So what are you going to do?

I have seen and heard the justifiable anger at the ever more intrusive searches being conducted by TSA in our airports. People complain, write, scream, shout, but the fact of the matter is that nothing we say or write is going to change things.

There is only one way to change these intrusive TSA procedures, with our wallets. I am urging to not fly, and make it clear to your representatives in DC why you are not flying. I know that many folks have to fly due to jobs, but the fact of the matter is that if we stopped flying for vacations, travel, pleasure, the airline industry would take a huge hit. Once they start feeling it in the wallet, then they will start pushing the folks in DC to ease up on the invasive searches.

I've not flown since before 911. I stopped flying because of the environmental impact flying has. Every time you fly you personally have put 1,500 tons of carbon into the atmosphere. After 911, as TSA ramped up the intrusive security, I also decided that I didn't want to subject myself to that kind of invasion of my privacy.

There are alternatives. You can drive, ride a bus, or perhaps my favorite, use the train.

These intrusive searches are only going to get worse unless we all take a stand. Doing anything else besides hitting them in the wallet is going to be ineffective. So take a stand and stop flying. It is good for you, good for our country, good for our environment.

Otherwise, next up is the cavity search. You think I'm joking, just wait.

My 2005 flight to Vegas was my last flight until we regain some sanity in airport security.

due to family emergencies. The trip out from a small airport wasn't bad. It shares the runway with an airbase, so it's patrolled by National Guard guys with big guns, but they were harmless enough. The local folks don't tend to be martinets because they have to live in this town and too many people know where they live.

The big airport on the way back was worse, full of martinets who clearly enjoyed their ability to haze passengers. In addition, Asscroft had raised the terra alert (remember that? Stupid needed to scare people into voting), so I couldn't take my damn knitting needles on the plane. Knitting needles!

Sheesh. We knitters are such terrorists!

they confiscated 3 wallet chains I bought from Amsterdam street vendors at Heathrow in London and a flight attendant handed them back to me all wrapped in bubblewrap just before we landed in Boston. That's what i get for putting them in my carry-on luggage. :eyes: anyway I was surprised they went through all trouble of bubble wrapping them and holding them for me until arrival in Boston.

whenever that was

I'm overweight and unattractive.

I figure it'll be "Old Fat Naked Women for Peace" right in their faces, but I doubt they'll even look.

Anyway, as a nurse I can tell you that a parade of naked bodies, even with the pink bits pink and all the hair in place, soon turns into a total bore. What the scanners see is like a white department store mannequin before dressing, bald and blank, only the shape visible. It's going to get very old very quickly no matter whether or not they are young male horndogs.

It's security theater.

Or will you take a stand?

First off, I fly every week for my job. Not giving that up.

Second, as a dad, I want to show my kids the world and different countries. Can't take a train to Europe. Not enough time off to take a ship.

I don't bother the TSA agents and they've never bothered me. I may not like the new rules & regulations, but (as unpopular as this may make me here) I'll follow the regulations and just get on my way.

You are part of the problem then, not part of the solution.

Not to mention the huge carbon footprint you're personally creating each and every time you fly.

That's worse than anything TSA has ever said to me.

You have to live with the consequences, which can possibly include people like me pointing out how you are disproportionately destroying the environment for your monetary gain. Don't like that, then perhaps you should get a different job.

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As I said earlier, you're part of the problem, not part of the solution.

You are hurting the airlines and all the employees who work for the airlines. The TSA doesn't care if you fly or not.

You hit the airlines in the wallet and they will put immense pressure on the TSA to ease up.

is against the full body screen for its pilots because of the increased exposure to radiation. The flight crews from all airlines have to pass through these machines often and that much exposure cannot be healthy. As for the "pat downs," if someone other than the gov't was doing this, it would be molestation. I'm sure not looking forward to my flight tomorrow.

I have a big problem with taking orders and submitting to humiliating searches, so I will steer clear.
I have other reasons for avoiding it, too.
It's not exactly comforting to know that if there was an act of terrorism on board, they would just have the Air Force destroy the plane and everyone in it rather than try to regain control of it and land it safely.
The conditions are abysmal and getting worse all the time. People crammed in like cattle, cutbacks in even the tiniest portions of food, and no escape for hours if the power or the water goes out, they just sit and sit and sit.
Too expensive and getting more expensive all the time, as they turn their ingenuity towards making up more bullshit fees rather than improving the efficiency or quality of the flights. Then there's having to find (and pay for) short-range transportation when I get where I'm going, unless it's to a place where I can walk or take the bus.
Delayed or canceled flights are not uncommon, and they can ruin the whole trip if they cause one to miss a connection or be late at the final destination.
So, if I'm going to go anywhere, I will drive. I can go where I want, when I want, eat as much as I want at any time, spend less money (mine is more fuel-efficient than most), drive around any hazards and keep going, and most importantly, be in complete control of the trip up to the limits of the rules of the road.

Because out here, there's ONE train that goes to Chicago ... Sorta. And I dont know of any to Europe or South America. Out here it's fly or nothing.

with parents in Mexico City there is little choice...

