8 ms·

I'm a white male with long scraggly blonde hair and this happens to me in basically every developed country. Obviously long-haired hippies pose a security thre

by grecy 8y ago

I'm a white male with long scraggly blonde hair and this happens to me in basically every developed country. Obviously long-haired hippies pose a security threat.

roywiggins 8y ago
I'd guess they are hoping to find drugs on you, rather than, say, box cutters.
- hammock 8y ago
  TSA is not chartered to look for drugs, and technically, they aren't supposed to be looking for them (though sometimes they find them in the course of their job- transportation security)
  - nasredin 8y ago
    Do the TSA screeners get training on identifying drugs?
    - betterunix2 8y ago
      Even if not, the TSA does report drugs when they find them: https://www.tsa.gov/travel/security-screening/whatcanibring/items/medical-marijuana https://www.tsa.gov/travel/security-screening/whatcanibring/... It is basically an end-run around the constitution -- if the police were searching through your bags without your consent any evidence they found could be challenged on constitutional grounds. The courts have (afaik) found that the TSA's searches are a different category, "administrative searches," and therefore not unconstitutional; somehow, though, there is no problem with using evidence found by the TSA in a criminal case. Also, since the TSA's mission is not limited to aircraft, it is entirely possible that "administrative searches" are coming to a public transit system near you. Presumably the same rules would apply.
  - jghn 8y ago
    And yet that's primarily what they're looking for
    - c22 8y ago
      If that's the case then why does none of their fancy equipment detect drugs? Why are their canine units not trained to alert on drugs?
      - chimeracoder 8y ago
        > If that's the case then why does none of their fancy equipment detect drugs? To be fair, the GAO reports have shown that their fancy equipment isn't actually detecting weapons either.
        snuxoll 8y ago
        But it sure detects the damned hair tie I forgot in my back pocket, and that’s the REAL threat they are protecting us from - elastic bands....
        deleted 8y ago
        [deleted]
        polynomial 8y ago
        Seems pretty effective at detecting trace metals from handling artists' paints.
  - ataturk 8y ago
    Was leaving Denver and the TSA guys had a dog going up and down the line and one agent was making the "smoking" hand sign to the other one for each passenger he pulled off to get swabbed. They damn well definitely were looking for people taking home weed.
Gibbon1 8y ago
I have a friend who's parents fled Iran when she was two. She grew up in Britain and then the US when her parents immigrated. She gets the 3rd degree every time she flies.
blitmap 8y ago
I've recently started rocking a mustache and beard because razors are expensive and I can't be arsed. I think it has to do with how easy it is for people to "read" us. With facial hair it's harder to tell if I'm smiling or generally in a good mood. People fear the unknown? It's hard to empathize with a poker face, and trust in that face.
- craftyguy 8y ago
  > or generally in a good mood. Is anyone in a TSA line in a "good mood"?
  - blitmap 8y ago
    Well I have healthcare but my job keeps me out of area/network pretty consistently. The airport is the only reliable way to get a physical.
- nasredin 8y ago
  Your physical stature may (wrongly) come into this. If you are a young male with a beard... skin colour wouldn't matter much. You are gonna get groped.
- _asummers 8y ago
  Total aside: non Gilette (etc) razors are extraordinarily cheap. After buying a double edged razor set (~40 iirc?), I pay ~15/yr in blades and shaving cream, shaving both my face and my head. Can't help you to be motivated to do so, however!
  - rnotaro 8y ago
    Buying a double edge razor was one of my best life decision. I'm still running on the 150 blades that I bought 1.5 years ago. I'm shaving 1-3 times a week and mostly keep the same blade for 2-6 shaves The blades are so cheap, I could literally change my blades every single time and it would still cost me less than a Gilette razor.
hermitdev 8y ago
I'm a clean cut white male, and I was singled out twice in the same airport for one flight pos 9/11, pre liquids restrictions. I had 3 bottles of local Idaho vodka, flying from Boise to Chicago. It would have been less annoying if it wasn't literally the same TSA agent that searched me both times, once at the general security in the terminal then secondly "randomly" at the gate. Same agent. Ostensibly looking for weapons. The agent told me as such. Seeing as it was the same agent that had already searched me, I was a bit glib. "Did you miss something the first time around?" Somehow I made my flight. Dude was a jackass.
- mynameisvlad 8y ago
  If I wasn't in a hurry to get onto a flight (which you clearly were if you got searched at the gate), I'd have asked for a supervisor at that point, especially if it was the same agent who had already cleared you at the checkpoint. That's entirely unreasonable.
  - lostlogin 8y ago
    That would have guaranteed missing the flight.
    - mynameisvlad 8y ago
      Yes, which is why the first part of my sentence starts with “If I wasn’t in a hurry to get onto a flight”. I specifically pointed out that in other circumstances that would’ve been my course of action.
  - dahlueblojen 8y ago
    That's okay. Now they make most of lowely plebs that can't afford, or don't fly often enough to bother, a TSA-prescreen go through a machine that that pretty much reveals everything you'd only want a doctor or your partner to see to wonderful and highly trained TSA agent. Edit: guess y'all like showin your penis off to underqualified chud. Privacy matters. Fuck tsa.
Sir_Substance 8y ago
Me too if I'm wearing a jacket. White but fat, all in the tummy. Obviously the Aussies find it too confrontational to ask me to open the jacket so they can check it's stomach and not explosives, so the "random" check it is. There's also a great article out there somewhere (7+ years old, around the time they started the xray backscatter scanners) about an actor who changed her behavior as she went through lots of TSA checkpoints, and eventually concluded that the TSA random checkers were mostly picking people who looked like they wouldn't make a fuss. Whatever you're getting from the airport, it's certainly not security.
- chiph 8y ago
  > eventually concluded that the TSA random checkers were mostly picking people who looked like they wouldn't make a fuss. This is my theory as well. Their job KPIs probably have something like "patted down x people per shift", so they pick people that will cause the least trouble for them.

