At the Pittsburgh airport the guy at the conveyer belt for the luggage scanner told me to leave my shoes on, as he did for the person before me.
When we got to the body scanner the guy there told me to take my shoes off and put them on the luggage belt. Person before me walked right through with their shoes on.
One TSA agent sees me removing my lacrosse ball from my bag. He says “no that can stay in there”. I say no your scanners always stop me because of it. He replies “you will be fine” and I put it through in my luggage. I go through security and sure enough my bag is stopped. After they pull it out, swab it down like it’s contraband, they say I can go I say no, I’d like a supervisor. I ask the supervisor to bring the other agent over that told me it would be ok. Supervisor immediately sees the problem and begins to tell me ways to avoid the security theater including ignoring the agents and removing things that are constantly flagged. It makes both of our lives easier he said. Just made me wonder what the point of all of this was.
In the end he told me avoid lines with multiple TSA agents at a single station since they are in training and will stop almost everything. I smile, thank him for giving away all of their opsec and walk away shaking my head. It’s all a joke.
Pittsburgh barely cares about belts and shoes now. Little Rock is pretty lax too. Honestly, one shoe bomber didn't ever inspire copycats (because it was a dumb plot)
I disagree. They got none of the political change they were seeking. Quite the opposite really since it only led to more US involvement in the Middle East.
No joke, the main reason I got TSA PreCheck was so I didn't have to take my shoes off. All the other benefits were just nice extra perks. It was a preposterous policy and I'm glad it's gone.
Was the shoe removal policy really 2006? I remember being a teenager in 2004 and taking a flight, where I had to remove my shoes, and feeling like the terrorists won.
I got into this debate with someone else. That was the Flight that prompted the policy but TSA itself wasn't fully implemented for another 3-6 years because it worked at the speed of bureaucracy and security theater and equipment upgrades. There were partial rollouts, some airports were way faster than others at things like "take off your shoes and send them through the luggage scanner". But some of that wasn't even under the banner of TSA.
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When we got to the body scanner the guy there told me to take my shoes off and put them on the luggage belt. Person before me walked right through with their shoes on.
Glad to see this Security Theater end.
In the end he told me avoid lines with multiple TSA agents at a single station since they are in training and will stop almost everything. I smile, thank him for giving away all of their opsec and walk away shaking my head. It’s all a joke.
I regularly set off the scanner for no apparent reason and get pulled aside to have a Wand run over me, which finds nothing.
On international travel I get frisked every time I have to show my passport.
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https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Airlines_Flight_63_...
TSA was a weird rollout.
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