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#1
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Well, here ya go, people -- our tax dollars at work.
Last week I flew to Chicago from Seattle to photograph the Chicago Blues Festival. I do a lot of that, flying around the country to shoot music events. When I shoot Jazz Fest in New Orleans I always take at least 100 rolls of film, all fresh and factory sealed. I pack the film in a clear plastic removable insert in one of those insulated lunch things you find at K-Mart. I toss in a frozen pack of Blue Ice if I have concerns about the weather being too hot. After the shoot, the exposed film comes out of the plastic cannisters and goes into a clear plastic grocery bag containing only the casettes. This has been my standard M.O. for years, and especially after 9-11, because I want to make it as easy as possible for the security people when I ask for my customary hand inspection. The only film I carry these days that's not already in clear plastic cannisters is p3200 Tmax. So there I am at the airport with my big clear plastic container, handing it over and asking for hand inspection. Anybody with a brain can tell it's film. Anybody with a brain can tell I'm a professional photographer. (Ten grand worth of lenses and bodies might lend credence.) Anybody but the TSA. Apparently, a new TSA regulation went into effect in April that requires the opening, inspecting and swabbing of EVERY SINGLE ROLL OF FILM! That's what they told me at Sea-Tac a week ago, and that's what they told me at Chicago-Midway today. Last week the TSA person spent 20 minutes cracking open every single factory-sealed roll of film in my insul-pack. That included two boxes of Fuji 800 20-roll pro-packs. She took every roll out of its cannister, even though you could see right through the clear plastic. She peeled open every individually boxed roll of p3200, Tri-X, Sensia and Ektachrome. Then she handed them all back to me. Gee, are you really sure I'm not a terrorist? Maybe you should check and see if I've got any Kodachrome hidden in my shoe! Before I left Chicago, I tried to call ASMP to find out what they knew about this new reg. The phone number posted on their website for the main office in Philly in no good. So I dialed up the Chicago office number listed on the website. Surprise. It doesn't work, either, and there's no listing for ASMP in Directory Assistance. I figured the best I could do on the way out of Midway was to hope the TSA people there had a little more sense, and a lot less time to fool around. What was I thinking? I asked for the hand inspection, gave them the clear container with all the film, sent everything else through X-ray and went to wait for my film. This time it was worse than Sea-Tac. How could it be worse, you ask? Heh heh heh. Well, ya see, the TSA guy almost had a meltdown when he realized he was going to have to inspect about 60 rolls of film (20 of which were cassettes in the clear plastic baggie). So, after doing about 10 rolls, he called in his supervisor to assist. They took all my film, used and unused, and dumped it into one of those big gray trays. Then they opened and swabbed every cannister, every box AND every cassette of exposed film! "Midway" through this process, the super turns to me and says, "Can I see your ID?" Sure, and I hand him my passport. "Got something with your current address on it?" Er, yeah. I hand him my drivers license. "Is this current?" I wanted to respond, "Well, DUH! You asked me for something current didn't you?" But that would have gotten me the Abu Ghraib treatment. Then he asked for my boarding pass. He took all this stuff and disappeared for a few minutes. He came back and resumed checking more film, while I was no doubt having my entire credit history pulled by the CAPPS computers. (Er, sorry about that student loan thing in the '80s, but they were late getting to the bankruptcy court.) The super also asks, "Are you taking any medication?" I look at him like he's nuts. What's that got to do with my film? Is Barry Bonds taking any medication? Does he have anything to do with my film? How about Sammy Sosa? "No," I answer, and he goes back to checking film. This insanity goes on for nearly half an hour. I'm standing there patiently, co-operatively, whatever -- reading my Sun-Times and periodically thinking how lucky I was to miss all the morning traffic jams. I had time to burn, and it's a good thing I did, too, cuz these guys had nothing but matches. Now, it's not like they were nasty or anything. They were just doing the job some dumb**** handed down from a bureacratic bunker in D.C.. But can we please buy a clue here? I fit the profile of a professional photographer. If I had ulterior motives, would I really ask these guys to hand check my film, especially if I knew they were going to open every cannister and swab every cassette? Hell no. I'd do what I did with my vitamins, just to prove a point. I put them in a clear Fuji cannister, stuffed the cannister in my pocket, and waltzed right through the X-ray Arch. Of course they didn't stop me. And if I'd had C-4 in the cannister