From the frontlines on Opt-Out Day: “Today was different from anything that I have ever experienced in my years of flying”

Edmond Valencia had an 8 a.m. flight out of Albuquerque today, and since this is one of the busiest days for air travel, he arrived with time to spare.

It’s a good thing.

There were protesters at Albuquerque Sunport holding signs that said, “The Terrorists are Winning,” and “Go Ahead and Sexually Assault Another 2 Year Old.”

They were being interviewed by print and TV media. The man stated that he is a Marine veteran of three Iraq tours. He felt that the liberties he fought for were being eroded by the actions of the TSA.

Then it was Valencia’s turn to go through the security line. He flies about once a week, so he’s used to the screening procedures. Or so he thought.

Today was different from anything that I have ever experienced in my years of flying.

The inital ID check was fine, but I moved to the screeners. There were about 6 people for 8 lines when I arrived. I chose the regular scanner and unloaded my usual encumbrance sans my belt, which I never take off and have never had a problem (a testament to the cheap belts I buy).

I placed all of my stuff on the conveyor and this horrific 4 ft tall 60 year old woman from the TSA starts screaming at me to take off my belt. I abide and continue to the standard screener. Nope. She stops me and points to the backscatter machine.

I was kind of taken aback by her actions. That’s when I stopped and opted out.

I did not, nor do I now agree with the National Opt-Out Day, but I refused to be talked down in that manner or tone.

I could hear the collective harumph from the TSA staff when I opted out. It’s going to be a long day for them and I started the fire, it seemed.

I was taken aside and a male TSA screener, who was terribly polite and professional, explained the entire process. He stated that he was changing his gloves (a last minute PR strategy?), and verbally went through the entire process before he laid a hand on me.

It wasn’t terrible, it wasn’t invasive, but I have never been a victim of sexual assault so I can’t be certain of what others may think or feel. It probably took about 3 more minutes than if I had gone through the normal line.

Takeaway: The TSA staff are a bunch of low paid psuedo-blue collar workers. There will be TSA staff that do not know how to handle themselves. Like a box of chocolates, you never know what you will get.

He’s right. It’s going to be a long day.

Update (11/25): Carol White adds:

It must be the same gal I had in ABQ a couple of weeks ago – but with a different outcome.

I had all my stuff in the bin, shoes off, etc., when I realized that the necklace I had on could very well set off the machine. So I hesitated just a second while reaching to undo the clasp, when this woman about 60 literally screamed at me to “leave it on!” – I said “but it will set off the machine”, she screamed again “leave it on!” and motioned for me to stand on a pad next to her – I finished pushing my stuff into the conveyor belt and stepped over where she pointed.

In a couple of seconds she glared at me and motioned me forward. I saw no other machines, nothing, so I got my stuff and left the screening area – I was never screened by any machine or human! Maybe I was just flustered and didn’t see the body scanner, but no one even attempted to stop me. Can you believe that?

(Photo: red j ar/Flickr Creative Commons)

  • Tom

    The hysterical flyer meme didn’t pan out today. Five million people flew today and only a few people couldn’t handle the security. What will be the next phony panic?

  • Raven

    Ah, the screaming TSA workers. Those are all too plentiful at the airports I’ve traveled through this year.

    Perhaps TSA could educate their workers in proper English, proper tone of voice, and the correct way to address people.

    But then, they can’t seem to get the cell phones out of the hands of the x-ray machine workers in ATL or the grills out of the mouths of those at IAH.

  • Leland Ensor

    That biatch from TSA at ABQ couldn’t find a job at Wal-Mart so the government, now under the auspices of America’s most over-hyped and under-performing one-term wonder of a President, gives her a job to reward her incompetence. As Alex Jones tells us everyday, this is the invasion of The New World Order and we, as sheep, are letting them take over. It only took a few more decades to occur, but 1984 is here and now.

  • Toni

    Mr. Ensor, the president who created the Patriot Act AND the TSA was two-termer GWB.

