I'm t T and I'm Zakiyah and this is Dope Labs. Welcome to Dope Labs, a weekly podcast that mixes hardcore science with pop culture and a healthy dose of friendship. I don't think I've ever asked you this, zee. Do you like traveling? I mean, I travel a lot, and I think usually I do. But it's just the little in between time before I get to my gate and board the plane, Like everything leading up to that, like from when I wake up that morning to that point,
is stressful. It really gets on my nerves. And I you know, I always pack at the last minute. Yeah, of course, of course. And then I have to figure out, am I taking an uber which is gonna be a trillion dollars to the airport? Am I driving myself to the airport? Which I used to like doing? But then I get there, none of the information is corrected. The Atlanta Airport sometimes they're like, oh, this parking lot is full.
It's like I just passed a digital sign that you could easily update remotely that says this airport lot is available. I wouldn't even come this way. And then I think the gotcha, gotcha, guess who's coming to dinner. Part is what your experience at TSA is gonna be, Like, it's gonna be seven minutes or seventy you know, Oh my gosh, TSA. It feels like everyone has an attitude. Folks are yelling, people have their shoes off, people are struggling with the bens.
It is a nightmare. Yes, and so by the time you get through there, it's like, I don't even want to go. Actually, I'm going home. My shoes, I'm going home. This sounds like a great topic to dive into today because summer is near, and that means we are hitting the friendli skuys. People are going on vacations, they flying out, they flying folks out. I don't know what your business is. I think you're right. So let's jump into the recitation to figure out what we know and what we want
to know about TSA. Well, we know that the TSA is meant to keep us safe and that there is an attitude needed to serve in that role, a very particular attitude. Yes, okay. So we know that the TSA stands for the Transportation Security Administration and it's a part of the Department of Homeland Security, and it's in charge of keeping the nation's transportation systems safe. So that's airports, rails, highways, pipelines,
you name it. I have never seen the TSA at a train station now, but I'm not going not too much on it, but I just want to say that. And we know that the rules for travel are constantly changing, sometimes from my being to the next person's being, and from one airport to another. Sometimes you got to throw out your heat protected or your expensive perfume. So we know that. So what do we want to know personally? I want to know more about the tech. It's a
different scanner at every airport. Whether it's gonna pick up my ank lit or not, I don't know how is that working. And speaking of tech, I want to know about the tech associated with you know, the real idea that they're saying that we have to have you have yours. Yes, they've been telling us this for six years. Oh, I know some folks still don't got it. I know they don't. They're going to be at home. That's wild to me.
But I also want to know if TSA is actually protecting us or is it just the illusion of protection, Because I feel like I'm constantly seeing like women lived in airport for two weeks or snuck onto plane. I'm like, I can't sneak a lotion into my carry on, so how did that happen? I think this is a great place to start, so let's jump into the dissection for today's lab our. Guests are the hosts of No Such Thing podcast.
My name is Manny. I'm a co hosts for No Such Thing. I'm Noah.
I'm also a cost of No Such Thing.
And I'm Devin also I'm co host. I'm No such Thing.
But before we get into the nitty gritty, let's get some background on TSA. So the TSA became a thing in November nineteenth of two thousand and one, so that was barely two months after nine to eleven, and it was out of the Aviation and Transportation Security Act and so on the heels of nine to eleven and all of the reaction, TSA was able to federalize sixty thousand screeners, so those are people to screen you coming through. In
under a year. They had a budget that ballooned from one billion dollars in two thousand and two to fast forward to today a budget of over ten billion dollars. So it's about to be summer. Last summer, TSA screened over three million people in one day. People. That's a ton of people. We're heading into another record season and they're expected to surpass about eight hundred million screenings this year, and I'm just like, what's going on with tsall?
Right?
Is this system keeping up? Are we just squeezing more people through the same old bottom nicks? Yeah, Okay, y'all did a great episode about TSA on your podcast, so I want to know y'all's take on the TSA.
I was actually in your neck of the woods in Atlanta in January and I got stuck at in the TSA lines, and I think it was one of the inspirations to do this episode, which was like, I'm getting yelled at by this guy who's telling me not to take my laptop out, even though the sign behind him is saying that I have to take my laptop out. And I think, just like, these frustrations are so common.
This is my wheelhouse because I've worked with a lot of scanning devices in my day. Go off, let me come the reason why we have to take the laptops out, so the old school X rays they can't really see through dense batteries, So you have to take your laptop out of your bag so that I can really get, you know, a good picture. It's not about the laptop, about the items in the bag. Yeah, that's not clear to other items. Yeah, because it's a two D X ray.
