Also, not knowing what sort of materials these are made out of, the Hello Kitty one always struck me as… uncomfortable, like the sort of thing you’d get for a woman as a joke wedding present, but nothing she’d actually use.

Am I the only person who finds a Hello Kitty vibrator really disturbing? Og forbid anyone figure out what it really is—now THAT would be embarassing.

It’s the combination of batteries and wires with…something; that is all.  They will check for odd shaped electronics of other kinds as well, anything not immediately recognized, especially if packed next to a paste, gel or chocolate/other specific food items (due to the scatter on the screens).

also, especially if you remove the batteries and carry them separately or purchase on arrival… they’re not likely to hunt for batteries to turn it on and see what it does.

Rolling method is awesome.  You can fit more in, there’s less or no wrinkling, and it’s easier to shape your clothes to that last cranny in the corner there.

Sex toys.  Lulz.

In all fairness, this has to be the most mild-mannered invasion of privacy imaginable.  I’ve literally had my luggage torn apart by TSA agents before.  Like, shredded.  It just came rolling out of the luggage shoot in ribbons.  I also got a stern warning from TSA about daring to put a lock on my luggage.  So, you know, that was nice.

Remind me again.  Has the TSA ever even once caught a terrorist?  It’s been nearly a decade and we’ve seen shoe bombs, underwear bombs, liquid bombs… but no “bombs identified and apprehended by the TSA”.  Makes you wonder whether its all worth it.

All these years I thought I was just being a horrible slob rolling the t-shirts together. The more you know.

Am I the only person who finds a Hello Kitty vibrator really disturbing?

Granted I’m not an expert in female sexuality (okay, okay - there’s a straight line for you), but isn’t touching Hello Kitty to the vitals just a little… off-putting?

No need to wonder, Zifnab!

It’s not remotely worth it.  It’s merely 4th Amendment-violating security theater.

Putting locks on the pilot cabin door and the change in beliefs about what a hijacker wants (which resulted in more alert passengers) are the only things that have affected real safety.

I have a rather effective, flat/shiny/smooth device the size of my palm that I travel with.  I put it in with my jewelery.  It has not once been flagged.

One time a TSA douchebag, in SFO of all places, decided to make some sort of example of a woman in line ahead of me - but backed down when she LOUDLY offered to demonstrate the product!

May I suggest the classic—but effective!—Hitachi Wand which is advertised as having a “Non-phallic appearance” (although there are apparently some attachments you can buy which might give the TSA some jollies.) 

http://www.amazon.com/Vibratex-HV-250R-Hitachi-Magic-Massager/dp/B00005M1WE/ref=cm_cr_pr_product_top

May I suggest the classic—but effective!—Hitachi Wand which is advertised as having a “Non-phallic appearance” (although there are apparently some attachments you can buy which might give the TSA some jollies.) 

http://www.amazon.com/Vibratex-HV-250R-Hitachi-Magic-Massager/dp/B00005M1WE/ref=cm_cr_pr_product_top

Sorry for the double post: guess I was just that excited.

Has the TSA ever even once caught a terrorist?

More to the point, if all this security theater were remotely necessary, wouldn’t people have been dying left and right in terrorist attacks before 9/11? 9/11 was a fluke, but some people can’t seem to grasp that.

Terrorist attacks aren’t in themselves flukes - they happen rather often - but it’s incredibly rare that one is successful on the scale that 9/11 was.

Non-phallic appearance

Is there such a thing?  To the (in)appropriate mind, a soda can is phallic.  A pencil is phallic.  A GOP Congresscritter is phallic.

The TSA hasn’t caught much yet, but the nervous public and airplane staff have diverted many flights for reasons that haven’t got much to do with actual dangers. Unless dark-skinned men and praying Jews are going to bring down a plane. I wish we had more traffic cops on regular roads, since that’s where the bloodbath happens, but entitled morons behind the wheel would rebel against such tyranny.

And rubbing alcohol? I guess the limits on liquids preclude bringing the usual toy washes on board. I guess my use of regular soap and water isn’t good enough in all cases, as some of us are more particular than others. How many Wet-Naps make a national emergency? What size hand sanitizer would Dick Cheney allow? I’d just put the toy in a plastic bag, put some tape or some staples on the seal, and use that to know if it’s been tampered with. Then again, I haven’t flown since well before 9/11/01, and didn’t even own anything of that sort back then.

judybrowni, on the other hand, the Hitachi magic wand is perhaps the second most famous kind of vibrator (after the rabbit, and maybe the classic rocket), so… yeah.

