Late last year while trying to fly out of LAX a TSA employee thought I was carrying a throwing star. They called the police, who correctly identified as a toy in seconds.
I thought the whole ordeal was over until I got a "notice of violation" in the mail from TSA 45 days later.
Now I'm banned from pre-check for three years, even though I have global entry and even though the fine was thrown out. It's a kangaroo court were the only two options are you pay the fine or they convert it to a warning.
Some shit head got a gold star for "finding a weapon" and I get fucked.
I've flown with shaving razors and pocket knives attached to my keys numerous times. They get found and confiscated about 20% of the time. I recently forgot to remove both and the TSA agent spent 5 minutes looking for something. He found the shaving razor, but not the pocket knife and was very pleased with himself.
Its absurd the profiling going on with the TSA. If I dress well, I get rushed through the lines quickly. If I dress like a slob, I get subjected to additional baggage checks and pat downs on a regular basis while TSA agents bark orders at me like I'm incompetent. This article makes it sound like they are trained to do this under the guise of "behavior detection". Once I got precheck, I started getting treated like a human being.
Fuck the TSA. If we need to provide jobs to dropouts, give them something meaningful to do without subjecting the rest of the population to their "authority".
Similar story here. I'm a smoker and usually do international/inside-US flights on a monthly basis. In 7-8 years the only lighters I recall losing have been in my home country (where pat downs and having your bags opened are a common thing).
Curiously, I haven't had a TSA line longer than 45 minutes flying from places in NY, CA or FL (I mostly flight late evening/disgustingly-early morning though) in the last few months.
PS: laxatives, you mention being treated like a human. Why not help by not referring to TSA employees as "dropouts"?
FWIW I've had agents inspect my bad and allow me to keep lighters. I've only had lighters confiscated on a handful of international flights, and never in the US.
Yeah you're right its not fair to call them dropouts.
Lighters are not forbidden. I was told to toss out all but one when coming back into the U.S. from Canada, once, but that's about as far as it's ever gone. I travel a fair amount and almost always with one or more lighters.
It may be an unpopular opinion to express, but these "horror stories of TSA incompetence" are somewhat entertaining to those who cannot afford to fly. It's like that "Cops" TV show, on location in the airports of America, with the men and women of law enforcement - the TSA in this case.
Your having LEOs violate your rights and go thru your belongings - for someone thinking your box is a bomb - is no different than a cop stopping a driver for thinking the driver's Coke can is a Budweiser and searching their car.
This is why I can't support high speed rail enough. You get from downtown nyc to Washington dc without having your human rights violated. And its faster too.
I've been travelling all around Spain for the last month and I wouldn't characterize the Renfe/AVE security as anywhere near the TSAs. You basically just put your bags through a machine and get waved through, and I've yet to wait in much of a line.
Yeah, same thing for the Eurostar, it's a much saner security and check-in process. As much as I love flying, I always take the train from London to Paris or between Madrid and Barcelona.
I nearly lost a pocketknife when my suitcase was x-rayed at a Spanish train station.
Our small satchel bags and bodies did not get x-rayed, but the large suitcases did. I forgot I had a pocketknife in there (as it's fine usually for airport security as a check in bag). Somehow, when my suitcase got scanned, they mixed up the order and the person behind me got stopped for having a knife. By that time, I was making a quick getaway to the platform as I didn't want to lose the knife.
I could have just had a knife (and bomb?) in my satchel bag, so was pretty confused by the whole x-ray suitcases only situation.
It's not exactly airport style - at least in NYC and Philly they swab you for explosives and check your ID. No X-Ray or nude-o-scope. You're free to not go through the checkpoint (but you won't board your train).
> Your having LEOs violate your rights and go thru your belongings
the TSA smurfs are NOT an LEO! They are roughly the equivalent of desk clerks dressing in clothing designed to confuse people about this. They neither have the rights nor the competence of an LEO.
I don't think that's an unpopular opinion at all - even for those who fly regularly. So much so, there are already several different COPS style 'reality' shows depicting controversial airport security encounters, at least one in the USA.
Thats funny. I had an unopened box of amazon aa batteries which really looked like a bomb on the x-ray (got to see it when they were inspecting). We both laughed about it when the lady saw what it was. I could tell he was really nervous though.
Took me all of 5 minutes to resolve. Guess some tsa agents are just not very good at their job.
I flew from Atlanta a while back with a bunch of Trader Joe's 'Pound Plus' chocolate bars and a ten pound (!) Ghirardelli chocolate bar in my carry-on which got quite a reaction. The poor girl doing the screening seemed to think an explosion was imminent and was visibly distressed, quickly leaving her post and grabbing a supervisor. For those that don't know, big chocolate bars are organic material and look like explosives and I've seen this happen before - I was waiting to see the reaction.
The supervisor and the girl came back and I laughed and said 'clearly you have spotted my giant chocolate bar', and volunteered all the standard answers (yes I packed this myself, it's been with me the whole time, etc) and they calmed down. I was worried they were going to want to open the package which was a gift and I didn't want them all riled up.
We all learned something that day, they learned that big ten-pound chocolate bars are a real thing and I learned that terrorists can probably carry bombs on board as long as they are sealed in a Ghirardelli box. TSA didn't even bother with the swabs or sniffer dog.
Bottom line is that TSA agents have no skin in the game, if they miss dangerous items it's the passengers who suffer the loss, not the agents standing safely at their posts on the ground at the airport.
Last time I came back to the US, customs stopped me before leaving the airport because I had "undeclared food items". Yes, I had a bag of snack sized Oreos and nothing more.
They're just as bad at identifying actual "weapons": I flew to South America with a layover in Miami a few years back. Got past TSA without any trouble on the domestic leg, then I had to go through again for the international leg.
The second time through security, they said they saw a blade on the x-ray.. turns out they were right. I forgot I had left a multi-tool in my bag.
Thankfully, they just trashed it and let me continue on my way. The story still flabbergasts me, though.
Similar story - a member of my group went through security at LAX with no problems, but was stopped at Heathrow because of something suspicious in her handbag. We emptied everything out of the bag, re-scanned it, and the object was still detected.
After feeling around in the bag we discovered some fabric cutting shears had apparently been accidentally been sewn into the lining by someone on the factory line (they looked something like this if I remember correctly: http://imgur.com/ZKlsjJw).
We just cut them out, handed them over and went on our way. Was a really strange experience though.
Same with me, 10 days ago in Dubai. Unfortunately, there were TWO levels of officers who didn't have decision making authority, they had to reach out to a 3rd level who decided it was something in the bag's fabric (vs me carrying something). Unfortunately, where you are traveling to has some impact in DXB. SFO looks much better(for someone like me) than Abu Dhabi/Sharjah
The TSA has nothing to do with Heathrow where it was found, though. (I don't think in the UK anyone can be fined: if there's any belief of malice, you're likely to be dealt with under normal criminal law such as conspiracy to murder, or potentially terrorism related offences; if there's not, you can either surrender your property or return landside).
Almost: the important point is they have no right to impose any fines; any punishment will be done by the British Transport Police in accordance with British law, and there are relatively few crimes of possession in the UK (drugs are an obvious one, but even then a first arrest for Class C drugs is typically dealt with by means of a police caution). Essentially: any punishment arising from a security checkpoint would be a police matter, and have nothing to do with those manning the security checkpoint.
My friend accidentally took a multi-tool through airport screening shortly after 9/11 and had to lawyer up to get the resulting shitstorm to go away (and he's white and an American citizen)
On the other hand, I remember when I was a kid in the 90s and accidentally took my pocket knife (3" blade) through screening, and they found it but let me bring it on the plane...
I used to take my CRKT M16-14 knife on the nerd bird SJC<->SEA round trip twice a week. Nobody cared. This was mid-90s until just before 9/11. I didn't try to hide it - just tossed it in the bin with my keys etc.
Well, before 9/11 you didn't have to check your firearms. You could carry them on as long as they were in a case. Things were more reasonable back then.
I can see how one might immediately jump to the conclusion that I said people bringing firearms on board an airplane is reasonable. The sentences are so close to one another. I can see how tempting it would be to do that. But just for the sake of argument, let's pretend I did say that. So... How do you feel about armed air marshals?
Absolutely true. In the 90s, I went to a regional shooting competition with a handful of other high school kids, and we brought firearms onto the plane.
I'm sorry, but you are just wrong. The relevant US code is at https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/49/46505 -- it's been in place since the 50's. Security screening to detect weapons has been in place since the early 1970's, after a rash of hijackings in the late 60's. You must be mis-remembering.
I accidentally took a multi-tool (with several blades) through an airport security checkpoint 2 weeks after 9/11. It was found on my person, and confiscated. I was told I could collect it on arrival at the 'weird items' desk at London Heathrow baggage claim. When I arrived a Heathrow it was waiting for me in a padded envelope at the desk.
I was flying out of Beijing, you know... that country with terrible human rights... To be clear: there are multiple human rights issues in China, many of which are far worse than the US. Just not everything.
Once I was flying out of Stockholm, and behind me in the security check was a handyman who was just passing security to fix something on the inside. He had a small open toolbox on wheels with him, so after I went through the metal detector, they pushed his box through, which obviously beeped, since it was full of screwdrivers, knives, hammers, and a lot of other sharp metal things. And then the handyman went through, and he also set off the metal detector, so the security people started checking him and patting him down.
So noone is looking at the toolbox that I'm standing right next to. I could easily have grabbed a knife or two if I had wanted to.
And once they finished patting him down, he grabs his tools and walks on.
And I'm just standing there, gaping at the stupidity of it all.
Ooh yeah, in between times when they're actively inspecting YOU, it'd be totally trivial to hand things off and circumvent their "secure" zone. Thinking about all the ways you could sneak something through if you wanted to is always entertaining while I'm waiting.
The 9-11 hijackers used razor blades. So, its been done. Of course, no American passenger is going to believe that everything will be fine if they comply these days so I don't think its possible to pull off 9-11 again.
> The 9-11 hijackers used razor blades. So, its been done.
Only in the days when we didn't lock the cockpit doors. Now that the cockpit doors are locked, even an actual gun wouldn't be sufficient to hijack the plane (the cockpit doors are essentially impossible to open from the outside, at least not without equipment that would be impossible to bring on a plane and would be rather conspicuously slow to use during a flight).
There is a huge difference hijacking protocol between now and 9/11.
Post 9/11 passengers are not going to allow a guy with a razor blade hijack a plane, or even several guys with razor blades. Passengers and crew members now fight back and have the advantage of numbers.
I'm sure i'm on some watch list for visiting that site now, but it's still fantastic that somebody put all together. It's like an anarchist cookbook that isn't designed to maim bored teens!
Very similar story about MIA. I flew out of ATL with a pocket knife, and lost it at MIA on the way back. Also conversely, ATL wouldn't let me carry-on my pool cue and forced me to check it, but at YUL on the way back, they had no problem with it.
I think it's more of a roulette of circumstances more than a pattern of compliance/negligence, but it is curious to have 2 MIA data points.
Flying out of London Gatwick, I once had a pack of torx driver bits confiscated "because they're dangerous tools, you see". But they failed to confiscate the 8" flathead screwdriver that was also in the bag, much to my amusement when I found it during unpacking.
I also flew Oslo->Lisbon->Sao Paolo->Rio de Janeiro->Lisbon->Oslo about five years ago with a 7" soldering iron in my hand luggage.
Then there was the time when I had my bag very thoroughly searched flying out of Geneva because of a highly suspicious loaf of bread.
I have passed through TSA on four different flights (across two trips) with my multitool in my backpack. This was, of course, completely accidental on my part.
These events caused me to put together a pre-TSA personal checklist, since I can't count on getting lucky again, and I really like that multitool. (:
Same. It's basically a crapshoot if they'll find it. I've accidentally brought pocket knives, bottle openers, and multi-tools. The detection rate is about 1 in 8 if I forget to grab it out of my carry on.
Slightly off-topic, but just to clarify Miami requires everyone to go through security again for an international connection, or was this a special case?
I wonder if it's a case like domestic terminal -> international terminal without any post-security options to move between the two.
I do know that flying _back_ to the US on my last few international flights, there was a second security checkpoint I had to go through. Very silly. I had filled my water bottle at a fountain at the gate and then had to empty it right out 5 minutes later.
Whenever you transfer at different security zones, you have to go through security again. So I fly threw Japan a lot, and always have to recheck (but they are pretty fast). I'm connecting through Moscow next week to get to Europe, and I'm dreading Russian security a bit (it's pretty fast, they don't actually check much, but very disorganized).
You have to go through security again for international flights that connect to a domestic flight, but not usually (ever?) if you've passed TSA within the US and are connecting to leave the country. That's true at every airport in the US, not just Miami.
> You have to go through security again for international flights that connect to a domestic flight, but not usually (ever?) if you've passed TSA within the US and are connecting to leave the country.
There are lots of times when with domestic -> international flights (or even domestic -> domestic, in some cases) there would be terminal transfers required that would leave the secured zone and thus require passing through security again incidentally, even without a specific policy.
Several airports where I know this was an issue have been redesigned to alleviate this, but I'm sure there are some where it is still an issue.
Flying out of Louisville, I saw the same story with the guy in front of me - except it was a clip for a pistol and he was livid because this was his return flight, meaning they missed it in Miami (I think it was Miami). I'm glad the SDF TSA caught it but it definitely didn't inspire confidence overall.
I used to carry a multi-tool on my keychain. I would routinely forget to remove it when going to the airport, and it was never flagged or even noticed. Amusingly I lost it when I was going to a club in SF and a bouncer found it during a pat-down and wouldn't let me bring it in.
This is so true. I was traveling with my partner and she decided to buy a bunch of haircare products. Like the 4 or 5 big 1L containers of shampoo and conditioner.
I told her "we need to check those bags, otherwise they'll make you throw them out". She said it would be fine. And guess what? It was. Almost 4L of liquids in her carry-on and no one said a thing.
The USCIS (the former Immigration and Naturalization Service) is a US government agency that functions without funding from the government - it gets all of its money from the fees and penalties paid by the people who require its services. Based on your story, I'm wondering if the TSA has a similar business model.
That sounds about right. I married a foreigner - costs $1500 and about 6 months to process the paperwork that lets her stay. I got sticker shock when I first learned that. I've never before seen government fees that high.
