Who's Right?: You Don't Need to See His Identification | NO BLASTERS!
Matt Kernan manages to make it around security to get into the US—sort of.
OK, quick summary: Upon returning from an international flight, the TSA wanted to screen him using the backscatter machine or a patdown because they do this for all international passengers before they’re allowed to enter the secure zone of the terminal. He declined for the usual reasons. However, he wasn’t trying to make a connecting flight—he was merely trying to get out of the airport and had no need to go into the secure zone of the terminal.
It’s unclear to me whether or not he stated this fact at the time of his encounter with the TSA, so I’m not sure that he’s totally in the clear on this one. “I’m not trying to make a connecting flight” may mean to the agent, “I’ve got time to kill.” On the other hand, “I’m just trying to leave the airport to get home” is pretty unequivocal. And withholding that important bit of information is intentionally muddying the waters.
When I flew international into Dulles about four years ago (see, “Right on Queue”), the international flight arrived outside the secure zone and I was in the US once I went through customs (thus no pretense of unreasonable search and seizure). To make it onto our domestic flight, I had an awful encounter with a line to get into the domestic secure zone.
Line or not, it sounds to me like CVG needs some rearranging to be more in line with the Dulles model.
[Via DaringFireball.net.]
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