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Has anyone ever had TSA try to play with there ipad

henry2

henry2

macrumors regular
Original poster
Dec 9, 2010
207
5
The thing i have notice when i fly with my ipad that the TSA personal look at the ipad and try to play with it when they are doing the socalled extra security check on you ..

Thurs morning i flew from Sac to Los Angles and back for a overnight trip in LA with just my daypack filled with cloths and my sling bag for the ipad ..The thing i notice was that the TSA personal after patting me down the one person was standing there looking at the ipad screen trying to figure out the password was and see what was on it ..

I turn the unit off when i travel through TSA check point's and when i get past them i turn it back on ..

The whole time the one tsa agent was trying to figure out the password and get it to come on ..I finaly went and said outloud to the agent .. I need to get to my gate to check in please ..he give's it back and i put it back into the bag and shoulder it and keep on walking think to myself what a dumba$$ and went in and check in for the flight..

I should there probably about 4 mins waiting for him to give me back the ipad and his fellow agent is looking at him like your a dumba$$ also for he was makeing the line start to back up that morning .My flight was at 7.am and i got to the airport around 5.30.am to get checked in and go throught the bs tsa security system .. ..
 
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Agreed, a dumb @**!

Imagine if you had the security set to wipe it clean after 5 bad login attempts.

They need to ask you to unlock it if they need to verify anything suspicious.
 
Thats a total privacy issue. Maybe they wanted to play Angry Birds in HD.

I would have put a lockscreen wallpaper that said: "F@#& the TSA"
 
bluemonkeyguy said:
I would have put a lockscreen wallpaper that said: "F@#& the TSA"
Click to expand...

I'll assume this is standard issue Internet hyperbole.

Of all the places to act like a jackass, I'd rate airports pretty much the bottom of my list.

When you fly, any ideas you may have about "personal privacy" pretty much don't hold water. Security staff have an absolute right to look at anything in your possession. Up to and including the contents of disk drives and flash cards. They also have the right to impound items for further examination. And since they are backed by the full technical resources of the US intelligence community, passwords and most encryption schemes are unlikely to keep them out for very long.

Short answer: Don't be a dick at airport security. Ever. And if the nice TSA agent wants to look at your iPad, smile when you are cooperating with them.
 
vrDrew said:
I'll assume this is standard issue Internet hyperbole.

Of all the places to act like a jackass, I'd rate airports pretty much the bottom of my list.

When you fly, any ideas you may have about "personal privacy" pretty much don't hold water. Security staff have an absolute right to look at anything in your possession. Up to and including the contents of disk drives and flash cards. They also have the right to impound items for further examination. And since they are backed by the full technical resources of the US intelligence community, passwords and most encryption schemes are unlikely to keep them out for very long.

Short answer: Don't be a dick at airport security. Ever. And if the nice TSA agent wants to look at your iPad, smile when you are cooperating with them.
Click to expand...

Agreed, I'm a pilot and have nothing but props for airport security. However, when someone tries to "guess" a password, this crosses the line. They need to ask the customer to step aside and unlock the device for them. Furthermore, they must look through the contents in the customers presence to prevent any notion of TSA employee tampering. ONLY if confiscation is required is the customer taken out of the loop. The above scenario sounds more like a $10/hour employee wanting to 'play' with an iPad. TSA employees are not exempt from the law.

In terms of the above quote, the first amendment is still applicable in this country!
 
vrDrew said:
Short answer: Don't be a dick at airport security. Ever. And if the nice TSA agent wants to look at your iPad, smile when you are cooperating with them.
Click to expand...

totally agree. I fly every 1-2 months. Ive never had a problem w/ my laptop and ipad.
 
CosmoPilot said:
Agreed, I'm a pilot and have nothing but props for airport security. However, when someone tries to "guess" a password, this crosses the line. They need to ask the customer to step aside and unlock the device for them. Furthermore, they must look through the contents in the customers presence to prevent any notion of TSA employee tampering. ONLY if confiscation is required is the customer taken out of the loop. The above scenario sounds more like a $10/hour employee wanting to 'play' with an iPad. TSA employees are not exempt from the law.

In terms of the above quote, the first amendment is still applicable in this country!
Click to expand...


I'm on the Sheriff Posse's and i do know what right's and what's wrong it come's to a search's of a person item's and what we do give up and do not give up on the when flying ..