Many of the services USCIS runs are dependent on the local American Consulate. It is relatively cheap when you compare it to what a lawyer would charge for similar services. Most of the support staff could be better paid working in the private sector.
> costs $1500 and about 6 months to process the paperwork that lets her stay
Really not cool. Probably justify it by saying it takes a lot of time to process paperwork (that they created the requirement for in the first place...)
Did you know that it also now costs $2350 for someone to renounce their US citizenship?
It also takes an undefined amount of time (typically 12+ months) and they publish your name online on a State Department shame list of ex-Americans.
A decade ago, it was free to renounce your US citizenship. Around 2009 they started charging $450, and then suddenly raised the fee to $2350 in 2014.
Revoking citizenship is a costly exercise. It was previously subsidized by all tax-payers, now it isn't.
Not that it matters to the price/cost of doing it, but what do you think are the most common reasons for forfeiting US citizenship? I suspect it's tax-evasion.
The neck comes off and it packs into a case that's small enough for carry-on. It has often struck me that a guitar neck with six metal strings attached would make a fairly effective weapon (at least, by TSA standards!) but I've never had any trouble getting through security, apart from occasionally having to put it together.
They're basically useless. The money would be better spent on agencies like the FBI that can prevent terrorists from ever showing up at airports.
As Israeli security experts have said time and time again, if the terrorist gets to the airport it's already too late. Brussels is an unfortunate demonstration of this principle.
They are basically useless, but we still have to go through them to get to our flights. The fewer staff they have, the slower it goes.
A sufficiently resourced-starved TSA might "succeed" at preventing attacks on passenger air travel by eliminating passenger air travel altogether. Once lines approach 4, 5 hours people will just drive.
Isn't Amtrak plagued by horrific delays? The Chicago to NYC time is 20 hours by the schedule, and anecdotally 5-7 more hours waiting for freight trains is pretty common. Don't have real data or personal experience though.
I took a Chicago-NYC train once, and the crew was happy that it was "only" 4 hours late. IIRC, the physical rails are owned by freight lines, so freight gets a higher priority at crossings.
There is no funding them completely, because there's no definition of good enough. Whatever money you throw at them, the system will eat it up and ask for more.
It's gotta be killed. Immediately. It's a horribly bad idea that's just sinking its claws in further with each passing day. In fact, the politicians have probably already figured out -- we're stuck with them forever. I just wish they'd come out and be honest about it: infinite money sink, longer and longer lines, security theater, and more bullshit stories. Year after year.
This is like the time I asked someone on Reddit what they meant by funding education "fully." They said, "double." So... we'd be a world leader in primary and secondary education again if we just spent twice what we currently do? Well, I guess it was an answer.
There are 2 kinds of people: those who think that more money will somehow fix everything (them), and those that think more money will only exacerbate the problems that have brought us to the current point of the debate (me). As a matter of fact, as I write this, I think that may be the single most significant distinction between "conservativism" and "liberalism," as practiced in the US.
>As a matter of fact, as I write this, I think that may be the single most significant distinction between "conservativism" and "liberalism," as practiced in the US.
Ugh.. no it's not. That's a massive mischaracterization of liberalism. Liberals, by and large, do not think that throwing additional funding at things (for the sake of additional funds) will improve systems. It's an unfounded and cartoonish view of liberal policy.
My point in writing the comment was, in fact, to reduce the argument to one sentence. Don't get me started on who has the absolute stranglehold on political mischaracterization by simplification, when it's the left that screams "racism" every time someone tries to talk about illegal immigration and terrorism, neither of which is a race. That, too, is a "cartoonish" view of the argument. It is the cheapest form of political "debate" to be found today. So I guess oversimplification abounds on both sides.
Um, no, liberals and conservatives generally fight over whether the spending should be on defense/security or social welfare. People who want to defund both defense and social welfare (libertarians) are an extremely rare fringe group that's vastly overrepresented on HN but gets basically no votes in the real world.
Yeah, well count me as one of those "no" votes. I voted for Barr in '08. Till people get it through their heads to stop "holding their noses" and casting votes on D's and R's, that's all they're ever going to get.
Admittedly, it may not have been clear, but I was referring to social issues. I don't consider the TSA a security issue. That's a work program wrapped up in propaganda.
If we have to spend money on a work program - and whether I'm for or against that in principal is not relevant here - could it be on something less dehumanizing for everyone paying for it, and less absurdly power-trip-y for the benefactors?
Weird, didn't know they did that. On literally my first flight after getting pre-check, I somehow had a razor blade stuck under the insole of a pair of shoes I was bringing in my carry-on bag (a pair of shoes I hadn't worn since before I had moved apartments, so I assume somehow that's how it got in there). The metal detector picked it up, the TSA agent took my shoe apart, found it, seemed totally unconcerned, threw it in the trash, and waved me through.
>Some shit head got a gold star for "finding a weapon" and I get fucked.
Everything about security and law enforcement has some level of perverse incentives. People learn to game the system and their supervisors don't care as long as there's a benefit to them. I'm certain this guy knew it was a toy, but he wanted that gold star and his supervisor wanted a report showing all the gold stars that month were from his guys.
This is a classic problem in management. The real question is who can fix this? In government, perverse incentives eventually become the norm, not the exception, as everyone eventually gets in the game and there's no reason for anyone to upset the cart. Especially when the higher ups are riding the pension/public sector union bus and anything that could risk that or cause a political issue is just ignored. They're not going to be the fall guy here. The shitheads outnumber them vasty. More than likely these managers are just ex-shitheads who played the game better than the other shitheads in the past and got promoted.
If airport security was run by a private company, the government could fire these guys and go with a different vendor if there was enough political pressure (or threaten to to get needed reforms), but because the TSA is the government, we're stuck with them.
Contracts for private sector companies doing work for the public sector tend to protect the private sector company from being fired. Also you may want to check who sits on the boards of some of the private contractors working for your government (or you might not want to - the results might make you more cynical).
Obviously we can't have a perfect world, but vendors get fired all the time. Contracts go up for renewel, a new administration fires old vendors, etc. Public sector unions are eternal and only get worse over time.
As far as "connections" go, Theranos is imploding right now even with its deep government and military connections.
That's opinion not fact. Fact is no federal public sector union has ever eliminated itself, yet there's a long history of the government firing vendors.
It was from League of Leagends (Sivir). It's not sharp or aerodynamic, just a "spinner" toy.
One of the vendors from the League convention I put on gave it to me as a token of thanks just before the event ended. I dropped it in my bag and forgot it until flying a few weeks later.
Bonus: My business partner was given the same one and the same thing happened at BUR. TSA asked if she wanted to mail it home, she said "toss it" and never heard another word!
Bonus 2: Cop asks me "who do you main?" (as in, what champion do you mainly play in LoL)
> Bonus: My business partner was given the same one and the same thing happened at BUR. TSA asked if she wanted to mail it home, she said "toss it" and never heard another word!
Free business idea!
UPS/FedEx/USPS packaging site at the end of the TSA line. When they say you can't take your cologne, knife, or toothbrush because it's too dangerous, you can immediately give it one of our helpful agents and they'll instead mail it your home!
They have this at many airports, but the prices are exorbitant. It was something like $10 to mail a swiss army knife home (vs. $15 to just replace it). They have a captive monopoly - there is one place you can mail it from, you can't step out of the terminal, and you have to decide immediately if you want to toss or mail - so they can charge whatever they want.
Yep, and IIRC getting out of line to mail something (plus you have to track down postage stamps elsewhere again IIRC) means you have to then go through the whole thing again.
As a child in the early 80s I had my bag searched due to some GI Joe toys, in this case knockoffs of missiles for some SAM launcher or somesuch. It's not just a modern TSA thing.
This[1] isn't the toy, but this is splash art of the character with good view of her weapon. It's based off of the chakram. The toy would have looked something like that.
I can imagine that looking really scary through the x-ray but it's definitely not a weapon.
I'm not indignant about being stopped with it - just about being treated like a criminal instead of someone who just made a mistake. It was like my 30th flight of the year and I had (real) status with 2 airlines, and I was in a tiny little PreCheck screening wing with maybe 6 other passengers and 10 TSA at 5:00 AM.
It just seems like everything lined up for this to be a simple process that would have been easily determined to be inadvertent and not a danger to anyone, but I still got hosed!
Yep, the whole point for why pre-check exists is to allow frequent travelers who will always pass screening to get through the security clusterfuck faster. pre-check is for people that know how to travel and are willing to observe the rules.
A grown man carrying a "throwing-star" toy through pre-check SHOULD BE banned from this privilege and feel the scorn of other pre-check folks who just want to go through smoothly.
I hope you never find yourself on the other side of someone with the badge, even though these people don't even have the power to arrest me it was very scary feeling like they thought I was a criminal and nothing I could say could convince them otherwise.
"Did you know what you did was a felony? Did you know it's illegal to possess one of these?" - that's what I had to endure until the police arrived. For the crime of forgetting an item in my bag even existed after running a convention.
Of course it's my fault for not checking my bag before I left the house, if I was a weapons collector I'm sure I would've thought twice but I'm not.
If happened in California, and since you at a LoL con it sounds like you were, the TSA officer was correct. Possessing throwing stars (shrunken) can get you up to a year in prison:
Right, California is one of a handful of states with a definition for (and a ban on) throwing stars. A few hundred lines or so up the penal code from your link the definition can be found. What I had was a toy and did not meet the definition.
The police, who are local and have at least a basic understanding of California's laws, immediately knew it was not a throwing star. I'm not sure if TSA is allowed to touch weapons, but they refused to attempt to handle this item even after police arrived.
If this sounds stupid it's because it is. Someone threatened me with jail time and then came back to haunt me even after the police said there was no weapon. I retained an ex-TSA attorney, learned the laws and fought hard to understand the process.
In the end I just got on the phone with my case agent who quickly Nerfed my violation soon after I sent the email. Nothing that can be done about the PreCheck ban though.
> I'm not sure if TSA is allowed to touch weapons, but they refused to attempt to handle this item even after police arrived.
The TSA is not allowed to touch weapons, and the police are not allowed to perform the sorts of pat-downs that the TSA provides[0].
Incidentally, packing a gun in your checked luggage is supposedly the best way to make sure nothing ever gets stolen. If you pack a gun (even a flare gun will do), you are required to lock it with a lock for which only you hold the key, and the TSA cannot open it without calling the police in case they need to look inside. Not to mention, the penalties for them losing a piece of luggage that has a declared firearm inside it are way worse than the penalties for when they steal something from your luggage[1].
[0] Jurisdiction-dependent, of course - but police have to meet a much higher bar to pat people down than the TSA do.
[1] Which is to say, 'nothing', because there are essentially no penalties for TSA employees who are caught stealing, even repeatedly. It's absurd.
Reading how CA defines a shuriken, it doesn't sound like the toy qualifies (not intended to be thrown, assuming the edges aren't sharp):
> As used in this part, a "shuriken" means any instrument, without handles, consisting of a metal plate having three or more radiating points with one or more sharp edges and designed in the shape of a polygon, trefoil, cross, star, diamond, or other geometric shape, for use as a weapon for throwing.
Could maybe qualify as a replica weapon regardless?
It is sad that TSA is just a bunch a phony-baloney security theater, but that's not going to change anytime soon. In the meantime please be careful about what you put in your bag so that you don't delay others. Airports are stressful enough already.
Few years ago, went to South America on a mission trip. Got a new Passport for the trip as I'd never been anywhere that required one. Every TSA checkpoint on the way home I was stopped, frisked and searched. I almost missed every single flight. I ran miles and miles that day trying to catch planes.
Edit: Ok, maybe not miles, but seriously, had to run to every plane.
This, in combination with American airports being completely ignorant to the transit concept must cost American airline companies dozens, if not hundreds of millions a year in lost revenues.
Case in point: if I want to to fly from Zurich to Lima I have essentially two choices: I can connect either in Amsterdam, or in Madrid. Madrids legal connection time is 55 minutes max (on Iberia). In AMS on KLM it's a maximum of 50 minutes.
Another option would be to fly via an US airport. For example Miami. Only that I would have to be crazy.
Start with the fact that I can't check my luggage through to Lima. I must go through immigration in Miami, pick up my luggage, go through customs, re-check my luggage and then endure the security hassle.
Even if the US connection would save me a couple hundred $ I would have to be crazy to chose the hassle, the annoyance and the risk of missing my connection.
And I don't think I'm alone with such thoughts.
Edited: Added actual legal connection times for AMS and MAD
AeroMexico has a monopoly on flights from Latin America to Asia. (Technically, you can fly from Brazil to Abu Dhabi or something, but only AM goes to east Asia.)
The AM flights run from Mexico City to Narita (a third-tier city in Japan) and Shanghai, usually on 787s. They may add Peking.
Similar services are available connecting through LAX, SFO, or DFW and those are often faster if you're going to other Asian cities or connecting into MEX on the way.
But somehow those AM flights usually carry ticket prices 30-50% higher than the equivalent service through US airports. That's often a $500+ premium. And the flights still fill up. AM catering may be a bit better in economy than on US carriers but the service is mostly identical.
Turns out, that's what it's worth to avoid US airport procedures. The value in the market for avoiding TSA, the lack of sterile transit, US customs and immigration, intrusive slow humiliating US embassy visa operations, and the random nightmares passengers are treated to once in a while is about $500.
Narita is the main airport for international flights to Tokyo. It's a bit of a hike to Tokyo proper, but there's a dedicated train.
Anyway, I would imagine there are a lot of travelers (business, in particular) sensitive to time but not so much to price, for whom a direct flight is worth a few hundred $ - there was a solid market for the concord, remember.
Anyway saving the connection, and a "normal" customs/security experience is probably the bigger factor.
Incidentally, compare prices for flights to Vancouver and Seattle sometime.
Tokyo International Airport at Haneda is the main airport for international flights to Tokyo -- at least for Japanese carriers. Foreign carriers are exiled to Narita -- a US$200 cab ride away -- as a protectionist measure.
Haneda is right next to downtown Tokyo.
---
The price difference persists for connecting flights from airports outside MEX and to destination airports outside NRT and Shanghai so it isn't based on direct flights.
Though SkyTeam partnership connections in Asia are much less useful now that Delta has abandoned the NW network and most of its own intra-Asia network.