So they fire a fan shaped X ray beams straight through your bag and it produces this flat picture on the monitor, and they calculate density by how much of that beam is absorbed. The more dense an object is,
the brighter that blob is on the screen. So lithium ion laptop batteries pack layers of metal foil, so aluminum, copper and some other metals, and plus this steel shell that's around the battery, and those have high atopic numbers, and so those are gonna light up like a Christmas tree when you send it through that X ray scanner.
And so then they can't see my you know, over three point four ounce perfume that's in my bag if the laptop is blocking it exactly, exactly, somebody should have said that I thought they were looking for things in my laptop and that's why it needed to be out the bag. Yes, I mean it. If they explain that I feel like a lot of folks would be less upset. It's like, hey, this big old laptop battery is just
blocking everything else. I don't know if you got, you know, a hammer in there, or if you in Atlanta a hammer in there. Hammer. Yeah. So with the new types of scanners, they're called computed tomography scanners, they fire hundreds of X rays slices, producing a three D model of what's inside of your bag. So the software is able to see your laptop and rotate it around and see what's all around it. So it could basically pick up your bag rotated on the screen, it could see every
item that's in there. So there's no need to take your laptop out because they can see everything. So laptop in the bag when you have these new scanners. Ah, So it's just do you have the old tech or the new tech exactly. And TSA has been rolling out CT units since twenty twenty four and it's been installed at more than two hundred and fifty lanes nationwide and they have one point three billion dollars with a B to finish the job over the next few years, so
they're going to be rolling out more and more. So I think people can be excited about being able to leave their laptops in their bag. Eventually, well it doesn't stop there.
We've got a new layer coming into this whole tsa thing because the real ID.
Yes. So the nine to eleven Commission set up the real ID Act of two thousand and five and signed it in two thousand and five. So we've had some time. They were flagging sloppy state by state license rules and they were saying, hey, this is a security gap. So it ordered the Department of Homeland Security to set a minimum issuance and car security standard before any ID could be used to board a plane or intra federal site.
Now what this means is that you have a superdense card that can hold a lot of information compared to a non real ID card, and all fifty six jurisdictions in the United States must encode the same data fields, so every scanner can speak the same language, just like, hey, everybody, let's get on the same page, get the choreography right, and we can say who's passing with real ID or
who's failing get information? And so there are some anti counterfeit elements that are incorporated into the real ID, so they have UV ghost images, microprinting, laser perforations, color shift, inc. And that telltale star that is on the front of your ID. That's the only thing I've noticed is the star. Okay, if you have a real ID, take it out, look
at it. You'll see all of these little characteristics that all make it so that it's harder to counterfeit or almost impossible to counterfeit the ID.
Even getting a real ID is kind of paining the ass because I tried to get one a couple of years ago, Like, went to the DMV with this mission in mind, and I guess I brought like only three out of the four documents I and I just ended up waiting in line for three hours and getting a regular ass ID. And so now I've just taken my passport everywhere with me.
So just steal no star. Steal no star on your idea.
Yeah, you don't get the star on a corner.
Sticker on the It's terrible stuff.
So the way that real ID works when you get to the TSA podium is that their tablet checks it in about a second and at the checkpoint, a credential authentication technology or CAT unit grabs the barcode decodes your name, your data, birth, your license number and issuing state, and then the embedded security signatures they confirm that the card hasn't been tampered with, and then using a secure look up via the American Association of Motor Vehicles Administrations in
their network, they make sure that you don't hold two licenses in different states. Yeah, out they're catfish and they're gonna find you and then be with the credential authentication technology so cat as we were calling, it is also wired to the TSA Secure flight database, so they're able
to instantly match your ID with your flight reservation. So the end result is something very close to a two factor authentication for your face and your ticket without even having a hand over your boarding pass.
Well, I saw today the reporter was saying that lax, because of course nobody knows this is happening, and nobody has their real IDs, and they're saying if you don't have real i D, they just give you a piece of paper that says you should get a real i D and they still let you go through. Okay, well next time, next time, this lax.
Don't you know.
I can't speak for a friendly.
The big deadline is just a friendly reminder.
Yeah, they kept pushing it back for five years to remind you.
They're like, oh, that's today.
You talked about being yelled at by TSA, and I think everyone has stories about being yelled at by TSA. It feels like that's what you have to be able to do to have the job, is yell at strangers who are dragging a bag and a baby and all these things behind them. Why is this the case? I mean, it feels like, specifically TSA screening, it still feels so fraud even though we're twenty plus years after nine eleven, which is when you know TSA really really really became a thing.
Yeah, I guess, yeah, that was my big thing, right, It's like, what, Okay, it's hard enough to follow the rules, Why are y'all coming with this energy like chill?
You know.
