I feel good about the $50.00 I won from you my man. :D:rolleyes:

I've never been ID'ed other than by TSA -- first point of contact with the airline would be the ticket check at the gate, and they've never checked ID's on a domestic flight. (I rarely if ever check bags in.)

If you go to the counter first then the airline will check ID as well as TSA. The gate does not check ID because the gate area is secure and they know that either the airline or TSA or both have already checked it.

I have seen the airline recheck ID's at the gate with the excuse that it is "additional security".

I have also witnessed the most bizarre event to date:

A full complement of TSA employees show up at the gate and do a full pat down search of every single person waiting in the SWA line for boarding. Fortunately, I was sitting down and didn't get into the line. They left before I boarded the aircraft.

I got my BP at the counter. Just enter my name and that was that. TSA checked my BP vs my Driver License or Passport or any other Govt ID. After that, the gate scanned either your ID or if you have a barcode on your smartphone and you go thru.

That is bizarre. Why dedicate all those agents to that flight? Were they on a training mission or what?

That tends to be the exception to the rule. Typically the gate will not check ID. Should they decide to do so they may have a security concern or the passenger may have pissed someone off and the gate is going to screw with them. I have seen both happen. I know shortly after 9/11 TSA would do random gate screenings. No idea why. If someone got by the check point, trying to catch them at a gate was a bit futile in my opinion.

Could it be so that the TSA can, in the event of something bad happening, simply say "Well I checked, double checked and even just before they got onto the plane. We did everything possible.", IOW, CYA?

I'll say.

I have no idea.........the agents looked really annoyed by it. They were doing it to every flight that left that day. It was not a training mission.

We're talking a full frisk up and down both pant legs and arms. Took about 10 seconds per person...............

I've done the hand scans (up/down legs/arms-body pats (w/the back of the hands)) and no one gets past if something doesn't "feel right" - they then pull out the knife/bottle/bag of stuff and have one of two choices...take it back to their car or throw it in the garbage bin. The minute someone wants to "discuss" the choices, I ask them to move over to the right 'cause others would like to get in. When they continue to try to converse with me and try to make a point, I remind them that there's some writing on the ticket/printout they hold and that they should read it. I keep my end civil, but firm. Don't think for one second that I'm 6'9"...usually it's the "problem child" that's 6'9", I'm just 5'5" and with a radio. Anything after that, I call the "super" and then the bets are laid...with us being the "house" and there's little payout. Because when the "super" is called, two or more "blue" back him up.

Here's the way the world is going to work now...public places, you need to show proof why you are there due to someone's "I've got a right to blow you up 'cause of some injustice that's been done to my people many, many years before I was born!" world-view-victim paradigm.

Simple as that...we're reacting to some mis-guided logic of sympathy for the homi-bombers instead of wiping them out like the vermin they are. Why must we all feel for them? Quit being PC and protect the borders, execute the violators and close those books. War is hell, but guerrilla warfare is hell personified.

And if it takes a half-@55ed organization like the TSA to start the ball rolling, you have two choices...take your @55 back to where it came from or follow the rules for entry.

And one more requirement...quit yur' b!tch!n'...it ain't making friends and it's not getting sympathy.

..........you're working for the TSA, now????


..........don't let spdrun find you...........:eek:

You mean PRIVATE or SEMI-PRIVATE places, like airports and aircraft (last I checked, we don't have a government airline). I sure as f***ing h*ll don't need to prove why I'm on the sidewalk, or in Central Park. Those are public places, for the enjoyment of the public, and I don't see that changing.

I don't feel for them, and I agree with you. Be firm outside the US, but preserve our civil liberties inside the US.

BTW, the few attempts at terror inside the US weren't caught by TSA. They either slipped by security (shoe bomber and pantie bomber) and were beat down by passengers, failed miserably (Times Square bomber), or were caught by police work in the planning stage (supposed subway and tunnel attack plans). Therefore, good human intelligence and passenger vigilance has done more to prevent attacks than the sorry-ass excuse for security theatre that is the TSA.

Secondly, if people are so eager to attack the US, why haven't there been more attacks? Planes aren't the only target. No terrorist has unbolted a rail plate or stuck a bomb to tracks to cause a train to derail recently, run a truck into a crowd of people on a sidewalk, thrown a bomb into a nightclub ... you get the idea. Perhaps terrorists aren't as eager to attack within the US as you're brainwashed to think.

So? I don't care about your friendship or sympathy.

I've been going to two different HDs in two different cities for FIVE years and they have never checked me. I have never seen them check anyone here. Can this be a local store initiative taken by the manager? or the regional manager?

one in every 11 people

I have not had to show ID at the gate in the last several years. Neither has my wife or my parents.