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Am I a Suspect?
On each of my last four flights on commercial airlines, my checked luggage has been subject to a “random” inspection by TSA. I know that because they leave that “nothing personal” friendly note inside the bag in English and Spanish. And my bag has been checked by TSA other times in the recent past.
The TSA people at DCA (Reagan Airport), TPA (Tampa), BWI (Baltimore), DET (Detroit) and DAL (Dallas Love) have all picked my bag for the check–twice in Tampa. What are the odds if TSA “randomly” checks only 5%? I did manage to get in and out of Salt Lake City without being checked. Maybe TSA just implicitly trusts people going to and from Utah.
The contents of the bag do not appear to be disturbed or rearranged, although some toys for grandkids were noticeably moved around. Oddly enough, on my return trip from Tampa last weekend, a glass hand grenade container for one “The General” brand of hot sauce was untouched. I know that because I now pack more strategically and in paranoid fashion so I can tell what has been moved. I left a laptop in the bag one time and the TSA note was found on the keyboard when I opened it. That seemed more intrusive than the other checks for some reason.
I can’t figure out why I am the target. My longtime travelling companion who packs a much odder array of items including power strips, an electric hair curler and wads of USB cables in her bag is never checked. Maybe the prospect of wading through all of that deters them.
A plain black case was checked in the past. The blue one in the picture on the right with the combination lock I never use was the
target on the last four. I usually keep wired stuff (power supplies, cords, etc.) in a carry-on laptop bag so X-rays of the checked bag should not present an issue. In the certain knowledge that whatever AI the feds use is reading this post and knows my identity, I would just like to say that I just cannot say enough about what a wonderful job all of you guys do to keep us safe and that I am totally not a terrorist, that I was at least 1.6 miles away from the Capitol at all times on J6, and that I truly love all you public servants, heroes all.
Yer a white male. They gotta prove, publicly, that They ain’t some discriminating racists.
Maybe the agent was a guy? I know when my wife says “can you get the keys out of my purse?” I still just hand it to her.
Yep.
How do they know? Surely, there must be minority travelers who carefully roll shirts and underwear, carefully coil any belts, and use multipocketed toiletry bags/dop kits. Does the X-ray machine AI flash “old white guy”? Do the dogs sniff a faint hint of after shave that suggests a barber shop from 1962 and signal their masters?
On the other hand, if they really have that much personal detail available in the baggage room, they would know that the likelihood of an elderly American travelling to visit grandkids being a suicide bomber is astronomically low.
Which is why you’re the one searched. They might offend someone if they searched the bags of a Muslim or minority.
On one official expedition a co-worker and I were traveling on military orders, and we both got extra screening at every stop. ???
My bet is that you’re on a list from some event or purchase last 3-5 years. Seems unlikely to be random.
White people in the military are extra-dangerous, didn’t you know?
You should be honored to be on the same profile list as Tulsi.
I am suspicious of, and interested in, any correlation between regular posting here—particularly if Main Feed accessible—and TSA bag checks. We need input from others. Susan?
That is exactly what I was just about to write. Huh.
Does it bother anyone but me how easy it has been for Simon Templar to appear here whenever it strikes his fancy?
If someone wanted to invade Ricochet and just never comment or post, he or she could gather a lot of screen names of people who hold strong opinions, both from the private member feed and the public main feed. I read a book a few years ago that dwelled in one chapter on how easy it has become to connect ISP addresses to individuals. If I recall correctly, it was the Axios company who developed the algorithm. It’s how ads are targeted to personal computers. That connection is how Facebook became so rich because Facebook gave away its treasure trove of personal information garnered from people’s posts on its website. That was a lot of data. In fact, it was Facebook’s data that enabled facial recognition software to be developed.
During the pandemic on Ricochet, people expressed many strong opinions about government. I was concerned about this.
Now I am even more concerned.
May I suggest this be marked for the member feed only? Not that it would help necessarily.
I went through a bad patch back in 2006-2007, when I had a series of calamitous family events in the UK which necessitated six or seven trips back and forth across The Pond in the space of about fifteen months. I attribute the “kickoff” to the fact that one of them was during cold weather, when I was travelling in a pair of boots that I wore regularly around the farm. They went through the scanner, and the Blue Glove Brigade snapped into action! I’ve assumed ever since that it was the traces of manure and fertilizer on the soles, and that’s what set them off. Anyway, I seemed to enjoy closer-than-usual (as it were) scrutiny for the next few trips. By 2009, when I returned to the UK after a couple years’ hiatus, things seemed back to normal.
Shades of my mother, who was always up for what’s known in my family as a “packing challenge” and was quite spectacular at it. She’d put all her “feminine hygiene products” and underwear (think Bridget Jones) in a prominent place at the top of the bag or suitcase. In those days, I think customs officials did less behind-the-scenes screening of bags, but I can testify to some red faces among the men when we got to the front of the queue once we’d entered the country. They never delved below the surface.
