At the Pittsburgh airport the guy at the conveyer belt for the luggage scanner told me to leave my shoes on, as he did for the person before me.
When we got to the body scanner the guy there told me to take my shoes off and put them on the luggage belt. Person before me walked right through with their shoes on.
One TSA agent sees me removing my lacrosse ball from my bag. He says “no that can stay in there”. I say no your scanners always stop me because of it. He replies “you will be fine” and I put it through in my luggage. I go through security and sure enough my bag is stopped. After they pull it out, swab it down like it’s contraband, they say I can go I say no, I’d like a supervisor. I ask the supervisor to bring the other agent over that told me it would be ok. Supervisor immediately sees the problem and begins to tell me ways to avoid the security theater including ignoring the agents and removing things that are constantly flagged. It makes both of our lives easier he said. Just made me wonder what the point of all of this was.
In the end he told me avoid lines with multiple TSA agents at a single station since they are in training and will stop almost everything. I smile, thank him for giving away all of their opsec and walk away shaking my head. It’s all a joke.
Pittsburgh barely cares about belts and shoes now. Little Rock is pretty lax too. Honestly, one shoe bomber didn't ever inspire copycats (because it was a dumb plot)
I disagree. They got none of the political change they were seeking. Quite the opposite really since it only led to more US involvement in the Middle East.
No joke, the main reason I got TSA PreCheck was so I didn't have to take my shoes off. All the other benefits were just nice extra perks. It was a preposterous policy and I'm glad it's gone.
Was the shoe removal policy really 2006? I remember being a teenager in 2004 and taking a flight, where I had to remove my shoes, and feeling like the terrorists won.
I got into this debate with someone else. That was the Flight that prompted the policy but TSA itself wasn't fully implemented for another 3-6 years because it worked at the speed of bureaucracy and security theater and equipment upgrades. There were partial rollouts, some airports were way faster than others at things like "take off your shoes and send them through the luggage scanner". But some of that wasn't even under the banner of TSA.
“They should feel relieved knowing that technology has advanced so significantly that T.S.A. officers can detect threats while wearing shoes,” he added. “In the old days, this wasn’t the case.”
The TSA agents don’t need to be anywhere or wear anything to do their jobs. The TSA is a public works jobs program disguised in a way that no one in Congress can argue against because it’s in the name of fighting the “enemy” nothing more.
I don't mind a public works program, but it'd be nice if we got something useful out of it, rather than just annoyance and maybe reduced demand for air travel because of said annoyance.
Presumably what has changed is the equipment. The old equipment has trouble identifying things closer to the ground. I world assume the newer scanners do a better job of scanning things close to the ground. Of course the new scanners are several years old. So what has changed since then?
The reality is none of this does anything.
This was in another country but I recently had some thin wire in my carry on (it was heavy) that want allowed. But my power cords for my laptop was allowed. Alrighty then
At the Pittsburgh airport the guy at the conveyer belt for the luggage scanner told me to leave my shoes on, as he did for the person before me.
When we got to the body scanner the guy there told me to take my shoes off and put them on the luggage belt. Person before me walked right through with their shoes on.
Glad to see this Security Theater end.
One TSA agent sees me removing my lacrosse ball from my bag. He says “no that can stay in there”. I say no your scanners always stop me because of it. He replies “you will be fine” and I put it through in my luggage. I go through security and sure enough my bag is stopped. After they pull it out, swab it down like it’s contraband, they say I can go I say no, I’d like a supervisor. I ask the supervisor to bring the other agent over that told me it would be ok. Supervisor immediately sees the problem and begins to tell me ways to avoid the security theater including ignoring the agents and removing things that are constantly flagged. It makes both of our lives easier he said. Just made me wonder what the point of all of this was.
In the end he told me avoid lines with multiple TSA agents at a single station since they are in training and will stop almost everything. I smile, thank him for giving away all of their opsec and walk away shaking my head. It’s all a joke.
Did you have terroristic looking feet?
I don't know about my feet. They did take away my shoes to be scanned, which took ~15 minutes. Just normal shoes from a shoe store.
I regularly set off the scanner for no apparent reason and get pulled aside to have a Wand run over me, which finds nothing.
On international travel I get frisked every time I have to show my passport.
Pittsburgh barely cares about belts and shoes now. Little Rock is pretty lax too. Honestly, one shoe bomber didn't ever inspire copycats (because it was a dumb plot)
If you think how much of our collective lives the shoebomber wasted making everyone take their shoes off, I’d say that was terrorism enough.
Security Theater works better is everyone is using the same script
20 years of stupidity. It took us that long to learn.
The terrorists won.
I disagree. They got none of the political change they were seeking. Quite the opposite really since it only led to more US involvement in the Middle East.
[dead]
Active discussion on this post from a few hours ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44500315
How about they stop molesting me after going through the scanner? I promise you I’m not packing anything more dangerous than any average man.
No joke, the main reason I got TSA PreCheck was so I didn't have to take my shoes off. All the other benefits were just nice extra perks. It was a preposterous policy and I'm glad it's gone.
Was the shoe removal policy really 2006? I remember being a teenager in 2004 and taking a flight, where I had to remove my shoes, and feeling like the terrorists won.
I'm remembering it happening earlier as well. I always assumed this 2001 incident immediately prompted the policy.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Airlines_Flight_63_...
I got into this debate with someone else. That was the Flight that prompted the policy but TSA itself wasn't fully implemented for another 3-6 years because it worked at the speed of bureaucracy and security theater and equipment upgrades. There were partial rollouts, some airports were way faster than others at things like "take off your shoes and send them through the luggage scanner". But some of that wasn't even under the banner of TSA.
TSA was a weird rollout.
[dupe] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44500315
[dead]
Now ask: what changed? Think about that.
“They should feel relieved knowing that technology has advanced so significantly that T.S.A. officers can detect threats while wearing shoes,” he added. “In the old days, this wasn’t the case.”
S: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/07/travel/tsa-shoes-removal-...
So, previous to this the TSA officers had to be barefoot to do their jobs?
The TSA agents don’t need to be anywhere or wear anything to do their jobs. The TSA is a public works jobs program disguised in a way that no one in Congress can argue against because it’s in the name of fighting the “enemy” nothing more.
I don't mind a public works program, but it'd be nice if we got something useful out of it, rather than just annoyance and maybe reduced demand for air travel because of said annoyance.
Presumably what has changed is the equipment. The old equipment has trouble identifying things closer to the ground. I world assume the newer scanners do a better job of scanning things close to the ground. Of course the new scanners are several years old. So what has changed since then? The reality is none of this does anything. This was in another country but I recently had some thin wire in my carry on (it was heavy) that want allowed. But my power cords for my laptop was allowed. Alrighty then