I snickered at this bit from the last page of the rolling method link:

To make space in your suitcase at the end of your trip, take some old clothing you don’t want to keep—holy underwear, jeans on their last legs, a ratty sweater—and toss them at the appropriate moment.

What qualifies as holy underwear, apart from the Mormon knickers? The Victoria’s Secret angel collection?

A GOP Congresscritter is phallic.

Phallocranial, if you want to be specific.

As a consistently-profiled “cute little white girl”, traveling for me is less “which cavity are they going to search this time” and more “what can I get away with today…” which makes me VERY much want to just take my vibe along for jollies next time, whether I intend to use it or not. Why yes, officer, that’s my vibrator.

The famed Hello Kitty vibrator was actually a back massager. Or at least that’s the product label Sanrio agree to rent out their trademark for. They pitched a fit when they started showing up in porn and sex shops and tried to get the company producing them to stop, eventually finding some other excuse to yank the license. A decade later Sanrio must have gotten hard up for some quick cash because they started producing them again in some new colors. Anyway, that explains why the shape is less than lady-bit friendly; the original concept was never designed with sex play in mind.

Next up on “From Junk Drawer to Toy Box” the vibrating broom toys of Harry Potter.

Ah, I’ve had that note, if not the “personal touch”.

At the time, I was just happy to have had the bag at all. Coming home from Christmas across the border, my gifts included practical gifts like a home repair toolkit, a set of dinnerware, some electronics, and a bottle of chocolate-mint italian syrup. I was just happy that when opaque circular objects, a handfull of nails and screws, a large bottle of liquid, and some wires went through the machine, they searched it, as opposed to pre-emptively detonating it.

I wonder if I’m still on the “search thoroughly” list for US flights…

Is there such a thing?  To the (in)appropriate mind, a soda can is phallic.  A pencil is phallic.  A GOP Congresscritter is phallic.

I’m just waiting for the Rick Santorum buttplug.

The key to rolling clothes is hair ties. The combination of wearing a pony-tail and doing a lot of backpack travelling taught me that. You can roll even tighter, and your clothes become little compact units. Makes for easier packing and unpacking, and easier repacking when TSA rips you bag apart. The little thin ones are good for most everything (and not just clothes), but you’ll need the big fat ones for sweaters and jeans.

Left_Wing_Fox - as someone who occationally travels with tools, I can tell you that if you had just mentioned exactly what you had in the bag, and they could identify each item via the scan, they might not have even opened your bag, or at least not unwrapped anything when they did.  And you wouldn’t be on any list.

I carry a bike with me - one that fits in a suitcase.  It usually gets searched, but I include some instructions and a phone number.  They have called me both to thank me and to have me get it back into the case properly.  I put all my tools in there, and have taken it into and out of Canada and Mexico without a hitch.  Most major metro areas recognize “bike friday” bikes in their cases by now, anyway. 

When I was travelling from Spain to the US, a guy in Dublin was tying up the line arguing with the security about bike tools in hand luggage - but these were the kind that I and a guy who was held up both knew full well were NOT allowed in the cabin (and you can get this information on line).

A pencil is phallic. 

It likes to think it is, anyway.

I followed #1 on my last trip to the Pacific NW as I didn’t want to risk hassles with the TSA and misplacement of luggage by the airlines.  Ended up carrying one totecase including a backpack enclosed inside.  A friend who picked me up was surprised at how little I brought for a week’s stay….but it was better than checking in a bag and then going through those hassles when something goes wrong.

The last time we went on vacation we packed some “personal items” in the checked bag, and sure enough, that was the one with the TSA note in it when we opened it at the hotel. Didn’t think of asking for rubbing alcohol. We just washed them for a long time in the sink. I find it hard to believe that the TSA cannot recognize a vibrator from an X-Ray scan by now.

I can remember my Grandmother once going through security with an Alaskan Ulu knife in her carry-on, having forgotten she’d picked one up as a souvenir, and angrily insisting that the security guard was nuts to think a little old lady would be carrying an axe in her purse. Amazingly (this was the late 80’s), the guards let her through without making her empty her purse all over the counter.

Those were the days. A few years ago, the TSA made my 93 year old great aunt climb out of her wheelchair and take her shoes off because, hey, you never know.