This also reminds me of a story Dad used to tell about a friend of his whose school-age daughter travelled to Cuba for a holiday and who came home with her luggage full of one of Cuba’s most well-known luxuries. When she got to customs at Heathrow, she–who’d always been taught to be truthful–was asked, “Young lady, have you anything to declare?”
“Yes, Officer,” she replied. “Two hundred Cuban cigars.”
“Saucy young minx,” said the man, and waved her through.
One time, maybe ten years ago or more, I rushed in packing my bag to fly back to Chicago from Ireland. I had quite a mess of cables back then, and just stuffed them in my bag. I don’t know if it’s our TSA that does the last security checks in Dublin, but my bag was a long time working its way through the X-ray line. I got into a position where I could watch as the guy monitoring the screen puzzled over my bag. He called for a supervisor to look at it, and that guy glanced at it and waved it through.
I’m not sure if that was the same time Mrs Subcomandante was held up for extra scans and questions when there was not a lot of time to spare. They had announced that people were being randomly selected for this treatment. Well, I’m not completely sure they used the word “randomly,” but that was the implication. It has never happened to me.
The suitcase that contains my folded-up bicycle was opened up once, and one of those notes was left in it. I’m somewhat surprised that it has been only once.
Sounds like you might be getting more than your fair share.
I think it was Vance who suggested that TSA was past its sell by date. Just don’t mention them to Tulsi.
A friend of mine (“Joe”) used to get pulled out for special attention by the TSA every single time he travelled. He mentioned this to a longtime friend of his who worked in a national security agency (DEA?). Said friend dug into it and found out that “Joe” was put on a list due to 1) he was born outside the U.S. and 2) he’d checked firearms several times on flights.
His dad was a soldier who married his mom overseas, and Joe was born in Japan before his dad’s tour was over.
While he was flying back and forth helping his mom sort through things after his dad’s death, Joe had brought home several of his dad’s guns that he wanted to keep. His dad was a big gun collector.
That’s all it took for a 60-something man with no criminal history to get on the TSA list.
In 2014 Mrs Doc Robert and I visited Milan for a week. Coming back with 100 Cuban cigars in my suitcase I was surprised when the Customs agent at Boston’s Logan airport asked me if I had “forgotten” any tobacco on my customs declaration. I said that yes, I had, and pulled a three pack out of my suit’s breast pocket. He let me through with a smile.
He had to know.
I don’t worry about this matter much as it applies to
clownsindividuals like Simon who have an open and widely-advertised grudge against this site or some of its members, or how easy it is for him–or anyone else, even a new member who might be named “TSABot” or something less obvious–to enter, to re-enter, to lurk, or to sound off. The fact that a recognized antagonist like Simon can do so with such ease and regularity–even given his known identity markers and characteristics–is largely attributable to managerial inattention, lack of internal controls, and the fact that this very small and insignificant site has so few resources to prevent him, or others like him from showing up at will. The fact that newly-minted antagonists or ill-wishers can show up from time to time here is not unique to Ricochet or contingent upon the size of the site or its resources, and is just part of the deal in this twenty-first century.I don’t expect any of the preceding concerns to abate anytime soon.
Those we really need to worry about, and those who really know what they are doing, don’t waste time enlisting in, or signing onto, individual websites. They work at much lower levels, both figuratively and engineering-wise. They don’t need to become Ricochet members to see what’s said on any of the feeds or in any of the groups here, and to trace who has said it. They may be in China. Or Russia. Or Iran. Or North Korea. Or even Washington DC. They can get to anything they want, any time they want, anywhere they want.
We’ll never, ever, see them coming, and we certainly won’t be in a position to point them out as the member of our site who betrayed us or turned us in.
All we can do, as Gandalf says, is “decide what to do with the time that is given us.” We can be silent. Or we can speak up.
When I visited the Philippines in the 80s, I took along a large suitcase full of Myrtlewood, which grows along the Oregon coast as well as in the Holy Lands. It takes a nice polish and gets made into various items especially religious things such as collection “plates,” so I figured it would be popular over there, and I could trade it for some Philippine mahogany which my grandfather in Oregon wanted for making picture frames and other things.
I had no difficulties going over, but coming back with the suitcase full of mahogany, the US customs people were concerned about “plants.” But I pointed out that the mahogany, while technically a “plant,” was long dead. So they agreed it wasn’t a problem.
I’m sure it’s not unique to Ricochet.
I don’t blame the management here. I don’t know how it could ever be prevented, especially if the person never commented or posted. The member feed is open to anyone with $5 to spend.
Or something like $4 if you don’t care about Groups.
I have a long-time subscription to National Review, and wrote an article for them and several for First Things a long time ago. Some funny Trump-themed items purchased online and given as gifts; some small GOP political donations and was on some panels at small rightwing think tanks events decades ago.