International carriers are moving capacity from Narita to Haneda just as Japanese airlines added more flights from Haneda since the new runway opened. The latter still operate a lot of international flights from Narita.
Only US carriers seem to mostly not get Haneda slots but they are decreasing capacity in Narita as well as they now offer less connecting flights via Japan than they used to. There are currently negotiations and the Japanese authorities have agreed to assign more slots to American carriers. The problem seems mostly Delta, who would like to move their complete hub to Haneda which would take a large share of available slots there. Delta is lobbying hard (including loud in public which is a big no-no in Japan) for not increasing capacity for their competitors. [1]
In 2013 the US was allocated Haneda slots but they could not agree on a distribution among their carriers, so they remained vacant.
The problem at Haneda seems to be as much US-internal fights as Japanese protectionism.
(Sure, Japanese carriers have more than 2/3 of all slots of Haneda. Personally, I think it's fine that a country's carriers are given preferred access where capacity is limited.)
Or the airport could do the right thing for its customers and auction slots to the highest bidder. Industrial central planning and picking protected industries continues to be a disaster for Japan (and every place else that tries it), decades on.
I meant to point out how far away it is, not to imply that taxis are a good choice. They are not. Tokyo and its surrounding countryside towns even as far away as Narita have the world's best train system and you should always prefer it.
So I strongly endorse your advice to any travellers reading.
Surely a more useful measure of how far away it is, would be the time it takes, rather than the taxi price as a proxy for distance?
It's ~60mins to Tokyo station, compared with ~30mins from Haneda. And depending on where you're going that difference can disappear quickly. The time to Ueno is ~40mins either way.
I once flew back from Costa Rica to Zürich via Miami, because I wasn't aware that unlike every other airport I have ever been, the US doesn't do transit. Since that horrific day I never went to Latin America via the US again, no matter how much cheaper it would have been.
While living in South America I talked to hundreds of travelers from Europe who were forced to connect through the USA on their way south, and they all had to clear customs, even if for just a one hour layover.
The hoops they had to jump through, and the stories they told. 99% vowed they would never again board a plane to the USA.
True. I have to get from Medellin, Colombia to Puerto Plata, Dominican Republic soon. I had three choices:
* about 10h travel time via MIA and/or JFK for $240 (+ $50 for ESTA)
* 4.5h via Panama City to Punta Cana plus 8h on a bus for $800
* 17h via Curacao, Aruba, Saint Martin to Santo Domingo and then 5h on a bus for $320 (+ $70 for night in a hotel on Curacao and transfers to/from the airport, + $20 Curacao Airport ripoff fee)
It just means the minimum amount of time between flights that an airline will require. They will try not to let you book a connecting flight 10 minutes after the first one lands; that would be an "illegal connection". Not an actual law, just airline policy.
I have the fun of going through Secondary every time I touch US soil... for me, if I have a connecting flight on the way from LHR to SFO (via Dallas, LA or Chicago) then I need to allow 3 hours for the connection.
It is very hard to book such flights, and if booked as 2 single hops I've once before missed the connection due to being in security and United argued that the second flight was not a connection and so they didn't have to put me on the next flight. My baggage of course had gone ahead.
Expanding a bit: the more usual term is MCT -- "minimum connection time". There are actually multiple categories of MCTs:
* MCT D-D: Minimum connection time, from one domestic flight to another domestic flight.
* MCT D-I: Minimum connection time, from a domestic flight to an international flight.
* MCT I-D: Minimum connection time, from an international flight to a domestic flight.
* MCT I-I: Minimum connection time, from one international flight to another international flight.
These are set per airline per airport, and in many cases there are more fine-grained MCTs for flights depending on origin/destination or categorized by flight number. The airline will not let you purchase tickets for an itinerary which violates the relevant MCT, and if delays cause you to dip below the MCT you're possibly going to be rebooked (though no guarantee of it).
For completeness' sake, here's what the information looks like in raw form (this is the MCT for American Airlines at its hub in Charlotte):
STANDARD.D/D...D/I...I/D...I/I.
ONLINE .40 1.00 1.00 1.00
OFFLINE .40 1.00 1.00 1.00
** OR * ARE ALL
AA-AA ID .30 FLT 1 - 2754 - FLT 2755 - 6099
EQP ALL - E70 PUERTO RICO - ALL
AA-AA ID .30 FLT 1 - 2754 - FLT 2755 - 6099
EQP ALL - E70 VIRGIN ISLAND US - ALL
AA-AA ID .30 FLT 1 - 2754 - FLT 2755 - 6099
EQP ALL - E75 PUERTO RICO - ALL
AA-AA ID .30 FLT 1 - 2754 - FLT 2755 - 6099
EQP ALL - E75 VIRGIN ISLAND US - ALL
AA-AA ID SUP FLT 1 - 9099 - FLT 1 - 9099
CANADA - CANADA
AA-AA ID SUP FLT 1 - 9099 - FLT 1 - 9099
MEXICO - MEXICO
AA-AA ID .50 FLT 1 - 6099 - FLT 1 - 6099
IRELAND - ALL
AA-AA ID .30 FLT 1 - 2754 - FLT 1 - 2754
PUERTO RICO - ALL
AA-AA ID .35 FLT 1 - 2754 - FLT 2755 - 6099
PUERTO RICO - ALL
AA-AA ID .30 FLT 1 - 2754 - FLT 1 - 2754
VIRGIN ISLAND US - ALL
AA-AA ID .35 FLT 1 - 2754 - FLT 2755 - 6099
VIRGIN ISLAND US - ALL
AA-AA ID 1.15 FLT 1 - 2754 - FLT 1 - 6099
GROUP3 - ALL
AA-AA ID 1.00 FLT 1 - 6099 - FLT 1 - 6099
**-AA ID 1.15 ALL - FLT 1 - 6099
**-AA ID SUP ALL - FLT 6100 - 9099
AA-** ID 1.15 FLT 1 - 6099 - ALL
AA-** ID SUP FLT 6100 - 9099 - ALL
USE T*GRPN FOR CITIES IN A GROUP. WHERE N IS THE GRP NUMBER.
The first few lines give the general rule ("ONLINE" means both flights on the same airline, "OFFLINE" means connecting to a flight of a different airline), and after that come exceptions. For example:
"AA-AA" means from American Airlines to American Airlines. "SUP" means "suppressed": the connection is invalid. "FLT" gives a block of flight numbers the exception applies to (1 through 9099). "CANADA - CANADA" gives the origin of the inbound and destination of the outbound flights. So this is a fancy way of saying American forbids booking a flight from somewhere in Canada, to somewhere in Canada, connecting in Charlotte, on a flight numbered 1 though 9099, regardless of the amount of time of the connection. Other codes like "EQP" refer to the type of aircraft ("N" for narrowbody, "W" for widebody, "ALL" for all types).
You can spot other fun things in there, like the shorter time to connect on a flight from Ireland to a domestic flight; AA flies to Charlotte from Dublin, and Dublin has US Customs preclearance facilities, so passengers arriving from Dublin don't have to clear customs in Charlotte and can make a tighter connection.
Oh come on. I fly through Europe twice to three times a year. The transfer from Charles de Gaulle is a nightmare worse than any major US airport. They literally make you leave the security area and go through security for simple transfers if you're coming from the states. That's shit design right there. A lot of international connections are terrible and knowing which airports/airlines do a good job is important. Its not a US thing.
Also, what a shit prize naming a airport after someone is. No one likes airports. de Gaulle deserves better.
Heathrow too. I've made international transfers through terminal 5 and had to go through both immigration and security. And Heathrow is absolutely crazy about liquids. No cough syrup for you, because it's impossible to find bottles of it smaller than 100ml.
British Airways scheduled me on a flight from US with an 45 minute layover in Heathrow. I don't know how the heck they expected me to make the connecting flight considering I had to go through customs, then security again, and go halfway across the airport. Their system even flagged me as "showed up too late for the flight" the second time I went through security.
A difference is that the USA requires people transferring through one of its airports to get a visa, or a visa waiver (for Europeans etc). And to queue up and go through customs.
This is very unusual. Paris might make security a hassle, but they won't look at their passport.
Agreed. CDG is worse than almost any US airport. SEA is up there with the worst in the world though. It's only tolerable for me because I have NEXUS/Global Entry/TSA PRE.
SEA? I've never had a problem with customs/immigration, 5 minutes tops. Security getting in is a long line but nothing horrible. All in all, a dream compared to Beijing capital airport.
I don't know about refunded, but i did in fact get rebooked (free of charge) onto a later connecting flight after exactly that happened to me. I don't know if that's something you can count on, though -- especially if it's the first flight and not a connection you miss...
Blaming volume? How about 1) the switch from metal detectors to less numerous and slower body scanners? 2) the allocation of employee resources to the "pre check" line leaving less staff for 90% of travelers. 3) still having to take belts and shoes off even with a full body scan? This program has gotten seriously out of hand and is incredibly frustrating. I don't care if it's 3 hours or "75 minutes" anything over 15 minutes is absurd.
You don't actually have to take your belt off for the full body scan. I left it on once by accident and wasn't questioned, nor was I the next dozen or so times I've flown.
I think it's highly dependent on which airport you're at and the current mood of the people working there.
Last year I was flying home, and there was a sign in the security line saying they we don't need to remove our shoes or belt, I cannot remember which. When I got up to the front of line, I was told, yes, I need to remove both.
For CLEAR, PreCheck and airline-specific special class passengers you can skip removing shoes/belt/jacket, depending on the policy, when traveling through US airports. Non-US airports, and certain international destinations, don't require them removed. And sometimes they just don't give a shit and will let you through regardless.
This. I've been instructed to take my belt off in the dozen or so domestic flights I've taken the last ~2 years. Before that it was hit or miss.
I remember this because I'm thin and a belt keeps my pants from falling to my knees while I'm holding my boarding pass, ID and raising my arms above my head so my body can be scanned with questionable technology.
The scanner will flag it up. I left headphones in my pocket; they were flagged. I got rained on before entering the airport; my damp clothes were flagged. This will make you subject to a mandatory groping at the very least.
Yeah, the scanners are very sensitive and will highlight any abnormality. When I flew earlier this month, the TSA agents were walking up and down the line announcing "Empty your pockets completely, including all tissues, papers, and lint; they will show up on the scan". This is true and has happened to me multiple times.
I was waiting outside the bathroom while some TSA agents were chatting. They were talking about how very skinny people with protruding bones set off the body scanner.
I switched to a totally nonmetallic belt and they always have me take it off.
I also always get a patdown and hands run on the inside of my pants waistline. I think this is because I have long hair and the scanner operator punches the wrong button for sex.
You are also free to travel without body searches, just not on a subway, at least in NYC where they often setup mandatory checkpoints before you enter the platform.
Also more and more COBRA teams are swooping through Amtrack and yes they do search your property.
You are also free to travel without body searches, by a car; unless you are in a border zone of 150 miles, which currently covers the entire state of Forida, for example.
Once you get through all means of transportation, you can always walk without body searches. The problem is you won't get further than your local cigarette store, as the most highways are closed to pedestrians traffic and there is practically no other way to travel through cities/states, unless you okay with transpassing someones property along the line.
Never have I been searched on public transit in NYC, SF, LA, Seattle, or Portland.
I took Amtrak on a weekly basis for about 3 years and I was never searched nor did I ever see anyone searched.
I have driven up and down the west coast from Canada down to Mexico and have never been searched.
Yes, I know my anecdotal experience doesn't mean anything but the picture you paint makes it seem like you can't go anywhere without being searched, realistically the only form of travel where you will be searched is when you fly. Anyways, that's not my point. My point is that we as a society have agreed to give up certain liberties in exchange for safety. For example, we don't allow people to drive without a license. We don't allow you to carry invasive species from one state to another. We don't allow random people to walk through your property. These laws exist for a reason and they weren't created to solely impede on your rights. Sure, we may disagree on where we draw the line but it doesn't help the discussion if you act like we still live in the 1700s where you can hop on your horse and not worry about being searched when you cross the border.
I was once accosted by cops while trying to enter the subway in Boston. They had a checkpoint and were searching people's bags. I refused and walked away, I could use the exercise anyways. About 5 minutes later there were 4 plain clothes cops chasing me down, shoved me against a wall and started threatening me. All because I chose not to give up my personal property.
Most Mondays to Fridays between 4pm and 6pm, subway station for 7 train downtown 5th ave crossing with 42nd. Subway entrance facing Chipolte, next to Bryant Park.
Usually 4 cops and a little table setup with some device they enter tiny paper samples in. NYPD cops. They profile as some people are not stopped.
EDIT: Okay I found the picture for you although this is not station I refer to:
Pay billions in your tax dollars to create a huge interference to free movement around the country, then pay hundreds more individually to get around some facets of the interference you already paid for. Also, let's throw in submission of your fingerprints and a background check into a database secured by hugely-ineffectual government organization.
I can't imagine why everyone isn't leaping at the opportunity...
My dad grew up under the Soviets, where he learned a thing or two about waste, inefficiency, and systematic corruption. He says the following:
"If the government ever gives you the chance to bribe them, do it immediately and with a smile. Pay double if they'll let you. You'll always come out ahead in the long run."
Precheck/Global entry is clearly unrelated to actual security; instead, it's an obvious shakedown, plain and simple. The TSA has given you a chance to pay them extra to be harassed less. From this perspective the GP is correct in practice - you'd be dumb not to pay up.
It's a difficult decision, one that I've been wrestling with for a while.
Imagine if everyone (and I mean everyone) collectively said "This is bullshit." and refused to pay for PreCheck. The TSA would have no choice but to stop the program. This is probably the only way they would stop it (beyond legislation, ha.).
Unfortunately this will never happen. People don't want to stand in line. Corporations have the money to shell out to give their travelling employees special treatment. Many will refuse step back and see that the only way to stop this shit is to make some personal sacrifices for the eventual reward of getting another lane back for everyone to use.
Perhaps others and I are "dumb" to not want to pay up, but we do so in the hopes that others will follow suit. We refuse to be a single drop in the rain on the TSA's fields. Perhaps one day those fields will dry.
>Imagine if everyone (and I mean everyone) collectively said "This is bullshit." and refused to pay for PreCheck. The TSA would have no choice but to stop the program. This is probably the only way they would stop it (beyond legislation, ha.).
