I think the writer had some fun with this one
Metal belt buckles probably trigger false alarms in every screening device in existence. Even metal buttons and zippers may do that if the device is sensitive enough (such as those at SFO).
But the fact that TSA agents refused to acknowledge that it can work differently at each airport was certainly obnoxious.
For years, every time I went to Las Vegas from my home in Portland, the PDX TSA would have to tell everyone to take off their shoes, while the LAS TSA would tell everyone to keep their shoes on. Occasionally, someone would be like "Huh, that's different from $OTHER_AIRPORT" and the TSA agent would be like "Sir, it's the same everywhere".
Of course, PDX recently got a remodel and with it, new scanners, so now shoes can stay on.
I'll keep it since in Atlanta at least the lines are still way shorter, but yay regardless.
Now it's time to end the laptop off the bag circus
yincrash•4h ago
haiku2077•4h ago
laborcontract•4h ago
video tldr: 3d x-rays have made bag scanners more effective at screening
djaychela•4h ago
[1] - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Reid
tw04•4h ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Reid
While we don't know why they've stopped, it could be any number of things: from they have other ways of detecting explosives that don't require your shoes going through a scanner, to they just don't think it's an issue anymore.
While a lot of what TSA does appears to be security theater, saying "it never made any of us safer" is a claim you have no way of backing up.
Analemma_•4h ago
It's a power play, nothing more.
haiku2077•4h ago
Are you using the same scanner machines every time? (They can look similar externally but operate on different principles)
dataflow•3h ago
Are you of the opinion that unpredictability has zero security value?
recursivecaveat•3h ago
unethical_ban•3h ago
ranger207•2h ago
tw04•1h ago
At what airport? How do you know it's "arbitrary" - do you have some additional information the rest of us don't?
>It's not a technology thing, because they change it back and forth at the same gate at the same airpor
What airport? Because I fly enough to know they don't do that at LAX, SFO, SJC, or ORD.
>It's a power play, nothing more.
By WHO? The guy who implemented the policy hasn't worked in government since GWBs term. The random TSA worker has literally 0 say in the policy of taking your shoes off.
xnyan•4h ago
What changed in 2017? They stopped publishing the results of the testing.
Liquix•4h ago
greyface-•4h ago
> Passengers who trigger the alarm at the scanners or magnetometers, however, will be required to take their shoes off for additional screening, according to the memo.
saulpw•3h ago
greyface-•3h ago
0cf8612b2e1e•3h ago
privatelypublic•3h ago
mc32•4h ago
gryfft•4h ago
It indeed seems like it was always something of an overreaction, but an understandable one that's now fully overlapped by superior modern scanning.
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Airlines_Flight_63_(2...
2. https://www.dhs.gov/science-and-technology/news/2022/10/06/f...
Edit: whoa, groupthink.
privatelypublic•3h ago
os2warpman•3h ago
Every time an article about airport security is posted the comments are the same.
To prove that I'm sane and my memory has not been corrupted by time or cosmic rays I google "airline hijackings by year", I look at the graphs in google images, and I briefly wonder what happened in early 1970s and 2000s before remembering what happened in early 1970s and 2000s.
Then I murmur "that's some fantastically effective theater".
reverendsteveii•2h ago
os2warpman•1h ago
Most TSA, FAA, and airline operator policies and procedures are harmonized with ICAO and IATA policies and procedures. Of course, there are regional variations and differences between international and domestic flights within those regions, but for the most part things are consistent among all of the members of both signatories of Convention on International Civil Aviation (ICAO members) and IATA members.
The whole shoe thing was proposed someone who wasn't the US (I think the UK, but my memory is fuzzy-- damn cosmic rays), submitted to ICAO, voted on, and enacted by the US as a signatory.
dataflow•3h ago
red-iron-pine•2h ago