It's like, if you're gonna make it confusing, I'm gonna be confused. That's like the way it's gonna work. But when we talked to Darryl, like, it did make me feel a little bit more sympathetic because they're one of the lowest paid government workers, you know, they they start out making I think he said like thirty five K, and then they work their way up to forty two, which is nothing, especially nowadays, and then for a long
period of time they're on probation. So it's like they're yelling at you because they're trying not to get in trouble from their supervisors because if they do anything within I think he said those first two years that is deemed, you know, a violation about their supervisor. The's not like trial or anything, you could just get fired. So I think they're anxious because they're not being paid a lot, and their supervisors are you know, have for any reasons
to fire them. So then they put that anxiety onto us, the passengers who are just you know, trying to understand the very confusing rules, and I think creates a cycle because then we give them that energy back.
Mentioned Darryl and I have to shout him out. Dryl Campbell is the author of this article, The Humiliating History of TSA, and you all had him on your podcast as well. Everybody should read that article because it led to me looking up stats and it was saying that like ts agents are in basically hostile work environments and that could be what affects our customer service. It is a lot to unpack, but I also am curious, like
TSA feels like such a huge production. Just recently, just this past weekend, my bag got stuck and I was like, what's happening? The guys like pause, I'm like, what the machine is on pause? I'm on pause? Can I move to the other line?
Like?
Is anybody can get my stuff out of there? It just always feels so confusing, and I'm like, oh, well, they really are working hard, They're really protecting us. But I saw where they said ninety five percent of the time they were failing to like when they do these tests, they're failing to detect mock weapons. And I'm like, in Atlanta, I mean that's an all TSA. But baby, right, it just feels like I'm concerned about that. You know where
we are. I'm throwing away full cans of he protected for my hair and it's goods moving through you not just feel like my motion back yes, And I just feel like, is this something that's about compliance or is this about actual threat detection? And where do we land on that it is TSA deterring threats?
I think the long and short of it is no like they're pretty bad at stopping. Like you said, the I think a ninety number. They they said, hey, we got better. A couple of years later after that, I think it was like twenty seventeen. Seventy percent of the weapons got through.
That's a that's not good. That's still still thirty out of one hundred.
You're letting a lot of weapons. Should be zero. But yeah, there's been lots of studies on this.
Right.
They do this like cost per late life saved metric. If we want to say, like TSA, you're stopping every single terrorist attack. Is the only organization that's going to stop it. There's no police that, there's no FBI, we have no intelligence, it's all TSA. If we say that, if we give them that benefit of the doubt, it's fifteen million dollars per life save, which is well above what you know the government wants to spend. If you start to take into account, well, you know, you got
the FBI, you got other agencies involved. Most people who are planning this type of thing don't even make it onto the plane. Then it goes up to something like I think he said, like one hundred million, five hundred million. Like the numbers get crazy high. But it's the sort of thing where it's this is just the way that it's been.
Right.
We haven't had another nine eleven since nine to eleven, So nobody wants to put their neck out and be like, oh, maybe we should stop doing this thing, because what if a year from now there is another terrorist attack. Even if TSA wouldn't have stopped it, there's always going to be that thing in the back of people's minds of like, oh, we should have just kept doing that annoying thing.
Right. There was a time where me and Takia we uh we travel with the well to the same place a few times in the last year, and we were leaving Boston and I had a newborn baby and so I was like I was pumping and things like that, and I had this big ass container of breast milk and so they were like, okay, we have to swap it. I said, that's fine. They came back and said it tested positive for explosives.
Any explanation, Yeah, was this true? Yeah? Did they stop you?
Yeah, we gotta take we gotta take you to a lab.
I was like, excuse me, and he was like, yeah, so we have to do more testing. So they called this man out, that's like the head of bomb squad or something. He comes out with this whole kit. He's taking droppers of my breast milk and cringing it into all these things. And he's like, I can confirm that is a liquid, and I can confirm that it is not alcohol. Yeah, me too.
The baby can confirm that.
No, that man drunk all the time. And he said, I can say that it is not explosive, but I cannot say that it is milk.
Yeah.
I imagine the TSA machines aren't necessarily built to confirm whether something is milk or not.
Right, So what those initial swaps are looking for is trace nitro benzene residue. So that's a cousin to TNT or dynamite. And the problem with that is that gliscerin and lotions hand sanitizer and even some breast milk bags can mimic the chemical signature of nitro benzene, and so that might explain the flag on my breast milk or or you know, yes, I am Alex Mack. Are y'all too young for Alex Mack? I am it? Look it up.
I ran into a similar thing in Atlanta once again, where I go through the machine and it's beeping, and I go back and I take off my belt and I go through and it beeps again. And you know, we went through that over and over in tim like almost naked at this point, and it's still beeping. And so finally they're like, okay, we have to pat you down, and they, to their credit, gave me a little warning that the pat down was like pretty invasive, and I was like, whatever, I need to get back to New York.