I personally believe that we have the TSA and the pre-check program because the majority of Americans want something like this, just like a near-majority of Americans really think that putting a temporary moratorium on Muslim immigration is a good idea.[1]
Pre-check, or some way of harassing "them" without harassing "Us," I think, is rather a lot like what Americans wanted when they gave George W. Bush a second term.
I think we have the government we asked for. I mean, certainly, it's irrational, and of course, the profiling ended up being a lot less race based than expected, and, of course, it's now unionized, so some of the people who originally asked for it are now opposed to it, but that doesn't change the fact that this is what America demanded, that the man who gave us this got two terms.
While I agree that if no one paid for PreCheck they'd probably stop the program, I think you're making a follow-on assumption which is "and then the security theater would get better for everyone else."
What we're seeing with the hours-long lines right now is that this simply isn't true. The TSA has no particular incentive to reduce the number of hoops you have to jump through: if anything, a summer like this will probably increase their budget.
So, indeed: pay up for PreCheck and smile because they've given you the opportunity.
> Imagine if everyone (and I mean everyone) collectively said "This is bullshit.
You miss an important concept (that I used to see all the time from administrators in India): Divide and Conquer. They will target some groups of people individually, and dangle some carrot/stick (Free/ Extra Harassment/ you don't have to stand in line with "them"). That's how "everyone" stops calling bullshit.
> Precheck/Global entry is clearly unrelated to actual security; instead, it's an obvious shakedown, plain and simple. The TSA has given you a chance to pay them extra to be harassed less.
I'm not sure if that's true. So much of security is statistical (this is where profiling and stuff comes in, racial or otherwise). If you can spend some time doing a more thorough check beforehand[1], then you can (stochastically) assume that there's a lower chance of them being a threat and thus a lower need for screening each and every trip. The idea being that you're far less likely than average to get radicalized and hijack a plane if you're [insert features like type of job]. Frankly, I find it uncharacteristically intelligent of the TSA.
[1] My global entry interview required me to go in to the airport and show a bunch of documentation proving my place of residence, place of employment, etc.
You can drop "around the country". Your nation or any other nation's national borders do not make free and unimpeded travel any less of a basic right for all people, in all places.
> what is a "basic right" supposed to be, anyway? I missed that day in philosophy class.
Fundamental rights that are inherent to all humans by birth and cannot be justly alienated. It's a major philosophical topic you've probably seen reflected in the universal declaration of human rights, american declaration of independence, french revolutionary declaration of the rights of man etc .
It's not even due to law; it's due to the founding nature of the Republic. Arguably not even a constitutional amendment could permit restrictions on Americans' interstate travel.
The wikipedia entry is slightly misleading on one point: the ninth circuit said he could travel without ID (this case came about because I had been flying without ID and discussed it with John) -- his suit was that he had no choice due to a law he was not permitted to read (yet ignorance of that law is no defense!) and he argued that that was a violation of free speech + free assembly. Without being able to discuss the law in open court, the justification for the decision was a fig leaf.
My objection to precheck is that I question how effective it really is. Not to dive into another controversial topic, but it reminds me of proponents of gun control who think that background checks will solve mass shootings. Passing precheck doesn't stop people who appear to have a normal background and doesn't stop people from being radicalized after they get precheck. Perhaps a better solution would be somewhere in the middle? All travellers are subject to precheck type screening (shoes and belt stay on) but go through a more thorough electronic background check prior to each flight? Or our society could have an honest debate about about the risk of terrorism and the most effective ways to stop it...
You're assuming that there is any effectiveness at all in TSA's procedures. I'm highly skeptical of that myself. It seems they are always fighting the last war. Someone just tried to detonate a shoe bomb? Better make people take off their shoes.
Given that precheck basically brings us back to pre-9/11 screening procedures, I think it's fine. There isn't much about the airport security checkpoint changes since 9/11 that have actually improved security.
I've been very tempted to apply for PreCheck -- it seems like a great deal -- but I find it deeply problematic that the government would create a security screening mechanism so onerous that people gladly hand over their fingerprints to avoid it. The fact that that's even legal incentivizes them to make the normal system as onerous as possible.
A lot of travelers can barely afford to fly as it is.
I can certainly understand that the family of four who only gets to travel once per several years might find $85 per person to be a burden, but I still can't believe that for most people who travel it's that much of a problem. I mean, a US domestic transcon flight is going to run you at the cheapest $300 round trip (and that's only by shopping around like crazy, having super flexible travel dates, and taking advantage of travel deals). Do that once a year, and your $300 flight becomes $317 with precheck. I know many Americans are frankly terrible at personal finance, but... c'mon. Even something shorter like a SFO<->LAX trip is going to run you at least a hundred.
The only way this fast lane can function is if it's exclusive to a small segment of flyers.
If there's only one fast lane, sure. My hope would be that as more people enroll in precheck, they'll be able to turn more and more "regular" lanes into precheck lanes, keeping the efficiency (or lack thereof) of both lane types the same.
It's not going to crumble, pushing it just pushes us ever close to a full blown police state; a direction we're already headed. The people aren't going to get fed up and stop anything, they're going to cower to the power like sheep as we slowly become a full blown fascist state.
Not a gaurantee. Literally my first time through security after I got PreCheck, I was randomly beeped by the metal dectector and told I could either go through the scanner or opt-out and get a pat down instead. I opted out, like I've always done and got yet another pat down. Since then, I've had the metal dectector randomly beep a second time but was only asked to swab my hands to check for explosives.
TSA Pre is the equivalent of "fuck you, got mine".
It makes it personally more convenient for you, while simultaneously ignoring or condoning the waste of millions of person-hours without consent, which basically equates to mass murder if you squnt hard enough at the math.
My "favourite" part of the TSA line is how business and premier customers often have access to a shorter regular TSA line (not precheck, just a separate entrance to the normal TSA line). My understanding is that the TSA is partly funded by a FIXED fee on every ticket so I can't see any logical reason as to why they get sent to the front of the line.
This is a non-issue. First class flyers pay for a ticket that allows them shorter lines, not expedited screening. They're still subject to being randomly flagged, and they will go through the same screening process as everyone else.
That's why first/business class tickets cost so damn much - to blind the traveler into believing that they're actually paying for something worthwhile. As it turns out, for many of them, it is worthwhile just to have shorter lines.
Theme parks do the same thing: pay more for shorter lines. Many attractions, such as the Sears Tower (still can't bring myself to use its official name) Observation Deck, do the same thing.
It's a money grab for sure, just not by the TSA. and why should the TSA give a shit about it if the first class passenger gets the same screening?
My point was more that everyone pays the same fee to be screened by the TSA but by purchasing a more expensive ticket from the airlines you can avoid the long wait to be screened and therefore increase the wait time for most people. To be clear, purchasing a higher fare ticket does not mean you are paying the TSA for better service.
> you can avoid the long wait to be screened and therefore increase the wait time for most people.
Wait, what? I am always frustrated at seeing the folks in those shorter lines (though I settle down at roughly the point of view others have expressed in this thread, that paying for shorter lines is a fact of all parts of life and doesn't seem to abrogate any fundamental right of mine), but it has never occurred to me to think that someone in one of them is lengthening my wait time. If anything, then he or she is shortening it by not being in my line.
Maybe your point is that the screeners for those short lines could be re-deployed to relieve some of the pressure on the longer ones, if the shorter lines didn't exist at all; but, given that they do exist, no-one's use of them seems to me to have any effect on my wait time.
I'm not talking about precheck. At my local airport (and others I have been to) there is a regular TSA line with one screener at the end of the line. Once you clear the ID and ticket check you go into multiple lines for the scanner/bag check. Some airports have a separate line for business customers that goes straight to the ID/ticket check. We all pay the same fixed TSA fee ($2.50 I think) but they get to bypass the main line simply because they purchased a more expensive ticket from the airline (not the TSA). If I'm number 50 in line and 5 passengers get let in before me, then I'm now number 55 in line...
The airlines (for their terminal) and airport ultimately get to decide the configurations of the various security lines (that is, the line leading up to the non-cursory ID check and boarding pass scan, not the part where you get in the final line up to the xray machine and body scanner / metal detector), so they're directly in control of who gets to be in the priority line, generally by paying for a higher-class ticket, or being of a certain status in their frequent flyer program.
On a side note, I've noticed that, given the speed that the first agent checks your ID and boarding pass, it's clear to me that they're only looking for three things: 1) you physically have your ID (not that it matches), 2) you have your boarding pass looks vaguely legit, and 3) if you have a precheck or priority marking on the pass that lets you go in a different line. That's really it; they're not really doing anything security-related. #1 and #2 are really more about making sure you don't get in the security line, wait who knows how long, get to the front, and have to get kicked back out for lacking your ID and BP.
You also have to squint really hard to think that standing in the security line for half an hour or missing your flight is an effective protest against waste.
>2) the allocation of employee resources to the "pre check" line leaving less staff for 90% of travelers.
I don't think this makes sense, unless in your airport the PreCheck line is sometimes empty and the staff there are waiting around. Otherwise, they can allocate fewer staff than in every other line yet process more travelers due to the faster process. This speeds up security for everyone, not just those with PreCheck, as without PreCheck all of the travelers would have had to go through the longer process which would delay security for everyone behind them.
That's the most frustrating part for me. Sending people through pre-check looked like a nice way for the TSA to save face, and minimize the hassle for the rest of us, without having to admit that most of their scanning procedures are a farce.
Now it's gone because they miss 95% of weapons that the auditors bring through. 95 percent! That means that, in the normal line, they're usually missing stuff. So what do they gain from stopping the free pre-check? Only saving face.
As much as a think pre-check is a scam, I still can't believe more people haven't signed up for it. For anyone who flies even once a year, $85 for 5 years ends up being a pretty small part of the ticket price ($17 per round trip), and makes everything go so much smoother. At all airports I've traveled from I'm door-to-gate in under 10 minutes, even when the regular security line is swamped.
Only thing I can think of is perhaps people live far enough away from an airport to make the interview requirement a burden... though in that case you can try to schedule your appointment for a couple hours before a flight, when you're already planning to be there.
(Of course, more people joining isn't in my best interest since I doubt they'll expand pre-check staff all that much...)
How is coming to the airport earlier supposed to solve what's obviously a throughput problem?
Sure, for an individual it reduces the chances they'll miss their flight. But if everyone does it, there's obviously no change. The only way showing up earlier would help with throughput is if there are periods of time where the security is under-utilized with absolutely no queues. Which, from my experience with US airports, is a laughable idea.
This is one of the reasons I love the Midwest and living in smaller cities. My airport is international and flies just about anywhere you want to go, but 90% of the time I walk up to an empty line and I'm told "we don't have a precheck lane open, just walk on through". As a consultant, I fly the busiest times (monday and thursday), but the only trouble I've ever had was in Denver where I waited almost an hour and a half in a security line before I got my precheck approval.
With the exception of Chicago, I agree. St. Louis, Indianapolis, KC, and many other airports have direct flights to most parts of the US (or connect through Chicago almost anywhere in the world), and I've never waited more than 20 minutes in the TSA lines.
Due to the frequency of travel, I do have Pre-Check, but I hate that I had to pay extra money to get what I think should be the normal experience for all domestic travelers.
KC is a great get-out-and-go airport but it's terrible airport to have a layover in. It was designed to be the most efficient airport in the country in the era before security screenings were a normal thing. Pre-9/11 airport security put somewhat of a damper on this, but it was made many times worse when the TSA came into being and implemented the concept of "sterile areas". Now, if you get a layover in KC, you're literally stuck in a glass box with five gates, a juice cart, and a bathroom for its entirety (unless you wish to dirty yourself with the non-sterile area and go through security again).
This. I don't think you can fly direct out of IND to anywhere without going through ORD. And if I had to guess, to fly from IND to ORD I bet you have to route through DET. Obviously this is sarcasm but it is very frustrating. It is easier to just drive to ORD and fly from there. By the time you get to IND x number of hours before your 45min flight and then land & change planes in ORD, it is just easier to start in ORD.
Most people do not realize, but Denver is a very busy airport. It has dropped from it's #10 worldwide ranking in 2010 to #19, but it's still #6 in the US and was just last year overtaken by JFK.
Short lines are nice, but it's also not bad the have direct flights to Europe and many US cities, and pretty low ticket prices.
If everyone comes a minute before departure, all lose the flight, whereas if everyone comes 24 hours earlier, none will miss the flight, so there is obviously a change. Plus you get people to sit in a huge store without any means to leave. So the airport doesn't have a throughput problem! They don't have a problem at all, as there is also no clear alternative - normally there is only 1 airport to choose from. So people need to take whatever service quality said airport offers.
EDIT: It would be good both for this conversation and HN in general if the downvotes were explained. The parent states several things that in my opinion are not completely true (such as all people arriving earlier don't having effect on anything, or the need to have absolutely no queues at some times for throughput to be improved, or that that never happens) and pointing some things out doesn't seem to me like a punishable action, but if it is, some explanation would be good.
In particular, my experience with for example the Frankfurt airport is that you get lots of security lines but more than half are closed, with up to 8 employees per line. They require that no one starts unpacking and preparing things until the area is cleared. They request a chemicals test if the metal detector jumps on you (?). They do random things like what vincefutr23 points out in another comment:
> still having to take belts and shoes off even with a full body scan
The effect of all this is that you get more "latency" than "throughput" problems, as each particular line clogs a lot, and you could open more lines if you wished, and it takes you a lot of time to be serviced even with few people.
But then again: it only is the problem of the airport if they are affected by it - but they don't seem very keen on improving it.
Well, the effect is that the airport needs to open earlier in the AM, so anecdotally it just shifts the entire dance an hour earlier. The problem with saying "everyone come 2 hours early", is that now, if you show up 1 hour early, you have traffic from later flights. Anecdotally, when I've flown on evening flights recently, the security line is 2 minutes long (because nobody is showing up early), whereas the 6am line takes an eternity.
The number of people in the security line is dependent only upon the rate at which they are processed and the total number arriving for their flights, doesn't depend upon how early people get there. And once people get through the lines, there's no change from before so there'd be no large increase in how many people are in the waiting areas. (Except for the increase in uncertainty in how long the lines will take, that will cause some extra people in the waiting areas. I see no reason to expect this to be a large enough effect to be problematic.)
Sorry, I don't understand. I'm contesting your claim that airports would have to hold more people than they currently are if people showed up earlier to account for the longer lines.
