TSA – Transportation Security Administration

I appreciate the job that TSA does and it keeps us safer in the airports and in the air. Long Beach is a small airport, so security is smaller than normal. Plus with Jet Blue that seems to give me TSA pre-​approved, I get through security super fast. One time I was pulled randomly and it took awhile for them to check my carry on. They were nice about it. Again, they are keeping you safe people. Say thanks every once in a while.

I bring protein powder with me when I travel so I can workout and be healthy. Even though I leave it in original packaging, I understand why TSA would want to search that. What I don’t understand is why they k ep LEAVING THE LID UNSCREWED so all my belomgings are covered in the stuff when I get home. It’s happened twice, and I freaking wrenched the lid on before packing it this last time to assure it wasn’t my error. Plus, they aren’t leaving the «we inspected your bag» slip in it, when all the contents have clearly been ran through. Garbage organization

95% of them should be not only fired, but not employed ever again. I cannot think of an agency I hate more than them. RUDE beyond belief. Arrogant beyond belief. I’ve been checked for GSR twice in one visit, my wife screamed at, threatened, etc. I’m a god damned roofer working in So-​Cal, my wife is an HR rep for a construction company. Why the hell do they pull me aside and treat me with anger and suspicion every freaking time I try to fly? These guys accomplish nothing but the harassment of Americans.
NEVER friendly. NEVER polite. You know what? EFF YOU. You get no cooperation from me. I hope you all get fired and become bankrupt. Congrats on being the one business I hate more than any in my entire life.

I want to be upfront that the TSA agents we encountered were just fine. They did their job as they should and were even friendly. The two stars for the TSA are for their POLICY, NOT THEIR PEOPLE.
Here’s what happened:
My wife and I scheduled a trip. We were also in the process of changing her last name. We rolled the dice and put my wife’s new name on the ticket. Well, in typical government fashion from the SSA, the DMV, the Passport office, etc., we did not get any requisite ID material in time. SO, we went on the TSA website to see what to do and we found that we should be able to bring a marriage certificate and we should be fine.
Fast forward to the day of our trip. My wife goes to the gate, shows her ID, shows her marriage certificate, shows the temporary DMV slip for her name and ends up getting pulled aside. 3 agents and a supervisor later, we are told that she cannot go through. We explain that we have all these materials that show her name change. LEGAL documents given to us by LEGAL government entities. Our marriage certificate is notarized, the DMV slip is officially signed and my wife’s license (even with her maiden name) is still valid. We were told the legal marriage certificate and the legal DMV slip were not valid. HOWEVER, we were told that if we had a random piece of mail with her new name on it that would be fine. Here are the issues.
1. The TSA website said to bring the marriage certificate.
2. Why in God’s name would we bring a RANDOM piece of mail with her name on it?
3. If the marriage certificate and the DMV slip were not valid, then what’s the point of even getting them?
3a. The DMV and the Passport administration (read: The United States Department of State) accept the notarized marriage certificate to update Driver Licenses and Passports, but for some reason TSA won’t accept them to go through a screening. (Or as the supervisor said: ANYONE can get a document like that).
Look, we know there are a million hoops to jump through to fly. We also understand that we could have done the name change process earlier, but the fact is we didn’t. However, we did everything in our power to get as much legal documentation as we could and that ulimately didn’t matter (but a RANDOM piece of mail will work!). We also found out we could get the ticket reissued, but that wasn’t until we were 75% through the process at TSA and we had 45 minutes til our flight.
COMMON SENSE TSA. COMMON SENSE. Marriage licenses are issued for a reason. Temporary DMV licenses are issued for a reason. Further, I was there with my wife. My name is also on the legal document which matches my legal identification. Me, my legal ID that is shown on the legal marriage license with my wife’s maiden name, my wife, her legal identification matching the certificate and her legal name change documents tied to her ticket. Common sense shows we are legally connected and everything matches and points to where it needs to point to.
Also, my wife had to go through a full pat-​down and full luggage search. Why? Why would she need to do that if the TSA was just verifying her identification. That seemed very unnecessary.
OH! The BEST part. This was on our departing flight from our home destination to our vacation destination. The return flight? The TSA agent essentially waved us through. We just played dumb, my wife just flashed her ID and ticket and was let through without any hassle. Lesson learned? Keep your mouth shut and TSA will let you go through. In that regard, I don’t know which situation is worse. The hassle or the blatant diregard.
This really needs to be fixed.

When it comes to the TSA, I resent the fact that even one star is the minimum.
My recent experience is not worth relating in detail. Suffice it to say that I’m not even close to any sort of terrorist profile. I was, however, a strong match to the profile of a beleaguered air traveler desperate to make a tight connection. Sucks to be me, though, when I was singled out for public groping and the useless swabbing of all my stuff. Of course I missed my flight, and my wife and I had to take a hotel room and a red eye flight in the morning. No groping the second time, alas!
The TSA is a $ 160,000,000 boondoggle of a jobs program for underachievers and tin-​pot tyrants. In a recent review, the TSA screeners missed 86% of the test explosives they were supposed to keep us safe from. The TSA has not managed to apprehend a single terrorist suspect since its inception. It’s a waste and a joke. We’re no safer, but we’re massively inconvenienced, and the kicker is that it’s OUR money that funds this lunacy.
If the TSA is the answer, please tell me what the heck was the question?