  The TSA’s never caught anybody, but the passengers sure have.  Every single fourth-rate loser wannabe ‘terrorist’ that has been caught on planes has been caught by passengers, while fuck only knows how many innocnent people have been detained or worse.  Nobody’s going to try a 9/11 again.  That was along-range plan and passengers know what’s at stake now.

    There’s just some risks you have to live with.  The TSA is really stupid especially because if you factor out white bread American terrorists,  the US lives with a rate of terrorist attacks that other countries envy.  Guys like James E. Cummings scare me more than the exceedingly unlikely scenarios the Repubs fantasize about.

Also,  ziploc bags are your friends when traveling. Roll stuff up, stuff it in those bags, squeeze air out, and they’re reasonably protected and much less bulky, plus you have a place to put dirty laundry.

In all fairness, this has to be the most mild-mannered invasion of privacy imaginable.

I actually think this is a pretty big deal. We are forced, either by the government or by circumstances, to sometimes give away private information about ourselves to others. Part of protecting our personal dignity is that the people we give it away to aren’t supposed to make comments on it.

If someone goes to the hospital with an anal fissure caused by sexual activity, the doctor or nurse doesn’t get to say to you “ooh, you like it up the ass, do you?” If a man goes to a clinic to obtain Viagra, the staff isn’t supposed to make fun of him for not being able to get it up. If the fire department has to enter your home to put out a fire, and you have a BDSM dungeon or a sex swing, there are supposed to be no comments. You let these people into your most personal areas of your life to do their job, and they are supposed to do it. These sorts of comments are a severe breach of people’s personal dignity.

And it’s worse with the TSA because the transaction is in no way voluntary. You are required to let these people go through your belongings in exchange for the privilege of traveling. The invasion must be no more than absolutely necessary to complete the task. (And that’s not getting into the issue of whether we allow the TSA to do too many searches in the first place.) Anyone who thinks that finding sex toys—or anything else that is legally transported—in people’s luggage is funny or interesting or worthy of comment needs to find another line of work.

As I said in Jill’s comments thread, I am glad that she is able to make light of it. And I take Amanda’s post in that same spirit. But to me, this is a gigantic outrage. I expect that people who gain pieces of information about someone’s personal life in the context of doing their job to ignore them, and when they don’t ignore them and do this, it’s a very serious matter.

Reading #32, I was struck by how many of those things actually do happen to women. We do face people intruding in certain aspects of our lives, we do get harassed ordinarily——what else is street harassment but an invasion of privacy?——-and people do in fact make unprofessional comments to us.  They feel free to do and say certain things to us just because we’re women.  We’re not allowed to have any privacy. Isn’t that what it all comes down to?

The first purpose of the TSA is to brutalize Americans, and to make their fellow Americans the brutalizers.

There is no second purpose.

I think Obama could easily win reelection if he would wipe out two thirds of TSA’s bullshit. Sure Fox News would claim he wants terrorists to defeat us, but Fox viewers don’t matter. They will not vote for Obama anyway.

Take apart the porno scanners and stop the patdowns. Obama could go totaly hawk and say “My solution to terrorism is killing terrorists, not hassling Americans.” The votes would roll in.

Michael Chertoff’s company makes those scanners. People are making money off them, so it’s not likely to happen.

A lot of minor airport improvements are also getting swept into adding them as well. 
You are going to put a machine there?  Oh, we need better power, and an extension of the data net, and why don’t we replace the flooring in that area while we’re at it since we have to drill for the conduit punch-throughs and the machine anchors? 
Oh, look, the carpet in that section of the lobby was damaged when the riggers were moving the machine in.  That will have to be replaced now.  Of course you can’t match that carpet, it’s 15 years old, so it will have to be that whole section.
No area is big enough for all that stuff.  You will have to move this wall and those counters first.  Oh, look, the floor there where they were is just plan concrete and the ceiling is marked up.  We will need to replaced floor covers and paint here.

I figured the screener could have written the note out of embarrassment. It was her or his job to violate people’s privacy, thus that job put them on intimate terms. But Jill was at a disadvantage, because the screener could rummage through Jill’s things but not vice versa. S/he knew that Jill would know that she had seen her appliance because s/he had to leave a note, and for whatever reason wanted to reassure Jill that s/he didn’t think Jill was a pervert, by writing something supportive.

What if Ms. Filipovicl had carried it on, but the device had fallen out of her tote bag in an airport restroom? Would the other users simply look away, or might someone say something like “You go, girl”?