Announcement

Collapse
No announcement yet.

The TSA (Post your bad Experience by the Washington Post)

Collapse
X
 
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts

  • The TSA (Post your bad Experience by the Washington Post)

    I have read some of these stories. WOW. There are some bad experiences people have had.. I am glad I don't travel much..

    Link if you are interested in reading about peoples complaints with TSA and their Patdowns...

    Link:
    http://views.washingtonpost.com/post...?hpid=talkbox1

  • #2
    Don't have one. I travel a fair bit - not as much as some, but plenty - and I've never had an issue. I've been selected for special screening a couple of time and no big deal.

    I don't mind the full body scanners either. If some dude gets his jollies looking at my digitized dingaling, not my problem.
    Awesomeness now has a name. Let me introduce myself.

    Comment


    • #3
      I travel a lot. Never had a bad experience. Know what you are doing, be prepared, and you walk through in a breeze. It's easy.

      Comment


      • #4
        I travel a fair amount and have been selected a couple of times and have never had a bad expereince or problem.
        PLesa excuse the tpyos.

        Comment


        • #5
          Same. I have never had issues with TSA. I seem to get pulled out quite a bit for "random" checks too. I blame it on my last name. But it's always been quite painless.
          "Nobody listens to Turtle."
          -Turtle
          sigpic

          Comment


          • #6
            Originally posted by Surfah View Post
            Same. I have never had issues with TSA. I seem to get pulled out quite a bit for "random" checks too. I blame it on my last name. But it's always been quite painless.
            I have been pulled aside many times. Never have I been through a screen where a thorough patdown (the probe the testicle kind) has taken place.. Of course, I don't fly much anymore and the last flight I took was in July.

            Comment


            • #7
              Originally posted by Coach McGuirk View Post
              I travel a lot. Never had a bad experience. Know what you are doing, be prepared, and you walk through in a breeze. It's easy.
              Bingo. I'm sure there are isolated incidents, but my experience is that the people who have crappy experiences are the ones who are unprepared and then are belligerent and rude about it.
              Awesomeness now has a name. Let me introduce myself.

              Comment


              • #8
                Originally posted by nikuman View Post
                If some dude gets his jollies looking at my digitized dingaling, not my problem.
                Te Occidere Possunt Sed Te Edere Non Possunt Nefas Est.

                Comment


                • #9
                  I used to travel quite a bit (at least once a month but oftentimes more) and I've never, ever been pulled out for further investigation. I've always gone through the metal detector and gone on with my travels.

                  I did travel a couple times with a friend from Pakistan. He was pulled out of line every single time (at least 4 times that I remember). It sucked b/c I always had to wait for TSA to do their thing, but really it was just a minor inconvenience.

                  I did once have a really good experience. I had just moved to Texas and had to travel to Wisconsin for work. I only had my temporary TX drivers license for ID and had no other identification available to me at the time. I flew through the airport in TX just fine but on the return trip the Milwaukee airport wouldn't accept my temp ID. I protested and said it was the only ID I had. The ID lady talked to her supervisor and they decided to let me through without a pat down or any further investigation.
                  "Discipleship is not a spectator sport. We cannot expect to experience the blessing of faith by standing inactive on the sidelines any more than we can experience the benefits of health by sitting on a sofa watching sporting events on television and giving advice to the athletes. And yet for some, “spectator discipleship” is a preferred if not primary way of worshipping." -Pres. Uchtdorf

                  Comment


                  • #10
                    When did the new guidelines start? I haven't flown in the states since June, and didn't have to deal with any of the new stuff.

                    I'm pretty shocked that the Republicans aren't making more of a stink about this stuff. Is this sort of privacy invasion and loss of civil rights justifiable for the slight possibility that it's making somebody a little safer?

                    I remember hearing a comedian quip after the stupid response to the shoe bomber that he fears what our government will do if somebody makes an underwear bomb. I guess he was right to fear.

                    Comment


                    • #11
                      I have been pulled aside for special screening a few times, but not after the new regs started. Before it involved a general pat down (not touching any special areas) and TSA opening my carry on luggage. Now, however, the choice is between a virtual strip search or a sexual assault (I think I got that from a quote by someone at the ACLU). That choice seems ridiculous to me. All of a sudden I'm subject to the same searches a criminal is just because I bought a plane ticket?
                      Not that, sickos.

                      Comment


                      • #12
                        My brother, the airline pilot, said some of his coworkers (some pilots and cabin stewards in particular) demand the pat-down.

                        Then they grind and moan during the 'enhanced search', to embarrass the hell out of the TSA agent. (The more flaming the cabin steward, the more effective the embarrassment?)

                        One of these days they will do that to the wrong guy and get shot.

                        Comment


                        • #13
                          TSA (presumably) stole my Glock 19. I declared it, stowed it, then TSA put a big freaking sticker on my bag to indicate to all interested parties that the unlocked bag contained a pistol. Sure enough, I show up in Montana, excited to pop some caps in a state with some sensible gun laws, and the pistol is no place to be found. Thank goodness the gun was declared, because Delta ended up paying for it (though I never replaced it).

                          Comment


                          • #14
                            The Christmas after 9/11 we were chosen for a full luggage search in the Columbus airport. The TSA agent meticulously went through every piece of clothing we had packed and unceremoniously repacking it on our behalf (IIRC, we weren't allowed to touch it after his inspection). As it were, my wife's sister had gone through the temple during the visit so we were all lugging along our temple gear. He was waving around the clothing and commenting on it's peculiarity. It got really awkward when he was looking at garments, asking if this was really our underwear. I kind of lost my temper (it was 5:30 in the morning) and almost got kicked off the flight. It was a pretty humiliating experience. I hate the TSA.

