TSA process ...things that make you go hmmm....

[CoastRange57]

Traveled to the Phoenix area a couple weeks ago via Redmond. In the line at Redmond getting screened and I was picked out for the wipe down thing. Always a bit wary of this, I had discharged a firearm the previous day out on the high desert, cleaned the guns down and 2 showers later, but had packed a couple guns away in the safe that morning. The TSA guy was very friendly and professional. Saw three other guys get the same.

Fast forward 7 days later 0600 at PHX coming back, I get pulled out for a wipe again. Looked around and my wife says they are going to get that guy there too. younger guy, 30, camo hat, camo back pack clean cut kid. Spot on they pull him out of this group of 30 something males.

He was on the ride back to Redmond and I asked him if he had purchased a gun in the last 5 years, and he had, as I had. He also had a CHL, but so does my wife and she was not wiped.

Things that make you go hmmmm

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[Redcap]

Traveled to the Phoenix area a couple weeks ago via Redmond. In the line at Redmond getting screened and I was picked out for the wipe down thing. Always a bit wary of this, I had discharged a firearm the previous day out on the high desert, cleaned the guns down and 2 showers later, but had packed a couple guns away in the safe that morning. The TSA guy was very friendly and professional. Saw three other guys get the same.

Fast forward 7 days later 0600 at PHX coming back, I get pulled out for a wipe again. Looked around and my wife says they are going to get that guy there too. younger guy, 30, camo hat, camo back pack clean cut kid. Spot on they pull him out of this group of 30 something males.

He was on the ride back to Redmond and I asked him if he had purchased a gun in the last 5 years, and he had, as I had. He also had a CHL, but so does my wife and she was not wiped.

Things that make you go hmmmm

Makes me feel very fortunate that I never have to fly, I absolutely will not submit to bullbubblegum like that.

 

[Stomper]

A couple years back we flew to Vegas and I got sidelined to have my hands wiped. I too, was shooting and cleaning guns the day before. It's no coincidence, those explosive residue sniffers are sensitive.

 

[308]

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[Arleyg]

TSA is a waste of taxpayers money!! Besides they're a pain in the a$$ and have a holier than thou attitude!!

 

[P7M13]

CoastRange, it must have been your long beard and your wife's burka. I'm surprised it happened at Sky Harbor. I used to take comfort in the regular PSA on the airport bus on how to transport firearms. They got rid of that ~5 years ago.
I've had my bags and my hands swabbed too many times to count. If I've been reloading, I tell them, "I was reloading ammunition yesterday." On almost every trip, I have a "TSA has inspected this bag" inside my checked luggage - too much stuff in there that looks like bomb parts.
Once I had a box of Berger 338 VLD Hunters in my backpack. They made me open it, and dump all of them out into a tray because "the X-Ray couldn't see through them." Well, duh! The agent actually rolled his eyes as he said this to me and then apologized.
I have also left, unwittingly, in my pack and gotten past screening my Kershaw 5" folder, my Leatherman, and a Klein lineman's knife (not all at the same time).

 

[Sgt Nambu]

TSA is a waste of taxpayers money!! Besides they're a pain in the a$$ and have a holier than thou attitude!!

Yes they do, and that attitude is hard to understand given that the stupid....er....fellows couldn't hold a job at McDonalds.

 

[Ralgha]

The explosive residue wipe is actually one of the less useless things they do. The randomness, or lack thereof, of their selection to do the wipe on is retarded, but the act itself is kinda useful. Compare that with the liquid rule, which is completely useless and only exists to support the security theater that TSA is.

I'm going to bite my tongue before I really get started. I can rant all day about the TSA.

 

[ZA_Survivalist]

The day before my ex and I were to fly to California I went shooting, then came home and cleaned my firearms. After I had cleaned my firearms I had just wiped my hands off (but didnt wash them) I gave my ex a little love spank on her booty as she walked through our dining (gun cleaning) room.. Well the next day when we went through PDX guess who got a special wipe down, yep my ex and it certainly was her booty that set off the detectors.. I knew exactly why it went off when it did.. I had TONS of GSR on my hands when I touched her booty.

Surprisingly I got a clean pass.