The worst. Most of them are trying to do a good job, but if you opt out of the body scanner, be prepared to get handled rough. They’re good at taking innocuous foods/​gels/​effects, but I can still see methods to evade security. I’m sure others can as well. You suffer the harm of an of the body scanner (increased cancer risk) but you dont get any of the benefit.

I’ve rarely had an issue with the TSA. Yes, it’s kind of annoying, but you need to keep three things in mind:
1. There are a _​lot_​of ways to start a fire on a plane, or set off a bomb. Lots. Trust me on this.
2. You know you’re not a terrorist. The TSA, on the other hand, does not. So they have to check you and your bags, etc.
3. The TSA is correct to be suspicious of _​anything_​out of the ordinary, no matter how seemingly innocuous. Think like a terrorist. Are you going to put a bomb in a packaged labeled «bomb»? Probably not. You’re going to make it look like a baby’s formual bottle, and get your suicide bomber to dye his hair blond and wear blue-​eyed contact lenses.
Think, people, think. Remember Lockerbee? That can still happen.

This was THE most hilarious thing that has ever happened to me at an airport. I get «randomly selected» for a more thorough screening by some big wig security adviser to the airport (I’m just assuming). This girl (who I swear must have just graduated high school), escorts me into a clear cubicle in the middle of the screening area (very professional). She pulls out a stick with a little clamp on the end and puts what looks like a wet-​nap from a BBQ joint on the end (seriously) and proceeds to wipe the handle of my carry on bag with it. She has a very stern look on her face (that she likely learned from her training videos). I ask, «What are you looking for?» and she just ignores me. I then tell her this is stupid. She didn’t like that very much, but she let me go when her wet nap failed to identify BBQ sauce residue.
TSA is a joke. Gawd.

The very best TSA folks I’ve ever run into and certainly worth commenting. Maybe people here are just happier then in most places — I’m not sure, but when you get a TSA officer to joke around a bit — you have to enjoy where you are!
The security lines were non-​existent and they — the agents — were not like mindless robots shouting out what you needed to do!

It is really difficult to like TSA, but I feel like we all forget… they are just trying to do their job to ensure us our safety. These rules sound dumb sometimes but they exist for a reason! SOME DUMB IDIOT fucked it up for the rest of the population!!! and not to mention all of the psychos and terrorists…
I see some people get so crazy mad at these poor TSA people, and yeah I know some of them can be cold, but they didn’t make up these rules!!!
I was an idiot during my flight from LGB to SFO and for whatever reason I had my wine opener in my backpack… I surrendered the it a nd they didn’t give me a hard time or anything. The security was even like, ohh a wine opener is okay… but my wine opener had a knife in it… MY BAD!!! Sorry… I felt like an idiot… They were actually really nice about it and they told me it’s okay and since I surrendered the item it’s no harm no foul.
And to make it worse… my purse got rejected too because there was a water bottle in it! At that point I felt so troublesome I wouldn’t even blame them if they took me to interrogation!!! Lol. But they just resent my stuff thru that x-​ray machine again and let me go…
Ohhhhh! And airports are high tech with their TSA stuff now. It’s not just a metal detector machine you go through but this whole body sensor thing now. It seems to be more efficient :)

Ladies (and I suppose some gents), do not wear any clothing items with rhinestones on it when passing through this TSA line! My mother went through the TSA line last week and the gate went off on her, even after she had taken all of her personal items out of her pocket and into that little basket to go onto the belt. The people at this area barked out that my mom needs to head over to this other woman who had the security wand. So she heads over to that woman and after she made sure my mom’s pockets were empty and no belt on, she had that «ah ha» moment when she saw my mom’s pants. She had these rhinestones on her pants and so she let her through. (My mother is not the 1^st woman to have this problem, according to this employee).
The same story happened to me as well. I went through the TSA line with pants that had some colored rhinestones on the pants and sure enough, it also caused the metal detector to go off too. Since this happened to me before my mom, I didn’t realize it was my pants. And I too went through the same like routine with playing the metal gate shuffle (you put your right pocket items in, you put your right pocket items out…) and then was ordered to head towards a person with a security wand to search for the offending item. Sure enough, when the female employee scanned the wand on my pants, specifically where there were a concentration of the offenders (my rhinestones), it went off. Unfortunately I completely forgot to mention this to my mom before here trip last week… which propped me to write this review for you so that you do not find yourself in the same situation (unless you like that kind of attention).
You have been warned!