80% hit by the airport "random selection"

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Mark2024

Recycles dryer sheets
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Jul 8, 2023
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I have TSA precheck. However, I have been hit by the so call "random" select 8 out of last ten times. This last time I was behind a guy who was randomly selected. I was thinking, "there is no way it could happen twice in a row". But it did happen - randomly selected again.

For me, a 80% hit is not anyway random. Why me?

Have you been "randomly" selected at airport security?
 
I don't have pre-check, but only twice in past 20 or so flights was I selected. My wife only once in last 20. I did get sent to a "special " room once in Germany for some reason but with my very limited German vocabulary, I'm not sure of it was random or they just wanted to look at content of carry-on.
 
About 1 in 10 for me too, maybe less. Any chance you aren't really being randomly selected, but are actually being profiled based on your name or appearance? Even if you don't think so it's possible you share a name with a suspicious person.
 
Hmm, I fly about 10 times per year. Haven't been selected since the 911 days. I am staying with friends on Saturday. The wife is a TSA agent. I'll ask her what the story is.
 
I was selected one time in Rome, flying back to US. DW was with me, but she was not picked. It took them 30 minutes to open up carry-on, backpack and check everything. We almost missed our flight.
 
When I had Global entry without check-in luggage, I was the first few to walk out of the baggage claim area and was s
picketed up a few times to check my luggages and how much money I brought with me.
 
I have never, DW has been 3 out of 4 flights when we travel. nothing like being married to a 5"8" 120# brunette who is a terrorist suspect with a smile that would melt stainless steel.
 
I was called at the airport in Amsterdam. They asked me if I was traveling with anyone and I said yes my DH. They said that was who they wanted to talk to and he had to go over where other people were being called and then let go. Everyone but my DH. They kept searching everything that he had with him. Multiple people came and they told him that someone was coming to chat with him. Two military people came with guns and there were two other people who were dressed in suits looking like their FBI or something. All the while our plane was boarding and my sister and her DH who were in line to get on the plane wanted to know what was going on. I told her for them to go ahead and get on the plane. I am trying to think of what I was going to have to do, such as get in contact with the American Embassy, find a place to spend the night, etc. Finally, a 40 something red haired lady dressed in military garb wearing a gun came and told my DH that she was the only person who could let him on the plane and she needed to see his backpack again. He told her that she could keep it. She searched it and told us we could get on the plane. We were the last people on the plane. We have no idea why this happened to him. I really wish we could have found out the reason, but we were both scared and needed to get on the plane. I don't think that I will ever get my DH to go to Amsterdam ever again.
 
I got randomly selected once when returning to the US from the Caribbean. This was US Customs and Immigration, not TSA.

I remember being bothered at the time because I had TSA Precheck and Global Entry and was expecting to breeze through the short line in about one minute.

Instead, I got to sit in a windowless room with a bunch of folks for about three hours. I was not allowed to take pictures, I wasn't allowed to leave the room, I wasn't allowed to take my carryon in the bathroom with me. At the end, when it was my turn, they asked me a few innocuous questions - where had I been, why was I there, where did I live, etc. - then let me go without any further ado.

Personally I thought I was the token "ordinary American" so they didn't look like they were targeting suspected drug mules or whatever. Or maybe they thought I was a drug mule. Whatever.

I did get one "SSSS" TSA random check in the last five years or so. I don't fly that much - maybe a few times a year.
 
Pre 9/11 I got special searches about half or more of the time and just kind of got used to it. This goes back to the 80s when I lived near the Mexican border and sometimes went to lunch in Mexico. After TSA was implemented and criteria were better defined and deterministic, I delighted in rarely being pulled aside. I never had long hair or looked particularly suspicious and never was anything found.

But lately I have been singled out for "random" checks almost every time I fly. It happens with CLEAR mostly and takes just a few more seconds of showing my passport. But it is too frequent to be random. My bags have never been searched except when I had a suspect pair of scissors in a carryon. What I had was perfectly legal but the supervisor asked if I minded 5 minutes to turn it into a teaching moment for the x-ray operator.
 
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DW was once a couple years ago. That's it for us, flying about once or twice a year for many years.
 
I went through a random laptop check several years ago. Turned out to test positive for explosive residue. TSA questioned me. One question was if anyone using the laptop had hand lotion on. Could have been my assistant. They wiped it clean, ran the test again, and it was ok. They said that hand lotion would sometimes give a false positive.
 
I've been randomly selected a number of times, probably 25% of my flights, but it has almost never taken more than five minutes to get cleared. I think the longest delay was about ten minutes. But that was when my carryon bag had a chunk of Belgian cheese in it that the operator thought might have been plastic explosive. They said cheese is a well known source of false positives like that, so I've never again put it in my bag.
 
When I said "randomly selected", I meant the metal detector beeps. Even so I am 100% sure I don't have any metal on me. The detector would beep and the TSA person will said I was "randomly selected". I will have to pass the X-ray machine or have my hand swiped. If it happens once in a while, I guess it is random. But getting "selected" 8 out of 10 times definitely not random.

Since the metal detector does not know who I am (in theory), it must be some other factor.
 
Mark2024 said:
When I said "randomly selected", I meant the metal detector beeps. Even so I am 100% sure I don't have any metal on me. The detector would beep and the TSA person will said I was "randomly selected". I will have to pass the X-ray machine or have my hand swiped. If it happens once in a while, I guess it is random. But getting "selected" 8 out of 10 times definitely not random.

Since the metal detector does not know who I am (in theory), it must be some other factor.
Click to expand...

Ok that's not the real "random selection" because that happens differently. Something in your travel clothing perhaps? A zipper, grommets, something you would not think of (not you, but some women's undergarments can set things off).
 
Anything can happen. In a truly random system, given a large enough sample size, everything must happen.

Someone is going to breeze through 100 times out of 100. Someone else is going to be selected 8 out of 10 times. This is a very predictable result of randomness.

Of course, it's not proof of randomness. That would require knowing the statistics for all passengers. It could very well be some sort of profiling. I've heard that TSA agents learn to pick up on subtle cues in behavior and such.

I'm sure triggering the metal detector would increase your odds, although I wouldn't call that "random." I found out that my old "airport safe" plastic belt buckle, which I used for years on business trips, now triggers the metal detector. The guy said any dense plastic can trigger the newer ones.
 
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After 911, I started getting an orange highlighter check drawn on my boarding pass. I was constantly extra checked and finally asked why. They said the check is a sign of my last name (very German) being on a "list" somewhere & the orange check was their code for that.

It went on for a while, then stopped...
 
I long ago concluded that there is no rhyme or reason for what happens at the airport security checkpoint and that complaining is a waste of my time, so I don't worry about it. Whatever they think they need to do so I can pass through and get to my gate is fine by me. If they need to make me go through the machine again, search my bag, swipe for explosives, feel me up or whatever, go right ahead. I just want them to be snappy about it.
 
I've been searched, although I don't know if it was random. (It was following one of my surgeries, and I was still partially bandaged, and wearing extra support to keep everything in place.) I made it clear that I was going to be cooperative but requested that the searchers please be gentle as I had just undergone surgery.
 
I have been pulled out of line every single trip to Hawaii, at Honolulu, Hawaii/Kona, Maui, and Kauai airports.
It has happened flying with DH, with kids when younger, with and without TSA precheck status.
Random, maybe. But odd it is every trip!
Never pulled out of lines for any other place we travel.
 
Did you do something that would flag you? Paying cash for tickets, purchasing a one way, visiting or even having a connection in certain countries are enough to get you flagged.
 
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