This is a guest post from Clint B.
In recent months, Big Sis has stepped up calls for travelers to “stay alert and report suspicious activity”. Earlier this month I discovered that this is indeed very good advice. Staying alert will help you through airport security checkpoints without having to become part of the security theater’s production.
Flying out of BWI, I noticed that the line up to security was directed in such a way that, of the four baggage check lines available, the natural flow was for everyone to go to the line on the far right. Sure enough, the majority of the people in line followed the herd and queued up on the right most station leaving the other three stations with very short lines. There was only one body scanner installed at this checkpoint, and it was installed at, you guessed it, the right most station. I went and got in line at the one on the far left. As I loaded my things onto the belt, I watched and noticed that only people from the right most line were being directed through the scanner but no one from the other three lines were. Of those in the first line, it looked like about 3 in 5 “random” people were begin sent through the scanner.
On my return trip from SFO, I took the train to the airport and disembarked next to the international terminal. After a quick conversation with the guy at the information booth, I decided that it would be quicker to go through security there rather than up closer to my departure gate. As I stood in line waiting for my ID to be “checked”, I observed the configuration of the stations. This time the stations were arranged in pairs with a metal detector and a body scanner placed between each pair to serve both stations. In each case, the body scanner was on the left and the metal detector on the right. I noticed that almost everyone going through the station on the right went through the metal detector without question and almost everyone on going through the station on the left went through the body scanner.
Notice that I said “went through” rather than “sent through”.
I was directed to the line on the left. It appeared that they were just sending every other person to the left to keep the lines even. The left station had a TSA employee at the front, making sure that the luggage was all lined up properly to go through the scanner. Once someone luggage was in, he would direct them to proceed with the simple gesture of an open hand pointing to the right. He didn’t say whether they should go through the body scanner or the metal detector, he just smiled and directed them to the right. Everyone in front of me followed his direction through the nearest opening which was the body scanner.
When it came my turn, I decided to press my luck. He smiled at me and pointed an open hand to the right. So I followed his direction all the way to the far right and walked through the metal detector. The employee working the metal detector waved me through and I walked back over to the left to collect my things from the belt. While doing so, I looked over at the next guy coming through the line. When he got the go ahead to proceed, he recognized the vagueness of the open hand gesture and asked “which one?”. At this point, the TSA gatekeeper gave him a more specific direction sweeping his arm behind him and and pointing through the body scanner. I’m convinced that had the traveler kept his mouth shut and just walked over to the metal detector, he’d have gone through without a problem the same as I.
Stay alert and perhaps you too can avoid the indignity.
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8 Responses to Guest Post: “Stay Alert” is Good Advice
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Hoping you’ll get lucky and someone else’s rights will be abridged instead is really no way to approach this problem.
Just make sure to wear less clothing than the person in front of you, and when he gets sent through the body scanner, hurry up and toss your stuff on the conveyor belt, make eye contact with the person behind the metal detector like “I’m walking through here now” and run for it.
DO NOT FLY!!! EVERY TIME YOU FLY YOU ARE GUILTY OF ALL THE MOLESTATION OF EVERYONE ! IF EVERYONE STOPPED FLYING THIS ISSUE WOULD HAVE TO BE ADDRESSED! WE CAN MAKE THE WORLD STOP. THE WORLD STOPPED THE DAY PRINCESS DIANA DIED AND THE QUEEN RAISED THE FLAG. SHE WOULD NOT HAVE REMAINED SILENT AT THIS AFFRONT TO HUMAN DIGNITY. I CALL ON EVERYONE TO STOP FLYING AND SEND THE ONLY MESSAGE TSA, THE AIRLINES, AND THE GOVERNMENT WILL LISTEN TO.
Please copy and paste my comment above everywhere until the airports are empty. Please, this indignity and harm is already spreading to subways, bus stations, and Walmart stores, and it is just the beginning unless we act now.
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I, too, have noticed that at every airport, you can still choose the line you want to go through and receive the old-style metal detector screening with no AIT machine and no enhanced pat-down procedures. I’ve also noticed that where there is a choice, people are willing to wait in longer lines for the metal detectors in order to avoid the scanners. I travel just about every week, and I regularly note the AIT machines with no one in line before them, but 10+ people each in line for the metal detectors. When the TSA says that the machines have wide public acceptance, I don’t believe them for a minute.
I recently encountered two young ladies from Spain who didn’t understand why there was no line in front of the AIT machine. I explained to them in Spanish what the machine was, and they agreed it was better to wait in the metal detector line. It didn’t take them more than a second to figure out they wanted nothing to do with the scanners.
And BTW, willingness to fly is a condition of my employment, and I can’t afford NOT to fly.
I’ve been doing this all along. Just walk through security like you know where to go and you’ll do fine. It’s been working for me.
Unfortunately, “Just walk through security like you know where to go and you’ll do fine” doesn’t always work. It didn’t for me the last time (and final) time I flew — in September 2010 at BWI. While many people ahead of and behind us merely walked through the metal detector, my husband and I were “randomly” pulled aside for the stripsearch scanner. I declined (this was before the national roll-out of the gropefests) and was made to wait. And wait. And wait. And wait. Even while, at one point, the unbelievable scene of NO ONE standing in the security line took place. And still I waited. While TSO’s stood around doing nothing.
Anyway, I refuse to fly anymore. This has caused no end of consternation and ridicule from family and friends, but that’s fine. They’ll get the point, eventually, when something happens to them. In the meantime, I’ll wait. And remain nostalgic for all the travel I so love and will never get to do again. But c’est la vie.
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