Let's say everyone shows up to the airport 3 hours before their flights. At 9:00 on Monday, the airport holds all people with flights departing between 9:01 and 12:00 -- 3 hours' worth of people.
Now you change that, asking people to show up 24 hours before their flights. At 9:00 on Monday, the airport holds all people with flights departing between 9:01 Monday and 9:00 Tuesday -- 24 hours' worth of people, eight times as much.
Airports can't hold 8x as many people without being in violation of the fire code.
Your numbers are exaggerated to make a point, but I think it actually changes things. My claim is that the airports are already holding the extra people, compared to before the wait time increase. They're waiting in line to get through the TSA checkpoint. Getting there early enough to make your flight doesn't change this: you still spend the same amount of time in the line, then go to your gate and board your flight.
Unless everyone is abandoning the line and going home since they're going to miss their flight (unlikely).
> The only way showing up earlier would help with throughput is if there are periods of time where the security is under-utilized with absolutely no queues. Which, from my experience with US airports, is a laughable idea.
Shrug, I've seen this plenty over the course of my life in the US, and I've only ever really flown big-city airports. It's not ubiquitous, but it's not like, super-rare or anything.
They're trying to transfer a large file by 3:00 PM. They used to have an ISDN line, and now they have a 56k modem. If they used to be able to transfer it starting at 2:00 PM, now they'll start the process at 1:00 PM, and it should still get done. You trade bandwidth for time.
Show up earlier, and if they process everyone earlier, everyone will get through in time.
Of course, this does not help you get to your connection on time.
If a terrorist wanted to kill a lot of people confined into too small space to run away, what better target than these densely packed zig-zag queues? Really, what's the point of protecting a plane carrying hundreds of people by putting those same people into harm's way like that? It already happened in China - Muslim terrorists killed dozens of people waiting in a ticket hall a couple of years ago.
There are a large number of places with densely packed people. The unique thing about airports is their access to airplanes and their capacity to be used as weapons. (I'm taking a broad view of "weapon" here; even old-school hijack-and-divert is still a political "weapon".) If it weren't for that, they wouldn't be particularly interesting and wouldn't need special security. If someone blows up the line, well, they didn't get control over a plane.
Thoughtful terrorists... and thank goodness, a lot of them really aren't... would not choose an airport line, just because it's an airport.
It's also why when we hear about the TSA claiming they need to secure trains, it's a sign that politics has 100% overtaken their supposedly-core mission; trains don't have any of these characteristics that make them any more dangerous than any other large groups of people.
> The unique thing about airports is their access to airplanes and their capacity to be used as weapons.
That problem was solved on 9/11 the instant the public realized the possibility. Before people wouldn't fight back because they would rather be ransomed than killed. Now that everyone knows their choices are fight or die, every person on the plane would fight to the death to prevent a terrorist from taking control over it, which solves the problem more effectively than anything the TSA could ever hope to do.
It actually makes everything the TSA does entirely counterproductive, because it's no longer possible to hijack a plane using a knife, but allowing all the other passengers to have knives would make it easier for them to fight back. The entire TSA is a farce that should be disbanded and replaced with nothing.
It shouldn't have been a problem in the first place. In many cities, you cannot access the driver's portion of a taxicab. Yet airplanes had less separation. Pilots should never give controls over, and there should be strong, locked, doors.
The lack of toilet sorta ruins the whole design. There's still a critical window where the door is open to the cabin, even though blocked by a food cart. But I suppose you'd need to be Bruce Lee to jump over it and get into the cabin while taking out two pilots and a FA.
> Pilots should never give controls over, and there should be strong, locked, doors.
They have that now; it resulted in a pilot deliberately crashing his own plane into the ground while the co-pilot banged futilely on the door outside. [0]
It's absolutely unrelated matters. There always was a possibility for one pilot to barricade in the cabin. And in any case, he could just bash his co-pilot with something and do whatever he wants. If you got pilot who wants to crash the plane on board, you already screwed up, good thing it's very rare occasion.
I know what you're saying, but disagree that the point of these operations is to weaponize vehicles.
The airport itself is a distinct target. A successful attack at an airport would disrupt travel and commerce for weeks, as we just saw in Belgium.
Nothing immediately comes to mind to mitigate this. We can only push so far upstream. We can move the screening to empty fields a mile away from airport structures and require that passengers walk themselves over lest the shuttle bus be appropriated...
Process people instantly. If there are no lines at all, then there is no target.
If people are used to effectively walking straight onto the plane, they aren't hanging around for several hours clogging up the system. And, anyone hanging around automatically becomes suspicious and worth a casual conversation.
If the point (if there is a point) of terrorism is to "terrorize", I can't think of a better way than making me sweat for 3 hours in a huge line wondering if some maniac's going to come in and start spraying bullets or exploding, or perhaps opting out of traveling altogether. OP has it exactly right. Airplane hijackings get a lot of attention, but being afraid of even mundane activities is downright terrifying.
If the actual mission of the TSA was preventing terrorist acts, then they would have done something about this massive and completely obvious vulnerability.
My opinion, however, is that the TSA has become an arm of the DEA and the "war on drugs". They make a big security theater production in the name of stopping terrorists but 99% of their daily activities are centered on seizing drugs.
Well, now that I've looked for some sources to back this up, it seems that the fact that I stated above is either difficult to prove or just not true. The TSA is not very forthcoming with statistics on drug seizures.
I'll admit that the original statement was basically a guess. If the TSA isn't stopping terrorism, or making reasonable steps to prevent it, then what exactly are they doing?
In the US, it has seemed that if you can't immediately tell the source or purpose of a law enforcement effort, then "drugs" is a pretty good guess.
I wouldn't think they'd have the authority to seize the drugs themselves, since the warning sign is from the Port of Portland, the governmental authority that oversees PDX as well as marine ports. My feeling is that they would be obligated to attempt to hold the bag (less likely) or flag the bag and passenger (more likely) for a Port Authority Police officer to handle.
EDIT: According to one story [0], the TSA cooperated as, essentially, an "informant" for the DEA, flagging those with large quantities of cash, for the DEA to then seize or investigate.
EDIT 2: In fact, the TSA policy is to keep dangerous materials off aircraft, but they have no real enforcement authority. Law enforcement gets involved when, for example, narcotics are found. "While TSA works to keep dangerous items off of commercial aircraft, when contraband is found, it must be reported to local law enforcement. Here are a few of the more notable narcotics discoveries:" [1].
True, but they wouldn't be able to alert authorities if they weren't actively looking for the items, which gets back to the original issue of speed of inspection.
I would go further to suggest that, simply, more people attempt to carry contraband such as illegal drugs, than attempt to carry "dangerous" items, such as those that "terrorists" would ostensibly try to bring on board.
Since the TSA is obligated to report such finds to local law enforcement, and that law enforcement is routinely a radio call and 45 seconds away, it appears that the TSA is responsible for arrests and seizures when, in fact, they have no authority to do so themselves, but rather the obligation to report illegal goods.
Don't get me wrong, the TSA's involvement in the "war on drugs" isn't in question. They're an informant. But when they find a gun in your bag, they're still an informant. They inform law enforcement, who comes to question and/or arrest the passenger. Other than the deflection of liability should something dangerous get through the screening checkpoints, I personally think we could do without the TSA.
Exactly. The goal of a terrorist isn't to "blow up an airplane" per-se, it's to, well, cause terror. The TSA lines do NOTHING to fix the problem, they only move the problem. Any terrorist with half a brain can see that you now just blow your bomb up in the security line. So what do you do, put a security checkpoint in front of the security checkpoint?
Detonating a makeshift suitcase bomb in a security line, you'd be lucky to kill 10 people.
Maybe. I feel like you're underestimating how many people a bomb in the security line could take out. But, I'm no explosives expert, so you may be correct.
And yes, the worst-case scenario is worse for the airplane, but if you're Joe Terrorist, you don't have to achieve the worst-case scenario to be successful. Terrorists commit all sorts of acts that only kill / maim 10s of people. Apparently terrorists believe those acts further their agenda nonetheless.
You can't crash airliner because you can't get into cabin anymore. So most terrorists can do is kill everyone on board, which is the same as to blow a bomb elsewhere (you underestimated potential harm of bomb in security line), and they already are doing that. So those rigorous checkings in airports only hurt normal people, and do nothing for security.
They have no plan what to do when that happens? Do you start the line at your house, pick you up in a prison van and deposit you in the airplane after 24hours? Anything that creates a choke point creates an incentive point.
Seems like a perverse incentive to let them slow down the lines so you have to buy a "membership" in their precheck program. "Nice flight you have there...be a shame if you missed it."
It's worse than just membership fees. To join a precheck program, you need to submit personal information that they constitutionally can't force American citizens to provide, even at international borders: fingerprints and retina scans. So basically they hold huge amounts of your time hostage in order to force you to provide what ought to be protected info.
It's similar to incentives for long-term contraception. The government can't fine you for not taking contraception -- that would obviously be monstrous -- but they can raise taxes and then offer rebates to people who submit to it. It's lunacy.
I don't think I'm really paranoid about my personal information. I remember a time when everyone's name, phone number, and address were published in a large white book and distributed to every home in the metro area. I think a lot of the hyperventilation about that stuff is a little over the top.
However, I draw the line at biological data. That is permanent, irrevocable, unchangeable personal information that no one really has a right to. It's not like you can just go unlisted, change your number, or move to avoid the heat. It's a basic component of your being. That data should be closely guarded. It creeps me out that some gyms have started using the little fingerprint scanners to verify access. I don't travel that frequently, but I wouldn't get PreCheck because I want to keep that personal biological information private.
Philosophically, I agree, but it's a weak point of agreement.
I've already been fingerprinted multiple times for the armed services, for background checks for financial services jobs, for pilot authorization to fly into the DC SFRA and land at the MD/DC-3 airports, and maybe a few other reasons. My fingerprints are already in multiple databases and I don't have particular concern about giving them one more time.
I personally don't see how something which I'm constantly leaving behind to strangers can be considered private data. It's personal but I don't think it's private.
NEXUS uses iris scanners [1] for biometric identification. In fact, pretty much anything that is reported as using a 'retina' scan is probably not, and is also an iris scan. Retinas are pretty useless as a biometric, and are quite hard to scan without opthamological equipment. Irises have the dual benefits of being unique to the individual, and visible on the outside of an individual.
Thanks for that clarification! I honestly never considered that technical aspect of the scans, as I do not have Global Entry, and I didn't know that retina scans are technically infeasible to utilize for ID purposes. You've given me something further to research: are iris scans harder to defeat with false information (like specialized contacts) than fingerprint scans (with whatever the hell they can be falsified with). There goes my morning! :)
Yea, thanks. I was being sloppy and using "a precheck program" to refer collectively to Global Entry, Nexus, and PreCheck. Obviously, the argument still applies to PreCheck with regard to fingerprints.
They did exactly that at MSP (Minneapolis/St. Paul), almost literally.
They recently consolidated the checkpoints from 4 down to 2. No one knows why, but they did. Security immediately went from 30 minutes to 2 hours. They blamed everything from funding (which they received $91 million more than they asked for in 2016) to people's bags (which somehow changed overnight). When the local government and our fed reps complained, one of the people they sent to respond was a promoter/marketer specifically for pre-check.
One time I went through, PreCheck was being hawked actively. Random people were getting automatic PreCheck allowances on their boarding passes so they could "try it out". Very commercial vibe around that.
This happens all the time; I've gotten it quite a few times. I always assumed it was just to randomly lighten the load, but the commercial thing makes a lot of sense too.
My pro tip is to fly sun country - you go from the international terminal in SFO to the HHH terminal in MPLS, both of which are nice, clean, modern and underutilized.
Even the precheck lines have gotten out of hand in a few places I've been lately. In some cases it has been slower with so many people signed up and far less capacity to serve them.
I signed up for PreCheck and most of the times I've tried to use it they haven't even had it set up. Seems like more and more of a shameless money/personal info grab every day.
> At the same time, he said, the number of T.S.A. screeners has declined by about 5,800 because of tighter budgets. The agency currently has 42,350 agents assigned for security checks.
The budget stuff is absolute BS. They were given more than they requested for 2016:
> "The agency charged with overseeing security at the nation's airports was given a $7.4 billion budget, which was $211 million more than it had in 2015 and $93 million more than was requested. The money, Klobuchar said, needs to be spent to hire more screeners."
Or deaths due to people driving instead of flying.
"Increased delays and added costs at U.S. airports due to new security procedures provide incentive for many short-haul passengers to drive to their destination rather than flying, and, since driving is far riskier than air travel, the extra automobile traffic generated has been estimated in one study to result in 500 or more extra road fatalities per year."https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2013/09/excess_automo...
Maybe this will get enough people to FINALLY start demanding funding for high speed rail corridors. I can't imaging getting to the airport, waiting in line for like 2 hours and then getting on a 45 min flight to Portland from Seattle.
Its crazy that the US doesn't have true high speed rail on the northeast corridor and the other high speed rail corridors identified such as between Chicago and St. Louis. Many other counties have HSR so its obviously a matter of priorities.
I know the current California HSR project is a bit of a mess but instead of abandoning HSR altogether we should find out why it's a mess and try to streamline projects like this going forward.
Hyperloop will be cool once/if its built, but for now HSR is the only game in town for fast ground transportation that moves a lot of people.
It's not really worth it to fly if your destination is < 4 hours away by car. Even the shortest flight is going to take about that long to complete if you're going through a major airport.
Example itinerary:
Flight leaves at 6:00pm, gotta be there bare minimum 1 hour early, preferably 2+, going to split the different and say 90 mins.
Leave home at 4pm, drive 35 min to airport. Wait in line 15 mins to check bag. Allocate generous 20 mins for a quick security scan (this can blow up to 60 mins+ if it's a busy day and/or your airport sucks, but 20 mins is about the fastest you can really get through including time to walk to the checkpoint and be scanned). It's now 5:10. Sit around for 20 mins until your plane starts boarding. It's now 5:30. Sit on horrifyingly uncomfortable plane for 30 mins awaiting takeoff/other passengers to board. It's now 6. Your plane takes 10 mins to taxi and 45 mins to fly from point A to point B. It's now 6:55. Plane takes 10 min to taxi in (though I've waited 45 min+ before, especially at LAX). It takes 10 min for everyone to deplane. It's now 7:15. Once off plane, go wait at bag claim. We'll say it takes 20 mins to get there, wait for your flight to be unloaded, and wait for your bag. Now it's 7:35. Now you have to get from destination airport to actual destination, and you're probably looking at another 30 mins. That's 8:05. 4 hours and 5 minutes since you left your house.