NATO connection?: I once sent a case of PeptoBismol to the British Embassy on behalf of the Ancient Order of Hibernians when Gerry Adams was in town for talks.
Espionage?: Robert Hanssen brought his kid to my house for my son’s birthday party where we talked as we did on some other social occasions.
Military security breach?: My Army roommate at Ft. Huachuca had a pen pal in Havana, routed through an address off base in Bisbee from some other Latin American country. As a contrarian oddball but not a communist, he put gifts from the Cuban Communist Party including an English language collection of the wisdom of Kim Il Sung on his desk in our room solely to prove that the people conducting regular security checks were idiots. Maybe they did notice…
Insurrectionist tendencies?: Have attended the March for Life more than once, a Latin mass ten years ago, and posted obviously rightist opinions hundred of times on the old Heritage Townhall and more recently on Ricochet. And my conservative cis-female wife and I have lots of kids.
The feds AI already knows all of this…still does not really explain it.
FWIW, I got an IRS audit the first year after becoming a member. I was about 50 years old. First audit ever in my life. Who knows?
I think you’ll find that a person who signs up here as a Coolidge member (the most useful starting point, because it gives one access to almost everything on the site) has two weeks free rein to do whatever he or she wants without any payment at all. $5 is not needed, even for access to join and comment in groups, to search member activity, to write a post which may be promoted to the main feed, or to comment on posts which are already on the main feed.
Most sites I have signed up for (I’m not a huge joiner, but I can connect the dots) do have a short period of “acceptance” or “approval” during which I have to wait to see if I can begin to participate. This gives site administration some breathing room per the site’s Terms and Conditions (or perhaps until they get into the office the next day), as to whether they might decide to accept me or not. Along the way, they will probably be able to see if I might be a returning, grudge-bearing member–a known known–who can simply be rejected, or someone with a clearly problematic and pre-existing Internet profile-a known unknown–who perhaps should be admitted, but who should be watched.
This just gives the site the permission and ability to clear the obvious detritus out of the way before admitting an actual “new” member who is–let’s face it–“an unknown unknown.”
Ricochet isn’t one of those careful sites which takes those cautious steps and which, I think of as the way to remove the possibility of self-inflicted wounds. I’d prefer it if it were. But my animadversions as to alternative and more careful behavior over the years have been ignored, so here we are, and–having refused to deal with the first two, easily disposable, alternatives–we come down to what remains:
The only truly “new” Ricochet members, are the Rumsfeldian “unknown unknowns.”
Bless. Most of you are wonderful. We’re glad you’re here. Please write and comment.
I’ve said before, those who show up here, under a traceable moniker, whatever it is, and whatever they say, deserve credit for doing so, and probably aren’t your worst nightmare.
The odds that a person with a 5% chance of being selected on each flight wins the lottery four times are 1 / 160,000 (0.00000625). If you win a fifth time they will be 1 / 3,200,000.
Hm. Poor Joe.
I (also non-native born) took particular care, almost 20 years ago, after Dad died, to import his favorite shotgun (a wedding present between his parents from their marriage in 1904) into the US legally and with papers. Neither of my UK siblings cared to own it due to UK gun restrictions and their (at the time) fear of even saying the word which they often transposed into “NUG.”
So the selfsame GUN, the one that shot the man-eating lion in Nigeria in about 1950, made its way–safely and without incident–into the good old USA.
There’s a bit more to the story on this end, but never mind.
Hm. I suppose it might be even more interesting to know how many of the thousands of we Ricochet members over the past fifteen years, either in our first year of membership here, or ever since, have–or have not–been audited. That is–at this point–a “hard no” for me.
Don’t suppose we could take a poll. Wish we could.
On my end, and if we could, the answer would be–as of today–“No.”
If that should change tomorrow, I’ll give a shout out.
You can tell if you are flagged by looking at the top of your ticket- on the top in the middle if you see SSSSS- you will be searched at every security checkpoint. For some reason you have been deemed a threat.
Years ago my wife got tagged b/c she called the day before our flight to ask if we could change where we boarded. Because she asked she was flagged as a risk. So at every security checkpoint, she was pulled aside and frisked & her luggage was carefully searched. It was very odd b/c they didn’t search her husband (me) or our 3 sons nor their luggage. We actually missed connections b/c of all the scrutiny. Luckily, an intelligent women at a ticket counter told me what was going on & told me to carry all her luggage so they wouldn’t search it. After that we went thru the checkpoints much more rapidly- although one had to question why they didn’t search her spouse (who had 2 carryons & a purse). I told her we could more readily hide guns in the shoes of our sons than on her (2 of which wear size 14 shoes). But intelligence isn’t a strong suit of homeland security- they let Middle Easterners go thru while they frisked a middle aged women traveling with her children.
Unacceptable. Spill the beans now.
I know. TSA should have a prize wheel for me to spin or at least some coupons with the inspection notice.