what is the purpose of extra TSA security at the gate?

[dudspizza]

My ORD-MSP flight last night had TSA agents at the gate and they were randomly pulling passengers aside to swab their fingers and look through their bags. It seemed like total overkill for a 45 minute flight, plus, we had all been through security already.

I suppose ORD is a American hub and many people could have entered the country through ORD, but it just seemed odd.....

We didn't get chosen, I was just curious....

Duds

 

[dburg30]

My ORD-MSP flight last night had TSA agents at the gate and they were randomly pulling passengers aside to swap their fingers and look through their bags. It seemed like total overkill for a 45 minute flight, plus, we had all been through security already.

I suppose ORD is a American hub and many people could have entered the country through ORD, but it just seemed odd.....

We didn't get chosen, I was just curious....

Duds

Sorry had to laugh at that part
I know what you meant of course.


As far as the purpose? Well, obviously to try to find something. Doing what they can. Granted the chances of them finding anything is soooo small, but IF they would happen to find something / someone I guess it's worth it.

That being said, with all the hub-bub about it, and the extra security, and basically just making flying more of a PITA, the bad guys are accomplishing their goals. They are disrupting our way of living in some way.

 

[snowbunny]

Another episode of TSA theater. If I had to find a purpose I'd say to bring the fear. Or how about this guy? and people wonder why TSA is a joke.
http://www.philly.com/philly/news/local/20100121_Daniel_Rubin__It_was_no_joke_at_security_gate.html

 

[bavaria]

Well since DHS/TSA is forcing other countries to do it to their citizens and travellers on US bound flights even when it violates their local laws or constitutions or charters, perhaps it is only right that they do it to at least a few people flying on domestic US flights?

It doesn't make sense why they seem to focus on overseas flights and don't perform the same security on domestic US flights. It is as if someone truly believes that the threat couldn't happen on US domestic flights.

MOOOOOM, duds made me do it. Keeping my mouth shut, I promise.

 

[bavaria]

Another episode of TSA theater. If I had to find a purpose I'd say to bring the fear. Or how about this guy? and people wonder why TSA is a joke.
http://www.philly.com/philly/news/local/20100121_Daniel_Rubin__It_was_no_joke_at_security_gate.html

I used to roll my eyes at the Travel Safety and Security forum at Flyertalk, as they have an abudance of tin foil over there. In recent weeks however my eye rolling has changed to a far different emotion, and hence my apologies to those of you who long pointed out the shortcomings.

Those who think that 'anything to make us safer' is a fact may want to wander over there and do some reading.

 

[snowbunny]

Those who think that 'anything to make us safer' is a fact may want to wander over there and do some reading.

The thing that bothers me most (since I'm old I guess) are the expressions of how 9/11 "changed everything."

This is an excerpt from yesterday's column by Patrick Smith (a Delta pilot) who wrote about the unfortunate Haitian man who pushed open an alarmed emergency exit at JFK, and the disproportionate response in our climate of fear.

The Abu Nidal group, today long forgotten, was busy in the mid-1980s. A year before Karachi they killed 20 people in a pair of coordinated ticket-counter assaults at the airports in Vienna and Rome.

Also in 1986 was the bombing of TWA Flight 840. As the 727 was on approach into Athens, a bomb went off in the cabin, killing four people.
In fact, over the five-year span between 1985 and 1989 we can count at least six high-profile terrorist attacks against commercial planes or airports. In addition to those above were the horrific bombings of Pan Am 103 and UTA 772, the bombing of an Air India 747 over the North Atlantic that killed 329 people, and the saga of TWA Flight 847.

Flight 847, headed from Athens to Rome, was hijacked by Shiite militiamen armed with grenades and pistols. The 727 then embarked on a remarkable 17-day odyssey to Lebanon, Algeria, back to Lebanon, and then back to Algeria. At one point passengers were removed, split into groups and held captive in downtown Beirut. The photograph of TWA Capt. John Testrake, his head out the cockpit window, collared by a gun-wielding terrorist, was broadcast worldwide and became an unforgettable icon of the siege.

I say "unforgettable," but that's just the thing. How many Americans remember Flight 847? How many remember the Karachi murders? It's astonishing how short our memories are. And partly because they're so short, we are easily frightened and manipulated.

