2010-03-21
TSA Screening and Photo Equipment
With the amount of equipment that I pack into my Think Thank Airport International, I’m a regular candidate for a bag check at airport security checkpoints. Two camera bodies, four or five lenses, batteries, and all the miscellaneous stuff makes for a dense bag. I’ve noticed, however, that there’s been an almost perceptible pattern to the airports where this occurs the most.
(Cutting a story shorter…)
Today at SLC, my bag was pulled after the squint. The TSA agent that did the secondary inspection—the bomb swab—mentioned they had pulled it because they couldn’t see through the lenses that were standing on end as the bag went through the machine. Apparently, when on end, all the layers of coated specialized glass appear totally opaque to the scan. But, if the lens is laying on its side, it’s just fine.
My brain chewed on that for a second, thinking about how I could pack my bag so that my lenses were all in the same orientation. It failed. Long lenses travel best laying down. Short lenses go best standing up. Fail. Then, after thinking quickly that scanning from one angle had to be an easily fixable bug, I blurted out, “Well, in that case, it’d be nice if you could see through the bag from two directions at once.”
“Oh, we have machines that do that,” replied the agent, “but this particular one doesn’t. You see how it only has one screen? That means it’s only scanning from the top. If you see a machine with two screens, like that one over there, it means they’re scanning from the top and the side and showing the agent both views at once. Next time, you should look for the line that has a machine with two screens. It might save you a bit of time.”
Ah ha! I’ll be doing that from now on.
