Tips, Tricks, and Travel with Lucky

Is this the future of airport security?

I mean, I guess this makes sense. There’s no way we can do anything bad if we have nothing to hide. And we might not have to show up at the airport two  hours before departure anymore either….

(Tip of the hat to Karyn)

The TSA’s latest “enhancement” to keep us safe

Via CNN:

Washington (CNN) — To the list of instructions you hear at airport checkpoints, add this: “Put your palms forward, please.”
The Transportation Security Administration soon will begin randomly swabbing passengers’ hands at checkpoints and airport gates to test them for traces of explosives.
Simply incredible. The list of things these morons will do to stay busy [...]

Not to fear, the TSA is here!

I posted this to my Twitter account earlier, but I just have to mention it here as well. There were ten (T-E-N/10/1-0/ONE-ZERO) TSA agents at the gate for my flight to Tampa earlier today. Doesn’t that make you feel safe?

So TSA agents do have a sense of humor….

I often say I won’t provide any commentary and then end up ranting just a bit. In this case I don’t need to say anything. This story speaks for itself:
A TSA worker pulled a small plastic baggie full of white powder out of Rebecca Solomon’s carry-on bag. After 20 seconds of the young woman’s panic, [...]

I’m impressed by the TSA’s professionalism

Never thought I’d say that. I arrived at TPA a few minutes ago and headed straight for security. After I walked through the metal detector without setting it off I was “randomly” selected to go into one of the full body scanners. As a matter of principle I object to this (I don’t trust TSA [...]

PSA: Don’t make jokes about security if you want compensation

This has to be the story of the decade (fine, we’re less than two weeks into it, but whatever). A Hawaiian Airlines flight was diverted back to Portland and escorted by two F15 military jets. Why? A passenger handed the flight attendant a comment card that he assumed was going to management. Unfortunately it was perceived as threatening.
So, [...]

TSA agent gets arrested for claiming to be God

This is just too rich. Via NBC Los Angeles:
A TSA agent was arrested on January 3rd in Terminal One at LAX, a source told NBCLA. He had just gotten off duty and was behaving erratically, saying, “I am god, I’m in charge.”
If that’s worthy of getting arrested, I’m pretty sure just about half of the [...]

DHS comes to their senses….

I posted a couple of days ago about Chris Elliott receiving a subpoena for posting a security directive. While he probably shouldn’t have posted it word-for-word, he was helping out the traveling public and there was nothing in there that I’d consider to be confidential (other than the text identifying it as such).
Well, it seems [...]

Blogger gets subpoena for posting security directive?

Poor, poor Chris Elliott. And while I almost always disagree with him, this time it’s different. I support him. As we all know, the TSA didn’t exactly do a great job making the new security initiatives clear. So in trying to help the public out (for once), Chris Elliott posted the security directive on his website, [...]

Ah, so that’s why we have no clue what’s going on….

You’ve gotta love the new “security” regulations the past few days, given that no one really has a clue what’s going on. I’ll be the first to blame it on the TSA’s incompetence, but this Chicago Tribune article quotes a DePaul University professor that has a different take:
Transportation expert Joseph Schwieterman says that might be [...]