 

[soberups]

As I type this, I am sitting in a hotel room in Columbus Georgia, getting ready to fly back to Portland in a few hours.
We had to fly out here Thursday morning on short notice due to a death in the wife's family. I had intended to bring my concealed carry piece and check it in my luggage since my Utah non-resident permit is valid here and in Alabama. We wound up having issues getting to PDX on time, so I opted at the last minute to leave the gun locked in my car rather than risk getting held up by TSA and missing our flight. I really hate being over a thousand miles from home and unarmed, but fortunately we have had no issues. I wish they had lockers at PDX so that a person would not face the prospect of having to ride the shuttle bus back to long term parking in order to leave a gun behind that TSA wont allow in luggage. I havent flown in over 30 years and was simply intimidated by the process and unwilling to risk missing our flight due to some overzealous TSA agent.

 

[Ralgha]

One other thing, there aren't any residue detectors aside from the wipe test. You get selected for the wipe based on "random" selection, or procedurally if your set off one of the machines, but none of them are looking for explosive residue aside from the wipe tester.

The metal detector is just that. The body scanner is looking at material densities, and the x-ray that your bags go through is similar. If you cause an alarm on any of these, their procedure may be to then use the swabs to look for residue, but it's not because something already got a sniff of it.

They used to have "puffer" machines that did sniff for explosives over your whole body, but they ditched all of those a few years ago due to reliability issues.

 

[PaulB47]

TSA is just "security theatre", one more indignity people have to put up with at end of empire. I no longer fly because I object to being treated like cattle.

 

[decklin]

One other thing, there aren't any residue detectors aside from the wipe test. You get selected for the wipe based on "random" selection, or procedurally if your set off one of the machines, but none of them are looking for explosive residue aside from the wipe tester.

The metal detector is just that. The body scanner is looking at material densities, and the x-ray that your bags go through is similar. If you cause an alarm on any of these, their procedure may be to then use the swabs to look for residue, but it's not because something already got a sniff of it.

They used to have "puffer" machines that did sniff for explosives over your whole body, but they ditched all of those a few years ago due to reliability issues.

You just said everything I was about to say, too funny.
Those sniffers are a joke. We had some of the portable ones in Iraq. We tested them on conventional combat explosives as well as HME. The results of the test were inconclusive at best.

When I was still active duty I would need to fly in uniform from time to time. If I wasn't specifically under the instruction to wear my uniform I always wore civies. In any case I was exempt from taking off my boots but not my belt. One day I forgot to remove my belt and my dog tags which were attached to a belt loop and in my back pocket. The metal detector didn't go off. That's when I realized it never went off when I went through with my boots.
Issued boots have metal shanks. Issued belts have metal buckles, dog tags obviously are metal. A lot of combat arms soldiers sharpen one edge of their dog tags in case they were captured. They were razor sharp.
At that point I wondered if they were deactivating the metal detector while I went though but that didn't seem likely. About a year later I was on leave, in civies, issued belt, dog tags in back pocket. Purposely left the belt and dog tags on. The detector didn't work. Unreal.
Since then I've had a chance to see "behind the curtain" at their body scanners. It's simply backscatter. And they don't know how to read it. I went through with my dog tags in my pocket and they didn't say a word. I know they could see them.
But they were all over my leg brace. TSA douche grabbed my leg and started twisting it and jamming his hand under the brace itself. Tried to go in my shoe too. I jerked my leg away and asked what he would do if I laid hands on him in that manner. Then I told him to show respect.
Then there was the time my buddy and I were coming back from training and the TSA wouldn't let my buddy bring an empty AR mag in his carry on. TSA said it was a weapon.
My buddy laughed and said, "I am a professional soldier. I'll give you money if you can show me how to use that as a weapon."
TSA wouldn't budge. So my buddy crushed the mag and put it in the trash can. The TSA looked shocked. My buddy wasn't an idiot. He new that kid was just trying to get a free mag.
Then there's the time my company was deploying to Iraq for the second time. The TSA dude stood in front of about 50 soldiers and said, "if any of you have nail clippers save us some time and break off the file. It can be used as a weapon and can't go on the plane."
50 guys just stared. We're all wearing m4's, a few m9's, and a lot of KBAR's and other fixed blades.
I'm telling you guys they are just unreal. I'll bet a lot of you guys have got some stories too.

