny Tyke]

I agree that YQR CATSA is way to uptight.

[Lost Lake]

Try YSB. Guaranteed no terrorist will pass screening, nor any other traveller either. They must have been taught that white terrorists will probably depart from there.

[Tubthumper]

Bumper stickers from the TSA.

[openendwrench]

My last few encounters with both CATSA and the TSA have also been a breeze.
Most recently I was steered into the x-ray line and when I handed my boarding pass to the screening agent she yelled out "he's a regular" and I went thru no questions asked, no need to get x-rayed or a pat down.

[moocow]

I guess you should just walk in naked next time.

http://gizmodo.com/5703878/the-most-stu ... ies-belief

[loopa]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hwsVi9ULwLI

lol

[V1 Rotate]

Or....
viewtopic.php?f=54&t=69214&p=655947#p655947

[Invertago]

"Don't touch my junk man"

But seriously, I'll take the pat down, but they don't have to be such verbal assholes when they're doing it. Also, when they're patting down your two year old, they could be a little nicer to the already stressed out kid. I understand they need to check 2 year olds in case someone is using them to carry something, but could at least say something reassuring to the kid in the process rather then just barking at them for not spreading their legs fast enough. There are good TSA and bad TSA just like good and bad cops, unfortunately I think the bad TSA represent about 50%.

[openendwrench]

How have things changed? Is it now safer to fly given all of these added security measures?
Have the CATSA/TSA really deflected a significant number of potential threats?
I've rarely ever heard of them if they have.

[Nark]

Well one could argue that since all the news worthy threats: panty and shoe bombers both boarded a flight in Europe, the TSA and CATSA have kept us safe from ourselves.

Of course since CATSA and TSA were created, not one flight was ever diverted for idiotic passengers originating in North America right?
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
This is sarcasm if you couldn't tell.

[Longtimer]

My wife has had a knee replacement and thus sets off all airport screening alarms. Has had physical checks recently at US and Canadian airports. No trauma at all involved. Not sure what the big deal is all about unless protest at the screening point produces a moment of glory for the complainant.

[Dash-Ate]

A quote...

There really a "terror orginization" right? They don't just repeat it 20x an hour on the corporate controlled TV news just to convince us right?

"Would a terror organization capable of outwitting all 16 US intelligence agencies, all intelligence agencies of US allies including Israel’s Mossad, the National Security Council, NORAD, air traffic control, the Pentagon, and airport security four times in one hour [9/11/01] put its unrivaled prestige at risk with improbable shoe bombs, shampoo bombs, and underwear bombs?"

[El Comat]

Try YSB. Guaranteed no terrorist will pass screening, nor any other traveller either. They must have been taught that white terrorists will probably depart from there.

Really? I go through there once or twice a week and I've never had an issue. Nor have I seen them giving others a hard time. One guy even told me that if crew get selected for the random wanding, he'll let them go through again because "something wasn't right the first time". One of the few CATSA folk I've see use common sense with crew.

EC

[loopa]

Man with laptop: You guys are running a tight ship today only offering pat downs or body scanners eh?
TSA Agent: This is the full search line (Making it sound as if we had options).
Man with laptop: This is the only line that seems open to me
TSA Agent: Yup.

I just started chuckling as I overheard this conversation and walked away.

Not sure if you guys have noticed this, but in YYC before you enter the D-Gates it says something along the lines of "before crossing the doors, you submit yourself to the pat-down or usage of the body scanners." So basically once you cross those doors you have legally accepted to submit yourself to either procedure. Shameless !

This other time there was an option to go into two different lines, and for some rare reason there was no one there to direct you into the lines. One line had body scanners, one line didn't. This guy on the other side of the scanner looked furiously at me as I chose the other line. As I made my way through the normal scanners, he wanted to come over and take me to the full body scanner, until his supervisor told him, Bobby, that's for that line only. I walked away with a smirk on my face.

[mattedfred]

http://news.travel.aol.com/2010/12/06/u ... lp_twitter

[niss]

While North America's airports groan under the weight of another sea-change in security protocols, one word keeps popping out of the mouths of experts: Israelification.

That is, how can we make our airports more like Israel's, which deal with far greater terror threat with far less inconvenience.

"It is mindboggling for us Israelis to look at what happens in North America, because we went through this 50 years ago," said Rafi Sela, the president of AR Challenges, a global transportation security consultancy. He's worked with the RCMP, the U.S. Navy Seals and airports around the world.

"Israelis, unlike Canadians and Americans, don't take s--- from anybody. When the security agency in Israel (the ISA) started to tighten security and we had to wait in line for — not for hours — but 30 or 40 minutes, all hell broke loose here. We said, 'We're not going to do this. You're going to find a way that will take care of security without touching the efficiency of the airport."

That, in a nutshell is "Israelification" - a system that protects life and limb without annoying you to death.

Despite facing dozens of potential threats each day, the security set-up at Israel's largest hub, Tel Aviv's Ben Gurion Airport, has not been breached since 2002, when a passenger mistakenly carried a handgun onto a flight. How do they manage that?

"The first thing you do is to look at who is coming into your airport," said Sela.