  • Tom

    I’ve noticed that in many posts the real complaint about TSA isn’t that the security is too tough, but rather that people don’t like to take instruction from people they consider less educated, lower class, or of an inferior ethnicity or gender to themselves. Some of the posts on this and other boards reek of racism, sexism and classism. I’ve read complaints about TSA employees height, weight, IQ — and Raven above complains they don’t use proper English. You may not care if your plane crashes, but I’m glad these people work hard for the wages they get so that your airplane doesn’t crash into my building.

  • Raven

    @Tom:
    If I’m placing my security in their hands, I expect them to be educated enough to say, “Please take your shoes off” such they could be understood.

    “Classism?” No one in this country is being oppressed because they were born poor. A free and decent education is available to all in this country. Most choose not to take advantage of it. Instead of letting these bottom feeders work at Wal-Mart, the Imperial Federal Government hires them as a security force and expects the rest of us to just grab our ankles and take it up the rear from these idiots.

  • Datanerd

    If we can get beyond the racism, sexism, classism, lookism (I can’t believe I’m typing that), we find that some TSA Agents are making life difficult for some travellers. They feel like they are under siege, and are using their small amount of power on others. That’s the real problem, and the other comments as to race, height, sex, or other personal characteristics are extraneous.

    One thing that could help would be acoustic tiles and carpet at checkpoints so the crowd noise doesn’t get magnified and people can talk at normal voice levels. And the agents should have walkie-talkies rather than having to yell across for secondary screeners.

    Let’s take the noise down a notch, and I think the stress will go down as well.

  • Hannah

    I would like to argue the “low-paid” comment.

    I just spent a considerable amount of time on TSA’s website (www.tsa.gov) and they are not low paid. Between this pay scale: http://www.tsa.gov/join/careers/pay_scales.shtm and looking at open positions in my area, I do not feel these are low-paid positions at all. Not only are these well paid positions but they require little to no educational background more than a high school diploma.

    The Stanford prison experiment is a good example of the power trip some (a minority) of these TSA agents are on that make the experience unbearable for all of us.

  • Annie

    Toni, GWB was also the president that had to endure 9/11 backlash. I didn’t see anyone complaining about ANYTHING after the towers fell.

    What would BHO have done, gone on Letterman?

  • cjr

    “I didn’t see anyone complaining about ANYTHING after the towers fell.”

    Then you didn’t look hard enough. The Patriot Act and TSA were both rushed through a Congress that stood back and said if you don’t support whatever they do, then you’re unpatriotic. Unfortunately, patriots were overruled and still are to this day.

    As for the pay scale, that really tells us nothing. In the end, if it was truly about national security, we’d pay them better, train them better, and they wouldn’t be Wal-Mart grunts.

  • Sam

    When I was subject to an enhanced pat down last Friday (11/19/10), after opting out of a backscatter, the agent put the gloves she used for the pat down in the bomb-sniffing device. So that’s probably why the TSA agent above changed his gloves before the pat down, not a PR strategy.

  • nancy

    Tom: its not a “phony panic.” First this stuff doesn’t work as a deterrent. its a defense against things the terrorists have moved on from. Second, I do not live in a country (or so i thought) where uniformed lackeys for the government can strip search me, molest me and irradiate me. The TSA refuses to allow independent tests on the scanners and won’t release the results of the tests they’ve done, and their claim that the images from the backscatter machine aren’t saved, which is a flat out lie. Check around, you can find then easily. If you want to live in a virtual totalitarian state I’d suggest you go to Singapore. Here, we have rights.

    Additionally if you don’t want to opt out, you can do what I saw quite a few folks doing. Wear as many clothes in as many layers as you can, and take your time unloading them in to the bins.

  • Jasper

    The real problem is not that the new procedures have crossed a line, but that the TSA has crossed that line years ago, but now got far enough across the line that people do not want to deal with it anymore.

    After 9/11, everybody understood the systems had to be upgraded a bit. Then the laptops had to get out of the back. Annoyed, people went along. Shoes had to come off. More annoying. Liquids were banned. Very annoying, but still not worth the trouble of protesting. But now it is. And that’s why there is so much anger.