But at the end I asked him, I was like, so, why does the machine beep if there's no metal on me? And he just said he just shrugged his shoulders. He said he doesn't and didn't know. And then I was like, all right bye, Like that just wasted twenty minutes of my life, and it feels like these machines should be better equipped to handle that.
We talked about scanning bodies earlier, but scanning people is where I also lose my cool for TSA, because metal detectors feels like such old technology. It is the first airport deployment of metal detectors came in nineteen seventy three, after a whole bunch of hijacking platforms. People were wearing platforms and build bottomies going through metal detectors. Yes, with
the big collars on your shirt. Then by the early eighties, the magnetometer arc was really common in all airports, and today TSA still fields thousands of units nationwide, especially in the pre check lanes, because they're cheap, fast and require no radiation waivers. So the amount of radiation that comes out of those arcs is below the limit that will require you to sign a waiver to go. Wait, but what if you're going through a lot. I don't know. You got to tell me how this works. Because I'm
going through a lot. You need a docimiter. Yes, I do tell me that the little quick click clicklicklick tell me the dose. Now do remember that from experiments lab Absolutely. And the way that these metal detectors work is that there is a coil in the side panels that fire one hundred to one thousand micropulses of current per second, and each current generates a magnetic field very quickly, and when the pulse stops, the field snaps back and induces
a tiny echo current in the coil. And if a metal object is in that field, the electrons on that metal object will wiggle some, stretching the echo for a few extra microseconds, and the machine measures that stretch, so then it's able to create a sound. So it bounces back and it creates this be beep to let you know metal has been detected. Huh. And so I don't think I realized that. But also I don't have to carry a docimitar because I am able to walk by
those machines. And I want to talk about being able to bypass those machines because it feels like for ninety dollars, I can avoid all of that. And now I can keep my shoes on and my laptop can stay in my bag and my camera whatever, everything full size, everything be going through there, okay, big mom, Big mom. And I'm like, what is it that these things like clear and pre check. Is it that heaven ninety dollars makes me less of a threat, Like.
If you got at, you ain't going too much?
You got too much slip for here?
He nah, you're a terrorist. And what kind of surveillance are we opting into? Because I know if the line where they scan me is shorter, I'm going there and I know better. But I'm going there.
Yeah.
Yeah. Pre check is a background check with fingerprints that shows that you're low risk, and TSA still screens your back clear. Do you give private biometrics so your iris, your eyeball, or your face verifies you and then hands you to TSA. It's in ID fast passed and it's not a security pass. One of the things I have been so shocked to find out is that only fifteen percent of travelers have pre check. Less than two percent used Clear. Let me tell you, the last time I
was at the airport, it did not feel. It doesn't feel my line was wrapped around the corner. I said, imight as well go through regular security and take off from my shoes. I would have been done faster. One percent is in Atlanta because it feels like everybody has pre check and Clear. And so I just don't understand because in my world, money does not equal innocence. Okay,
So I don't know. You can have a lot of money and some ill intent, you know, yeah, most of the people I know what a lot of money got ill intent. I'm talking about Zakiah.
What I just actually just got pre checked, and I was kind of shocked by how quickly it happened. Well, they fingerprint you, which is the big thing, and then like I needed to provide you give them a lot
of information. The thing is like, I have no idea what they're doing with that information, right, So they they ran some sort of background check on me to make sure I guess I'm not a terrorist because I got caught in the line where it took me like two hours through security and I was like, I can't let that happen again. I guess I gotta spend the ninety dollars And I'm like, yeah, what is that? What is having my fingerprints? Like why is that the difference?
Yeah, God forbid someone wants to do something that's you know, similar to like a suicide mission, they're not gonna They're like, fine, take my fingerprints.
Who care?
Like that's not really a deterrent, right, Yeah.
And I also don't think terror is on a background report like r I just had two years in terrorist school. I just don't think. I just don't know what we're gonna get there.
It's something that came up when we talked to Darryl, This this concept of security theater. Right, So it's like doing a bunch of stuff that makes it look like we're a lot safer than we are, and that's kind of all that needs to happen.
He talked about how he interviewed some people who were being stopped, like once you get past TSA at the actual gate, we're going to the plane and getting like rechecked and padded down in front of everybody, and it's like, what, like what could possibly happen from the time you go through TSA to the time you get to your gate that are like, oh, we need to check this person again.
