TSA has never made travel safer.

It's always been a jobs program.

The inconsistency is the worst but, at least outside America, most customs teams are polite and informative about what is required.

When I travelled to the US, they were constantly annoyed that you didn't have their exact workflow memorized. That still happened when 2 machines, side by side, had different rules!

Oh, and FYI, some places, like Amsterdam, have it FAR more efficient. No emptying bags, no 100ml limits. Bag and jackets go through the x-ray scanner, you go through the nudity scanner. You're done in less than 30 seconds.

Security theatre.

I haven't traveled in 12 years, and I'm dreading my trip coming up in two weeks.

TSA was security theater from the beginning. All those confiscated liquids, all thos stolen Apple electronics, all those confiscated tchotchkes, all those nude scans [shared between agens in the crew forums] for a safer vibe

Though it did condition me away from air travel, and eventually from long-distance travel entirely.

In Amsterdam, I just had to put my feet (with shoes on) through a machine that took a second or two

no need to take off the shoe

Then I was given a little question and answer, the Danish (*I'm an idiot Dutch... y'all look the same to me anyway) officer looked me up and down and then let me board the plane. I felt much more sure that they were being diligent and actually screening people, unlike TSA that always feels like security theater.

Especially when they decide they need to pat you down and then actually move your dick "to be sure I wasn't hiding anything"

Like thanks for thinking my dick is so big I am actually hiding something but come on... you just wanted to get a feel of my cock Mr TSA

Annoying part about the kabuki theatre that is TSA is that they are inconsistent airport to airport. Shoes gotta come off, shoes can stay on. Laptop by itself in a bin, or with other things in a bin. Other electronics (e-reader, battery pack, etc.) in a bin, or in your carry on. But if you make the wrong choice they will let you know… loudly.

Years ago, my now deceased grandfather and uncle were flying together. My grandfather had a full ass pair of scissors in his fanny pack, because he was a practical man and having scissors on your person at all times is useful.

My uncle scanned the row of x-ray machines, and picked the line with the TSA agent that was inspecting booties closer than the x-ray screen.

My grandpa successfully made the trip with his scissors.

The addition of the TSA logo in this meme 🤌

Casual reminder: Materials such as magnesium or PETN are perfect for smuggling through airport security. Reason being, they only show up as an anorganic material in the x-ray thanks to their density. They lack any sort of smell that dogs could detect as well. Israel and Russia have used both of these successfully for terrorist attacks in the past, all of the explosives have been smuggled successfully through the security theater. Israel sent pagers with 2g of PETN in the batteries to Hezbollah and Russia wanted to get a magnesium explosive onto an DHL aeroplane to make it detonate during flight.

In both of these cases, the airport "security" did absolutely nothing to stop this. Better empty your bags everyone, because you are the security risk. Once you start allowing this type of nonsense, it will stick around forever.

Edit: I should mention, while the explosives for the Russian terrorist attack successfully got through airport security, because of a delay in loading the aeroplane, it never got on it and instead detonated in the container on the ground, luckily.

And also, if someone wants to come at me with some safety-security nonsense, this is all public knowledge. This has happened factually.

I had an online disagreement in the TSA subreddit about how moronic taking shoes off was. Those fascist pawns believe that shoe bomber reaction for years was justifiable.

Took two flights this last week and was made to take my shoes off for both.

I opt out if the millimetre wave scanner though, so they basically just make it an additional thing for not toeing the line.

This is proof that rare dramatic instances are indeed, rare. And people have become hypervigilant.

Wait what? You guys had to take your shoes off? Never encountered that even though I already reached my plane limit for my life