    It is the frustration of being pushed and shoved around and YELLED AT for the last few years. Unfortunately, it’s the TSA employees who get the brunt of it, because they did the pushing and the shoving and THE YELLING. They don’t make the policy, we know, but they execute and unfortunately, the TSA head honcho and DSH secretary are not available for comment.

    And airport staff: PLEASE, STOP YELLING AT ME.

  • knesral

    What a bunch of malcontents. They yell at you because you don’t follow the procedures that are so clearly stated. It’s not that difficult.

  • SS/DV

    knesral,
    My wife has Alzheimer’s. And she’s from S. Korea. Start barking at her, okay, start talking to her in a loud disparaging voice, and watch her freeze, because she doesn’t know what the **** you’re saying. Why can’t they tell you what is so clearly stated? Is this a case of “I’m in charge here” ego boost? If so, get your boost elsewhere. Someone barks at my wife and she’s being pulled outta line by me and let the park rangers escort us back to the ticket lines where I’ll park till they give me my money back. Absolutely no one, anywhere, is paying me to be belittled or my wife. Treat us as paying customers or refund my money. Your choice. (And please, give me an alternative to get my wife to her mother in Hawaii).

  • cjr

    “They yell at you because you don’t follow the procedures that are so clearly stated.”

    Some time after the Richard Reid incident – the “shoe bomber” – I was leaving Las Vegas. I got into line and proceeded to take my shoes off.

    I was yelled at for taking my shoes off. I was yelled at for following “the procedures that are so clearly stated”.

    Malcontents? When we’re constantly treated like crap by the airlines and TSA alike? You bet your arse!

  • Brian\PVD

    I’ve said before on this blog, some (but not all) TSA agents yell for the sake of yelling. It seems to be very airport dependent, and has nothing to do with the volume of passengers. I’ve been treated quite well in ATL where everyone and their mother goes through the same checkpoint, and very poorly at other airports where they only handle access for a few gates.

    The real problem is that we have an uneven security system. Of course we roll out technology at the largest airports first. But that doesn’t keep someone from slipping into the system at a smaller regional airport.

  • Jesse

    I believe this is a bit much…how is TSA going to handle a victim of sexual abuse? Are they going to traumatize this person more than he/she already is?

  • Sara

    I would suggest that a lot of the people “opting out” are doing so simply by not flying at all to their destinations. Instead, they’re rather staying home, or driving, or possibly using some other mode of transportation. After the weekend is over, it would be interesting to see a poll asking how people travelled over the holidays (same thing for Christmas / New years): Air travel, car, train, boat, no travel, other. Of course, this would be best viewed in the light of polls from previous holidays of same kind.
    It was predicted that air travel would go down this holiday, and likely it’s proved true. I would think that is one of the reasons (along with not wanting to cause any actual fuss, a lot of us are all sheep after all) there wasn’t anything major happening at the airports. Unfortunately TSA will view it as a victory and confirmation that people don’t -really- mind whatever they come up with. As sheeps, generally people will comply rather than cause a scene, lose time, hardearned money etc.
    Airlines won’t care. They’ll just point complaints to TSA and comments that they’re not in charge of security, nor have any impact on the security policies that TSA puts in place. Less people flying? More airline whining about needing money = government money, tax deals, and more fees.

    What would REALLY give TSA the message? Airlines, Unions, and / or Airports (any combination) themselves putting on a strike. But as everyone is driven by money and terrified of purposely losing out for a short while, that would never happen.
    In the meantime, keep sending letters and testaments to any and all politicians you can think of, I would say. Make sure to point out why TSA’s current antics are illogical, and point towards viable alternatives.

    I just had an acquaintance ask on another forum about children travelling as her grandchild was supposed to be flying to the US to visit one of her parents. After reading about the processes (including TSA’s website), all adults decided to not let the child fly until the processes change.
    Amusingly, one of the responders commented on going through the AIT – with a lighter in his pocket, and no reaction from any TSA personnel..

  • Thomas

    @ Tom This is NOT a political site! Go to Fox or CNN if you want to compliment YOUR President on his policies!

    I’m sill trying figure out what TSA is protecting us from. Since NO country has been attacked from a plane flying from the US, isn’t the problem outside our borders?