 

[clearconscience]

They are probably taught/told to ignore the people of middle eastern decent and told to go after the timothy mcveigh types.

Were the terrorist in this country. Especially to those federal mall ninjas.

I worked at PDX as a screener pre TSA and the only time I would ask for a bag check is when I saw a dildo in the baggage on the xray machine.

Amazing how often those come through.
I got a kick out of seeing the faces of the agent who found it and the passengers.

 

[Brutus57]

Now Ya'll know why one of my bros, a retired field grade military officer, quit TSA within just a couple of years of 9/11. He said he couldn't believe what was going on and how stupid some of his coworkers were. Coming back from Reno two years back I got pulled because I had a Lancer 20 rounder in my carry on. (I actually had just bought it, it was still in the brown paper bag, OEM packaging and with receipt.) They pulled me aside, asked me what it was and I told them it was a "magazine". Well, they finally sent it and me over to the supe, who was maybe 10 years older than me, nice gray haired gentleman. He examined if for about 5 seconds, and waved me through, wishing me a good flight.

I try not to fly as well if I can help it.

Brutus Out

 

[etrain16]

I get stopped and 'swiped' every time I fly - I wear an insulin pump, and since it can't be easily removed in public, they allow it to remain connected, so long as I do the swipe - which they run over the pump too. I've come to expect it now, so it doesn't bug me too much.

On one of the last trips, I got the usual swipe and before they got the results back, I got pulled aside and told to stand in a little square on the ground and stay there until they called me. As I waited, I started to wonder if handling a gun recently might have had something to do with it. Finally they pull me forward and put my pack in front of me and ask me what I have inside that shouldn't be there. Nothing I could think of. So they did their search and found the dangerous contraband - an unopened bottle of Starbuck's Iced Coffee we were given at a class the day before. It had sunk down in the pack and I forgot it was there. He told me I could drink it right there - I just told him to take it.

But, at least the flight was safe - knowing such a dangerous glass bottle filled with a sweet caffeinated beverage, was stopped before it could get on the plane

 

[CoastRange57]

A lot of combat arms soldiers sharpen one edge of their dog tags in case they were captured. They were razor sharp.

Nam vet buddy told me about this trick. Back in the pre 9 /11 days I was a partner in a consulting company that did turn arounds on troubled construction business's. I was flying 4 to 8 trips a month. I carried my normal pocket clip 3 inch knife all the time. Post 9 / 11 that became impossible. Back in those days I had a Palm Pilot with the stylus to use. Doing my expense report with it, I looked at the flimsy stylus and thought that I could adapt something along that line to function as a weapon.

One of my previous jobs was a product manager for a major commercial turf equipment manufacturer. I had access to some very hard polycarbonate materials that I fashioned a "stylus" out of, and then I made a handle to "support" my computer on the tray tables. Threaded both ends and I had a very nice 6 inch shank. I carried that set up on over 400 commercial flights over the next 2 years. Never had the two pieces in the same vicinity but never did anybody figure it out. Not a really heavy duty weapon, but that same Nam vet buddy showed me how to apply it with lethal effect.

 

[rick benjamin]

I like tsa. I like to go through the line. I especially like to meet them eye to eye with a smile.
Most of them decline the challenge.
A few are just like me. I can read them.
I bring my CPAP. Supposed to take it out and screen it separately. I don't.
They chase after and scold me "You know better"!
I plant a little pocket knife in my shaving kit for them to find.
If they find it, I complement them.

Last time, PDX to PHX, My wife was waved past all security.
I got swabbed for residue. "Am I or am I not?" Guy grinned and waved me on.

 

[clearconscience]

When I worked there I did it as a second job for some extra money.
The people I worked with were ghetto temp agency rejects.

One of our suprs confiscated some pepper spray and accidentally sprayed it at the security gates. They had to shut down and clear the area. They didn't even fire him.

Back then your safety was protected by some idiot making $7.30/hr.

We used to wait for the aholes to come through and set of the metal detector manually.
If you touch or gently push the side of them when someone is walking through it will go off.

Forgive me, I was 18 years old at the time.

 

[Capn Jack]

As a walking junk yard...I just live with it.

Amazing, the number of times I haven't gotten a peep out of the detectors. Other times you would think I was public enemy #1.