And obviously the people you talked to were brown, right, so it's like, all right, they're putting on a little show for everybody, like, hey, white people, Look, we're checking them real good, y'all are gonna be good for this flight. We double checked them. This is the second time we're doing it, right, So it's like it's a lot of this stuff that it's like, why are like the you're
talking about the liquid thing. It's like, what do we like, is that actually a threat nowadays or are we just doing it because you know, it's we feel safer if we can't bring liquids, if you have to take off our shoes.
And they checking for liquids and they need to be checking for solids seventyons. I don't think they're liquid with that thing is metal? Okay, Noah, I'm curious to hear from you about what Devin just talked about with biases that come into TSA screenings.
And let me say so, we just went to white Man.
Yeah, we just went to Miami and as a white I was padded down both those directions, which was disturbing.
I was dressed pretty light.
I had like shorts on, I don't know, t shirt. I had just like a napkin in my pocket. So it set off the detector. It seemed like they pointed at the thing. They're like, there's something in your groin area. I'm like, okay, you can.
Pap me down.
Then we have to wait for the advisor to come and supervise it. It was like a twenty two year old guy doing it. I'm like, all right, I'm standing around.
He does it.
Obviously there's nothing in there. So then I'm on my way back. I'm like, all right, no tissues this time, Like I'll find one.
I'll find one.
Later on in the in the gate, same shorts, empty pockets happens again so I'm like, I don't know, Like, so, you know, all to say is, you know, I understand now what everyone's going through.
Like Manny Nore essentially a black man.
Now, yes, I wasn't gonna say it, but yeah, I mean it is like but when Daryl was saying that, it is like, once we're already at the gate and gone through security, it is like you just wonder what the actual directive is from, you know, top down, to be like all right, now pull some extra people and just search them again later on, Like is that in writing anywhere? Like how does that actually get communicated? Is kind of what's hard for me to even really fathom.
But obviously it like these people are there making barely any money. They're not doing this for fun, you know. So it's like, right, I don't know, it's it is mind blowing.
Yeah, I mean, it feels like it's become so normalized and I'm not really sure how we got here. Like nine to eleven happens and then everybody's racist against people wearing key jobs, brown people, people who they just assume look arab, and it feels like it made its way through TSA. Maybe it was in the training, like if you see these types of people, you have to screen them extra but it's persistent. I think I remember where I was for nine eleven. I mean I was barely born,
but I think that's right. But I remember George Bush being like, you're basically with us or you're with terrorism, and that those were your choices. Yeah, And so I think you start to see this empowerment or overreach from this organization, and people are like signing up and feeling like, yes, I am a guardian of the flight galaxy, and it just spirals. And now every now and then it's rare you see somebody like really push back against TSA. I saw a man recently in HM where was I coming
from from Brussels coming back to Atlanta. They took that man away, and when the door closed, I said, we'll never hear from that man again. He was yelling out, he was saying things. They took him behind that door. I said, that's sound proof. That's a problem. If you don't need a soundproof door in the airport, not that I can think of, and I don't want to go
behind it. If there is a The Government Accountability Office or the GAO in twenty twenty three found TSA collects discrimination complaints but doesn't systematically analyze the outcomes by race and gender. This is an opportunity for machine learning bias detection. This is an opportunity to go back to the basics, because what kind of data analysis? Then, what are you doing with it? They said, throw it in the air. Don't compile the results, just throw it in the air.
The thing is, most people don't file complaints, just like you said, you know, like I didn't feel comfortable or this thing was happening, But nobody wants to be on the no fly list. Nobody wants to have all future travel impacted, so you kind of just suck it up. Yeah,
And I'm like, I wonder what is it? Do you think it's just fear that keeps us not saying anything and allowing them to talk to us crazy out the side of their neckstep psa, like even if they are stressed out, Like, what do you think allows us to continue to go on? Yeah?
I feel like, you know, nine times out of ten and you're out of airport, you're kind of in a rush. You're like, you don't really have a ton of time to strike up a conversation or do a more procedural complaint, and you know, like inconveniences that happened in my regular, everyday life. It takes a lot for me to be like, wait a second, I got to confront someone about this.
Okay, they are updating the machines, but a lot of trans people going through the older algorithm for the body scanners would get stopped because they would be like, I perceive you as a man, why is there something in your growing area? And they would get pated down, and a lot of them said a lot of trans people said like I like it was embarrassing, so I didn't want to draw attention to it. So I'm not going to file a complaint or talk about it afterwards. I'm
just going to keep it moving. And I think that's kind of mentality everybody has with TSA, is just sort of like it's for the better good. Like shortest sucks for me, but like if I have to be inconvenience so they can stop somebody who's trying to, you know, bring a gun or a bomb onto the plane, then
it's okay, right, it's fine. I think you saw the similar energy like you're saying after nine eleven, where you know, like the government was doing some stuff and taking away some rights, and people were like, well, I'm not a terrorist, so it doesn't really matter that, like if they're listening to my phone calls or like monitoring my online conversations.
