Comment by Waterluvian
2 hours ago
This sounds like my experiences in Toronto. It’s less adversarial than the experiences I've had in the U.S.
My experiences were basically a form of, “Hey we saw something that caught our attention and might be an issue. Let's work through addressing this."
One case it was a handful of 3.5" galvanized nails. "Whoops. Okay, so, this bag used to be my makeshift toolbag. My other one ripped and I had to get one last minute--" "No problem. Can you remove them? You can either surrender them to us or we can get them mailed back to you, but I'm guessing it's not worth it..." I was so defensive because to me it looked bad but they weren't actually after me in the way I thought they'd be.
The second time was that I had an "Arduino Starter Kit" full of bundled up wires and random chips and such. Once they saw the box they didn't even ask me to un-shrinkwrap it, and unlike the nails, didn't re-x-ray the bag.
Both times they rotated their screen and pointed to the box framing the item in question on the colourized x-ray.
Meanwhile, the TSA looks at me like I'm, at best an annoyance, and at worst a criminal, when I ask them to inspect my camera kit manually (film, not digital). And that inspection consists of swabbing 35mm film canisters - like, the shell of a 35mm roll is going to tell them anything useful?!?! It's a complete sham.
I guess they're probably operating on the assumption that at worst a few short nails stuffed in a small film canister are no worse than the metal handle from a rolling suitcase.
The swab is for common explosives. The canisters are a bit on the small side but I guess could still pose a threat if packed with high explosive and a bit of shrapnel.
The apparent annoyance (or worse) is the part that gets me. The entire process just feels needlessly adversarial. At least they didn't insist on patting you down or emptying out your bag!
Worst and most aggressive pat down I have ever experienced was in Toronto for no reason that I can think of, so I have learned to be stoic about all interactions with gate keepers, regardless of country. You never know when someone had a bad cup of tea just before the met you.