Just returned from w/e Boston-Raleigh/Durham with dtr. Moderate sized carry-on only. It goes thru the machine. TSA guy says to me "What is that object in your bag?" I say "what object" He says "The rectangle one" I say "I don't know - my cell phone charger, maybe"

Bag gets passed from guy 1 to guy 2 to guy 3. Guy 3 asks same question, somewhat insistently. No one has opened bag at this point.

I suggest that there might be a number of rectangle objects in the bag and offer to open it for him. He says "No, I'll to it". Handling bag as if it were toxic waste, he puts a gloved hand thru the zippered area and retrieves A BOOK.

He says "Oh, it is a book about Alaska" and hands me back my bag.

Seems that no one from Boston has ever had a book in their carry-on before - or so it seemed by their reactions.

I for one am glad we have the TSA at least trying to help secure our planes.

They are not perfect, they make mistakes, they sometimes miss things and a few are even criminals.

Until we come up with something better, what do you suggest?

Training? Lessons in geometry? Lessons in physics? Accountability? Or, better yet, fire 100% of the TSA and contract all airport security out to El Al.

betty - what I want is some hint of a connection between "security" and being secure. Every time I fly it gnaws at me that all the TSA annoyances do nothing towards improving our security.

gail - not for a moment to defend the generalized idiocy of TSA P&P, but is there a possibility that the book had one of those antitheft devices? They are the little rectangular plastic things, usually white, with a thin piece of foil embedded that sometimes bet stuck inside the back cover or even the spine where you don't see them.

It's always easy to berate people who are just trying to do their job. I'm sure there are people out there who think they could do your job better too.

Seamus - interesting theory - I am guessing that is what it might have been.

Betty - no doubt. But I am not going to engage in bickering about it here. Have a nice day.

Gail, not trying to "bicker". Just trying to present a different side. If you call that "bickering", then OK.

Wait. So they "make mistakes", "miss things", and "some are criminals"...but we should not put them under a microscope or ask for something better? How's that work, Betty?
If it sounds like bickering, looks like bickering...then it's probably bickering.

Filmwill, why of course, you are right as you are such an expert at these things I imagine!

Nothing wrong with "putting them under a microscope" but nothing wrong with looking at the other side either.

Thanks for proving my point further.

gee bettyk you sure are a supporter of everything W aintya?

No, Reisender, I am not.

But neither do I believe in bashing everything the President does just for the hell of it.

If the only reason to post here on Fodor's is to get reinforcement for everything you think, then what's the point. Just talk to yourself in a mirror for gawd's sake!

As someone who has their fingerprints with Homeland Security on file along with being an airline employee for over 34 years,I agree tydls.
I am in uniform with ID and they still feel that its important to go through EVERYTHING as though I AM a terrorist. Geez!

ok, heres a good one. a couple of weeks ago, i was passing through security in hnl, and had my boarding pass and passport in hand to show the tsa agent.

he looked at my passport for about two minutes, then asked me for additional identification.

in disbelief, i said "are you kidding me". i was ready to ask him to call his supervisor, when he decided that my passport was ok, and let me through security.

as an aside, after clearing the screening, i saw and old friend, jack, who is now an inspector for the usda. he was business watching the screen, and did not notice me passing through. after i got my shoes on, i shouted this greeting, "hi jack". a few heads turned.

btw, the reason why the tsa agent wanted additional identificatin, was that his little scanner around his neck did not read the watermark/security symbol on my passport on the first swipe.

Last summer I had a hard cover book in my carry on gym bag and when I put it through the machine at the AA terminal at JFK it prompted the TSA officers to search my bag and when they found the book they said "oh, a book." They handed it to me and told me to proceed. There was no magnetic strip in the book. The high priced equipment apparently cannot provide an image that lets security see the difference between a book and a bomb.

Everyone's an expert on security and agrees that TSA is inept, but no one wants to admit that, since their inception, they have an unblemished record of preventing hijackings.

I'm sure all of us know how to do TSA's job better, but none of us can promise better results. So why do we need an intrusive and arbitrary El Al security screening, if what we have is doing just as well?

I won't debate the necessity for screening at airports, but if I were an anti-western terrorist, I would be laughing at all the resources we are putting into airport screenings, while I would be aiming for a weaker link in the fence.

My question is what does TSA do with all the contraband their seize? It seems wasteful that they would just discard my wife's unopened jar of blueberry preserves.

I very much doubt people who think TSA is intrusive would want to deal with El Al level of security on a regular basis. I'm also sure their profiling methods would cause instant outrage among those who believe in politically correctness.

Actually, I've read before that books are often mistaken for bombs in luggage because they, unlike objects like clothes or toiletries, have the same dense nature as bombs.

Ed

Gail, I wonder if it was Fodor's book? If not, maybe TSA wanted to punish you for not being a Fodorite enough?