And I think like, now because we have some distance from it, people are starting to be like, WHOA, that's like where the government was doing a lot, Maybe we need to take back somebody's rights. But I think any aftermath of some of these big events, people are more willing to give up their rights or be inconvenience for the quote unquote greater good, even if in this case, the greater good is not doing that great of a job at keeping us safe.
And TSA ends up not having any incentive to ever address the source of our complaints. Anyway, it's a federal organization and they're not necessarily making money. Like if there were a company, a private company, where you know, a large amount of complaints might actually affect their business, then they would feel incentivized to address them. But you know, it's kind of like, why would they care about our complaints? That's they're just like the end all be all for
airport security as of now. Yeah, yeah, and like you're still gonna fly when you need to see your family or do whatever. It's not like it's not like picking a airline or something, and it's just like you just need to go there and do.
It right, because I'm not taking to greyhound. That's a really great point that all of you are making. I think the machines with trans folks, people with wheelchairs and medical devices and things like that. TSA claims to accommodate them, but we always hear all of these horror stories about wheelchairs being broken and devices being misplaced or lost or broken, and it's just like, who were these systems built to serve? And who is it not built to serve? And it's
clear that they are excluded from that scope. I think the point that you bring up about privatization is also a good point, because there's a bill in Congress right now, the abolished TSA Act that I think a Republican out of Utah actually put up, and it would transfer airport screening to private companies. Yeah, twenty two United States airports, including San Francisco, use private screeners under TSA's Screening Partnership program,
same rules, just different employer badge. So studies show that they are able to get people through faster, but they're not more effective. It's not like they're catching more security risks. Do you guys feel like that would fix something or just make it harder for folks to be held accountable in the ways that they need to be held accountable, like we were just talking about with biases.
We actually gotten a very angry email after our episode about this because San Francisco has private security. No, but they're you know, they're following the rules of the TSA, so they have to be TSA compliance to someone who's basically reaching out being like privatization is not the way
to go. I fly out of San Francisco and I have all these same issues, which I didn't think we said privatization was the way to go in the episode, but I think, yeah, simply making airport security private doesn't fix the problem if you're still abiding by TSA rules and you know, like if you still have all these same issues of like not paying people a lot of money, like the rules being confusing, not having job security people like turnover larry to being high, like it doesn't matter
who really is in charge, right, Like you got to rethink the system entirely, which you know I haven't read too much in this to this bill, but I don't think that's what this is attempting to do. I think the real way to fix TSA is like a big, huge overhaul, and I think it's hard to do that without like an event causing people to really like put
to urgency and like money and effort into it. So I don't see it ever being fixed at this point because there's like, you know, it's one thing for there to be a big event to cause you to like up airport security. What's going to be a big event for people to be like, oh, maybe we should be more chill about like airport security.
Right. Yeah.
I'm generally a proponent of government taking on responsibility of some things as long as it's obviously done in an efficient, in a smart way. Yeah, I worry that if airport security became privatized. We've seen it a million times before, even with airlines, where they'll take certain shortcuts in order to maximize profits, and that ends up leading to disastrous
events happening. And so we are kind of, like, as Evan's been saying, we're kind of in a conundrum here because I don't want it to be private but I also don't like what it is right now. Yeah, I think the main thing is like we we mainly, I mean,
the biggest complaint is we just want consistency. Like it's fine if it's horrible to need to take you shoes off, but like, at least I would like to know that I need to do that, Like, like why not just make a big newsletter you smail out to everyone like a phone book at the beginning of the year and say, this year, take the laptops out, keep your shoes on, no liquids, no baby milk, whatever, like until.
You get another one of these. That's the rule for every airport in the United States. And like it can be private, public, whatever you want.
Yeah, I think it seems like what you're advocating for is some big event in the reverse where we can get relaxed. Personally, I would like it to just be a lottery thing. Like you get there, you pull a number, and you don't know if you're gonna get screened or not. Now you know, and that really get it randomized. We see what's going on, you can't control it. Like the price is right, you come on at a little fun a little gamification to the process I do.
Are the other people just going through.
It's like you are in the studio audience. We're picking five out of years. The rest of y'all go and we get to see your entire contents of your bag.
Yeah, we're going through everything.
You can give it away too.
Some of the stuff, I just think there's just it feels like this unnecessary thing to me. But I think also there there is some good that comes out of TSA. I think we know that. I think there are some flawed policies for sure. I mean, we've talked about real I D. But what we haven't talked about, you know, is you mentioned there should be a newsletter where they should say this is exactly what you should be screened for.