by grecy 8y ago

I'm a white male with long scraggly blonde hair and this happens to me in basically every developed country. Obviously long-haired hippies pose a security threat.

roywiggins 8y ago

I'd guess they are hoping to find drugs on you, rather than, say, box cutters.

hammock 8y ago
TSA is not chartered to look for drugs, and technically, they aren't supposed to be looking for them (though sometimes they find them in the course of their job- transportation security)
- nasredin 8y ago
  Do the TSA screeners get training on identifying drugs?
  - betterunix2 8y ago
    Even if not, the TSA does report drugs when they find them: https://www.tsa.gov/travel/security-screening/whatcanibring/items/medical-marijuana https://www.tsa.gov/travel/security-screening/whatcanibring/... It is basically an end-run around the constitution -- if the police were searching through your bags without your consent any evidence they found could be challenged on constitutional grounds. The courts have (afaik) found that the TSA's searches are a different category, "administrative searches," and therefore not unconstitutional; somehow, though, there is no problem with using evidence found by the TSA in a criminal case. Also, since the TSA's mission is not limited to aircraft, it is entirely possible that "administrative searches" are coming to a public transit system near you. Presumably the same rules would apply.
- jghn 8y ago
  And yet that's primarily what they're looking for
  - c22 8y ago
    If that's the case then why does none of their fancy equipment detect drugs? Why are their canine units not trained to alert on drugs?
    - chimeracoder 8y ago
      > If that's the case then why does none of their fancy equipment detect drugs? To be fair, the GAO reports have shown that their fancy equipment isn't actually detecting weapons either.
      - snuxoll 8y ago
        But it sure detects the damned hair tie I forgot in my back pocket, and that’s the REAL threat they are protecting us from - elastic bands....
        deleted 8y ago
        [deleted]
      - polynomial 8y ago
        Seems pretty effective at detecting trace metals from handling artists' paints.
- ataturk 8y ago
  Was leaving Denver and the TSA guys had a dog going up and down the line and one agent was making the "smoking" hand sign to the other one for each passenger he pulled off to get swabbed. They damn well definitely were looking for people taking home weed.

