[RioRico]

pretty hard to go see family and friends in the Philippines without hopping on a few airplanes, ya know?

Yeah, and I already sold my canoe.

[riff]

Moved from General Talk.

Thank you

I know that they're doing their best to ensure my safety and yours.

Beating up old ladies with walkers and stealing lip balm, that's just ... awesome dood!

Better pay... yes they could use a raise, the kind of raise one gets from a size 12 shoe in the a$$.

[johnmflores]

Why do the TSA checkpoints look like they were assembled last week from leftover parts of a warehouse? They've had ten years to make what is at best a nuisance into something less dehumanizing.

[séamuis]

I fly regularly and experience the same delays everyone does.
I have had my own negative experiences with overzealous airport security.

One day not long after 9/11 I was servicing automated check-in kiosks inside the JetBlue terminal at JFK.
On one of several trips to my van for parts I forgot to remove a utility knife from my pocket.
Re-entering through security I discovered it in my pocket and placed it on the counter.
Two National Guardsman in fatigues pointed automatic weapons at me.
I was almost responsible for shutting down JFK that day.

Several years later during an Orange Alert I experienced a long delay at Chicago O'Hare.
I watched my plane, hood up, being serviced on the tarmac for several hours.
When I had the nerve to ask the gate agent why they couldn't put us on other flights
two burly security guards hustled me away from the counter, pinned me against a wall and patted me down.
They confiscated my lip balm.

It is a documented fact that terrorists have attacked using airliners hijacked with rudimentary objects.
Further such attacks are admittedly a diffuse threat but one that is nevertheless real.

I agree that TSA should have a better trained workforce. Better screened and better paid, too.
I know that they're doing their best to ensure my safety and yours.

Chris

Are your regular flights national or international? Because nearly all of my flights are international and I would without hesitation rank the TSA and their security the absolute worse I've ever experienced. Fear of what's possible is no reason nor excuse for the foul behavior and foul job the TSA does. Trading decency, dignity, and freedoms for a thin veil of 'security' is not what I call the best option and as John pointed out, they've had ten years to get it right, and all it does is get continually worse. That may be acceptable to you for your money, but not me. It may be acceptable to have military point automatic weapons at you for something so trivial, but not me. It may be acceptable to be bullied for speaking your opinion, but not me. Honestly some of you guys idea of 'America' is scary. And yet we tell ourselves were better than those 'third world countries'? In my experience that becoming less and less true every year.

[wlachan]

Soon everyone will be flying naked...

[MRRiley]

I keep saying that TSA isn't going to be happy until we all have to fly nude and be locked into our seats by sky marshal flight attendants. These guys have been way over the line for about 8 years now! Time to demand they be fired!

Mike

[MRRiley]

Most folks know it's a very bad idea to try to bring food in carry on luggage past the TSA checkpoint.
I suspect this may be as much to promote food sales within the terminals as to protect the flying public.

I feel more sorry for the people on line behind her than for the cupcake lady who delayed everyone.

Chris

Chris,

This isn't about the cupcake... especially since they had already been through a previous TSA checkpoint with it without any trouble whatsoever.

It is about a totally ineffectual security apparatus that has steadily eroded the public's right to move about the country without fears of unreasonable searches or intrusion on their privacy. You do realize don't you that TSA has never once prevented a single attempted act of terrorism. They missed the shoe bomber... they missed the underwear bomber... undoubtedly something will eventually succeed and people will finally realize that the TSA failed to prevent it. Not because they screwed up, but simply because there is no sure-fire way to protect a public transportation system like the airlines.

Mike

[monochrome]

I know that they're doing their best to ensure my safety and yours.

Chris

Two most important safety changes since 9/11:

1. Cockpit door locks
2. Passenger vigilance

TSA has not documented a single terrorist act they have stopped. Passengers have subdued perpetrators of the three legitimate attempts to take down a plane since 9/11

They won't gop after planes again - they've accomplished thier objective, wich was to deny us our freedom from intrusive government, confidence and comfort.

TSA is setting up random chackpoints on highways now - be prepared to have your car stopped and searched for no apparent reason.

[Parallax]

Better screened and better paid, too.

I agree about the better screened part. I don't know, or care all that much, what they get paid but it seems irrelevant to the issue here. You can't buy common sense. That's a screening issue.

