TSA at LAX still requiring air travelers to remove all electronics?

Link. Previously on Boing Boing:

TSA apologizes to "blogesphere" for arbitrary gadget screenings

Arbitrary TSA requirement: all electronics out of your bag (cables, too)

TSA's new forbidden item: >2 gm lithium batteries

Moment of TSA surrealist zen @ LAX: Xeni

Boing Boing editor/partner and tech culture journalist Xeni Jardin hosts and produces Boing Boing's in-flight TV channel on Virgin America airlines (#10 on the dial), and writes about living with breast cancer. Diagnosed in 2011. @xeni on Twitter. email: xeni@boingboing.net.

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dculberson

Takuan, NetJets offers a great deal: a shared Lear jet (I think they’re Lears) for only one million a year! That’s right, for less than the cost of your shanty in Malibu, you can have your own (fractional share of a) jet!
Lizzle

Ari – SFO (the international terminal) was fine on Sunday. Better than fine, in fact – while they’re still demanding that laptops be removed from cases, there was no cabling nonsense; and when they found a bottle of water my dear but incredibly forgetful husband had put in my carry-on earlier on, they were as nice as pie about it. The TSA guy was actually *apologetic* about confiscating it and offered to let me drink it behind a screen if I wanted to.

Compare and contrast with LAX last month, where they had signs up asking that the inside of your carry-on be packaged neatly and carefully compartmentalised so they could differentiate between any different sets of cables you might have in there. Mine were snarled up, so I was asked to unpack the lot from one bag, and separate my headphone cables, phone charger and laptop cables. They did, however, forget to ask me to remove my shoes – and both they and I missed the bottle of Tabasco sauce that was in my other carry-on bag (which I found, to my absolute horror, on returning home).
themindfantastic

Obviously not every TSA office got the memo…
Takuan

If I had precious company secrets and pampered, high value staff to protect, a million a year (for a write-off yet)starts to look cheap.

There must be some stories out there by now of businesses destroyed by the Festung Amerika mentality.
Itsumishi

I’m happy that Terminal 6 is standing up to the insanity and making people take out all their electronics.

If we don’t scan electrical cords properly how are we to know that they’re not garot wire encased in plastic?

Oh no, I shouldn’t have said that. I’ll give the TSA ideas!

From now on all cords, electronics and clothing has to be stored in your stow away luggage. Which for safety reasons will not be flown on the same plane as you. In fact it will be shipped. That’s right, ocean freight.
Adam Rakunas

Hey, I got caged, too! Flying from JFK to LAX last December. The best part was seeing the elderly, wheelchair-bound man who was caged with me have to *get up* from his chair so he could be frisked.

The TSA is in serious need of a nut punch.
panda

@1: Apparently the TSA is also requiring boingboing to remove all comments from posts that were recently sponsored by hated corporations. wtf is going on at BB HQ? Comments critical of BB are not allowed?
Takuan

That is correct Comrade Panda (if that is your REAL name) All glory to the noble Boinger Revolution. Remain in view of the camera! (stirring accordian music riff, sound of jackboots and slamming steel doors)

I am impressed by the massive response to BB taking in washing for MS and Honda to make ends meet. Truly , it is amazing how so many courageous voices are lifted in protest – so many more than say against the fascist TSA or the traitor politicos that just voted away American rights to privacy.
Kaiser

I am posting this in protest over boingboing’s decision to censor the negative comments about the new Microsoft Windows Mobile sponsorship. Really low class bb. The editors deleted the entire comments section of the first Windows Mobile post a few stories down. I thought you bb might try to explain themselves rather than delete the negative criticism. If you want your loyal readers to keep coming back and trusting what you write you owe us an explanation. You must know that with the kind of ideals this blog aspires to, you just can’t throw up a Microsoft logo and a MS sponsored post without telling us what the hell you’re thinking. What’s going on at bb? Was there a Coup d’Ã©tat while Cory is on Paternity leave?
NAM

I work for TSA and just postd on our Blog about Terminal 6 at LAX. I checked with them early this morning and they tell me this is not and has not been required anywhere at LAX. We continue to encourage passengers to place all of their small electronic items together in their carry-ons so they remain together, but there is no requirement to remove all small electronic items.
Takuan

Don’t know for sure, but I suspect that when faced with a long string of semi-reasoned and likely abusive posts, they decided to flush the whole thing and try again later when people have had time to think and consider their words. Or maybe they are having a conference to really re-consider the whole idea of MS and Honda ads.

So how about giving them the benefit of the doubt and holding the self-righteousness for say, oh, a whole day?

Really.
brandonwardlaw

TSA was just checking to make sure they were using Windows Mobile.
RyanH

@ #11
Hey, thanks for the heads up there. I had a couple posts in there, but had not checked the thread for a couple hours. Deleting the whole thing was most uncool. There were only about 40 posts last time I checked, and all of them had been fairly civil and thought out. If the quality of the comments was going down hill after the last ones I read, locking the thread might have been appropriate, but deleting an important discussion?