Gibbon1 8y ago

I have a friend who's parents fled Iran when she was two. She grew up in Britain and then the US when her parents immigrated. She gets the 3rd degree every time she flies.

blitmap 8y ago

I've recently started rocking a mustache and beard because razors are expensive and I can't be arsed. I think it has to do with how easy it is for people to "read" us. With facial hair it's harder to tell if I'm smiling or generally in a good mood. People fear the unknown? It's hard to empathize with a poker face, and trust in that face.

craftyguy 8y ago
> or generally in a good mood. Is anyone in a TSA line in a "good mood"?
- blitmap 8y ago
  Well I have healthcare but my job keeps me out of area/network pretty consistently. The airport is the only reliable way to get a physical.
nasredin 8y ago
Your physical stature may (wrongly) come into this. If you are a young male with a beard... skin colour wouldn't matter much. You are gonna get groped.
_asummers 8y ago
Total aside: non Gilette (etc) razors are extraordinarily cheap. After buying a double edged razor set (~40 iirc?), I pay ~15/yr in blades and shaving cream, shaving both my face and my head. Can't help you to be motivated to do so, however!
- rnotaro 8y ago
  Buying a double edge razor was one of my best life decision. I'm still running on the 150 blades that I bought 1.5 years ago. I'm shaving 1-3 times a week and mostly keep the same blade for 2-6 shaves The blades are so cheap, I could literally change my blades every single time and it would still cost me less than a Gilette razor.

hermitdev 8y ago

I'm a clean cut white male, and I was singled out twice in the same airport for one flight pos 9/11, pre liquids restrictions. I had 3 bottles of local Idaho vodka, flying from Boise to Chicago. It would have been less annoying if it wasn't literally the same TSA agent that searched me both times, once at the general security in the terminal then secondly "randomly" at the gate. Same agent. Ostensibly looking for weapons. The agent told me as such. Seeing as it was the same agent that had already searched me, I was a bit glib. "Did you miss something the first time around?" Somehow I made my flight. Dude was a jackass.

mynameisvlad 8y ago
If I wasn't in a hurry to get onto a flight (which you clearly were if you got searched at the gate), I'd have asked for a supervisor at that point, especially if it was the same agent who had already cleared you at the checkpoint. That's entirely unreasonable.
- lostlogin 8y ago
  That would have guaranteed missing the flight.
  - mynameisvlad 8y ago
    Yes, which is why the first part of my sentence starts with “If I wasn’t in a hurry to get onto a flight”. I specifically pointed out that in other circumstances that would’ve been my course of action.
- dahlueblojen 8y ago
  That's okay. Now they make most of lowely plebs that can't afford, or don't fly often enough to bother, a TSA-prescreen go through a machine that that pretty much reveals everything you'd only want a doctor or your partner to see to wonderful and highly trained TSA agent. Edit: guess y'all like showin your penis off to underqualified chud. Privacy matters. Fuck tsa.

Sir_Substance 8y ago

Me too if I'm wearing a jacket. White but fat, all in the tummy. Obviously the Aussies find it too confrontational to ask me to open the jacket so they can check it's stomach and not explosives, so the "random" check it is. There's also a great article out there somewhere (7+ years old, around the time they started the xray backscatter scanners) about an actor who changed her behavior as she went through lots of TSA checkpoints, and eventually concluded that the TSA random checkers were mostly picking people who looked like they wouldn't make a fuss. Whatever you're getting from the airport, it's certainly not security.

chiph 8y ago
> eventually concluded that the TSA random checkers were mostly picking people who looked like they wouldn't make a fuss. This is my theory as well. Their job KPIs probably have something like "patted down x people per shift", so they pick people that will cause the least trouble for them.