Reddit has a section called “Ask Me Anything,” or AMA for short. It’s composed of people who have what they consider to be interesting or unique about themselves, and they give others the opportunity to – you guessed it – ask them anything. Here are some examples:
Of course, Reddit is an anonymous forum, so it’s possible anything anyone says is total bullspit. But I’d like to think (hope?) that some of the conversations are legit.
Anyway, a couple of weeks ago, a Redditor who goes by the handle of ImportanceHour5983 wrote on the AMA forum:
“I work as an airport security screener at Sydney Airport, AMA”
Based on the questions they got, the curiosity of Australians about their equivalent of TSA workers is about the same as ours. There were questions about:
- the strangest thing they found in someone’s carry-on bag
- the most problematic items that PAX try to bring through security because they think it should be fine (but isn’t)
- How to get a job as a security screener
- Their salary
- What they do if someone jokingly tells them that they’re a terrorist and wants to hijack a plane
And then they got a question that I didn’t think most people would consider asking. A user named ___dx___ wanted to know:
“Why do you look at our crotch when walking through the scanner?”
It’s a legit question. I mean, travelers are well aware that security tends to pay extra attention to that area, with their eyes, their scanners and, as needed, their metal detectors.
In a candid answer, ImportanceHour5983 replied:
Usually because we are trying to discern if you have anything in your pockets which will set off the body scanners, or check if you’re wearing a belt and what kind of belt you’re wearing.
OK, you know what? That kind of makes sense.
Anyway, a few other interesting questions and answers in the thread that most certainly would be the same between Aussie airport security and TSA officers:
Q: Are random checks in fact, random?
A: Yes, at least in the airport I work in can’t speak for the whole world of course, but yes the metal detector has a randomised selection system when you walk through, and that’s who we have to pick, if we don’t, it is considered a security breach
Q: Really appreciate you sending my entire families bags thru again for absolutely no reason with 2 crying children a few months ago. Complete chaos as rescanning of the bags meant any new bags took priority so we were stuck. I’m Aussie, travel a lot, never experienced that in my life.
A: I don’t understand the sarcasm you’re giving me as if it’s my fault, but anyways sometimes the bags don’t scan properly and just need to rescan, maybe because something fell off the tray or just the tray didn’t scan properly.
Great that you never experienced that before and only once but it happens, we rescan bags about a 100 times a day. Lucky you that day ig, bless your children
Q: I was at Perth airport, was asked if the could search me, which I allowed but they said I could refuse if I wanted. What would they have done if I refused?
A: If you refused you simply could no go through, unless there was some other way to search your person, but if it got to the point of them needing to pat you down then that would be the only option
So yeah you can refuse, but if you do you gotta simply turn around take your bags and go home. Of course no one actually does that.
Q: Do you guys specifically target certain demographics?
A: No and there’s really no way to do so, when it comes to screening bags we cannot see who’s bag we are screening from where we use the X-ray computers
When it comes to passenger screening, we can’t stop them or do anything weird unless the respective machine being used indicates any reason to stop them
This also applies to the Explosive trace detection test which is a test conducted to take samples from the passenger to test for any traces of explosives, the selection process for this occurs when the machine randomly selects a passenger coming through
Although passengers often accuse us of targeting or profiling it’s not the case
One thing that does happen though is some security guards won’t treat ethnic people that well in terms of them raising their voice or speaking rudely, although such guards are usually horrible to people in general
You can go here to see the rest of the questions.
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