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Just minutes after I touched down on American soil I ran into
problems. My flight lifted off at Seoul and landed in Las Vegas
where I needed to catch a connecting flight. As I was going
through security apparently one of the technicians was
unsatisfied. He wanted to pat me down but made me wait for
another employee to come over and stand in as a witness. It
seemed strange that I just flew two international flights
including a transPacific flight and had no problems with
security, but now just to fly a one hour domestic flight all of
a sudden there is an problem. Meanwhile all of my belongings
including my camera equipment continued down and out of sight on
the conveyor belt. I was quite concerned and told him that I
needed to keep an eye on my belongings. He responded, "Oh, don't
worry about it, there are a thousand cameras around here." I
understood him to imply that he thought the enviroment was very
secure and that no one would steal anything. Now, however, I'm
really wondering if he meant, "Don't worry about it, if someone
steals your camera we'll just give you one of our little
cameras." They took me in the back where he patted me down.
Unsatisfied, his partner also patted me down. Unsatisfied still,
we waited for his supervisor to come in and pat me down yet a
third time. After all was said and done my laptop turned up
missing. I had to catch my next flight and when I called TSA
from Salt Lake City I was told I needed to contact "Lost and
Found", who then told me that TSA wouldn't bring anything over
to them for the first 24 hours. They told me to call back
tomorrow, but failed to tell me that "Lost and Found" wouldn't
even be open tomorrow. Several days after the airport's own
version of a "friendly welcome back to the U.S." they verified
that they had found my laptop but informed me that if I wanted
it back I would have to send them a pre-paid FedEx label. I made
all the phone calls I needed to and went to a FedEx office and
got the label all set up, but then the app wouldn't accept my
credit card because it had a Thailand address and therefore
wouldn't fit into their selection of states. I then tried to pay
them with cash but I was informed that was absolutely
impossible. To make a long story a little briefer, it took me
nine days to get my laptop back. In the meantime I tried to use
my friend's computer to get into my email but was denied access
because they detected that I was using "a different device".
Microsoft told me that I needed to obtain a code which they
would send to my other email address, but for the exact same
reason I could not access that email either . So for the first 9
days of my trip I not only was without my laptop, but I had no
access to my email either. (TSA, do you have any idea how
disruptive this was to my entire trip? I understand the need to
keep our airports safe, but don't passengers still have certain
human rights and still need to be treated with a certain amount
of dignity? If you are going to stop me, shouldn't you also stop
my belongings, or at least be willing to pull them from the
conveyor belt to keep an eye on them? After I alerted you that I
needed to keep an eye on my belongings you told me not to worry
about it, but my laptop disappeared anyway. Then you refused to send it to me, but
demanded that I pay for a pre-printed label! Your job is dependent on passengers who are willing
to fly. The economy as well is dependent on people traveling and
spending money and I for one
don't feel like traveling again for a long long time. Airlines
and airports, please, put that little note in your shirt pockets
and have a long sit down with the TSA people.) |
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