Poll: Air travelers “more confused than ever” about TSA rules

With the busy Thanksgiving travel season just a few days away, a majority of air travelers say the Transportation Security Administration’s new security rules are unclear, according to a poll conducted in cooperation with the Consumer Travel Alliance.

A weekend survey of 547 air travelers found 56 percent of respondents were “more confused than ever” about the TSA rules, which include new name-matching requirements, a ban on printer cartridges and enhanced pat-down procedures for passengers who refuse full-body scans.

Just over 40 percent of the respondents said they felt “about the same” as before, when it comes to the TSA requirements. Only 3 percent said the rules were clear, and that they were less confused than before.

The results come at time when the issue of full-body scans has snowballed into a national issue. The TSA is aggressively pushing back against travelers who opt out of the scans and pat-downs, escorting them from the airport and, in extreme cases, threatening them with fines for allegedly refusing to cooperate.

Air travelers who were polled say the rules, and their uneven enforcement, defy reason.

“The rules keep changing,” says Alfred Kee, an IT manager based in Toronto. “I feel no safer flying than before the TSA. Instead of targeting a likely subset of potential terrorists, they have turned security into a needle-in-a-haystack activity.”

Ani Nazerian, a New York-based management consultant, says the massively confusing rules have made him change his travel plans.

“We travel every year the week after Christmas and this year decided against it, specifically because of the new and ridiculous security measures,” he says. “We have a trip that was previously planned during spring break in March, but will rethink that if things get worse. It’s sad and disappointing that this is what it’s come down to.”

Margie Milich, a corporate travel agent from Vernon Hills, Ill., agrees: The rules — when she does understand them — are enough to make her reconsider air travel.

“I hear what my clients go through and there is no way I want to put up with that myself,” she says. “I need to make a couple more trips this next year and I’m dreading it. Would prefer to drive, but don’t have the time, so I guess I’ll have to put up with it. Looking forward to seeing friends and family, but not the process to get there. Beam me up, Scotty!”

  • Tom

    Funny that these people claim they are never going to fly again and yet the number of people flying keeps increasing. My feeling is if the nervous nellies want to stay home, it increase my chances for an upgrade. Plus, I’m not sure I want to hear a Canadian’s opinion — they guy from Toronto — of how American airports are run when Canadian airports so overcharge Americans who visit their country. Even Canadians know to drive to a US airport rather than pay the exorbinent fees charges up North. I’ve always found the TSA people friendly, if you are friendly to them, as opposed to Canadian customs officials who treat Americans like spies trying to sneak into their polar wonderland.

  • Grant Ritchie

    I’m a crotchety 60-year-old man who hates government intrusiveness as much as than anybody. That being said, however, the TSA is fighting a desperate battle to keep the mosque-eteers from bringing down the next planeload of us infidel Americans. I, for one, appreciate their efforts.

  • Meredith

    Here’s the thing. I only had one issue with TSA due to a belt buckle. My daughter was 12 at the time and because of her clothing, she had to go through the embarrassment of the wand.

    The scanners are in place in TF Green in Warwick and I did not have to deal with being singled out. Then again, I follow what procedures that pertain to me and make sure they do not feel the need to pull me out.

    Despite the long lines, TF Green runs fairly well.

  • cjr

    Tom, I have yet to say I’ll never fly again. But I normally fly several times a year, and now have only one trip involving a flight planned within the next year, which is 9 months out.

    I don’t plan on making any other as long as the absurdity that is TSA continues. And it is getting truly absurd while we are NO SAFER than before.

  • Christine

    My husband was transferred 7 hours away from our home. It took 2 1/2 years to sell our house. He/We spent the entire 2 1/2 years driving back and forth just so we didn’t have to fly out of Atlanta airport. And, the company would have paid for us to fly. It wasn’t even worth the many, many miles we would have earned because flying is such an unpleasant experience these days.

  • Mike S

    How effective the TSA is, is anyone’s guess. But it is the best we have right now.

    I fly from an airport without scanners so on the outbound it is no problem. Headed home I might face a scanner and based on the number of trips I take per year, I do not plan on worrying. If I flew more often I might worry a bit, but I doubt it.

    Now there should be a system set up so that those that those that do not want to be scanned could be pre-cleared and permitted to use the current walk throughs with random full hand scans. We have a system to to breeze though immigration that requires fingerprints and an interview. Why not for this as well?

  • Roger

    We really have an educational crisis in this country if most Americans are “more confused than ever” about simple instructions. What is confusing about taking not carrying liquids or gels through the checkpoint? How mentally challenging is it to not carry toner cartridges on a flight? Is it too great of a logical leap to make the correlation between a guy trying to light a shoe bomb on a plane to a TSA rule that all shoes must be x-rayed?

    I find my self saying this a lot, but it is as true as ever: You can’t have secure air travel without security.

    - Roger

  • Ed

    So we all hear about how the TSA is performing actions that people are refusing to take part in. In this article, it states specifically that the TSA is escorting people from the airport and even fining people for not cooperating.
    So, my question is, what are your rights as a citizen on these intrusive, and sometimes abusive actions being perpetrated against a legal citizen of the United States where interstate travel is a protected right? Just *WHAT* can the TSA to do you in a legal sense of US Citizen rights?
    Ed

  • Roger

    @Ed,

    Sure, your right as a citizen to travel interstate IS constitutionally protected, but your right to travel interstate via commercial air travel is not.