Everybody's talking about real ID, but there's like eleven things that TSA said, Now you can include this in your bag and we won't stop you. TSA is tweeting funny memes and I'm like, this is what you need to be outy. I'm not laughing. This should what should be on threats, like not not you roasting the Windy's, you know, like it just can I put my ratail comb in my back right right? I think I'm curious. You know, I've given you my take, and we always like to
have something a little fun. Uh. If you were to build our airport security from scratch based on what you know? Now, okay, how would you build one that you felt like actually kept us safe and treated people with dignity? Already told you by Mark the Lottery.
Yeah, I actually I think that you can do like you should treat airports like you're getting on a train. M There's no you didn't. No one's looking through your bag when you get on a train.
You know.
It's like and I think the things that would stop someone from hijacking a plane like have nothing to do with them checking your bags.
Right.
The cockpits are enforced down so you can't get in there if you're not a pilot. Everybody else on the plane if you do some fishy stuff, as we see, people will jump on you, like I saw. I was just watching video the other day of a flight attendant punching his dude in the face because he was having like some sort of spasm and he was pulling like this woman's here in front of him, and my dude
was like boxing, and it's like people aren't people don't. Yeah, people don't have that energy like pre nine to eleven. It's like if you do anything fishy on a plane like ten, people would be like, what are you doing?
Yeah?
So I think between just those two things, like most of the situations will be taken care of.
Sometimes in smaller airports, i'll see better technology where you can kind of implement newer stuff a little easier because not so many people go through that airport. This happened to me in Hartford, Connecticut. They have an airport up there, and there was a lot of people at the airport, but the security line was a sinch because we're just like moving through this like futuristic kind of. I don't know exactly what it was, but I wondered if it
was detecting, you know, for a bomb. And that's pretty much it. Like there's blades. I'm not super worried about guns. Obviously I'm worried about but like I walk around every day around gun like that.
My god, you want problems, I got problems too.
I really just want to make sure that the plane lands and it's at its destination. All the other stuff, I feel like, you know, I don't know, I'm just I've never been that worried about it.
I think they should use more dogs for sniffing the bombs.
Perhaps. I like seeing the dogs.
It's a pretty harmless and you know, I think it's a pretty painless way for it that to happen, to have the dogs roaming, whether before or after. I think we should have metal detectors.
I'll say it.
I would prefer no guns on the plane with me, except for maybe an air marshall. Maybe I'm conservative, but yeah, I think those two as like it's like going into a sports you know, are like that plus ad you know, add some things, and I think we should be pretty good with that.
I heard, Manny you tell a story, Devin, you told a story. No, you didn't have that bad of a story except in the neck end. Like I am interested in any special airport stories that y'all have that kind of crystallizes your all of how you feel about the airport experiences.
There are two things. One, the hoodie thing is always a situation. It's like there's they're always telling you conflict, take off your hoodie, and then the other person's like, you don't need to take off your hoodie? Is like all right, y'all need to talk. Y'all standing five feet away from each other, maybe you can both get on the same page, if not everybody else in the airport.
And then for a while I took like four or five flights where every single time they like checked my bag and like opened up my carry on, which y'all know, when you pack your carry on, it's not it's not meant to be opened and get in a hotel somewhere, So they open it up, they go through everything, and then they're like, yeah, you're good, and then they just sort of push the mess of your open bag to you, and there's no place to like lightly put it back there.
So I would ask like, like, what's is there anything in there? Like what's happening? And they're like, basically, there's nothing we can tell you. It happened consistently, like four or five times when I was flying.
Yeah, on the hoodie thing, there are dozens of us who wear hoodies with without you know, any T shirt underneath.
I find it to be you you.
Are, you are on your own with that.
Yeah, I feel a little bit more comfortable in that scenario. And sometimes I'll get as really often I'm like, are you sure about that.
Happened.
What's happened more than they should have let people like that on the plane.
Because shirt.
Tsa we're stopping bombs, guns and people who don't wear T shirts under their.
When you're in an airport, though it all feels right, no shirt under your hoodie, that man clearly needs additional stream. I think all of this stuff is because I watched a lot of like con Air and you know, movies like that, and I feel like, I, yeah, it's and it's probably wrong, like hijackings and all these things. It's probably wrong, But the media does such a number like on our minds and what we think are clear and present danger is. But I think, thank you very much
with Harrison Ford references there. But I do think, like I'm more concerned about somebody like accessing my cell phone and all of us getting like, like, I think I'm much more worried about digital warfare or you know, digital terrorism than I am, like physical because during COVID people are going crazy and fighting on the flights, and so I'm like, nobody's really risking that. If they are willing to do that, then in the middle of a respiratory pandemic,
imagine what we do now. Similarly, I feel like it might not be so much of a threat, or the threat's not right, there is somewhere else.