So it takes 4 hours to do a 45 minute flight, and that's assuming everything is running quickly at the airport, which is often not the case. We also didn't include any time involved in arranging rides to/from the airport and/or parking, carefully reviewing your bag to make sure you didn't accidentally pack any liquids or gels that are larger than 3oz, etc.
It's faster to drive than to fly if your destination is within 4 hours' drive, and it's generally a no-brainer to drive due to the greater comfort it provides within 8 hours' drive. Flying is really only necessary once you get past that 8 hour drive barrier, and the only reason we tolerate flying being what it is is because it can turn a 24-hour+ drive into a 3 hour flight.
It's 6-7 hours to drive home vs a 1 hour flight for me, and I _still_ sometimes prefer road travel. 7 hours of uninterrupted time is far better than the excruciating start-stop-wait-walk-wait-walk-shut_off_devices of air travel. Especially for a 1 hour flight, there's usually like a 20 minute window where I can actually use my laptop and even reading a book is a pain when you're standing in a line.
That 4 hours is based on living near a major airport or flying into one and booking far enough in the future to get the best routes. If you live near one of the endpoint cities (say Austin TX out in the burbs), and you want to fly to another endpoint city (say SantaFe NM) and your choice of airline is poor (say united in this case) and you want to fly in two weeks. The flight/transfer time itself can be just as long as driving. It takes ~11 hours to drive that route, and the shortest listed flight on United for the date search I just ran is 8 hours 57 mins, up to 13 hours and 58 mins (out of the 4 united results returned on the first page). Add in security/etc and its likely even the 9 hour will take longer than the 11 hours driving.
Security theater, especially since anyone with 1/2 a brain saw what happened in Brussels, and understands that if there actually were any terrorists, the most dangerous part of flying would be the hoard of people packed together in a twisty line waiting to go through security. Frequently either in a contained area, or right next to a public drop-off area. Said theoretical terrorists could just buy an ak47, convert it to full auto, walk into the airport and start spraying bullets into the cluster of people. Or for bonus points, load up a baggage cart with suitcases full of explosives and push them right into the people standing in line. The enclosed area near security at some of the airports would significantly increase the effectiveness, and/or the people escaping would likely trample a few more.
Worse, the general inefficiency of the whole thing pisses me off too. I flew 3 legs on an international trip recently, and had to go through security 4 times even though I either never left the secured area, or in the case of Dallas the international arrival dumps people outside of the terminal rather than into it.
Like really? I'm safe enough to fly a 15 hour leg into the US, but i'm not safe enough to fly a 1/2 hour domestic flight from Dallas to a little town?
two words: "Jobs Program"
Only I wish the result of said jobs program was better infrastructure, even if its just stone bridges on hiking trails ala the WPA/CCC.
Why does the NYTimes quote tweets -- essentially publishing the shouts of strangers on the street -- before they report actual data like the change in the number of TSA screeners?
Because, since no one would expect you to publish every relevant tweet, it makes it more defensible to cherry-pick references that are editorially on-the-nose. It's pretty reprehensible; I've seen WaPo, NYT, and the Guardian publish (editorial, not eyewitness) tweets in stories that had been retweeted less than a dozen times before making the paper.
Yea, and "most people" like racy pictures too. That doesn't mean news organizations like the NY Times that still have some dignity left to shred should start putting racy photos in every article. Just as "most people like stories" doesn't mean they should be quoting random tweets.
>Charlotte Douglas International Airport in North Carolina recently said it had experienced three-hour wait times. [...] (T.S.A. officials denied that the wait had ever been that long, telling local reporters that it had been 75 minutes for a short time.)
Will someone, anyone, please write the simple app that you punch in as you start the line, you punch out as you leave screening, with some simple checks with GPS so we know you are really in one location for that time? Aggregate the data and let people coming to the airport have an idea of how long the wait will be. Use the data as political leverage so the TSA cannot claim "well, the wait wasn't that long". Tell people in line to install the app while they wait, and assure them that their politicians will see the data.
Probably not much money in this, but your app will go viral this summer, apparently...
Install an app and everything? Why not just take a picture when you join, then take a picture just before you are there (with the same people before you) and lastly afterwards. Then just upload them to Twitter.
Great, thanks! Can they generate press releases and statistics about average and peak wait times per airport? Maybe their penetration isn't hitting a critical mass. I'd love to see a live dashboard that shows "X number of people have been standing in line for Y minutes in city Z", or "the worst lines in the US airport system right now are A, B, and C". Reporters could then just show that display to the TSA press shill and call them out on their bad data in real time.
There are plenty of great applications of crowdsourced data but the problem with this stuff is always incentivizing people to contribute instead of just consume. It's a non-trivial marketing trick that products like Waze have managed (a big part of why Google didn't fold them into Maps entirely was to maintain the community), but it's certainly not a surefire thing.
At the risk of meta-discussion: wow that is the worst scrolling hijack I've ever seen.
All the info could easily be in one conventionally-scrolling page, but scrolling is completely disabled, forcing mouse clicks to scroll down, up(!?), and left (!?!?) from the landing page.
I will usually drive unless it takes more than 12 hours to get to the destination. If I'm bringing my wife and kids I would probably drive anywhere that's on the same continent, rather than fly.
I do not enjoy being treated like cattle at the airport.
The list of stuff to check for just keeps getting longer. First were the belt and shoes, then the laptop, then liquids. The latest seems to be portable batteries. Every time a crazy guy hatches a new plot with plans to hide dangerous stuff in everyday items, the list will get longer. Someone needs to work on prioritizing that list or reducing it.
In Asia, where there are more bullet trains, I often pick the trains over flight if it is within 3 hours time difference. (Factor in the wait time and the distance to airport) Bigger seats, leg room and you don't need to off your electronics during "takeoff"!
The batteries thing is because cheap Chinese knock-off Lithiums have a habit of randomly catching fire. Its why so-called hoverboards are banned from air travel too.
Reasons I've been chosen for extra screening by the TSA:
- They saw something in my bag (I didn't bring a bag)
- They needed to confiscate contraband (granola bar)
- My sweatshirt zipper "interfered with scanning my breasts thoroughly enough"
- They "randomly selected me" 15 times in a row
At this point, I make sure to budget lots of extra time to get through their nonsense procedures in order to make my flight.
I doubt that this will ever change. They're been herding passengers like this even after several check-in counter/queue terrorist attacks in the 60's and 70's.
Isn't there a TSA fee on every ticket issued in the US? How are they claiming budget setbacks then claim that more people are flying? Shouldn't more people flying mean more revenue / budget for the TSA?
That's a lot of hassle for what is little more than a placebo. In the 40y that terrorists have been targetting planes, I am not aware of a single major terrorist attack that has been stopped by passenger checks.
The theory is, because of the checks no further attempts will be made. Its one thing to die for your cause; another to be arrested for your cause and disappear forever anonymously.
I can also carry a clown hat all day long and it will keep the pink elephants away. But there are not pink elephant! Then it means my hat is working!
My theory on planes hijacking is rather that if you have a bunch of arabs taking over a plane today (after 9/11, the Paris attacks, etc), the passengers will think that doing nothing will lead to certain death, and therefore it will be impossible for the terrorists to contain the passengers. The only rational reaction for the passengers is to over power the terrorists at all risks.
People do occasionally try to blow up airplanes and such. The tactic of hijacking an airplane to crash it into something isn't the only possibility.
If your assertion is that security checks prevent no attacks, then you're implying that no attacker has been discouraged from making an attack due to the presence of security screening. This strikes me as absurd.
There are good arguments to be made that many aspects of security screening are useless, and even that the useful aspects aren't worth what they cost. I would tend to agree with many of those arguments. But to argue that the security screening process as a whole does not prevent any attacks is taking it way too far.
Just look at how incredibly frequent hijackings were in decades past, and how rare they became after basic screening was instituted. It does work to an extent. If you want to attack it, attack it on a cost/benefit basis or attack the more ridiculous bits of it, like banning liquids or screening shoes.
I am not arguing that security checks do not prevent any attack. I am arguing that the additional security checks introduced after 9/11 are not preventing more attacks than there were before 9/11, they are just introducing a way to persecute grannies for having a pair of scissors in their bag.
I love how this process was reengineered in London Gatwick airport.
Each scanner has 6 pods where you can pack and unpack your stuff; you've got a dedicated person assigning you to the pod. The process felt much more parallel rather than serial.
Heathrow has something similar - never ceases to amaze me how poorly planned many US airports are in comparison to European ones, and how little space they actually allow for screening
That sounds like how AMS works since a year or so. I managed 4 minutes from sitting on the train to being after security (I timed it :-P). This includes: getting off the train, walking to security and opening up my backpack (no clue why it went off and they spent maybe 45 secs to verify this).
Unfortunately this is not as quick anymore because more of the security people have now been diverted to do border checks. E.g. Ferry to England, highway checks, etc. Less people, bigger queues.
Yes, they have that pod system (although it's a glorified serial security scanner so I'm not sure of the benefit), and then they herd you through the full body scanner. The line was as bad as any I've seen on this side of the pond.
I like how Russian airports do it. There are huge stacks of trays and large free spaces. You put your stuff into the trays and then stack them up and carry them to the belt, then go through one of the many non-busy scanners, then grab your trays and go back to a huge empty area to put on your stuff again. Feels much nicer because you have all the time in the world to get your stuff in order without holding up people.
Yea i was stopped, and had my computer etc wiped down. Line was long, but moved along quickly, and stopping and searching my stuff did not stop any other passengers from moving. Done in about 15 min from start to end.
I hit this at SeaTac recently. I showed up my normal "1 hour on a Tuesday afternoon should be more than enough" and encountered a nearly 3 hour line. They said it was the new normal.
Why not give a 'security line' time (like the current gateline time). If the passenger is there before that time, then the flight waits for them, or they're put on the next flight.
That seems to sidestep the issue neatly. As a passenger, security is not a discrete part of the process. I'm actually surprised that airlines haven't done more to make the security experience more streamlined.
Do you know if the airlines pay the TSA for the security?
It seems like adding some direct private funding and influence would help alleviate some of these issues. Of courses that would affect ticket prices, but an extra hundred per passenger wouldn't be such a bad thing if it drastically improved the situation.
the government does not need private funding when it can just reach into your pocket, in this case to collect the September 11 Security Fee which airlines attach to your ticket on behalf of TSA.
It's not only TSA personnel (who are, on the whole, so incompetent I wouldn't hire most of the ones I meet to do ANYTHING), it's policy itself. Security policy in much of the world today is reactive and shortsighted - shoe bomber? take off your shoes, Underwear bomber, let's x-ray everyone, etc. etc. - all just to be able to say they "did something," whether or not is effective or efficient in any way at all.
I remember several years back when the shoe-removal policy has just been relatively new, and I was flying out of Israel. The security personnel there had someone devoted solely to going around telling people NOT to remove their shoes, in order to make sure the lines keep moving.
TSA just could not care less whether people actually make their flights, or whether terrorists get through, as long as they don't get blamed for missing something they should have caught.
To this day, I still have "SSSS" (Secondary Security Screening Selection) printed on my boarding pass and have to go through advanced screening every time I go to the U.S (relatively frequently) as a Canadian.
Swab my clothing, dump my backpack, open my laptop up and mess around with it, rub up and down my arms and legs, rough up my privates, the whole shebang.
I can imagine I'm probably on some list somewhere so I have to go through this "random" and time consuming screening every time.
I was once asked why I had a laptop with me, and why such a device was justifiable and necessary for a young male who works in this industry.
Seriously though, it's common knowledge that "SSSS" on your boarding pass means you're going through advanced security screening. What's the point of this if a malicious person can simply see the label and decide not to go through with the flight afterall?
The fact that you would spend more time in line than in the air is mind-boggling. I fly from Toronto to Newark on business semi-regularly and it's a 1h15m flight.
I haven't quite experienced a 3-hour wait in Newark but I did have a ~1h30m line earlier this year. I know for a fact a bunch of people in line with me (many who complained about showing up at the airport 2+ hours ahead of time) missed an international flight to India that day.
I immediately signed up for Global Entry after that.
What happens when you miss your flight due to screening? I mean if you really had to wait for over 30 minutes for a domestic flight and did not book any expensive ticket which allows rescheduling. Are you allowed to catch the next flight or do you have to buy a new ticket.
Furthermore, how do airlines handle your baggage. They won't know that your too late until everybody is in the plane (because you are already checked in). As far as I know, they may not fly with your baggage if you're not in the plane. So if I was late, wouldn't it delay the flight another 20 minutes to find my bags?
The airlines usually reschedule you for the next flight. However, your baggage gets sent on the original flight anyway. It is held in the destination airport's baggage office until you get there on the later flight.
I once wore a glitter sweatshirt through airport security. It made the backscanner machine go crazy and mark my entire shirt area as suspect, back and front. TSA was like "oh, it's the glitter on your shirt." As a result I was subjected to the most ineffective "pat down" ever. The TSA agent ran her hands across my shoulders and clavicle area and that's it. I could have hidden a small arsenal of weapons inside my bra, strapped to my arms, or strapped to my belly. It would be funny if we weren't paying millions for that "security."
Yes, I wore a shirt with raised lettering and could clearly see its arc highlighted as red on the machine after I went through. The agents cleared me without further investigation.
High false positive rate can lead to a lot of unsafe situations.
I think Trump would abolish the TSA. Cruz has said he would, too. I'd like to see either one get in, though I wonder if the President should be able to just decide on his own to shut down an agency that Congress has approved.
Why has Congress not shut it down? I don't think anybody really likes the TSA, so I can't imagine there'd be too much opposition to a bill abolishing them. It affects so many people you could probably get elected just on this issue alone.
This makes me sound jaded, but its a jobs program at its core. Every person in congress with a major airport in their district will try to prevent it from being privatized / disbanded. There are two types of people that go work for the TSA: 1) Those who can't get a job anywhere else, and 2) People trying to break in to the federal security market by going to TSA and transferring in. Yes, in gvt it is easier to get a new job if you already work in gvt vs applying from the outside.