When i flown out of O'Hare and JFK or Washington DC Regan's airport for business with the ipad in my bag that i carry on the airplane they have never anyone try and take it out and play with it ..Most of the time it a quick glance at it and poke around the bag a bit and that it..

Heck i had a lady who worked for the TSA ask me to stay for a extra second if i had the time and she what to know if i was good for a kid to use in school and i log on and showed her the feature's and bonus of haveing her kid use it for school and she was like thank you and have a safe trip .. But this guy had pull it out and was trying to get into it ..

So it make's me wonder if i was just a number of people that he does that to or he does it with thing's he want to play with ..

vrDrew said:
Short answer: Don't be a dick at airport security. Ever. And if the nice TSA agent wants to look at your iPad, smile when you are cooperating with them.
Click to expand...

If he had asked me i would have unlocked and showed it to him but he did not and that make's me wonder what was going through he head at the time ..As a member of the Sheriff's Posse's i have been trained in the socalled rights of the socalled airport reg's as part of the posse's does work the airport here and there so i understand the socalled Christian's in Action or those pig farmer's there in Va to garther the intell on me or someone who was a bad guy and out to do harm ...but when the guy's is just standing there after my bag has been searched by the other person and i had been patted down and they had found nothing and they are looking at him like get a move on that make's me wonder what the guy was doing ..

Now in my county the local airport has two Tsa agent at it when it open for flight's dureing the day time and we talked about alot of diff thing's when the duty day and he basically told me that you have to watch them like a hawk over the fact that some of them are allway's looking to steal something and if the headline's of the newpaper's where some of these people have been caught with there hand in the cookie jar at time's
 
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Ask for the supervisor next time and file a complaint at tsa.gov .
Don't let the terrorists win!
 
How is that being jackass-like. I can put any wallpaper I want on my property. Except anything that could threat the lives of others, especially in an airport. You are moronic if you put wallpapers like "kill obama" or anything "bomb" in correlation to an explosive device.

I mean COME ON, they are already tickling your gooch. Might as well give them a piece of your mind. Unless you are what Zohan would say, a fageleh.:D

Also, I would never give access to my device if it doesn't have any significance in the scanning process. Just because I'm subjected to show my possessions for the clearance of anything dangerous doesn't mean that they should access my filesystems, whether iPad, Laptop, etc. Seriously, they really don't have any logical reason to access my iPad. What am I, carrying the nuke codes from Russia??? And my comment above would only happen in the thread starter's situation where this was a constant problem, unless it is the same TSA guy, lol. If every TSA agent started messing with my iPad, then YES, I would do the wallpaper thing or maybe even add a prank app from Cydia that would give me 5-7 laughs from the scared TSA agent reaction.
 
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bluemonkeyguy said:
How is that being jackass-like. I can put any wallpaper I want on my property. [...] Might as well give them a piece of your mind.
Click to expand...

You're certainly within your rights to yank their chain a little provided you're not doing something that can be interpreted as terroristic threats.

On the other hand, TSA agents have the ability to make your trip through security take a lot more time than it otherwise would require. If you have the time to spend, knock yourself out. *shrug*

I've yet to have TSA show any interest in my ipad. Straight through the xray machine in its bin. First time I traveled with it, I set it on top of my computer in one bin, and the TSA guy told me it had to be in its own bin. He was nice about it, so I have no complaint there.

The OP's experience is certainly out of line, and something worth filing a complaint about.
 
I have probalby about three diff trip's though other airport's with the ipad and never have i had a agent do that ..The few time's i was asked about the ipad was by people who thinking about buying one or had one and was asking about the O.S ..The one agent who asked me about the ipad was really nice and she was looking at the one for her kid in school and when i explained to her about the fact that you can lock down the route's unit and make it stay away from website's with adult type subect's she was like ok then i want one for them along with explaining how to do or have the Best Buy Greek Squad do it for her and the other agent asked me how did i like it and what do you think of the O.S that it use and should he update to the new O.S when it came out as i standing in line waiting to go through the metal Detector the security check point ..

Both time's with those agent's where nice and not a problem this guy just had me wondering what he was up to and why he was doing it ..I mean come on if the guy who patted me down and the lady who went through my bag was done with me before he was done playing around with the ipad even they where wondering what he was up to ..

