The Personalized TSA Experience

Over at MArooned there’s a report from a reader (blogger? I don’t read’em all so could be) about his experience going through the TSA security lines.

MrsSCI-FI announced that she has a medical implant, and must be scanned by hand. Not “Maybe.” Not “Scan her Anyway.” Not “Subject to TSA override.”  Trail Boss, however, knew better. “We get passengers with implants all the time. Just go through.” Not a smiling, friendly comment; this was a variation on “Move your ass, you’re holding up my line.”She repeated her request for a pat-down, and Trail Boss repeated that she is going through the nudie-scanner.  At about the start of the third round of this, I held up my “STOP” hand and repeated what the Mrs had said. Wife, however, was having no problems at this point: she just flat wasn’t going through, and the Trail Boss had had enough. He called for a female guard, and told my wife to stand to the side and wait………Doubling-down on trouble, I stated flatly: “Pat down. No scanner.” Trail Boss directed me to the “Get out of my way” line next to my wife, and called for a male guard…..It’s worth pointing out the following: after my wife had been paired off with her designated TSA groper, I saw a family get waved through with no scan. At least five people, one of them an infant, were waved past us all. No magnetometer, no nudie-scanner, no pat-down. I’m not even certain their carry-ons were x-rayed. I pressed the Trail Boss for an explanation: “Why are they just walking through?”

The answer was a load of crap: “We need to relieve congestion.”

So, what happened to the option to opt out for a pat down?  Apparently thats a “bad thing” as far as the TSA is concerned, if you read the rest of the post you’ll discover that even the patdown was done rudely.  And yet, at the same time, a family is passed by with no scanning whatsoever??  SRSLY??  And my family wonders why I have no wish to fly any more!

I hope Texas kicks their butt!!

2 thoughts on “The Personalized TSA Experience”

  1. A big enough emergency might get me on a plane, my grandparents live in TX for example and getting enough time off to drive to their funeral and back would be hard and likely result in my flying, but thats about what it would take these days.

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