All About Pocket Knives

You know the TSA is a Government Jobs Program for the UNEMPLOYABLE.
this latest story and video, has made me so Angry.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/tsa-agents ... ashington/

I think the real people to blame are the lawyers. They caused this nonsense. The TSA management gives the agents zero discretion. The computer dings and the next passenger gets a full pat-down, no matter who that passenger is. This is the answer the great legal minds of our government came up with to prevent discrimination lawsuits. It can't be "profiling" if it is completely random and chosen by a computer program. This, of course, creates an environment where the front line TSA agents are simply mindless robots, specifically selected because they will follow the procedures without question. No thought required, and no thought desired.

We should be ashamed of ourselves for thinking the current system of air travel is the best we can do. Traveling around the world could (and should) be a wonderful experience - yet today it is simply horrible!

Now, isn't that just a pisser!

Ray

Oh how I wish our government would adopt the system Israel uses. We are wasting so much money and human resources trying to be politically correct while failing to protect ourselves. Such a waste!

Does not surprise me. This has been taking place for years. Several years ago my parents had to fly to attend the funeral of my brother-in-law (their son-in-law). Mom was 78 years old at the time, weighed 97 lbs, and was recovering from surgery for a broken hip. She had to use a walker. We arranged with the airline for her to pre-board ahead of the other passengers.

We arrived early, went through security screening as usual and were at the gate in front of the boarding area when they announced pre-boarding for their flight. After giving the agent their boarding passes, they were proceeding to the boarding ramp when a TSA agent pulled her aside for "random additional screening".

They took mom and dad to an adjacent area and patted her down. While they were doing that the rest of the passengers were boarded. So they were among the last passengers to board the flight, thanks to the morons at TSA. This was a Southwest Airlines flight with no pre-assigned seating! Fortunately some very kind and understanding passengers near the door gave their seats to mom and dad so they did not have to try to go down the aisle to the back of the plane.

Ken

"Airport security jobs typically begin at the D pay band, which is $25,518 to $38,277. The promotion potential is the E pay band, which is $29,302 to $44,007. In addition to the base salary for TSA airport jobs, individuals may receive a locality pay, depending on where the job is located."

The entry level pay scale for TSA Agents not being "good money", the job doesn't attract the best and the brightest to start with. Add to that, if they want to continue receiving a paycheck, they have little choice but to follow the rules thought up and laid down by a bunch of idiot political hacks.

In no way do I condone the "patting down" of a 78 year old woman with (or without) a walker but I understand why they're forced to do it and it sure as hell isn't because she has the potential of being a terrorist or hijacker.

I pine for the lost innocence of the 1950s. Those were my golden years.

All three women in that travel group are wheelchair bound. Only the 96 year old got the total pat down.

We are relying on a random selection process to hopefully identify and neutralize terror threats, yet just about every time TSA or Homeland Security conducts tests, the agents miss the threat.

Phil, as laudable and effective as Israel's procedures are, I'm not sure they would work here. For one thing, it relies on racial/religious profiling at all times. It also relies on the inspecting agents observing the demeanor, the eyes and the facial expressions of the passengers. And they are highly trained in that endeavor.

Tantamount in all that is the fact that Israel and all her citizens are totally aware that probably 50% or more of muslims (spell-check insists I capitalize that word. I refuse) traveling on their airlines desire their total destruction and a significant number are willing to do something to accomplish that.

You'll never get the kind of people TSA employs to have that mindset. They are too busy trying to ID something in your luggage they can pilfer for themselves.

Until somebody in charge insists on profiling muslims and the Supreme Court upholds it, we will never have effective screening procedures.

I once stood behind an eight year old Caucasian boy that received a total pat down inspection prior to boarding a flight with his parents and siblings.

Charlie Noyes

Now some of you may have read here that during recent travels I acquired a few pocket knives. For the flight home they were all securely wrapped and placed in my checked bag along with my EDC. My wife and I checked our bags together at Boston Logan airport, at the same time with the same agent who placed baggage claim bar-coded labels on the suitcases and sent them off on the conveyer belt.

We are subsequently going through TSA regular security - shoes off, laptop in a separate bin, pockets emptied and contents placed in tubs. When we get to the walk-through metal detector they pulled my wife off to the side. I go through the standard metal detector, but they take her about three lines over to their super-duper four-wall chamber where you stand on the footpads while it does whatever it does. Meantime I went through the standard detector, and while waiting for all the tubs containing our belongings to come through their X-Ray inspection, I'm putting my belt and shoes on and trying to see what they're doing with my wife.

When she re-joins me we have all our belongings except for her purse, which along with several other items (not ours) after X-Ray have been pulled off the conveyer belt and placed on a table. A TSA agent takes them individually one at a time to a table and shouts out "whose bag is this?" When the owner claims it the agent searches the bag, sometimes removing the contents, while questioning the owner. When he got to my wife's purse we were standing near the table and she stepped forward to claim it. I was told to stand back. He went through the contents of her purse, asked her some questions, then handed at all to her. She put everything back in it. I asked her "what did he say?" He asked her if she had any "sharp objects or weapons". She said no she didn't. "Are you sure?" Yes she is sure. I thought the entire episode was strange.

While unpacking at home I opened my suitcase and found inside it a notice from TSA that they had searched my bag. Then when removing the bar-coded baggage claim tags from the suitcases I saw the claim tags were reversed - the one with my wife's name was on my bag, which contained my knives.

Do you suppose TSA X-rayed the suitcase, saw the knives, searched it, saw her name on the attached tag and then passed word to the screeners to perform a more-thorough-than-usual search? Or am I just being paranoid?

Ken

Not being paranoid at all. Sounds exactly like what happened. Have to protect the public against it's self ya know. I think common sense is an immediate disqualification for employment at TSA. No latitude in that job. Follow the rules lock-step or hit the bricks because they do know best.

The whole thing is political correctness gone crazy.
If you don't profile you are an idiot. It's what can keep you safe.
We all do it even if we don't admit it.

it has been years since I have flown. I remember handing a camera to the lady and she told me to open it up a little, meaning the sliding cover for the lens and switch. At O'hare in Chicago I placed the portable oscilloscope on the ex ray belt. Hand search! Girl asked what is this, and then said I don't need to search it, we see them all the time. What do you do with it? Repair electronic machines. My only sharps issue was at the Social Security building when I had a little Marlboro tool on my car keys. Had to take it out of the building. Yeah right do we really need gun carrying guards at the S.S.?

mrwatch wrote:My only sharps issue was at the Social Security building when I had a little Marlboro tool on my car keys.

They confiscated mine at the Detroit airport. It was a stop on a flight from Newark to Chicago (Northwest Airlines or was that Northworst). This was back when you had to do a second pocket dump at the gate even though you had not been outside the security perimeter.

and

The local County Courthouse wouldn't let me past security with my P-38 can opener. I asked if they were afraid I would open a can of C-Rats while in the courthouse and was that against the law in Winnebago County. They didn't see the humor in that.