Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2020/09/10/brutally-honest-airport-se.html
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We didn’t make the rules. Our “job” is to enforce them because we won’t or can’t get a real job and are only qualified to staff security theater paid for by your taxes.
FTFT
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I suspect most of us here already know these “secrets” and do these common-sense things as a matter of course. The delays are caused by the much larger number of first-timers and idiots the rest of us end up rolling our eyes about as we wait at the security scan.
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Long lines at airports…now that’s some good nostalgia.
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After Kabuki, Security is my favorite theater.
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oh wow, i remember when the world looked like this, and we obsessed with this sort of thing. wild. feels like so long ago.
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Option 3: If the security people wouldn’t make such a theatre of (pretending to be) scanning everyone and going nuts with every beep or hazy image on a machine that they know doesn’t work, that queue would dissolve immediately as well.
Just let 90% of the people walk through casually, and focus on a random 10% of the people and scan them correctly (make it a lottery!). Arguably, 90% of smuggled weapons would go undetected, but considering their track record, that is actually an improvement…
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So, if they failed to discover contraband 95% of the time, where was the surge in violent acts? Or was that failure just for the items designed and used in the tests? Is there really that much stuff getting on to planes?
I am sure there is a lot of things they consider contraband getting on planes. No, it doesn’t really matter. Pocket knives 3" and under used to be allowed, as well as scissors, nail clippers, etc. and no one cared. It was never an issue until that one time.
One time I had an issue coming back from a flight in Canada because my cigar punch LOOKED like a bullet. But my pocket knife was completely ok. Pre 9/11 silliness. Oddly I had flown several times with that cigar punch on my key chain - never an issue.
Its mostly security theater. Of course we should keep actual weapons out of the plane cabin and checked into luggage. But the whole shoe thing and no liquids more than X oz is stupid. Never mind nearly everyone has a Lithium Ion battery pack in their phone or lap top. Puncture that with a metal pen in the bathroom and throw it in the trash they have and you have a chemical fire among kindling that would be hard to put out. Or, you know, they do occasionally spontaneously catch fire.
Fuck the TSA. Bring back sensible check in procedures.
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That video is way too apologetic on behalf of the TSA and the airlines.
In my experience, it’s pretty rare that the slowdown at the checkpoint is caused by passengers being unprepared. There is almost always a line of three to five folks at the scanner who have already done everything they’re supposed to do. The bottleneck is the scanning itself, both of the peeps and the carry-ons.
The solution is more and faster scanners (assuming they’re actually useful) for passengers, and a better x-ray-to-carry-on ratio for their crap.
What would help the most is if people didn’t try to carry-on so much crap. Less stuff in the cabin means fewer things for TSA to x-ray, fewer heavy items falling out of overhead bins, and faster boarding and unboarding. Airports already have a huge amount of infrastructure dedicated to checked baggage, and more and more of it is going underutilized because the airlines decided to charge checked baggage fees. In my ideal universe, checked bags would be free and fees would apply to large or second (and third) carry-ons.
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I think they should try to combine the theatre genres of Security and Musical.
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For torturing people?
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Just saying the song and dance should at least be done by professionals.
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Uh… all my air travel since post-9/11 TSA has required that my wallet, keys, etc., be placed in plastic bins. (At one of the smaller Pennsylvania airports, the bins were large dog food bowls.)
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This sounds like the same guy who did the funnier airplane safety announcement awhile back.
Also, I went through La Guardia in January and the TSA person was perplexed because I only had only a purse and shoes in my bin. (I packed my coat when I got to the airport.) I asked him if I was doing it wrong. Lucky for me he had a sense of humor.
Even if you’re super prepared, it throws them off their game.
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Fuck the TSA, sure, but also fuck the spineless little chickenshithawks that put all this in place immediately after 9/11, in Congress and the White House. There was no “Homeland” “Security” department before 2002. And that name is stupid; I thought so then, and think so now.
Pre 9/11, airport security was done by private contractors. Repubs increased the size and responsibility of the US federal government by introducing the TSA. Just like they did with parts of medicare. Aren’t they supposed to be all about small/no govt? The repubs’ hypocrisy never ends.
BTW, this video? Meh, just so-so. Their previous work was pretty good, though.
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My God that would be both fun and a horror at the same time! The possibilities are endless:
“Only 3.4 oz of liquids, or we sing “Music Man” with middle school musical enthusiasm!”
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That’s true. The Republicans have branded themselves as smaller government, with out actually making the government smaller.
9/11 was awful, but the bipartisan knee jerk reaction was just that.
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I was once very late for a flight from Europe to Australia. The check-in desk was closed, but I found someone from the airline who would check me in. Only with no checked baggage. I quickly crammed a few clothes into my carry-on, and sprinted through security and the rest of the airport. As I tried to board the plane, I was pulled over for ‘extra security questions’. Sir, you didn’t check any luggage - that’s unusual - can you tell us why? Asked by THE VERY SAME PERSON WHO TOLD ME I COULDN’T CHECK ANY LUGGAGE! I thought she was joking, but she was deadly serious. It was weird. But she let me fly. And once I got there, buying clothes with that much jetlag was an experience.
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