So i'm going monday to make a phone call about the guy and see what the deal was that day..the problem with the airport i have to fly into that one and drive three hour's time from LA or fly into San Francisco airport and still drive one and half hour's to get home to where the grandkid's are ..I'm a 21 day work set up and one week off before starting the next work rotation time frame ..
 
Never had an issue with mine at the airport. I was asked to put it in a separate bin from the MacBook and iPhone- but it wasn't an issue. However I must say, when I take it out of my bag and send it through the scanner- I watch it like a hawk. I know no one in their right mind would attempt theft in airport security- but I won't risk losing my "baby."
 
henry2 said:
So i'm going monday to make a phone call about the guy and see what the deal was that day..the problem with the airport i have to fly into that one and drive three hour's time from LA or fly into San Francisco airport and still drive one and half hour's to get home to where the grandkid's are ..I'm a 21 day work set up and one week off before starting the next work rotation time frame ..
Click to expand...

Unless you have the agent's name, I dont think anything will come out of making a call. Then again, even if you DID have his name- I don't think anything will come out of making a call.:D
 
I don't think it's clever to treat airport security officials as 'jobsworths' when passing through an airport...

...after all they are there to prevent some mad man from flying you and your family into a government building.

If you have been hiding dirty videos on your iPad I must ask this...


... Jesus H Christ! Can't you take 2 weeks vacation without cramming your iPad with depraved porn, the like of which you insist on keeping locked up with a password? If it's that important, why bother leaving the house!?

... in fact you may as well allow the guy at TSA to look at all your dirty videos... at least that way he'll know your a Catholic and not Osama Bin Laden's 1st cousins second aunt best friends great great greengrocer from the next village...
 
DukeOfHunslet said:
I don't think it's clever to treat airport security officials as 'jobsworths' when passing through an airport...

...after all they are there to prevent some mad man from flying you and your family into a government building.

If you have been hiding dirty videos on your iPad I must ask this...


... Jesus H Christ! Can't you take 2 weeks vacation without cramming your iPad with depraved porn, the like of which you insist on keeping locked up with a password? If it's that important, why bother leaving the house!?

... in fact you may as well allow the guy at TSA to look at all your dirty videos... at least that way he'll know your a Catholic and not Osama Bin Laden's 1st cousins second aunt best friends great great greengrocer from the next village...
Click to expand...

I do not have anything like that on my ipad the close thing would be a picture of the girlfriend in a one piece bathing suit when we where a beach resort in Mexico last year along with a picture's of my kid's and grandkid's and maybe my personal inventory of the house and that it beside the game's and music i like on the ipad
 
Happened to me a couple of months back during a bag search. Only thing is, I'd forgotten to password the iPad. So he pulled it out of my bag, switched it on, flicked around on it for a few minutes, then put it back in its case (he also didn't put it back to sleep after, which made me have to ask!)

He didn't come across anything private on there (although there are 'personal' photos of my girlfriend on it if you dig deep enough), but suffice to say, I've activated the passcode every time I travel since then.

Oh, and by the way, this wasn't US airport security — it was Canadian! I've never had a problem entering or leaving the US.
 
Why are we permitting the government to peek into our private data? Bad enough they feel that it's their "right" to do a body scan or grope us under the guise of security. Oddly enough, I've never felt less secure than when at an airport. The terrorists score another victory every time we permit such actions.
 
CosmoPilot said:
Agreed, I'm a pilot and have nothing but props for airport security. However, when someone tries to "guess" a password, this crosses the line. They need to ask the customer to step aside and unlock the device for them. Furthermore, they must look through the contents in the customers presence to prevent any notion of TSA employee tampering. ONLY if confiscation is required is the customer taken out of the loop. The above scenario sounds more like a $10/hour employee wanting to 'play' with an iPad. TSA employees are not exempt from the law.

In terms of the above quote, the first amendment is still applicable in this country!
Click to expand...

This is spot on!
 
I would suggest getting the employee's name and then writing a letter (snail mail or e-mail) to his chain of command. My dad has a habit of writing down his complaints in letter form and he has a remarkable amount of success getting responses and results (anywhere from getting traffic lights installed in his neighborhood, to visits from PR folks to look after and address his concerns in person).

First amendment right breaches should come with substantial penalties, in my opinion.
 
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