The ones in KC are already contractors. "First Line" instead of TSA. They are also a lot nicer than the government TSA, who typically bark orders like prison guards.
Why has Congress not shut it down? I don't think anybody really likes the TSA, so I can't imagine there'd be too much opposition to a bill abolishing them
Good luck finding someone who wants to be the anti-airport-security candidate.
I don't know. Is there anyone who isn't a politician or employed by the TSA who thinks the TSA is doing a job worthy of their funding?
Even though you have to take it as a fact that the status quo is a powerful force in politics, it seems like there is room for someone who wants to get elected on a populist platform to make this a banner issue.
Nothing destroys a political career quite so violently as being the guy who relaxed some apparent safeguard just before a (potentially uncorrelated) bad thing happens that the safeguard was meant to prevent.
This is why no one will back off the light pollution from Chicago's streetlights. If you're the alderman who made that street dimmer at night, and someone gets murderered there, your career is over forever.
Is there anyone who isn't a politician or employed by the TSA who thinks the TSA is doing a job worthy of their funding?
Yes. By some counts that group would include the majority of Americans. Personally, I've heard the words, "it makes me feel safer" come out of the mouths of what appear to be otherwise competent adult humans.
The President clearly does not have that sort of power. The power of that office has been exaggerated to a crazy degree. Regardless of what he wants, President Trump can't shut down the TSA, or for that matter deport Muslims or build a wall on the Mexican border.
I can't see Congress abolishing the TSA. Just bringing up the idea will give a representative's opponents tons of ammunition to paint them as "soft on terror" and endangering Americans. People are fearful of this stuff. To the extent that people dislike the TSA, it's only because they're more annoying and slow than necessary, not because people think the whole concept is bad. If a member of Congress could come up with a way to improve the TSA then I imagine that would pass pretty easily, but of course that's a harder job.
Abolishing the TSA doesn't mean ending airport security. It would mean replacing it with privatized security. The TSA is universally hated so it wouldn't be that hard to find enough Democrats to go along with it.
Ok, the TSA sucks big time and should be abolished. I get that.
But what about the alternatives? In this day and age it's just not thinkable to let people enter a plane without a security check. So you need some entity performing it.
I think one factor on providing successful and to the passenger acceptable (they will never be pleasant) security checks is adequate funding and employing adequately compensated professionals.
It's weird that my wait time on any European airport I ever use is literally always below 10 minutes and usually much less than that. And it's not that checks are less thorough around here.
I think the original plan was that the TSA would set some rules and make the airports comply with them, and the airports would be responsible for doing screenings. Somehow that got warped into government agents doing the work.
Why is it 'unthinkable' to let people enter a plane without a security check? We let people get on a bus without a security check. If you're worried specifically about someone taking over the plane and crashing it into a building, you can protect the pilots separately from the people.
International flights are a little different, because someone already needs to verify a passport. Even there, I don't think the security checks are actually necessary.
I'm definitely opposed to classifying this as a 'funding issue' and giving the TSA even more money.
>> "...the original plan was that the TSA would set some rules and make the airports comply with them..."
The TSA was created solely to transfer liability from the airlines to the government in order to prevent the airlines from being sued into oblivion after 9/11. As nice side effects, it trains the population to accept the trappings of the police state and to disregard the sanctity of the 4th Amendment while proliferating bureaucracy.
But the main purpose is corporate welfare for commercial passenger aviation.
> the airports would be responsible for doing screenings
Airports are generally productions of municipal governments and badly mismanaged, money-losing construction projects. I don't anticipate county-managed security programs being any less awful than federally-managed security programs.
You're thinking about this backwards. Passengers are willing to tolerate hour-long intrusive security screenings before boarding an airplane, so we should look at implementing security screenings on buses and trains. Right now, they're totally unsecure!
Air travel is in that sense special that you and up to 500 of your fellow passengers are in a metal tube in 12'000 metres height, which makes it conceptually a bit different from a bus, or even a train.
Cockpit doors are already re-inforced, but the cockpit is not the only sensitive part of a plane when a passenger wants to cause mayhem with a high powered rifle, or a - pistol.
In addition I, for one, prefer to take a flight without a bunch of open carry zealots believing that they have a god given rigth to take their guns everywhere and which would surely wind up armed on commercial flights.
But again, we seem to have a completely different opinion here and I have no urge to try to convince you why I don't think it's a good idea to abolish security checks for flights.
Nothing, except that bags where scanned prior to 9/11.
What was essentially added was prohibitions to take a nail clipper onto a plane (which, of course is utterly ludicrous), the rules regarding liquids and the whole cowboy attitude (apparently mostly in the US).
Reinforcing the cockpit doors was actually one of the better ideas. Unless, that is, you have a psychotic, suicidal first officer. But that's a whole different story and anyway couldn't have been caught by airport security.
You can ban the guns on planes and fine people if anyone spots them. That should discourage open carry zealots. You could also ban carry-on bags, so it's harder to hide them. I guess people could bring on knives, pistols, or box-cutters; I don't know if there's a technical way to make planes resistant enough to these to give the pilot a chance to land in an emergency.
There's still room for disagreement even after all of these, though.
> In this day and age it's just not thinkable to let people enter a plane without a security check.
Few would suggest that. But the security measure that were in place in the US prior to 9-11 took far less time and cost much less, and in my opinion provided a similar level of security.
> And it's not that checks are less thorough around [any European airport ].
Really? Do they require you to remove shoes and belts, plus all items (even scraps of paper) from your pockets? Do they require you to stand motionless, hands raised for 1-2 mins to be scanned by a millimeter wave or backscatter x-ray machine or submit to a 15 min careful patdown and swabbing?
> It really just seems to be a funding issue.
I disagree -- I think it is largely an issue of what security measures they choose to utilize.
> > And it's not that checks are less thorough around [any European airport ].
> Really? Do they require you to remove shoes and belts, plus all items (even scraps of paper) from your pockets? Do they require you to stand motionless, hands raised for 1-2 mins to be scanned by a millimeter wave or backscatter x-ray machine or submit to a 15 min careful patdown and swabbing?
"Intrusive" is not the same thing as "thorough". You are describing how intrusive the US measures are. How thorough the measures are depends on their effectiveness at actually detecting what they set out to detect (all the information that has come out about the tests of the US system in that regard have shown that, while intrusive, it is absolutely not thorough.)
The alternative is returning the responsibility and the accountability to the industry. The nationalization of air travel security wasn't done to improve security, it was to done to save the airlines by removing the potential drag of liability for future security incidents from them by nationalizing a function for which they had been responsible.
This hasn't improved security, but it has meant that the screening process is now provided by a cost-insensitive bureaucracy with the excuse of national security to avoid transparency and accountability.
FWIW, there's a MyTSA app for iPhone & Android that estimates delays, and http://www.whatsbusy.com/airport can also give you a delay heads up.
In my experience flying domestically & internationally every month for the past 6 months, plan to get there 2 hours early for domestic, and 3 hours before for international, and you'll make it on time. This also depends greatly on the time of your flight and the airport, as both have peak times. When flying early, there is no rush. Red-eye, it can be stressful as some people are trying to make the last flight. When flying at more "convenient" times, expect the abbatoir line.
And when you have to make connections and they may be the last flights of the day, remember that the super-cheap internet-deal ticket you got probably does not include any refunds for delays. Certain airports are _constantly_ delayed, so check all your connecting airports and the connection times before you buy.
This article (and mainstream discussions, generally) doesn't question the existence of the TSA. The TSA is expensive, ineffective, and anticonstitutional. Yet most people are ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ about it.
To be honest, I am ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ about it, because it never takes me as long as everyone on the Internet says it does. I know there are people that get pretty screwed by the system, but for most people, it's not that bad.
Some suggestions for how to improve the situation:
1) Set up a large booth where people can sign up for the TSA pre-check program inside the airport, while they are waiting for their delayed flight, etc.
2) Institute fees for carry-on baggage and reduce fees for checked baggage to reduce the number of bags being screened.
3) Have a separate line for passengers with no carry-on bag that moves 5x faster.
4) Publish statistics about security checkpoint failures, and the overall ineffectiveness of the program. Allow public outrage to result in the TSA being shut down.
5) Offer a free, high throughput lane guaranteed to take under 10 minutes, and a slow lane where passengers are given a $10 meal voucher for putting up with the wait, which could be up to 2 hours.
6) Claim victory over terrorism, and drastically scale back the TSA and the foreign wars/occupations.
The best solution is to have everyone go through it. No fast lane, no special categories, just eveyone lined up including those in private jets. If the powerful had to stand in line with the plebes then the TSA would be history before the end of the month.
As much as I despise the whole TSA process, it is ostensibly to prevent terrorists from using an aircraft as a weapon, or destroying it and killing hundreds of passengers. I don't know of any private jets with the amount of chemical or kinetic energy necessary to destroy a skyscraper, nor would the bombing of one result in the deaths of hundreds of passengers.
In other words, private jet passengers are not covered under their mandate because their ability to cause harm is limited by the diminutive size of their aircraft.
Some private (corporate) jets are the same size as typical commercial aircraft.
We learned on 9/11 that as soon as word got out about the possibility of terrorists using aircraft as a weapon, the passengers are ready to tackle anyone who appears to be doing this, so the threat was already gone months before the TSA was formed.
Similarly, the military would now shoot down an aircraft in similar circumstances. This does not address the loss-of-life concerns, but does redundantly prevent the use of an aircraft as a weapon.
Also, since it is easy to get weapons through TSA security (it's done often by other government agencies as part of various audits)... There is no reason to believe that the TSA line makes anyone any safer (though the above points do make people safer).
And, as Bruce Schneier points out, one could simply put explosive liquid in a tomato sauce container and attempt to go through security. If it's found, it would be thrown away and the passenger would board without being caught. If it's missed, the system has been thwarted and an attack can occur.
So aside from the initials in TSA reminding of us the concept of security, the agency does little to actually make anyone safer. I'd argue that we have a false sense of security against all but the most unsophisticated attacker.
Also, the main reason the TSA was created was to shield private firms from risk if a banned item got through security and did result in an attack. There was a big restructuring of the terrorism insurance market post 9/11, and the government now "owns" much of the risk. This was thought to be necessary to keep planes flying after 9/11, since the market price of insurance (and flights) would go through the roof if an airline would be held accountable for a 9/11 style attack if one of its minimum wage employees missed a box cutter in someone's bag.
So now we have the TSA and an absurdly regulated public/private partnership that fails in every measurable way and as others have pointed out wastes a tremendous amount of time and resources.
I apologize for the rant, I'm sure you have heard this argument before.
No need to apologize, there's great information there for many readers, I'm sure. I myself benefited from the reminder that the TSA serves to deflect liability away from carriers in the event of a dangerous device getting through a security checkpoint.
Then you just have more small airports offering connection flights to the next hub. At least some years ago that was how the people who could afford it circumvented LAX' security: Check in in Santa Monica, fly 5 minutes to LAX in a small plane, go directly to your international flight in LAX.
No fast lane, no special categories, just eveyone lined up including those in private jets. If the powerful had to stand in line with the plebes then the TSA would be history before the end of the month.
Nope.
My congressmen and senators go through the line twice a week, and yours probably do, too. Billionaires can influence them more than you or I but personal experience beats any outside persuasion.
TSA owns them. If anything ever goes wrong, TSA gets to blame them. If they've played along on every vote, TSA instead defends them from responsibility. That's everything to a congressman.
I did suggest that we need to get the powerful to line up, not congressmen and senators. If the members of the 0.01% had to line up for 3 hour to get on their private jets you can be sure that something would be done.
There are no powerful people going through those lines. Just semi-rich ones. The GP's list would be more effective. And only if it got enough people to participate in our government by writing/visiting our representatives and demanding en masse to be heard. I just don't see that happening now.
It would be more efficient if everyone got a little cart as soon as they got in line where they can put their shoes, belts, laptops, etc. Then when you get to the x-ray, the whole cart is inserted. The slow down is always at the point where people are taking out all their stuff. And maybe add some courtesy, unstaffed metal detectors along the route to the checkpoint so you get a heads up metal stuff is in your pockets.
However, I think locked cockpit doors and air marshals have solved most of the airline problems (versus security screening). Also, pre-9/11 most people assumed those hi-jacking planes had some demands and then everyone would be let go without harm. No one thinks that anymore, so passengers will fight.
SFO is one of the better TSA operations. The employees of the TSA presence aren't directly employees of DHS; they are employed by a contractor of the TSA. I've found them to be professional and efficient (granted that I have Global Entry). In fact, one of the guards let me keep my Chinese papaya soup with liquid (the papaya cavity was filled with a Chinese birds nest soup). She simply told me that technically she should confiscate my papaya, but that she was going to look the other way, and I left the checkpoint with decent airplane food.
Last time I flew (SFO), it took me 25 minutes to get from my car at the South SF Bart station to beyond security. I still hate the TSA, but I've never had the delays that people talk about as commonplace.
It's strange that the security lines are suddenly getting worse everywhere, the last several months. I regularly fly Denver->San Jose. While the lines at Denver can be quite awful, I used to be able to count on getting through San Jose security quickly. Lately, though, even San Jose has been getting backed up, and the airport has resorted to putting signs in the security line encouraging passengers to complain to TSA.
I'm quite nervous about what time I need to get to Denver airport tomorrow morning. :(
Why is this so much worse state-side though? All the European airports seem fine & I don't think they're significantly less thorough (or effective).
One thing I did notice EU side is that procedures differ wildly not just from airport to airport but also from day to day. e.g. Last flight they took particular interest in my DSLR - switched it on & wanted to look through the viewfinder to make sure the lens is an actual optical lens. Flight before they didn't even make me take it out the bag.
And yet every time you wait in the line theres at least 2 TSA agents standing around not doing anything.
Here's an idea why don't we give all Americans a free TSA screening instead of charging $85.00. Then we can reduce their work force even further and actually make some progress in reducing wait times.
What's amazing is that in the 15 years since this agency was created there has been no visible innovation in expediting this process. None.
The only innovation I have seen is someone in the agency did took the initiative to sell advertising spots on the inside of the gray bins.
This agency seems to have completely forgotten their mandate. Their job was to look out for us no make us miss our flights and humiliate us.