and a fuse in my shoe and a pack of matches in my camera bag -- OOPS! I *did* have a pack of matches in my camera bag. Oh well. ![]() When they finally did hand me back all my film, my papers and the torn-open film boxes, the super sez, "Um, there must have been some contamination on the tray." SCUZE ME? YOU GUYS dumped the film into the tray!!! That's why I just spent half an hour standing here??? I have no idea what that chemical trace agent is on those swab pads. I don't know if it will affect my film in any way. But I do know it's going to cost me time and money to find out. And I do know that, if this ridiculous exercise is going to be standard procedure, I'm going to be shipping my film FedEx from now on. That's going to cost me, too. And for what? Increased security? Yeah, right. I don't know what the TSA is thinking, or if it's thinking at all. Far as I can tell, this "new rule" hasn't been posted to their web site. All I could find was this: http://www.tsa.gov/public/interapp/e...orial_1035.xml If you plan to request a hand inspection of your film, you should consider carrying your film in clear canisters, or taking the film out of solid colored canisters and putting it into clear plastic bags, to expedite the screening process. Sigh.... I've been having the usual ongoing debate with my digitally enhanced pals, who keep trying to bring me over to the Dark Side. But in the final analysis, it may be the TSA guys in the white shirts who finally convince me it's time to dump the strips and go for the chips. Rant over. JJ (Personal replies: remove "unspam") |
#2
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![]() wrote in message ... Well, here ya go, people -- our tax dollars at work. Last week I flew to Chicago from Seattle to photograph the Chicago Blues Festival. When they finally did hand me back all my film, my papers and the torn-open film boxes, the super sez, "Um, there must have been some contamination on the tray." SCUZE ME? YOU GUYS dumped the film into the tray!!! That's why I just spent half an hour standing here??? I have no idea what that chemical trace agent is on those swab pads. I don't know if it will affect my film in any way. But I do know it's going to cost me time and money to find out. And I do know that, if this ridiculous exercise is going to be standard procedure, I'm going to be shipping my film FedEx from now on. That's going to cost me, too. And for what? Increased security? Yeah, right. I don't know what the TSA is thinking, or if it's thinking at all. Far as I can tell, this "new rule" hasn't been posted to their web site. All I could find was this: http://www.tsa.gov/public/interapp/e...orial_1035.xml If you plan to request a hand inspection of your film, you should consider carrying your film in clear canisters, or taking the film out of solid colored canisters and putting it into clear plastic bags, to expedite the screening process. Rant over. JJ Don't expect any logic from TSA and Home Land whatever. Your experience is the reason why I ship everything ahead of me. The whole thing is a big joke designed to make the flying public "feel safer". |
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#4
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Bill Hilton writes:
Anybody with a brain could also figure out how to open the cannisters and put explosives in them too ... that's why they swab. Anybody with a brain could figure out how to put explosives in lots of things with as small a volume as a film canister, so there is no particular reason to swab canisters if every other object not being x-rayed isn't also swabbed in a similar and complete way. Another option is simply to buy film at your destination. -- Transpose hotmail and mxsmanic in my e-mail address to reach me directly. |
#5
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Has there EVER been a case where it was confirmed that explosives were found
hidden with film?? Dan |
#6
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In article ,
wrote: How could it be worse, you ask? Probably only if you were a British journalist flying into LA: http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/...231089,00.html Richard. |
#8
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http://www.bok.bonnier.se/foton/abfo...ena_lappin.htm
She was born a Russian Jew and moved to London in 1993. I wonder if her semitic looks (arabs are semites too) and foreign accent made her look more suspicious. |
#9
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![]() Funny how the US officials in this harrowing account sound like so many of the Americans on this newsgroup - ignorant, aggressive and innately hostil TP your are you from? your style of humor feels australian or south african. |
#10
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![]() "Sabineellen" wrote in message ... Funny how the US officials in this harrowing account sound like so many of the Americans on this newsgroup - ignorant, aggressive and innately hostil TP your are you from? your style of humor feels australian or south african. ROFL ! |
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