Baltimore Scanner Stops Cowboy Luke
I am in line at BWI snaking my way up to the podium to have my ID and Ticket checked. The line is long - as it is everywhere these days - and there are two TSA agents who are doing a good job of keeping it moving. A third agent comes over and stands off to the side and starts also clearing passengers. I always appreciate when someone will just jump in and do whatever makes sense to get the job done. The third agent didnt have the little opera glass lense to check licenses or whatever other equipment might be standard,but he was doing his part to keep the line moving. I am guessing a part of this job was to be the expeditor - he was repeatedly announcing for passengers to have their ID’s ready,their tickets out,and for each passenger to be holding their own tickets. If a passenger would hesitate about which podium to approach, he would remind them loudly to “step up,step up, I’m open, step up..”
I made it through the line quickly, because of the help of the third agent, who offered to buy my cowboy hat by the way.
I then randomly selected one of the six security screening lines to enter. Security screening lines are just like a grocery store line selection. It does not matter which line you chose, no matter how carefully, or based on any number of factors, it will consistently and always be the wrong line.
This morning, I select a middle line. I make it to the conveyor belt and execute the usual routine, belt, boots,hat,suit jacket, laptop bag, cell phone, are all arranged and sent into the scanner. I step up to the metal detector and announce “two artificial hips” and step through as the alarms go off.
However, this would turn out to be quite a different secondary screening. BWI has one of those new “full body scanners” that zaps a picture of you that allows the agent to see everything - and I am told that the word “everything” is absolutely correct.
I step into what looks like a very large,circular phone booth. I stand with my arms out to my side. A TSA agent on the other side is holding a portable radio and he announces into the microphone “two artificial hips in the hole, go when ready”. A metal wand on each side of the booth spins once from front to back and stops. The agent asks me to turn sideways, and then announces into the radio “ready on six, go again”, and the metal wands spin again - this time front to back, looking like two super giant windshield wipers. The entire process took about 10 seconds. The agent asks me to step out of the booth but can’t let me go until he gets clearance from the other end of the radio.
The radio speaker announces something unintelligble and the agent asks me if I have anything in my front left pocket. I explained that I had a handful of Motrin there which I am about to take. He has me pull the pills from my front left pocket and show them to him, along with my pocket turned inside out. He announces back to the radio that it was pills and that he has seen them. I am given permission to leave and continue on to my gate.
I am guessing that TSA has deliberatly placed the display screen for the scanner in some remote location to prevent any embarrassment from the images that appear every few minutes. It is probably a quiet room far removed from the rest of the screening process where the on duty TSA agents can double over howling without worry that their howling will draw any attention.
So, TSA says in a press release that the new body scanner uses very low doses of radiation and that passengers do not need to worry. I must say that if the system was able to detect three Motrin pills in my front right blue jeans pocket, I am impressed. I might recommend that this TSA screening team give some advice to the team at Orlando International - following their “compliance audit” failure this week (see related blog, “A Failed TSA Screening Test”).