
TSA's Scanners Can't Figure Out Afros or Turbans, Guess Who's Getting Searched - ericdanielski
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20190826/19494642859/tsas-expensive-scanners-cant-figure-out-afros-turbans-so-guess-whos-getting-searched-more-often.shtml
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JasonFruit
The only important point of this article is that the TSA is worthless and an
affront to free people. The point that prompted the article is a canard, and
what little point the article has is smothered in gallons of snark.

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rory096
Techdirt link is a reblog of this ProPublica piece:
[https://www.propublica.org/article/tsa-not-discriminating-
ag...](https://www.propublica.org/article/tsa-not-discriminating-against-
black-women-but-their-body-scanners-might-be)

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glenda
As a man with long hair (and a dark-ish complexion), they are constantly
requesting to search through my hair at the airport. It feels like an absurd
request every time, especially since most women with long hair aren't being
searched in the same manner.

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cydonian_monk
As a lily-white redheaded bearded guy of Irish descent, I stopped flying (and
going to baseball games) because I was consistently being "randomly" selected
for whatever new xray machine + rub down + run a pick through my beard + wands
everywhere invasive search the TSA decided to implement that week. Just not
worth paying a thousand or more dollars to be harassed and threatened.

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jjeaff
Do you think it was the beard? Is this a really big beard?

I've never heard of people getting selected more often because of a beard.

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cydonian_monk
Who knows. I'm not really sure and I never asked either (not that they'd tell
me). It's not a particularly long beard. Maybe I just look suspicious to them.

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sombremesa
TSA is just a political instrument. If you get TSA pre-check, you can skip
most of the theatrics.

But wait, now they also have a thing called "CLEAR"[1], because I guess they
didn't make enough money from pre-check. Making matters worse, it's a private
company!

[1] [https://www.clearme.com/](https://www.clearme.com/)

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jsjohnst
CLEAR is a third party company and in no way replaces TSA. I have both Pre-
check and CLEAR, I still must go through TSA, I just don’t have to stand in a
long identity document verification line.

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sombremesa
Since I never said that CLEAR replaces TSA, I'm not sure what you're on about.
That being said, I'm pretty sure CLEAR includes TSA pre-check in practice,
even though they seem to vehemently deny this in theory.

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jsjohnst
> because I guess they didn't make enough money from pre-check.

You said that, but then later added the “private company” part after I pointed
it out, so that’s what I’m “on about”.

> I'm pretty sure CLEAR includes TSA pre-check in practice

Nope, if you don’t have pre-check (either the actual membership or the airline
sponsored version), you have to go through the standard TSA line. No
exceptions. The only benefit to CLEAR is jumping the ID inspection line,
nothing after the initial officer changes.

Anything else you want to be proven wrong about so you can then berate me
after editing your post?