                            Comment


                            • #15
                              I pretty much try to avoid flying as much as possible anymore mainly because of the hassle and harassment of TSA. The TSA (and entire department of homeland security for that matter) is worthless, IMHO. If the pilots of the jets involved with the 9/11 had sidearms I believe it would have never happened (handguns in nearly every scenario I can think of beats box cutters). Airlines should be in charge of their own security. I suspect if this were the case then the insurance companies that insure airlines would do more than just put up a "security theater" to try to make people feel better about flying. Considering how much we have spent on catching relatively a few people I think TSA actually stands for Taxes Spent Absurdly.

                              TSA: Taxes Spent Absurdly

                              By BECKY AKERS

                              The Transportation Security Administration bilks taxpayers and inconveniences passengers while not delivering safer air travel.


                              HOW DO YOU TURN AN INDUSTRY THAT costs $700 million annually into one that eats $6 billion? Nationalize it, as Congress did airport screening after Sept. 11, 2001.

                              Even before the groping of passengers and the rifling of their belongings became a federal duty, aviation security was never an honest solution to a legitimate problem. Federal and local governments long controlled most aspects of aviation safety, from municipalities that policed the airports they owned to the Federal Aviation Administration's air-traffic control system. When political protestors began hijacking planes in the 1960s, Uncle Sam elbowed his way into security, too. Airlines didn't hire experts to invent checkpoints; the Feds imposed them. Though private employees staffed the federally mandated metal detectors, the FAA dictated all procedures and policies, whether they involved wanding passengers or determining which items screeners had to confiscate from them.

                              The Aviation and Transportation Security Act of 2001 brought that control of security into the open. In effect, it fired 25,000 non-unionized, private screeners and established the Transportation Security Administration. Congressional Democrats indebted to organized labor had long hoped to nationalize airport screening; Sept. 11 gave them a reason.

                              Foisting the TSA on us protected politicians of both parties far more than it did passengers. "After 9/11," said the former chairman of the Homeland Security Committee, Christopher Cox (R-Calif.), "we had to show how committed we were by spending hugely greater amounts of money than ever before, as rapidly as possible."

                              The TSA's nearly 50,000 screeners have delayed, frustrated and harassed passengers at airport checkpoints from Maine to Hawaii. What they haven't done after eight years and $48 billion is catch a single terrorist. So the agency justifies its existence by protecting us from each other, from little kids and expectant mothers, embarrassed vacationers and congressmen. One tourist claimed the sex toy that screeners fished from his luggage was a bomb rather than explain it in front of his family, while Democratic Representative John Lewis (D- Ga.) and the late Senator Ted Kennedy (D-Mass.) so menaced America that the TSA added their names to its No-Fly List. This lunacy ruins lives: The embarrassed tourist and other Americans without criminal records or motives have gone to jail.

                              Unabashed, the TSA wastes our taxes on things like a lavish headquarters whose artwork and plants alone cost $500,000 -- to say nothing of its seven kitchens with Sub-Zero refrigerators. Indeed, "Irregularities in the Development of the Transportation Security Operations Center" merited their own 68-page report from an Inspector General.

                              The TSA's response? Assistant Secretary David Stone huffed that since the attacks on Sept. 11 cost Americans over $100 billion and took thousands of lives, every dollar the agency spends "in an era of threatened terrorism" is worth it.

                              Taxpayers might disagree. While some Americans fought a Global War on Terror, those at the TSA celebrated its second anniversary with a $500,000 party. The agency spent $81,000 for employee award plaques, including a "lifetime achievement" award for one worker with the two-year-old bureaucracy.

                              More expensive and more infuriating are the geewhiz contraptions that don't work: Puffer machines at $160,000 a pop were supposed to detect residues of explosives by blowing air at passengers and dislodging particles for analysis. But the dirt and jet exhaust rampant in any airport soon sidelined these gizmos -- something the TSA might have considered or tested before buying 200 of them.

                              The CTX machines it bought fared no better. Priced from $800,000 to $1.5 million each, they supposedly detect bombs in baggage by analyzing the contents' density. Unfortunately, they're "chemically blind," as the manufacturer of a rival technology put it: They can't differentiate peanut butter, fruitcake and other foods from explosives of similar density. So many false alarms resulted that screeners resorted to asking passengers what they had packed. Apparently, an agency that believes Listerine and Crest turn explosive at 30,000 feet also believes terrorists answer questions honestly.

                              One thing our money hasn't bought is safety. The TSA's elaborate checkpoint charade tries to fool us into feeling secure. But screeners typically fail to find 60%, 75% and even 90% of the weapons undercover investigators smuggle past them.

                              Those scores don't improve even if screeners cheat. When a bureaucrat at the TSA's headquarters alerted Federal Security Directors at airports about these pop quizzes, he described the investigators' appearance and divulged the locations of their simulated weapons. Screeners still frequently missed the contraband.

                              Before Sept. 11, there was no TSA. Can we really credit the agency with stopping any terrorists in the past eight years?

                              Whether weighed against history, common sense, or economics, the conclusion remains the same: The TSA is another terrorist victory. It's time we sent this boondoggle of a bureaucracy packing.
                              "If there is one thing I am, it's always right." -Ted Nugent.
                              "I honestly believe saying someone is a smart lawyer is damning with faint praise. The smartest people become engineers and scientists." -SU.
                              "Yet I still see wisdom in that which Uncle Ted posts." -creek.
                              GIVE 'EM HELL, BRIGHAM!

                              Comment

                              Working...
                              X