Yeah, most of the security researchers say, like most terrorist organizations are not planning to hijack planes anymore, Like that's not there's sadly easier ways to kill people. You know. It's like the plane thing is a bit of a hassle now, so they're doing other things, right, It's like airports, and if airports are being targeted, they're targeting security lines. They're not targeting the actual plane. And it's not like TSA is strapped, you know. It's like when people go
through there shooting there, they can't do anything. They need to look for the real police to come and help out. So it's like it's it's to your point. It's like I think the moment TSA was created, like it was already outdated because that thing was not going to happen again, right, Like they ran the playbook, it's over, they're not running it again, But like we have created the whole system
for that old playbook. Rather than being like, all right, what is going to be the next thing, we should be worried.
About I just thinking about TSAs with the hammers on them, that that's I.
Don't want to be in that world ever, And you're trying to.
Do that much attitude.
Yeah, he's like, I don't have a shirt on to hear at gunpoint.
I think one of the things is sometimes I see it on the Internet where people are like, oh, would you date this kind of person? And I feel like police officers people a lot of times women just because they also have statistically, uh terrible interactions with police officers. A lot of times women are like, no, I would never date a police officer. But I'm like, we haven't talked about the bad attitudes of TSA officers and the stigma around that, So would you date a TSA officer on?
No, But obviously there are going to be some exceptions. I think if someone is.
There's some goods officers you're.
Saying, you know, really, I think it's gonna hate to sound a very surface level here, but if it comes down to the looks, really, I think.
If they if they think it looks are good enough, you'll overlook them working at TSA.
Oh yeah, blanket No.
But obviously, if halle Berry was a TSA officer. I'm trying to say is that there are some exceptions reconsidered.
That's what means that you always say the rules change enough.
Yeah, everyone has everyone has a stance.
Oh my god, I've always wanted to be with the TSA. Cut me down. I have no shirt on my head.
I just wanted to let.
You know.
What I we. We had a listener who was like, there's a type of person who takes this job. And it's like it's a person who like wants power, you know, and like it doesn't matter if it's just like telling people what to put in the basket or whatever. But I don't think I could. I don't think I could. I think that energy, like someone who has the energy to be even decent at their job at t s A is like not energy I would.
Want around me, even if they look like Zendia Date.
We said, date, all right, fair enough Date. I think I would consider it.
I mean, I don't think it's like a cop.
I mean, I understand the point, but it's also you can say that about teachers or something, you know, respectfully, all the teachers teachers put teachers if you want a teachers hour in there, I'm not saying it's the same thing.
That's all I'm saying, Wow, I go on a date.
I'd go on a date with you.
I don't know what teachers are catching straight to date.
With a teacher too.
While we're having teacher.
Appreciation Week right now, appreciation, it was like they're overpaid qualified.
First of all, take some of the teacher paychecks. Put them the TSA.
I feel like I learned a lot with all that we know. Now, what are you going to be doing different the next time you fly? Z leaving a little bit more time because I know the recitlease don't have your real eye DC. You know I cut it close anyway. I say, if my friend, let me tell you, she's chasing the plane down the tarment one second, one second? Excuse me, excuse me? Ahwa's what about you? Are you doing anything different? I think for me, I don't want
to go later because them lines are too long. I'd rather sit in the airport. I really would then be in a line sweating because I've seen people sweat. Excuse me, Can I get in front of you? And then people be like no, I'm like, that's so mean. I always
say you can get in front of me. I think for me, I just the awareness of, you know, what is going on with TSA, like what they're looking for, why they do certain things, that kind of takes the edge off because I'm just like, Okay, now that makes sense, yes, you know what I mean, and knowing their conditions, maybe we should be smiling at them, bring a piece of chocolate for them, you know. Yeah, yeah, they have it bad. They do have it bad. And number of breast milk flying.
I think I'm done with that. There you go, T and T boobs all right back. Yes, thank you so much to Devin, Manny and Noah. Y'all were great and we can't wait to have y'all back. Yes, everybody. Check out No Such Thing anywhere you get podcasts, and also check out the Daryl Kimmel article the humiliating history of the TSA. Just google it, you'll find it so good. You can find us on X and Instagram at Dope Labs podcast tt is on X and Instagram at dr Underscore t Sho, and you can find Zakiya at z
said So. Dope Labs is a production of Lemonada Media. Our senior supervising producer is Kristin Lapour. And our Associate producer is Issara Sives. Dope Labs is sound design, edited and mixed by James par Robert. Lemonada Media's Vice President of Partnerships and Production is Jackie Danziger. Executive producer from iHeart Podcast is Katrina Norbe. Marketing lead is Alison Kantor. Original music composed and produced by Taka Yasuzawa and Alex
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