There's no consistency in procedure from TSA agents. They're undertrained, unaccountable, and some combination of bored, disinterested, and high on petty authority. I don't think any amount of training or official guidance could improve the situation, though. The essential problem is the authority plus unaccountability or oversight. That will always go poorly for anyone subjected to that authority sooner or later.
I'm one of those weirdos who opts out of the scanners because I'd rather avoid having people casually look inside of my body.
Last time I flew out of Laguardia I opted out and while I was being patted down another TSA agent about twenty feet away kept making kissy faces at me. Very much felt like intimidation.
What a time..
Not shocking they seem to have pretty low professional standards. I recently had a friend travelling from the US back to Canada get suddenly thoroughly frisked without warning after the scanners showed some object near her thighs. She didn't have anything but clothes on her body on below the waist. The TSA agent spent time groping around, convinced there was something, then after there couldn't possibly have been an object under her clothes, accepted that (paraphrasing) "there must have been an issue with the scanner".
She called her partner (who I was with at the time) afterwards, upset and shaken by the experience. @TSA in one of the NYC airports: If you're not going to get consent to grope girls, at least let them know that you're about to do it.
Like other post-9/11 things like DHS and ICE, we need to abolish TSA since it doesn't actually keep anyone safe, and actively harms people.
Whenever these situations come up, the solution is always "more train."
I suspect "MOAR PAIN" would have a better outcome. People check out, during training; especially the type of training that is designed to shield the organization from lawsuits, and are given by uninspired, bored speakers.
Some high-profile object lessons are more likely to have an effect.
I brought a $14k oscilloscope through TSA once. They flagged the unit and proceeded to inspect it, lifting it by the edges of the plastic front cover and trying to remove it while held in mid-air. I kind of freaked out and said "stop" because the oscilloscope was about to take a free-fall. They were not happy that I spoke up, but luckily it averted a crisis.
I have type 1 diabetes and have a CGM and insulin pump on me at all times. The manufacturers say you shouldn't take them through the scanners, but me and every diabetic I know has never experienced any issues with the devices, so most of us just go through the scanner and then have to be patted down anyway because it picks up the device.
I dread it every time, because when I've tried to inform TSA agents ahead of time about my medical devices (which all the signs tell you to do!) they either ignore me or just tell me to go through. And then when I don't mention it, I frequently get berated on the other side, while they do the swab test for explosives.
Time for Remy to make another video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YQJ7E140-SQ
Atlanta TSA are the absolute worst. I've lived in Atlanta for a while and used ATL quite a bit. They're easily the most aggressive, arrogant, stupid, obnoxious and self-righteous of all the TSA Ive used.
Ive even had an altercation with them that ended up having to file a complaint (never heard back) and got to speak to a manager only because I started, loudly, whistling the anthem.
I want to know more about the mechanism of damage to a spinal implant from (what I assume is) a millimeter-wave scanner. I would expect millimeter waves to not penetrate very deeply -- Wikipedia says "typically less than 1 mm" (their citation for that is behind a paywall though.) Seems like an implant should be more than 1mm below the surface.
I flew to the USA a few years ago and TSA staff were the most gratuitously rude people I've met in airports in my life. Complete brain dead losers.
Abolish the TSA
TSA would not exist if it wasn't for a certain class of people that likes to blow themselves up in the vicinity of other people.
I'm not a particular fan of the TSA but when you work with the public at that scale, stuff happens. It gets a bit tiresome to read articles like this that imply it's normal and frequent. It doesn't seem like it's worthy of discussion on HN: it's neither intellectually interesting nor a new phenomenon.
I've never had a single issue with the TSA. I went through a checkpoint when I had a shoulder injury and could not raise my arms above my head for the backscatter machine. I explained this and I was politely escorted through the alternate scan/metal detector.
My experience is one data point, doesn't mean much by itself, nor does the experience of the unfortunate person in this story.
I’ve been in a film photography sub on Reddit lately and the TSA comes up frequently. They can’t even follow their own rules on film, telling people it has to be scanned (it doesn’t), scanning is safe up 3800 ISO (that’s not a speed), etc.
I’m not surprised they can’t get something important right.
What if someone had to fly for necessary medical treatment? What if the device had been something even more important, like a pacemaker or artificial heart like Cheney had?