But otherwise... nope, not gonna do it.

And.... not only the cavity search but the internal passport.

You think I am kidding?

{but no one will notice - I haven't been on a plane since 1993.)

Submit them to appropriate agencies.

While some searches are legal. Others are not. The ones that are not should be reported to the TSA. It is not a monolithic agency designed to store child porn, have its' agents sexually intimidate you, etc.

I depend on flying for my health. My specialist doctors are far away, and as much as I wish they were close, they're not.

Document, document, document. Report if necessary. They take reports seriously.

Anything short of a highly publicized lawsuit will not stop the TSA abuses. Those documents you write, those reports you submit, they wind up buried in some 11X17 cardboard box on a warehouse shelf.

The TSA and DHS have been given nearly unlimited power to do as they see fit. Those who complain, well, they will either be ignored, or worse, put on the do not fly list.

The fact of the matter is that the only thing that will get their attention is the airlines getting hit in the wallet. Anything else is ineffective.

You can't take a train, or drive? Or move, temporarily, to where your doctors are?

Flew from Seattle to Denver and back. On the way back, at the security checkpoint in Denver, because I had changed my flight in the previous 24 hours I got flagged. Fine. Whatever.

Dipshit, pimple faced, TSA dork walked up to me with the scanner wand and asks me, "Did you bring lube?" Out and about in the real world, under different conditions, badge or no badge, I would have stepped in his face and asked, "How badly do you want to try and apply it?" Instead I stared right at him and retorted, "Didn't you bring any?" I had thought it might cause him to rethink his stupidity, but no such luck. He gleefully responded, "Nope, we're all out."

I didn't choke the life out of this dweeb, and I unhappily moved along after passing security. I talked to someone at the airline counter to ask about complaining, and she noted that TSA turds don't work for the airlines so there's no recourse through the airline. However, she did place a call to the TSA security station and let me speak with a supervisor there.

I related what happened to the TSA supervisor, and he sighed a sigh that said he's dealt with this problem before. He asked me to describe the guy, I gave a description, and he said it sounded like this kid. With that I told him I had plenty of time before my flight so I was coming back to the security station to talk with him.

Met the supervisor there, and he was very polite and professional. I saw the dork, and pointed right at him and said, "That's him." Dork saw and heard me, and he slinked away perhaps figgering he'd stepped in it.

Supervisor and I talked a bit. I told the supervisor that if I'd encountered this behavior under almost any other conditions, I would have been in this kid's face or kicking his ass. Supervisor had a number of decades experience, and he totally got the situation. I think his words were that this kid was smart and capable, but way too much of a smart aleck at times.

I hunted down a TSA Email online and sent what happened, but I'll give ya two options to guess what happened:

1) Zip
2) Nada

I just returned to the Dallas area from a conference in Denver -- two of us drove there and back.

The problem is when events are very far away. I am checking into Amtrack for next year's travel to DC, but I'm not sure.

I've argued for years that if people, en masse, would start lining up at the checkpoints in nothing but speedos and flip-flops, the absurdity of some of this intrusive conduct would become vividly apparent and we'd see some policy changes.

Really. Speedos and flip-flops. Nowhere to hide ANYTHING. Bikini tops for the ladies, of course. Can't have any breasts-of-terror exposed. No underwires, ladies!

From toddlers to grandparents and everyone in between.

The one thing authoritarians cannot bear is to be made sport.

and whenever my management team travels anywhere near here they take the train. They avoid the planes like the plague. Why pay for abuse? It's like electing republicans.

and whenever my management team travels anywhere near here they take the train. They avoid the planes like the plague. Why pay for abuse? It's like electing republicans.

More people need to start taking that attitude. If you just keep submitting to the same old abuse, nothing is going to change. Hit them in the pocketbook.

Homeland security is all over the trains like ants on a cracker. I am certain that soon they will have these machines and molesters at the stations. Too sad.

I've ridden the train within the past year and had no contact with any sort of TSA security. Granted, I'm out here in the hinterlands, but still:shrug:

And if they start this on the trains, well, I can always drive.

I took the train from Ohio to Utah and back twice last year. We had dogs and Homeland security, through the train, on top of the train and in the sleeper cars. One man had his room torn apart and then 200 miles down the track they tried to do it to him again. It was pretty disgusting.

I'm one of those cantankerous old farts who actually remember, and value having a sense of privacy. Sadly, over the past forty years we've given away our privacy, to the Cold War, the War on Drugs and now the War on Terror. Amazing how these wars on nouns wind up doing so much damage to this country.

I told them to fuck themselves, they told me to calm down and they were just looking for (derogatory term for Mexicans.)

If our military and spooks weren't running around the world messing around with everyone's politics and natural resources we wouldn't have a terrorist problem and we wouldn't need this insane BS.

I avoid flying whenever possible. A claustrophobic control trip.

Also as a medical marijuana patient it's either very very scary or I don't have what I need when I get to my destination. That's a real problem for a lot of people I know.