Like workers in a hospital emergency ward, the screeners take their posts and encounter one small drama after another. They move around constantly, trying to strike a balance with passengers -- at times trying to show a sense of humor, such as the time a female passenger is asked to remove her belt and she offers to take it all off -- but also a sense of duty, such as the time screeners hush a man in line who begins to talk loudly about not having a bomb in his bag.
Knieriem, a cheerful 25-year-old who wears her hair in two braided buns on the side of her head, starts off wanding select passengers who alarm the metal detector. First, she waves the detector over an elderly woman, then a young Japanese woman who doesn't speak much English and then a woman wearing all black with a swooping hat. In between each pat-down, Knieriem moves with lightning speed to quickly unzip and peek inside the passengers' carry-on items.
TSA screener Krista Knieriem grimaces after a food container bursts open, spilling tuna salad and lettuce on the X-ray conveyor belt.
(Bill O'leary -- The Washington Post)
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Within 15 minutes, Knieriem has whizzed back and forth a half-dozen times from the X-ray machine to an area the screeners call the "fish bowl," where passengers receive a pat-down. Knieriem said her former job as a manager of a custom frame store helps her to quickly "read" each passenger to get a sense of how comfortable they are with having a metal detector waved over their bodies and being touched on their chests.
"Retail experience has helped me with this job," Knieriem said. Most travelers "know the drill," she said. But a few times a week, she gets a passenger who gets angry for one reason or another and explodes. Most of the time, she said, passengers get angry because they think they know the rules -- such as whether they can wear shoes through the walk-through metal detector -- but the rules have changed. "I try not to take it personally," she said.
Meeting Steady Tests
TSA's policy requires that passengers be screened by someone of the same sex. Most women don't appear to enjoy having Knieriem touch between and around their breasts. "It's nobody's favorite thing to do," she said, but no passengers have complained to her. The trick, she said, is to complete the pat-down quickly and explain everything upfront. "You have to inform people what you're going to do, otherwise they think you're just doing something on your own."
Later, when Knieriem switches posts, moving to the X-ray machine, she quickly analyzes each bag on the belt, each of which appear to the untrained eye as a junkyard of metal spaghetti. Men's shoes appear with metal slabs inside -- arch support, she explains. Women's heels stand out with their scary-looking metal spikes and nails. Knieriem can quickly identify each as harmless or a potential threat.
"See that long pointy thing?" she asks, pointing to what resembles a long hypodermic needle in someone's bag. "Electric toothbrush." She correctly guesses what kind of car one passenger drives by the shape of the key on the key chain. "Do you drive a Jetta?" she asks. Inside another bag, she points to a circular object. "White House ornament," she said. "You see a lot of those."
Chirp! Chirp! Moments later, a passenger has brought a bird in a cage through the checkpoint two lanes over. The bird's owner is holding the animal and has placed the bird's cage on the X-ray belt. Part of the screeners' job is to make sure passengers don't accidentally put animals through the X-ray machines.
The TSA screeners see all kinds of animals, Knieriem said. They also see movie stars such as Kevin Spacey and politicians such as Richard A. Gephardt. More VIPs come through here than any other airport, said Patrick D. Hynes, TSA's security director at National.
Of course, the main job is detecting explosives and weapons. The TSA is constantly training screeners to do the job better. Every week, a few screeners disguise themselves and try to get through the checkpoint with guns strapped to their legs or hidden inside a teddy bear. Since they started the covert tests, the screeners' performance has improved dramatically, Hynes said, but he declined to disclose the results.
"We need to be a step above every other airport because we're in the nation's capital," Hynes said.
Knieriem said she can recognize her co-workers in the funny outfits most of the time. "It's the same people lately," she said. But she is tested in other ways.
Late in her shift, she stops the X-ray belt, pushes a button that makes a light on the X-ray machine flash and asks a co-worker to look at something suspicious.
"Can I get an ETD?" she says in a loud voice, which means she wants a bag screened for explosives. She asks if this is a test. Sometimes the screen displays an explosive device that is really a false image projected onto the screen.
Another screener, Marvin Whetstone, recognizes the object: a breathing machine for people with sleep apnea. A passenger nearby confirms that it's his device.
"Oh, okay. Sorry," Knieriem said. Just another potential terrorist threat that turned out to be nothing.