    - Roger

  • cjr

    So, apparently TSA has decided that giving the aggressive pat downs (or any pat downs) to 8 year olds is a Really Bad Idea, and so they’ll no longer do it for those under 12.

    Because, as we all know, 13-17 year olds are not going through any physical and hormonal changes that would create feelings of discomfort should they also be subjected to an aggressive pat down. Right?

    But why did they change this policy? Because a father this past weekend was thoroughly disgusted by the aggressive pat down his 8 year old received.

    THIS is the problem with TSA: reactionary measure after reactionary measure. Stripping away the rights of Americans to the point that they might as well be stripping us naked when we reach the airport.

    And our government officials, in the likes if Pistole and Napolitano, defend it.

    Dude, where’s my country? :(

  • Mike K

    Its amazing how many comments here buy into the BS that any of this somehow keeps us safe. How will a xray machine find a plastic explosive butt plug? How will groping your daughters breasts find a box cutter smuggled in on the catering truck.

    Anybody that believes the current TSA shenanigans is keeping us safe is a fool.

  • Jennifer

    People are confused because poorly trained TSA screeners do not enforce SOP themselves. A flier on another bulletin board reporting his entire printer was confiscated, not just the toner cartridge. In fact, the man had already removed the cartridge due to the new rule. Women are reporting being patted down by male screeners when promised that it will be by a screener of the same sex. TSA, DHS in general, is always two steps behind the terrorists, never ahead. You think now that printer cartridges are banned, they won’t find another way to smuggle in explosives when cargo still isn’t fully screened?

    I’m still surprised at the “anything for security” crowd. Is there any line TSA can’t cross? Far from being a “nervous nelly,” I realize that it is simply impossible to have a 100% risk free life. I do also understand that I have a 50% greater chance of getting struck by lightning than being the victim of a terrorist attack in the US. Instead of recognizing this inherent risk, we are now subject to x-rays and/or a patdown previously reserved for when police have reasonable suspicion you have committed a crime. Now the reasonable suspicion is wanting to fly to Grandma’s for the holidays. I have a problem with this. Some of you apparently don’t.

    The most important devices we have against terrorists are the reinforced cockpit door and the fact that people will fight back against “hijackers” which we didn’t do before.

    http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704130904574644651587677752.html

  • Mary Graham

    Tom and Roger, you are both truly superior beings! Wow! I suspect most people just object to being subjected to harsh, invasive treatment in the security area after already being taken for a ride by the fee happy airline industry. What it boils down to, is flying today is a horrible experience, that keeps changing (and not for the good) for so many people. Why put yourself through that if you don’t have to?

  • Amy Engelhardt

    I travel a lot. I stopped wasting my energy being annoyed about TSA rules. I don’t take my liquids out because every airport is different in their level of caring. I only get chastised 1 out of every 20 times for it and I don’t care. But I just went through the full body scan in San Francisco for the first time and it was just WRONG. Then something on me was apparently not right and I had to wait on a cordoned off 3 feet section of carpet with a TSA guy holding the cordon thing closed. They asked me what was in my back pocket (bills). They swabbed my hands the way they swab bags, looking for residue. I wondered if the metal in currency set it off. It was just not right, though. I have never felt that way about security before – it was just inconvenient. This is NOT RIGHT.

  • David

    I have flown recently on several occasions between Columbus, Ohio and San Diego, California – both airports have the new-style full-body screeners in use for some gates. While I have no problems with being scanned (fly enough to be savvy, but not enough to worry about radiation) I do understand the problems folks have with privacy. My questions for the protesters against the various screening procedures are as follows: did you write your Congressman when the banks were bailed out – did you vote yes/no on any proposition lately that involved minority rights – OR – are you just upset about waiting in line longer than you ought to?.

  • Jennifer

    David, I really have no clue what you’re getting at as far as the bank bailout or minority right proposition. Those issues are completely inapposite to the issue of the forced relinquishment of my 4th amendment rights to board a plane. As I stated, when we fly, we are now forced to undergo a full body scan or a pat-down that is normally reserved for police with reasonable suspicion. I understand that it is actually more invasive that a search allowed for a traffic stop. It has nothing to do with longer lines (although we were promised shorter waits with this new technology). In fact, people who opt out of scans are subjected to even longer waits. The power-tripping screeners use this as retaliation for rejecting the scan. So, again, I have no idea what you’re trying to prove at. For the record, I did write to my congresspeople about the new scans. I received no response.

    And, fwiw, I did not oppose the bailout and haven’t had any ballot measures involving minorities come up in the recent past. I voted against my state’s constitutional amendment against SSM years ago. Unfortunately, it passed. I have a feeling that those same people who voted for that amendment are the same people who will do “anything for security” and think that people who oppose these new measures “must have something to hide.”

  • Geoff

    Not one of my clients is confused. Nervous….yes. Get off the computers and get in with a real live travel agent. We are paid to know! If I screw up, I can be fined, I can be sued. We know what we are doing!

  • sarge

    Hello, This is rapidly becoming a national discrace. What is really sad is the segment of citizens that somehow believe that this is for our safety. This is flawed logic. The one or two times of marginal value security scares does not justify draconian abuse of citizens. I would suggest boycott US Airports.

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