Do you empty your pockets?

[DonnaL]

Agree with everyone else about putting contents of pockets in carryon BEFORE getting to front of line. You know how TSA continuously reminds us not to leave our bags out of our sight.....well, here's our story at PHL....our trip in Oct. 2011 was our first since DH's knee replacement last May...of course, he showed his joint replacement card....didn't matter....he was screened and of course, beeped.....so was pulled and taken in the boxed "booth" for pat down. There was one person between us in line (which we also always do) so I was thru first.....gathering my stuff when he got pulled.....so, now I'm grabbing my stuff, struggling to get his off the conveyor also.......shoes, carryon, laptop bag, laptop (out of the bag of course) belt, jacket.....no one from TSA cared who was grabbing that stuff. If he had been traveling alone on business when this happened, ANYONE coming thru that line could have taken his stuff while he was being patted down in the booth. Granted......the walls of the booth are all plexiglass, however, the end of the conveyor was quite a distance and he was telling the TSA person "hey all my stuff is on the conveyor..." There were at least a dozen more people thru that line before they were done patting him down......and he did not have a clear view of his belongings at all .....anyone could have simply walked away with any of his belongings if I wasn't there to begin taking them off the line. My point of this story.....at any time you could be pulled from the line for extra security....so you should always make sure your belongings are as secure as possible.......putting smaller things like your wallet, cell phone, jewelry,etc. INSIDE your carryon to make them less accessible to someone quickly walking past the conveyor belt.....also having less things to grab from the belt and possibly miss something even if you don't get pulled for extra security.

 

[kaytieeldr]

Ah MHT - The place where Barney Fife becomes a TSA agent, Most of them are ham handedly probing through our camera gear of each to "clear" it. Yah as in carry it clear out to their car.

All due respect, could you please rephrase that statement so it's lucid and grammatically correct, and so it doesn't attempt to insult or offend tens of thousands of New England residents?

 

[vacationclub]

Quote:
Originally Posted by ford91exploder
Ah MHT - The place where Barney Fife becomes a TSA agent, Most of them are ham handedly probing through our camera gear of each to "clear" it. Yah as in carry it clear out to their car.

All due respect, could you please rephrase that statement so it's lucid and grammatically correct, and so it doesn't attempt to insult or offend tens of thousands of New England residents?

While there are a few minor grammatical errors there (and one missing word), I had no problem understanding what he/was said. However, I'm more confused by what you said about tens of thousands of New England residents. Are you saying that tens of thousands of New England residents work as TSA agents at MHT? If so, that agency is way more bloated and wasteful than I ever imagined.

I have no problem making a joke about TSA "agents". But I think that joke was a bit much, even though TSA agents have been fired for theft. The endless stories of their ineptitude, their nonsensical methods and inconsistent application of rules they seem to adjust from agent to agent, and the fact that they have never once prevented anything for which they were created in the first place, leaves them open to ridicule. On top of that, the low amount of training given and education needed, as well as low threshold of past criminal activity, gives them even less respect. TSA is security theater, pure and simple. And their "show" is pretty old at this point.

I think many people view TSA as more of an obstacle to travel than an actual safety measure.