Here in this proclaimed new "age of terrorism," we act as if the clock began ticking on Sept. 11, 2001. In truth we've been dealing with this stuff for decades. Not only in the 1980s, but throughout the '60s and '70s as well. Acts of piracy and sabotage are far fewer today.

Imagine the Karachi attack happening tomorrow. Imagine TWA 847 happening tomorrow. Imagine six successful terror attacks against commercial aviation in a five-year span. The airline industry would be paralyzed, the populace frozen in abject fear. It would be a catastrophe of epic proportion — of wall-to-wall coverage and, dare I suggest, the summary surrender of important civil liberties.

What is it about us, as a nation, that has made us so unable to remember, and unable to cope?

http://www.salon.com/news/air_travel/index.html?story=/tech/col/smith/2010/01/21/american_hysteria

 

[ExPirateShopGirl]

Random gate screenings are part of the TSA's latest playbook (we like to call it "No Bomb Left Behind!" ) along with the deployment of BDO's (behavioral detection officers) throughout areas one should never see a TSA officer other than on a cigarette (cough cough) break.

Your tax dollars hard(ly) at work.

 

[rgf207]

Sorry had to laugh at that part
I know what you meant of course.


As far as the purpose? Well, obviously to try to find something. Doing what they can. Granted the chances of them finding anything is soooo small, but IF they would happen to find something / someone I guess it's worth it.

That being said, with all the hub-bub about it, and the extra security, and basically just making flying more of a PITA, the bad guys are accomplishing their goals. They are disrupting our way of living in some way.

The last time the TSA swapped my fingers I was left with 3 thumbs. Not good at all!!!

 

[bavaria]

The thing that bothers me most (since I'm old I guess) are the expressions of how 9/11 "changed everything."

This is an excerpt from yesterday's column by Patrick Smith (a Delta pilot) who wrote about the unfortunate Haitian man who pushed open an alarmed emergency exit at JFK, and the disproportionate response in our climate of fear.

On another thread we were talking about differences in security and how a lot of things were implemented in the 1970's and 1980's in Europe and around the rest of the world.

One of those incidents was PA 103 (Lockerbie) which killed 270 people including 190 Americans, and another was AI 182 (Air India) bombing which killed 329 people, including 270 Canadians.

It seems like those two major events in which a large number of North Americans (along with other nationalities) died have been wiped from memory. I agree with you - it's not a 'post 9/11 world'. I'm not trying to downplay that horrible event at all, but it seems to be the only one that a lot of people recall, and the one that they use to justify things.

 

[bavaria]

The last time the TSA swapped my fingers I was left with 3 thumbs. Not good at all!!!

I'll trade you a slightly crooked pinky for a thumb - I've been looking for a functioning one for awhile!

 

[NotUrsula]

On another thread we were talking about differences in security and how a lot of things were implemented in the 1970's and 1980's in Europe and around the rest of the world.

One of those incidents was PA 103 (Lockerbie) which killed 270 people including 190 Americans, and another was AI 182 (Air India) bombing which killed 329 people, including 270 Canadians.

It seems like those two major events in which a large number of North Americans (along with other nationalities) died have been wiped from memory. I agree with you - it's not a 'post 9/11 world'. I'm not trying to downplay that horrible event at all, but it seems to be the only one that a lot of people recall, and the one that they use to justify things.

As part of a small American outpost of a REALLY large and really geographically diverse but close-knit family that originated in Northern Ireland and has discussed this phenomenon to death, I can tell you that it's all about the psychological barrier formed by the oceans. Despite all evidence to the contrary, most Americans continue to subconsciously believe that those oceans protect them. What made 9/11 so shocking to so many (including those in government) was that it happened on US soil.

I remember my Aunt Mary (then aged 86) saying at the time that while 9/11 was of course a terrible tragedy, that perhaps some good would come of it if it forced the Americans to wake up and understand the realities of what life with the risk of bombings is really like. Of course, it didn't.