The first layer of actual security that greets travellers at Tel Aviv's Ben Gurion International Airport is a roadside check. All drivers are stopped and asked two questions: How are you? Where are you coming from?

"Two benign questions. The questions aren't important. The way people act when they answer them is," Sela said.

Officers are looking for nervousness or other signs of "distress" — behavioural profiling. Sela rejects the argument that profiling is discriminatory.

"The word 'profiling' is a political invention by people who don't want to do security," he said. "To us, it doesn't matter if he's black, white, young or old. It's just his behaviour. So what kind of privacy am I really stepping on when I'm doing this?"

Once you've parked your car or gotten off your bus, you pass through the second and third security perimeters.

Armed guards outside the terminal are trained to observe passengers as they move toward the doors, again looking for odd behaviour. At Ben Gurion's half-dozen entrances, another layer of security are watching. At this point, some travellers will be randomly taken aside, and their person and their luggage run through a magnometer.

"This is to see that you don't have heavy metals on you or something that looks suspicious," said Sela.

You are now in the terminal. As you approach your airline check-in desk, a trained interviewer takes your passport and ticket. They ask a series of questions: Who packed your luggage? Has it left your side?

"The whole time, they are looking into your eyes — which is very embarrassing. But this is one of the ways they figure out if you are suspicious or not. It takes 20, 25 seconds," said Sela.

Lines are staggered. People are not allowed to bunch up into inviting targets for a bomber who has gotten this far.

At the check-in desk, your luggage is scanned immediately in a purpose-built area. Sela plays devil's advocate — what if you have escaped the attention of the first four layers of security, and now try to pass a bag with a bomb in it?

"I once put this question to Jacques Duchesneau (the former head of the Canadian Air Transport Security Authority): say there is a bag with play-doh in it and two pens stuck in the play-doh. That is 'Bombs 101' to a screener. I asked Ducheneau, 'What would you do?' And he said, 'Evacuate the terminal.' And I said, 'Oh. My. God.'

"Take Pearson. Do you know how many people are in the terminal at all times? Many thousands. Let's say I'm (doing an evacuation) without panic — which will never happen. But let's say this is the case. How long will it take? Nobody thought about it. I said, 'Two days.'"

A screener at Ben-Gurion has a pair of better options.

First, the screening area is surrounded by contoured, blast-proof glass that can contain the detonation of up to 100 kilos of plastic explosive. Only the few dozen people within the screening area need be removed, and only to a point a few metres away.

Second, all the screening areas contain 'bomb boxes'. If a screener spots a suspect bag, he/she is trained to pick it up and place it in the box, which is blast proof. A bomb squad arrives shortly and wheels the box away for further investigation.

"This is a very small simple example of how we can simply stop a problem that would cripple one of your airports," Sela said.

Five security layers down: you now finally arrive at the only one which Ben-Gurion Airport shares with Pearson — the body and hand-luggage check.

"But here it is done completely, absolutely 180 degrees differently than it is done in North America," Sela said.

"First, it's fast — there's almost no line. That's because they're not looking for liquids, they're not looking at your shoes. They're not looking for everything they look for in North America. They just look at you," said Sela. "Even today with the heightened security in North America, they will check your items to death. But they will never look at you, at how you behave. They will never look into your eyes ... and that's how you figure out the bad guys from the good guys."

That's the process — six layers, four hard, two soft. The goal at Ben-Gurion is to move fliers from the parking lot to the airport lounge in a maximum of 25 minutes.

This doesn't begin to cover the off-site security net that failed so spectacularly in targeting would-be Flight 253 bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab — intelligence. In Israel, Sela said, a coordinated intelligence gathering operation produces a constantly evolving series of threat analyses and vulnerability studies.

"There is absolutely no intelligence and threat analysis done in Canada or the United States," Sela said. "Absolutely none."

But even without the intelligence, Sela maintains, Abdulmutallab would not have gotten past Ben Gurion Airport's behavioural profilers.

So. Eight years after 9/11, why are we still so reactive, so un-Israelified?

Working hard to dampen his outrage, Sela first blames our leaders, and then ourselves.

"We have a saying in Hebrew that it's much easier to look for a lost key under the light, than to look for the key where you actually lost it, because it's dark over there. That's exactly how (North American airport security officials) act," Sela said. "You can easily do what we do. You don't have to replace anything. You have to add just a little bit — technology, training. But you have to completely change the way you go about doing airport security. And that is something that the bureaucrats have a problem with. They are very well enclosed in their own concept."

And rather than fear, he suggests that outrage would be a far more powerful spur to provoking that change.

"Do you know why Israelis are so calm? We have brutal terror attacks on our civilians and still, life in Israel is pretty good. The reason is that people trust their defence forces, their police, their response teams and the security agencies. They know they're doing a good job. You can't say the same thing about Americans and Canadians. They don't trust anybody," Sela said. "But they say, 'So far, so good'. Then if something happens, all hell breaks loose and you've spent eight hours in an airport. Which is ridiculous. Not justifiable

"But, what can you do? Americans and Canadians are nice people and they will do anything because they were told to do so and because they don't know any different."

http://www.staplenews.com/home/2010/11/ ... other.html