Maybe I’m going to the wrong airports or something, but TSA agents are pretty friendly to me like 97% of the time. I had one incident where an agent confiscated a multitool off my keys and got snippy with me, and a few other times where security is busy and they’re more curt/loud, but I’ve never seen a TSA agent go on a power trip. Hell, one time my bag got randomly flagged for a check and as the guy was looking through, it he saw the books I had in there as my in-flight entertainment, and struck up a friendly conversation on book recommendations. All the while assuring me they didn’t actually find anything on the scan, it was just a random check (and implied that he thought the random checks were silly and ineffective).
I’m at least one of those and have had similar experiences. Turns out that people tend to be nicer to you if you fit into one of those categories (or both). I had to check my privilege after discovering this.
One agent did a full body X-Ray, then pulled my bag to the side and searched through it because I had the gall to opt-out of the facial recognition (where he then accidentally took five photos of other people before figuring out how to hit the “no” button) He yelled at me and my family, then made someone else take over his spot specifically so he could handle every step of my extra screening that he solely decided to do himself. A different agent saw and just came to have a chat with me though. Hard to believe they had to work together.
Another time, 3 TSA agents had to give me a randomly assigned screening on my boarding pass, and they started gambling real money with each other on what my age was. (all of them were wrong)
Definitely depends on the airport. The couple in front of me boarding a flight in Montana had clearly just got done with some camping, and tried bringing a fire extinguisher sized can of bear mace onto the plane. TSA thought it was hilarious. They confiscated it, sure, but all the while laughing, and the couple still boarded their flight without a hiccup. Can’t imagine that going well at LAX.
Edit to add: this was the same airport where some cowboys were holding a raffle for rifles INSIDE the airport. Just a whole lot of guns on a table. Ok I guess 🤷
Maybe I’m going to the wrong airports or something, but TSA agents are pretty friendly to me like 97% of the time. I had one incident where an agent confiscated a multitool off my keys and got snippy with me, and a few other times where security is busy and they’re more curt/loud, but I’ve never seen a TSA agent go on a power trip. Hell, one time my bag got randomly flagged for a check and as the guy was looking through, it he saw the books I had in there as my in-flight entertainment, and struck up a friendly conversation on book recommendations. All the while assuring me they didn’t actually find anything on the scan, it was just a random check (and implied that he thought the random checks were silly and ineffective).
You may be white and/or attractive.
I’m at least one of those and have had similar experiences. Turns out that people tend to be nicer to you if you fit into one of those categories (or both). I had to check my privilege after discovering this.
I’ve had some odd experiences with TSA.
One agent did a full body X-Ray, then pulled my bag to the side and searched through it because I had the gall to opt-out of the facial recognition (where he then accidentally took five photos of other people before figuring out how to hit the “no” button) He yelled at me and my family, then made someone else take over his spot specifically so he could handle every step of my extra screening that he solely decided to do himself. A different agent saw and just came to have a chat with me though. Hard to believe they had to work together.
Another time, 3 TSA agents had to give me a randomly assigned screening on my boarding pass, and they started gambling real money with each other on what my age was. (all of them were wrong)
Definitely depends on the airport. The couple in front of me boarding a flight in Montana had clearly just got done with some camping, and tried bringing a fire extinguisher sized can of bear mace onto the plane. TSA thought it was hilarious. They confiscated it, sure, but all the while laughing, and the couple still boarded their flight without a hiccup. Can’t imagine that going well at LAX.
Edit to add: this was the same airport where some cowboys were holding a raffle for rifles INSIDE the airport. Just a whole lot of guns on a table. Ok I guess 🤷