Cory, we need you!
OsoMan

Nope… I was just through LAX on Monday and Tuesday and had no problems. I find that wearing a suit realy helps avoid these problems ;)

God I hope the shoe/hair-gel/breast-milk bombers don’t find out…
CD

bummer out at LAX…..still not so bad at SFO last I went through…safety first, just like Jr. High Shop class!

Did Boing Boing enter a shark jumping contest?

-posted with my snazzy Windows Mobile Device.
katmcmick

TSA at T4 wasn’t doing this on Sunday night. They were checking our IDs with blacklights for a really, really long time, though.
Takuan

cause they were ripped again and grooving on the swirlys.
Andrew M.

Argh. I leave the computer for 6 hours, and things go to shit…

I may have been hasty in calling you all sellouts when the Honda thing came up, but come on…Microsoft? You knew people were going to have a problem with that, even before you nuked the comment thread. What the hell’s going on over there at BoingBoing?

Takuan: The TSA thing royally sucks, and I hope it’s just someone who didn’t get the memo. Honestly, TSA’s the main reason I seldom fly. My problem is, none of the presidential candidates have shown a willingness to fix (to say nothing of dismantling) TSA, or any of the other broken security apparatus. That makes me think this is going to be in place for a long while.

As for FISA — I yelled at my senators about it yesterday, who gave me some bullshit about “telecoms acting in good faith while protecting America”. Morons. But my Congressman’s a decent guy, so maybe he’ll oppose merging the bills in conference.
Takuan

If the TSA is now hardwired, time to route around it. Employees have to tell their employers “Nope, ain’t doing that, get me a train ticket” (where possible), or surface to free zones like Canada or Mexico and air out. Family members have to tell relations the same.

I know it sounds ludicrous, but think it through. If you accept this, what will you accept next?
musicpsych

This has happened to me at O’Hare in the past few months, and at Miami International just last week. Of course, the request was verbal – there were no posted signs about mp3 players, cameras, or other small electronics needing to be screened separately. If anything, that just heightens the fear – I’d feel safer knowing my electronics were safely in my bag, rather than out in a tray, ready to be stolen by someone who got through security first.
wrybread

I’ve flown out of SFO twice in the last week, didn’t have to remove cameras or cables or label maker or other little gizmos. Just laptops.

Did see one awesomely funny sight in Chicago: the TSA guys were in a meeting in the corner when some guy got flagged for “additional scrutiny” (I love that phrase) by one of the minions covering the gate. He got coralled into a little plexiglass cage where everyone could openly stare at him. Since the meeting was going on he had to stand in there (no seats) for probably 10 minutes while they finished. I wish I’d have filmed it, was oddly hilarious.
Jeff

I guess we all know that anyone with the ambition could easily use a laptop to blow a hole in the side of plane. I don’t know if it’s going to happen, but know-it-alls like me have probably informed TSA how it can be done and that’s why the rest of us suffer in line. I had a very nice talk with a TSA on the subject of hiding explosive in a bar of soap. And if anyone would like the directions on how to turn a laptop into a bomb, ah, just google it.
buddy66

That was me in the wheelchair, #19. I get caged all the time. I was a visible radical in the 60s and my name is still on their list. They also like to inspect my Sebagos and my laptop. It’s like, “What’s a 75-year-old communist doing wearing loafers and carrying a Mac?”

“Uh, what’s a communist?”
loftwyr

Ds t pply t Wndws Mbl dvcs? ‘v hrd thy r th bst thng vr!
Takuan

do they keep all the colostomy bags and urine catheters they confiscate? Or do they consume them in the back?
Ari B.

Anyone have an idea about how things are at SFO? I’m headed there next week.
weewillie

HEY! don’t forget to go to the TSA blog; http://www.tsa.gov/blog/index.shtm

Tell “Christopher” that he’s a liar. I’ve written a couple of beauties to the blog just now. It’s all moderated by the TSA so don’t expect much.

Remember this gem, “…this exercise was set up by local TSA offices and was not part of any grand plan across the country…”

Hey BB – how about a better headline like, “ROGUE TSA AGENTS OPERATING UNSANCTIONED SECURITY CHECKS AT LAX!!!”
demidan

If given a great deal of time on our hands I think that a National “fly with no ID-day” should be called. It’s still legal to fly within the U.S. without ID, why not try it en masse and watch TSA meltdown completely? Cavity searches for all!
trailermonkey

Just flew out of Terminal 6 this morning. There was no extra searches, except a sign asking passengers to remove laptops and video cameras. That was it.

I had a crapload of electronics in my bag and had no problems. Although I discovered my magnetic parking card for work sets off the metal detector.
Takuan

If you fly a great deal, time to get the company to go halfers with another and buy a company plane.
MB

I got caged in one of those plexiglass things, once, and while I was waiting for one agent to come open it, I had the pleasure of watching another agent *drop* my laptop (through sheer carelessness – not really an accident). Thankfully, the guy who was in line behind me caught it just as it hit the rollers, and no apparent damage done.

It’s amazing how angry I got so quickly. I suspect it has something to do with being caged. I now completely understand why otherwise completely normal people go apeshit at security, sometimes.