The screening is random. The TSA says so — in writing, on its own website.
According to the TSA's FAQ, its random-screening selection process is "entirely random" — not based on name, race, sex, role, history, or frequency. Which is reassuring, except for everyone who flies every Tuesday and gets the full treatment every Tuesday. The word random is doing heroic amounts of work in that sentence, and it is not being paid overtime.
This is the joke that writes its own incident report. A government agency has formally committed, in print, to the proposition that selection is random — while operating a system where the same business travelers get selected with the reliability of a sunrise. Nobody at the checkpoint is arguing with the FAQ. Nobody at the checkpoint is allowed to argue with the FAQ. That's rather the point.
Meanwhile, the TSA's new "Gateside" program lets non-flyers clear security just to hang out at the gate — dinner at the terminal Chili's, now with a pat-down. The airport is becoming a destination in its own right, which is convenient, because at the current rate of random selection, the security line is where most of us spend our vacations anyway.
Like your satire sourced?
Get the Dispatch — the week's sharpest offenses, with receipts attached.
Our version just took the logic one honest step further. Shoes off. Laptop out. Liquids in the little bag. And now — opinions in the bin. The procedure was already a ritual of surrender; we only added the one item everyone was already leaving at the checkpoint voluntarily. The satire barely has to exaggerate: the bins, the trays, the barked instructions, the theater of it — the TSA built a comedy set out of laminated signs years ago. We just gave it a punchline.
Send this to the friend who gets the "random" screening every single time. You know the one. The TSA knows the one. Entirely at random.
See the original post on Instagram. More from this story is filed in the Evidence Locker.