    To show you an example of how bad TSA is, I went to their website to see the forms of ID they accept. When I flew out on Monday, I presented my TWIC card. This is a card issued by TSA after FBI, CIA, and police background checks. The idiot at the gate refused to accept it, even though it’s listed as an approved form of ID and it’s issued by them!

    And these are the people that I’m supposed to allow to touch me ??????

  • LeeAnne

    Jesse, clearly you haven’t been reading this blog much. There are comments all over here from sexual assault victims (including me) about these TSA gropings.

    I certainly cannot speak for all sexual assault victims, but I for one am horrified by the prospect of strangers touching my private parts. Unfortunately, TSA doesn’t give a crap. They are on their power trips and don’t seem to care who they hurt in their quest to produce this absurd security theater, in order to fool us that the abuse they’re meting out is making us “safer”.

    So the short answer is, TSA is going to “handle” (literally) sexual assault victims exactly the same as they do everyone else – with no concern whatsoever as to the harm they are inflicting. Just like they didn’t care when they assaulted a 3-yr-old until she was screaming “STOP TOUCHING ME!”, or when they popped a bladder cancer survivor’s urostomy bag, or when they forced a flight attendant breast cancer survivor to pull out her prosthetic breast, or when they manhandled my own mother’s breast just weeks after her breast cancer surgery to the point where she was wincing in pain.

    And this crap about “classism” and “racism” – what a load of poppycock. I don’t care who these people are, what they look like, or what side of their bread they butter. My direct, personal experiences with them are that they are rude, abrupt, uncaring, and on a power trip. They hold the power, and they make sure we little peon travelers know it. What else would be their reasoning for refusing to allow my elderly mother to use the restroom before her “pat-down”, and then screaming at her “DID YOU PISS ON ME???” because her trousers were damp? What other reason could there be for one of them to shove her hand in my mother’s face basically telling her to shut up, when all she wanted to do was ask her NOT to palpitate her breast where she just had surgery?

  • cjr

    Sadly, the media spin is out that Opt-Out Day was a failure. Meanwhile, sites like Gizmodo are collecting comments from Twitter where people reported that nobody was being scanned, and nobody was being patted down.

    With a snap of the fingers, TSA decided that this was no longer about safety of passengers, and all about public relations for TSA.

    How is this keeping us safe again?

  • MeanMeosh

    Geez, folks – can’t we all just get along?????

    @LeeAnne – well said. My sentiments exactly. And Tom, shame on you for bringing the tired race/class/gender card where it doesn’t belong (I will refrain from adding a snarky political comment, since this isn’t a political blog). This has nothing to do with the race, class, or gender of the TSA agent. This has EVERYTHING to do with some bad apples in the TSA being just plain awful people. I’ve been equally critical of FAs and gate agents on this same topic; NOBODY deserves to be yelled at or publicly humiliated just because they accidentally don’t follow directions, or because the person in power is having a bad day or hates management. If you want respect, you have to show respect to your customers, period.

    In the interest of fairness, not all TSA agents are bad. On the contrary, I’ve never encountered a bad agent at DFW, where I do most of my flying. But there’s zero excuse for keeping bad agents around, wherever they are.

  • Liz

    That TSA blog is really selective about which airports it displays. What about IAD, BWI, JFK, EWR etc etc etc?

  • Roger

    Glad to see all the fuss over the machines and new pat-down turned out to just be the media fabricating a story that wasn’t there, just to have something to sell.

    - Roger

  • Brooklyn

    The CNN commentator last night smirked openly as she announced that the protest wasn’t working. But as the evening went on, all the newscasters noted with surprise – as proof of the alleged failure of the Opt-Out – that screening at the airports was moving as quickly as on a regular day. On the eve of Thanksgiving? Hmmm….. this makes me wonder two things. First, why were the newscasters so happy that the Opt-Out had “failed”, and second, how did the total number of people flying compare to previous years? I suspect that a lot of people simply chose not to subject themselves to either a virtual or a physical assault and either drove or stayed home this holiday.

