A New Tack for Airport Screening: Behave Yourself!!!

[Rainscents]

http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1195330,00.html

In the four years since it was created, the Transportation Security Administration has been trying — and often failing — to find dangerous things that passengers might bring onto an aircraft. Now the TSA is aiming to become less obsessed with scissors and cigarette lighters and focusing more on passenger behavior. Government sources tell TIME that the agency will announce in the next few weeks that it will introduce a race-neutral profiling program at the country's busiest airports, among them New York's John F. Kennedy, Los Angeles International and Chicago's O'Hare. The program has an awkward title, Screening Passengers by Observation Techniques, but a clever acronym, SPOT. It has been tested over the last three years at several airports in the northeast, including Boston's Logan Airport, where two of the 9/11 hijacking teams launched their operations... More

[The_Casual_Observer]

1. More idiotic 9/11 hysteria.

[Union Thug]

4. I totally agree...

I travel often for my job and I can't even begin to explain how sick of this bullshit I am.

Home of the free because of the brave? My ass. A nation of frightened sheep is more like it, lashing out at anything that moves.

[SammyWinstonJack]

6. Land of the Free Home of the Brave?

What a crock!

[Massacure]

12. Void where prohibited. Expires 9/11/2001.

Oh, wait. The expiration date passed. :(

[SammyWinstonJack]

15. When does the embarrassment stop? We are a Nation of chickenshits

hiding behind our superpower status, invading innocent Countries, supposedly spreading Democracy, while giving up our own freedoms and hiding under our beds. Sickening! And those of us who do NOT condone these actions, are marginalized and ridiculed and called traitors! :banghead:

[The_Casual_Observer]

7. What really pisses me is when they harass 80 year old ladies

It's mindless punitive bullshit foisted off on a docile frightened populace.

[Clovis Sangrail]

2. oh boy!

more justification to fuck with people who look different

[liberal N proud]

3. race-neutral profiling? WTF?

What are they going to profile?
:wtf:

[Rainscents]

5. I know... sounds like to me, they can pick and choose who they

want to harass.:crazy:

[Marie26]

17. anyone they feel like, I guess. nt

[Kutjara]

8. So basically, they're going to pick out...

...anyone who's sick and tired of being pushed around by the self-important Gauleiters who work the passport desks and security checkpoints at airports and tell them to mind their own fucking business.

If I hear one more of these clowns bellowing about small mistakes on the oh-so-precious yet barely coherent immigration forms, or shouting at people for standing in the 'wrong' place while waiting for relatives to finish their mini-interrogations, or generally behaving like the United States is their own personal fiefdom, I'm likely to behave in a manner that will get me SPOTted.

We really need to think hard as a society about the wisdom of giving small people uniforms and guns. It never turns out well.

[lapfog_1]

9. Real terrorists are going to be the best behaved

and dressed respectably and doing nothing to garner attention from anyone.

This is yet another exercise in "Everything BUT Security" in the name of security.

Stupid morans.

[Marie26]

10. Has anyone here been put on the

"selectee" list? Does anyone know what the criteria is for receiving this distinction? (I was a TSA "selectee" last time I flew.)

[Rainscents]

11. I'll be flying in Aug (my daughter is getting married)

can you explain what "selectee" mean and what kind of shit they ask?

[Marie26]

14. There's a whole different process

Well, you get a big old "S" on your boarding pass & have to go through a seperate screening procedure. I was stopped by a TSA officer as I headed to load my suitcase & had to take it to a separate machine instead that took about 5 minutes to send the suitcase back into cargo. (I had to wait until the machine was done). Then, instead of the normal metal detectors most people go through, I had to head through a seperate "ionic screener" thing. It looks like a telephone booth & when you step into it, it sends out puffs of air at you from all directions. The worst part was that I had my cat, & they made me take the cat out of the carrier & carry her through the ionic screener too! She was so jumpy that I was afraid she'd dart out of my arms. Then, they wouldn't let me step out of the screener because I didn't have the S boarding pass in my hand (it was in my purse), & wouldn't let me go to my purse, or the carrier, myself. A TSA officer fished the pass out & allowed me to put the cat back in her carrier. Then, I (& other selectees) sat down in a line of chairs to the side as TSA went through all of my bags w/a wand of some kind (explosive detector?); the cat was scanned too. Finally, I was allowed to leave, but the whole process took about 20 minutes compared to the 3 minute screening most passengers go through. And the worst part is that no one will tell you why you were chosen for this honor. I was just told I was "selected by the airline's computer."

I googled this a little, & it looks like the "selectee" list is one step lower than the actual "no-fly list". So, if you're flagged "no-flay", you can't fly at all, but if you're a "selectee", they'll make you take special security measures to fly. I thought at first it was random, but now I think it is based on the databases the airlines have. I have no idea why I'd be flagged, being a good law-abiding citizen. Maybe it's just cause it was a one-way ticket? I dunno. If you're flying, I'd recommend getting there about 30 minutes before you usually would, just in case. They won't let you on the plane anyway unless you arrive 45 minutes in advance, but the "selectee" screening takes so long that I could see some people missing their flight if they try to cut it close. I just felt like the TSA officers were very bullying & intimidating & herded us around like a group of cattle or something. As I walked out of there, I felt a little burst of relief, like I'd escaped Communist China or something. It's just no fun at all to fly anymore.

[Rainscents]

18. Thanks for explaining this!

Since 9/11, I don't care to fly because what you described. This time, I have no chose to fly because of my daughter's wedding. I changed flight schedule few days after I originally purchased the tickets (it didn't work out with my families schedule), I wonder they will flag me now because of this.
I did finally got around and re-newed my passport even thou, my flight is not out of country flight.

[NorthernSpy]

13. a dose of beta-blocker medication can suppress physical manifestations...

... of nervousness. Performers with take them to eliminate the shaky hands and voice changes that come with stage fright.

And these medications are not hard to come by, either.

I suspect that this program will help to gum up the works by directing scrutiny toward and catching newbie drug mules and other typically nervous, low-level offenders -- as well as non-offenders who suffer from agoraphobia or akathisia, or whatever. But those who make a serious effort not to be caught by SPOT probably won't be. Which could be a very bad thing, actually.


:think:

[Marie26]

16. And anyone w/flying phobias

will now be sent through a seperate, more intense, security screening? That's ridiculous. This policy is all wrong. The 9/11 terrorists sat quietly at the airport & used boxcutter knives to take over the plane. So, now we'll just flag people who are being loud & allow box-cutter knives again - and this is supposed to prevent another 9/11? :crazy: :crazy:

[Justice Is Comin]

19. Yeah

don't have that look like you're going to blow up a plane look.x(