I also like that they claim its due to an increase in air travelers. Really? Is everyone just flying more because money is just burning a hole in their pocket. The TSA is really the most absurd bit of theater.
What's going to finally change this is when there's a particularly bad day, and security lines are likely to make enough people late, that a swarm effect happens and a mass of people just says "no more" and walks through. Just like the fences at outdoor concerts. It takes a few fearless/stupid people to break through, and progressively less fearless/stupid individuals to follow, having watched enough ahead of them follow. Once the video of this gets out, it'll happen again, and again, "like that time in that other airport!", and eventually, we'll end up with sane rules, or no one will fly because it'll become so prohibitively expensive to fund the theater (and then the airlines will get government bailouts)
At sea-tac the other day, I watched them completely close a screening line so that they could perform a shift change. Really? You have to shut down the ENTIRE LINE in order to change out a few people? These people need lessons in efficiency.
If time were money to them, this crap wouldn't happen.
Just had multiple-leg international travel, all the involved airports from different countries ran a set of security and customs checks that were comprehensive enough for real threats (document verification, metal detectors, scanning all luggage, even drug dogs). No security theater though e.g. removal of shoes.
In all cases the process (including queues) took less than 15 minutes. What is the problem in USA? If some of your checking procedures are unreasonably long or require more workforce than you have, then change those procedures.
Arriving for an international trip (either from outside of from another plane) an hour before takeoff is sufficient if airport can organize things properly.
For the vast majority of people, it's not actually that bad. I've never spent more than 15 minutes going through security, and that includes international trips. And I come and go primarily through O'Hare, one of the busiest airports in the country.
The Internet allows everyone to see every one of the small percentage of cases that take longer, with nobody noticing how many still aren't that big a deal.
Horrific. For comparison, when I flew Sydney/Melbourne recently it took me 2 minutes in line and 30 seconds through security, and that's including being singled out for the bomb-residue swab. Never needed to present an ID, either.
PSA on "trusted traveller" programs: enroll in NEXUS.
It is the cheapest of the generally available programs at $50 for 5 years, versus $85 for Pre-Check and $100 for Global Entry. It is also the most privileged, affording all of the benefits of Global Entry and Pre-Check, and additionally allows expedited entry into Canada. It is available to citizens and permanent residents of the US and Canada.
The only downside is that the interview must be conducted at one of the enrollment centers that are in US/Canadian border cities (e.g., Seattle, Vancouver, Detroit...) or major Canadian airports, so you'd have to make a trip if you're not nearby.
It's only a matter of time until some asshole blows up a security line. If you look at countries with real terrorism problems (eg Israel) they handle their airport security very, very differently.
I just now completed the online application for TSA PRE, but I am curious about something... I've been VERY, (very) vocally critical of the US government, the DHS, TSA, FBI, NSA, CIA, etc., here, on my blog, on Twitter, on Facebook, etc. I've always wondered if that would affect me if I applied for PRE. So, have any of you experienced any issues getting accepted for PRE, based on your political positions/ statements/whatever? Or even heard of anybody who did?
Am I the only one who thinks telling an online community about how you managed to sneak X past TSA is a bad idea ?
People at TSA are doing their duty which is essentially completely pointless. Also it is the case everywhere. When I was in India I by mistake carried my wife passport and boarding pass and she carried mine when we entered the security post. The security guard carefully matched the boarding pass name with the passport name and let us pass!
I really do wonder how many terrorist plots have actually been foiled by TSA/ security staff.
They seem to just be following guidelines with ZERO common sense. E.g. most screw drivers ok, but not safety scissors. My biggest pet-hate is the ban on liquids over 100ml, anybody with a basic knowledge of chemistry knows that explosives (by their very definition) are volatile and you really do not want to start drinking any.
You're completely wrong about explosives. They're not necessarily volatile, and in fact the best ones aren't.
Dynamite will burn slowly and without any explosion. Other materials like C-4 are ridiculously stable under most circumstances to the point where there are stories of troops using it to light fires.
Without a proper initiator most explosives are basically safe. An initiator usually introduces a lot of heat, a large amount of shock, or both, which kicks off the explosion.
Likewise, many liquid explosives are totally harmless until the two components are mixed together, at which point it becomes extremely dangerous. I'm not sure what would happen if you drank either component, but my guess is you might become ill a few hours later. If your goal is more short-term in nature that is probably irrelevant.
My biggest gripe about the liquid limit is that dangerous explosives come in many forms, liquid is just one. You could probably smuggle a kilogram of thermite on the plane and nobody would notice, yet if ignited that would be extremely dangerous.
C4 isn't a liquid so it isn't on their radar (luckily dogs & machines can detect it). When travelling back to the UK from France, they wouldn't let me take a bike bottle with 80ml of water in it (for my medication), the bottle had measurements on the side for adding supplements. But, it was ok to carry some cheese for my mother.
The explosive element of C4 is RDX, RDX causes seizures when ingested in small doses. Plus, a key ingredient is Nitric acid - I don't fancy trying any. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RDX#Toxicity
Interesting fact: The US produced 15,000 tons of RDX per month during World War 2, gives you some idea of the level of destruction during that period.
I don't think the prospective terrorists would be chugging away at their bottles of Exploditall (tm) liquid though. The fear is that the smarter terrorists (i.e. the ones that didn't start the day with a celebratory shot of Exploditall) will put their volatile dangerous liquid explosives in harmless looking bottles of Irn-Bru or Vimto or something.
Let's put in perspective why this is: a terrorist with resources can easily get weapons on a plane. You blackmail and bribe a bunch of security people, tell them it's drugs, and you're in.
But then they run into problems. They can threaten passengers, but the passengers know that if they let the terrorists take over the plane they're dying anyway, so they're going to fight to the death: this realization was enough that by itself passenger awareness prevented whatever attack was intended with the plane that went down in central Pennsylvania.
And if somehow the terrorists kill all the passengers, they come up against the blast-proof door. It's probably possible to get past that if they smuggle some truly gigantic fireworks on board, but whatever they do to get through the door is probably going to take down the plane; not exactly a targeted attack.
So at the very worst, you're looking at them killing max 120 people on a plane? Let's be generous and say they kill 300.
Let's do some back-of-the-napkin math here:
There were 9,074,185 revenue departures on planes in 2015[1]. There were no crashes. So even if a terrorist hijiacking happened every year you'd have a 300 in 9,074,185 chance, or about 1 in 30,000 chance, of dying on a plane.
In 2013 there were 10.345 motor vehicle deaths per 100,000 people[2]. So just by living in a society where people drive, you have about a 1 in 10,000 chance of dying from a car. Not in a car, from a car. If you're in a car, your chances are probably significantly higher.
In other words, we could let a real hijacking attempt get as successful as one can get once a year and planes would be more than three times safer than cars. At that rate, we could probably get rid of TSA security completely and devote all that funding to car safety, and it would make us safer.
I find it absurd that a central agency manages the hiring of tsa agents. In Canada and Australia the airports hire private security to do the checks. They are more competent and friendly than tsa agents.
It's also not obvious how a government run tsa could be trusted any more than regulated private security contractors (overseen and kept accountable by a smaller government agency).
No, you actually have it very wrong. George W. Bush was not a 'smaller government' president. It was the grassroots conservative reaction to the GWB administration's "progressive" Republican administration that leads you to even think of the modern GOP as the 'smaller government' party in the first place.
> It was the grassroots conservative reaction to the GWB administration's "progressive" Republican administration that leads you to even think of the modern GOP as the 'smaller government' party in the first place.
The GOP (including the both of W.'s campaigns, and his administration) has been beating the "smaller government" drum for decades (pretty consistently since at least Reagan's first campaign). Its not exactly a new rhetorical position (substantively, like the Democrats -- though virtually a mirror image on the specific programs -- there are areas of government that, in practice, they work to expand and areas that the seek to shrink.)
So what? Bill Clinton also ran on a platform of smaller government and cutting expenses in order to balance the budget.
The fact is that Bush (and the US population) spent very little time or intellectual effort on matters of monetary policy during that election cycle, compared with where we are today. Bush, in 2000, ran on a platform of relatively progressive positions such as his 'no child left behind' proposal, tax breaks for small businesses, criticizing Clinton's several foreign policy gaffs, getting the US off of its foreign oil reliance, etc. The size and scope of government was not a major talking point for either campaign. Thus, the suggested 'irony' mentioned in the OP to which I was replying is misplaced.
I just flew out of Newark, and other family members flew out of LaGuardia, we didn't experience this at all.
In fact, on the way back I had Precheck for reason, and I'm waiting in that line, looking at the completely regular security line wondering if the regular one would have been faster. (and even in precheck I get "randomly selected" to go through the body scanner...)
My cousin just got sent back to Europe this morning for no specified reason and was given 90 seconds to call his family before being ejected from the USA. Just on vacation and going to house sit for my mom.
Still waiting on him landing so I can get more details. What a dumb world.
73 guns in carry-ons in ONE WEEK and that is only what they found, so at least double that, probably quadruple
wtf is wrong with people
my last plane flight was in 1999, I doubt I am ever flying again, not because of terrorists, but because of the other people flying and the TSA terrorizing people
Somehow I automatically got TSA Pre that last time I passed security and moved through the Pre line, which is much faster. I'm thinking to just get Global Entry which covers TSA Pre and lasts five years.
You should definitely get Global Entry; it's incredible. It was extremely low-hassle to get and worth 10x the cost. I got it for the TSA Pre but coming off of a 25-hour flight and not having to fill out any form or go through immigration AT ALL is amazing.
Whenever in line for TSA security, there's a little trick that you can try to increase your patience level by a good margin:
Remember the large mass of people in front of you will, more than likely, resemble a bell curve of intelligence. This means some of these people are smarter than average, and shouldn't have much of any trouble with the process. This also means half the people are dumber than average, and will find new and innovative ways to mess things up because they didn't read, plan ahead, or are otherwise obvlivious to higher-level thought.
It doesn't help with the cause of the problem, but certainly helps with the symptoms.
Why are Canadians (who are often flying to U.S. cities) not required to take their shoes off in the security line whereas U.S. travellers are required to do so?
Canadian here, I most certainly am required to take off my shoes every time I go to the states. Though I don't use NEXUS and always have to go through secondary screening.
$99 for global entry for 5 years, includes tsa-pre was such a no brainer.
I've noticed in MIA airport, one security line might be packed , then you walk 4 minutes to the next one and its nearly empty (same staff at both).
Toronto security heading back to the US is fascinating, tons of passengers, but the screening process is broken up into multiple human touch points. Felt more fluid.
I have PreCheck, first due to my frequent traveler status with my (at the time) favored airline (which, as I understand it, PreCheck doesn't offer any longer) and then as a paid member, when I noticed that over ten consecutive entries, I was redirected to the non-PreCheck screening side 8 times (it now happens much less).
When I fly out of Houston's IAH (Terminal A), I routinely get mixed into the same screening area as non-PreCheck travelers (after a shorter line for the travel document checks). I show my boarding pass on my phone or my watch with the little check mark when I enter the screening area to an agent that never scanned my boarding pass, nor have they been in communication to the agent who did scan my boarding pass. They visually check that the checkmark logo is there, then orally call out to the machine operators that I'm PreCheck, and I don't have to take out my laptop or take off my shoes/jacket.
I also got grandfathered with a tiny membership rate into the CLEAR program in its current (second) generation, a program that doesn't hide its commercial status at all, and says clearly "pay for this and you'll have zero wait". I get to IAH Terminal A, tell the CLEAR agent I'm a member, and they quickly computer-scan my pass and verify my fingerprint. They walk me to the TSA podium, flash their CLEAR ID badge, and tell them my identity and boarding pass was verified (and that I'm PreCheck, since my known traveler number is associated with my CLEAR account as well). One more quick scan of my pass and I'm through the longest part of the wait: waiting for them to check my ID. I'm through security even on the busiest of days in about 15 minutes, mostly in 5 minutes. I know the wait time would grow again if everyone had CLEAR, but the ID verification part would be super fast.
Security lines themselves only seem clogged up by people who don't follow the rules (because they aren't frequent travelers) or who object to them. I don't agree with the rules, I write my congressperson to object to them, and I'm embarrassed by them when I'm speaking with people who don't live in this country. But until my letters to my congressperson (the method by which "We The People" can actually influence our government) are joined with millions more, security theater will remain.
CLEAR showed me that ID verification with PreCheck (since they have your fingerprints anyway) could be quick and efficient. It isn't. Some US airports have security lines that move quickly even in the busiest times, because agents are helping passengers comply in advance with rules with which many travelers are unfamiliar. So it can be better there, too.
But to effect change in our government, we have to participate in our government, which goes beyond voting every four years; it means writing to the representatives you or your neighbors have voted into office.
Hardly. OP's profile has more means of contact than just about any I've seen.
There are genuine means of protest if the TSA offends or inconveniences you. Death threats and incitement of violence, whether general or specific are not helpful - here or anywhere else, and may be illegal, depending on your jurisdiction.
Death threats against specific individuals and incitements to revolt against illegal and oppressive regimes are entirely different things, and you well know it.
Could you please specify precisely that which I should not be doing? I wish to abide by all of HN's rules for participation.
I rarely fly, so consider my statement in that context.
I actually approve of the TSA making flying more onerous. Flying comes at a very high environmental and economic cost to society. We need more trains, more hyperloops, and more VR.
Not going to work in low density regions like all of the USA aside from the coasts. Flying is less polluting per mile than driving btw. Also, why don't the rest of us get together and punish your choices?
Flying emits less CO2 per passenger mile than a person driving a car without any passengers, but more than a car with one passenger in addition to the driver[1]. But if people can't fly then they probably just won't travel very far, which is even better.
> why don't the rest of us get together and punish your choices?
Perhaps you should, in cases where the GP's choices impose a significant cost on you. In general, it is absolutely in everyone's best interest for everyone else to fly less often.
Late last year while trying to fly out of LAX a TSA employee thought I was carrying a throwing star. They called the police, who correctly identified as a toy in seconds.
I thought the whole ordeal was over until I got a "notice of violation" in the mail from TSA 45 days later.
Now I'm banned from pre-check for three years, even though I have global entry and even though the fine was thrown out. It's a kangaroo court were the only two options are you pay the fine or they convert it to a warning.
Some shit head got a gold star for "finding a weapon" and I get fucked.
Please defund these 0-terrorist-catching losers.