In an official sense, Americans seem to think that if they just make life difficult enough for them, the terrorists will give up and go away. People in other countries who historically have had to deal with living in a war zone know better than this. No one alive in the US today has any experience of being a civilian living in a war zone INSIDE the US -- no one has had that experience since 1865. (And in those days no one bombed civilians in wartime.) Europeans in the 60's and 70's were not that far removed from the experience of WW2, and so they quickly adopted a realistic level of security that was workable in the context of daily life.

Most living Americans, never having lived with the threat of being bombed as a daily occurrence, tend to collectively refuse to believe that it is possible to achieve normalcy under those circumstances. Their vision of what it would be like is far worse than the reality, and it scares the bejeezus out of them. I think that the collective American memory of 9/11 for many is not so much one of a bombing, but of something much more akin to a rape, and that is why it looms so large in their minds.

 

[crashbb]

On another thread we were talking about differences in security and how a lot of things were implemented in the 1970's and 1980's in Europe and around the rest of the world.

One of those incidents was PA 103 (Lockerbie) which killed 270 people including 190 Americans, and another was AI 182 (Air India) bombing which killed 329 people, including 270 Canadians.

It seems like those two major events in which a large number of North Americans (along with other nationalities) died have been wiped from memory. I agree with you - it's not a 'post 9/11 world'. I'm not trying to downplay that horrible event at all, but it seems to be the only one that a lot of people recall, and the one that they use to justify things.

I regularly run past the Air India memorial. I suspect that most people don't know where it is and that many of those who run past it have no idea what it is.

 

[bavaria]

I believe that Air India was the single largest loss of life in airline terrorism before 9/11 (I could be wrong, but it was of the largest, if not the largest) Yet outside of Japan, India, Canada (and for those of us who have the regular option to fly AI) it is still in our minds.

And for those of us who lived in Europe in the 1970's and 1980's, we are often amazed at how unattended luggage or packages or trash cans or dropped items don't represent danger. Yesterday I was walking down a public hallway and saw an item in the middle of the hall. On closer inspection I saw that it was a full, wrapped roll of toilet paper. I stopped, looked around, and finally reached out and kicked it away before deciding that it wasn't any danger.

I still react that way to parcels, packages, suitcases, and other things that are left unattended. And I am certainly not alone in that behaviour.

 

[DebbieB]

When I was at MCO last month, I saw something strange. We went through security and were waiting for the train out to the gates. There were 2 TSA guards on the platform. They waited until the inbound train cleared out and then one had a key to open the doors on the outbound side. This was before the Christmas incident.

 

[bavaria]

Until 11 September 2001, the Air India bombing was the single deadliest terrorist attack involving aircraft. It remains to this day the largest mass murder in Canadian history. This act was taken responsibility by Babbar Khalsa known as being a hardcore terrorist group which was and still is banned in Canada, United States, United Kingdom, Germany, and India in 1985

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terrorism_in_India#Air_India_Flight_182

 

[dudspizza]

wow, my observation last night at ORD has turned into a very deep, interesting conversation..........

Duds

 

[bavaria]

Well there is a deep groove in my tongue. Now I am going to have to send people emails to get it out of my system!

 

[debster812]

OK--who wants to take bets on whether or not DS will be subject to this extra, extra screening? He's always the one who gets dinged 'additional' security. We actually went a few weeks ago and applied for his passport, just in case. So we'll see what happens with him.

Oh, and FYI, for anyone traveling for President's Week, the debsters will be flying BOS to RSW on 2/10 and from RSW to BOS on 2/19, so you can be sure there will be snow one of those days, so those are the days to avoid.

 

[seashoreCM]

Very shortly after "9/11" they had random gate screening.

>>> unwrapped roll of toilet paper
I would have picked it up and pilfered it. Or if time permitted, found some place where it would be returned to stock.

When touring in some countries, including China, you are advised to bring toilet paper with you.

 

[byrd328]

They were doing this on my flight in Sept from Philly to MCO. They instructed everyone to have their photo id and gate pass out. They would randomly pull people aside for extra screening. They must of had about 20 agents at this one gate. I thought it was overkill, but I was impressed and didnt mind. Anyone who thought about doing something on that flight might have changed their mind, I guess that's what their presence is designed to do.

The security is only as good as the agent..and yes there are slackers in any job, but I do think most agents take their job seriously..