[MRRiley]

The TSA highway checkpoints need to be challenged on constitutional grounds. Unfortunately this will take someone refusing the search getting arrested in order to challenge the practice. For now, you might want to reconsider driving in TN... AllGov - News - Tennessee First State to Allow TSA Highway Random Search Program

In Tennessee VIPR has been set up at five weigh stations and two bus terminals. State officials noted that they were not responding to any particular threat, but rather were providing “a visible deterrence and detection security presence across Tennessee.”

In other words... more security theater! The police officers, and especially the military members, involved in this should be ashamed of themselves.

Mike

[jolepp]

...
They won't gop after planes again - they've accomplished thier objective, wich was to deny us our freedom from intrusive government, confidence and comfort.
...

The Sinister Beardies must be pleased with themselves (the same nail-clippers are to be confiscated, mandated carrying your toothpaste in a clear plastic baggie past the checkpoint, ... -silliness is going on over here as well).

[séamuis]

The TSA highway checkpoints need to be challenged on constitutional grounds. Unfortunately this will take someone refusing the search getting arrested in order to challenge the practice. For now, you might want to reconsider driving in TN... AllGov - News - Tennessee First State to Allow TSA Highway Random Search Program



In other words... more security theater! The police officers, and especially the military members, involved in this should be ashamed of themselves.

Mike

land of the free indeed. my state already has enough random highway checkpoints conducted by the police and state troopers. why do we need a government agency doing what we already have people being paid to do? is this how we 'create jobs'? when will it end? i know when it will end for me, but i greatly fear for the future generations.

when we have given up all of our freedoms in the name of 'securing and protecting' them, what will we have left to protect with all this 'security'? will it all have been worth it? this nation is going to end up exactly like the nations we claim to be protecting ourselves from becoming. mark my words, because we are on the fast track.

[magkelly]

The TSA highway checkpoints need to be challenged on constitutional grounds. Unfortunately this will take someone refusing the search getting arrested in order to challenge the practice. Mike

That will be me because the day I let someone with the TSA randomly check inside my car for security purposes when I'm not crossing a border into another country or putting it on an auto train is the day they can just kiss my a-!" It's not that I have anything to hide but it's bad enough that they have random sobriety checks and that they're constantly checking the status of the disabled cards in my car. I will not just submit to random checks of my vehicle.

SIX times in the past year they've stopped me or my folks at a store when we parked in a spot. It's something we're legitimately entitled to do, as I have mobility issues and so do my parents. We all have cards in the car, one for each of us, because they insist upon that, that even though 3 semi-disabled people drive this car we all have to have our own card. They're just trying to mail people for the $500 fee for using someone else's but it should be in the darned system now I would think that we're all legit. I'm tired of being stopped. It takes 10-15 minutes for them to do the check, and when you add it up that's a lot of time over a year bothering me and my folks.

If it's not that they're random checking me on the way to the library. They run sobriety checks at 5PM and later. If I go to the library at 5:30 and sometimes I do, I run a risk of getting checked just because there are 4 bars and a couple of liquor stores within a mile of my house. (12 churches, a temple, and a mosque too which should tell you something about where I live, lol.)

I thought that by avoiding the airport and the train I'd be bypassing all that nonsense, but now I have to worry about going down the highway to Walmart? Going across the state to do a doll show? That's ridiculous. I'm in my own car not driving drunk or with my cell glued to my ear they have no business pulling me over to check anything. They'll get an earful if they try it too. It's bad enough I have to deal with the cops being such heavy handed ticket seeker here. Last thing I need is the TSA on my arse too all the time.

Do they do shiz like this in Europe? The UK? Just wondering. I'm really beginning to think I'm living in WW2 Berlin, sigh...

[newmikey]

Do they do shiz like this in Europe? The UK? Just wondering. I'm really beginning to think I'm living in WW2 Berlin, sigh...

I can't answer for all of Europe but I can remember one (1) occasion in the past 10 years when a few highways were blocked and checks/searches performed after an orange terrorism alert (or some other, non-green color). They did it for one morning and the government spent most of the following 6 months trying to justify it to the public and undoing the electoral damage that was done. Coalition parties that supplied the government posts of justice, internal affairs and security lost many votes over that period - the public just wouldn't have it, full stop, end of story.

[dgaies]

I'm really beginning to think I'm living in WW2 Berlin, sigh...

I'll assume that statement is pure hyperbole and is a function of your frustration with the TSA/government over this and other similar stories. While inconvienent and perhaps occasionally a bit invasive, I fail to see how this is even comparable to the things that went on in WW2 Berlin.