  • Kim

    My complaint with TSA officers is not their lack of formal education but rather their lack of knowledge of the rules that they are responsible for enforcing. On more than one occasion, I have had TSOs make up rules as they go along such as not taking off my shoes when the sign says I must, limiting my number of carry-ons as a “federal law” when that is airline policy, and refusing my passport as ID because I had grown my hair long since the photo was taken. If they worked at Walmart and started charging prices as they wanted and changing refund rules willy nilly, they would be fired. Unfortunately, they are in charge so I am penalized.

  • Raven

    Bad agents will never be fired, just as bad airline workers will never be fired–you can thank a union for that.

    A few weeks ago I was flying out of IAH on Continental. I went to international check-in where two very loud “agents” were having an altercation behind the counter. Instead of helping people, they were shouting about how one was sleeping with the other’s “baby daddy.” A supervisor came out and tried to calm them, but it didn’t do any good. Funny, I went back last week and saw both women still working. If that had happened in my place of employment–in front of customers!!!—both would’ve been fired on the spot. I guess CO/UA has different standards for their ticket agents…

  • Bill

    Wow. You were yelled at. Must have ruined your day.
    Is that the real issue, how you are personally treated?
    Grow up, it’s not about you.
    And yes to me your comments and many in this thread sound racist and elitist. You just don’t like how you are personally treated.

    On another thought-
    When you say this TSA screening does not work as a deterent, are you aware of any successful attacks that I may have missed?

    When you say it doesn’t work, what data are you basing that assertion on?

    Do you assume the reason no terrorist has tried to get past the security is because they have given up or are no longer interested?

    Might there be another reason they are not trying?

    Do you know what deterent means?

  • cjr

    “Grow up, it’s not about you.”

    The point has gone entirely over your head, leaving you lost like a little child who has wandered off from their mother at the grocery store.

  • Charles

    @nancy: “The TSA refuses to allow independent tests on the scanners and won’t release the results of the tests they’ve done…”

    Before posting information like this, please Google “independent test of full body scanners”. There has been considerably independent testing of these machines. If any group really felt they could show they are unsafe, they could buy one and test it themselves. Please don’t pass on the misinformation you’ve read somewhere else when it’s so easy to check it first.

  • Kevin M

    Bill: It most certainly is about me, or you, or whoever the passenger is who’s being yelled at. We are *citizens* of this country, and these people work for *us* – not the other way around. I can understand being firm, and I can understand having rules (though they need to be sensible). What many of us cannot understand, and will not (to the extent of our ability) tolerate is being treated like a miscreant child who doesn’t want to eat his vegetables by a parent whose patience has long been exhausted.

    The shoes on/off fiasco from a few years back is typical: first, they announced a regulation that everyone would have to remove his/her shoes for x-ray. Then they announced that this might not always be required, but that signs would direct passengers what to do. When signs went up at some airports directing passengers to remove their shoes, many did only to be yelled at that they shouldn’t take them off. In other places, where no signs existed, passengers were yelled at because “Don’t you know that everyone has to take his shoes off now?” In seeking clarification, virtually every travel writer whose work I read ran up against a brick wall, unable to get any sort of reasonable answer from TSA except “we’re continuing to implement the policy as announced” or something like that.

    If you honestly believe that this actually makes air travel safer, then I have a bridge in New York to sell you. Cheap.

  • Carrie Charney

    @ Nancy: I just came home from Singapore, where I was treated with great respect and genuine friendliness, in and out of the airport. Changi has none of the shenanigans we have here.

    @ Liz: I fly a lot out of EWR and my experience with TSA lately has been positive. That hasn’t always been the case, but they seemed to go through a period of retraining a couple of years ago, when attitudes vastly improved. I see more friendly greetings and far less yelling.

  • Louise

    After Israel, the best security in the world is in Las Vegas. Those “eyes in the sky” in the casinos don’t let anyone get away with anything. Apparently, if it’s all about money, we get the best. Security? The dregs.

  • Louise

    After Israel, the best security in the world is in Las Vegas. Those “eyes in the sky” don’t let anyone get away with anything. Apparently if it’s about money, we get top security. About safety? The dregs.