1mo ago

At the airport. The TSA thought my daughter's Hello Kitty carry-on was suspicious.

So the lady made us wait for a few minutes while my daughter, who is 14 and hasn't been on a plane since she was 4, started getting freaked out. Then she finally got her bag and opened it and searched it very thoroughly while asking us about whether or not she had any sharp objects.

She dresses punky despite loving Hello Kitty and she packed some spiked jewelry, so we thought maybe that was it.

It was not.

It was her deodorant.

The lady pulled out her deodorant, took it over to some special station where she did some sort of chemical analysis, and then gave it back and told us to zip up her case and leave.

Thanks for protecting the airport from dangerous deodorant, TSA! Great job!

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TSA doesn't provide protection. It provides security theater.
Protection implies some sort of attention designed to safeguard something of value.
Security theater is the purchasing of ineffective and expensive machines from corporations in key senate districts to win voting influence and campaign donations.

My biggest pet peeve about the TSA is how they get all annoyed if you don't know what randomly selected procedures they'll be using today.
The TSA deliberately randomizes its security procedures. Different airports use different procedures, and the same airport uses different procedures at random. Sometimes you need to take your laptop out of your bag; sometimes you don't. Sometimes you need to take off your shoes; sometimes you don't. Sometimes you can just use the metal detector, sometimes they want you to use the rape scanner.
Which is fine I suppose; it makes sense to leave potential threats guessing. But the real problem is the attitude of the TSA agents themselves. It's not just that they randomly select procedures; it's that they get angry about it. Start taking off your shoes out of habit at a TSA line that today doesn't require it? A community college dropout will soon be by, screaming at you for daring to take your shoes off in line. Start taking your laptop out when they've decided that today is a day for leaving it in? Some guy that couldn't even meet the low bar of becoming a regular police officer will be in your face about it within seconds.
- This lady gave me shit for standing "at the other side" of a table that was sticking out a little. I was standing next to it to give my daughter room. I had to back up so that I was technically behind the table. There would have been no way for me to get to the lady from where I was standing or any other TSA employee or equipment. Just ridiculous.
- sometimes they want you to use the rape scanner.
  Uh... What's a rape scanner?
  
  The one that lets them see through your clothing.
  
  It's what I call the Rapiscan systems
  https://www.rapiscansystems.com/en/
  I just call them the rape scanners.
  
  The beeping dildo
- Or when they start robbing people and then committing money laundering
- I've only flown twice. My first time there was someone repeatedly announcing "leave your laptops in your bags" to everyone. When I get to the scanner, my bag was pulled and searched for 10 minutes. They then threw the bag back at me and scolded me for not removing my laptop.
  
  You might know this already but if not, people who have TSA Precheck don't need to remove their laptops or take off their shoes. Sometimes TSA guys will remind people of this in the precheck scanner line. It's not always super clear which scanner line is the precheck line vs regular though and perhaps you were hearing the precheck instruction instead.
- I don't think they get annoyed, it's just that the way they talk is most efficient at communicating in that environment.
  
  Nah. At my flight last week, I pulled out my laptop to put in a separate tray. Apparently for that day, they wanted to keep laptops inside the bags. The line was so busy that when I asked if I need to remove my laptop, instead of just answering me, the agent kept on repeating “sir, what did I say? What did I say?” in an annoyed voice. And he literally was waiting for me to answer, when I didn’t know what he said because I was at the end of the line far from him. That’s not efficient.

She thought it was suspicious because you're a flying squid riding an airplane. I have a similar problem.
- We can only fly 30 meters at a time! Do you know how long it would take us to get to Heathrow that way?!
  
  I know! When they ask why don't I just fly everywhere I ask them "if you can run, why do you take a car?"
  
  What if two swallows carried you on a piece of string?
  
  I'm pretty sure that the airspace around Heathrow is controlled, too.
  
  At that point Farage might be dead. Then you would have a lot less to worry about once you get there

Guess how many bombs the TSA has protected people from.
- It has to be at least one
  
  Not sure why you think it's that high of a number.
  
  to my knowledge the closest they've gotten is failing tests
- -3

I hate TSA, fucking security theater. I recently had a trip to a doctor that involved flying and going there was fine. I need a wheelchair because I can't walk long distances, like I can't even do grocery shopping anymore, but I can walk short distances. I went through the scanner, no fuss. But coming back home, TSA asked me if I could use the scanner. I told them I could. They decided to do a pat down instead, a very thorough pat down while I remained in the wheelchair. I was trying to avoid a pat down, I've had some SA in the past and do not like being touched. They let me go after the pat down and I tried to avoid being upset. I felt molested but what can I do? That was some real BS.
- And then we came out the other end at Heathrow. We didn’t even have to talk to a customs agent. It was all done with a machine. Such a difference from the ridiculous nonsense.

I've had the TSA dig through my 6 year old child's bag of goldfish crackers before. Thank goodness they're there to protect us.

I work at an airport as a mobility assistant. What this means is I push people in wheelchairs all day. I go through TSA about 50 times per week doing this exact ritual.
What surprises me about this is that they gave your deodorant back. What I see is they give you two choices.
A) Surrender the object that they deem suspicious (either deodorant, lotion, shampoo, water, or gels/creams). By surrendering it, they basically just throw it away.
Or B) you can be escorted to ticketing desk of your airline by a TSA agent. From there, you have to convince them to give you your bag back to put a stick of deodorant back in. This involves them radioing the grounds crew, halting the bag loading of the entire plane, looking for your bag, and then bringing it back. This whole process takes about an hour. And very well could cause you to miss your flight.

My deodorant was flagged 3 times in a row for some reason, even tho it's bar and not gel. I learned to take it out of my backpack to avoid the extra search
On my last flight I forgot to do it and the agent seemed to be very bored and tested a bunch of stuff I had on my backpack, took about 10 minutes going through everything while more and more bags were flagged for additional search behind him
- Yep, this was bar too.

You gotta remember there are people who get there kids to be drug mules. So yes in this instance it seems weird. But theres about 1 million ways people have tried to smuggle things. No matter the ethics, inside concealment. Hollowing out containers replacing normal products with stubstances or precursors to make drugs.
I watch alot of "Austrian border security" on youtube and you would not believe some way people try to smuggle stuff. A few months ago they imbedded precursors to make meth. Inside of a less than 1mm clear sheet of plastic. Crazy shit
- Sounds like a good idea to stop prosecuting people for drugs in that case.
  
  It's not just drugs dude.

TSA: 1st year acting students in a play called "terrorists successfully destroyed america".

Have a safe flight.
I hope at least some stress disappears when you land.

They would have had my wife locked up then, who has a lot of Hello Kitty gear and clothing, now being 45 years old :)

Hey! Did you make it there OK? Have you learned to play cricket yet?

Yo it's the end of the FlyingSquid saga (maybe).
- Hes going to the uk, unfortunately they have internet there and he will probably stay jobless and posting on here 24/7

Why act like such a victim? Doesnt sound that bad. My 10 year old daughters stuff got searched 2 weeks ago for some squishy thing she had, dude said he couldn't tell the difference between it and an explosive on the scanner, took less than 10 mins to search her stuff and have us on our way.
I didn't come on here and make a whiny post, it's part of travelling.
- You may not have noticed, but this community is called "mildly infuriating," not "I am a victim and this is intolerable." For more information, please see the sidebar.

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