Back in 2009, we had traveled to Vermont to attend my youngest daughter’s graduation from college. I had my Nikon D700 in a Pelican case with all of my lenses, and had 2 locks on the case. I hadn’t had any trouble until we were flying home, and we had a layover in Washington D.C. When we went to board our Southwest flight back home, we went to the gate early, as seats weren’t assigned, and there were 5 of us. Just before boarding, I saw some TSA agents coming with a collapsible table, and they stopped at our gate. I jokingly told my wife they were going to do a random check of passengers. Since I had retired from DHS in 2006, I didn’t foresee a problem, but I told my wife I thought they were “looking for terrorists”, and that I figured that would be me.

Sure enough, just as the plane started boarding, they came and got me out of line to be searched. I told my wife ti save me a seat and followed them to their table. An officer asked me why I thought I needed two locks on my Pelican case, and I said that I had about $6,000 in equipment in there and wanted to keep it safe. She asked me to unlock it, so I did, and for a moment she stood there just looking in my case as if she was confused. After a moment, she asked me to take the D700 out, so I did so. She took it from me and really looked it over, and then asked me to “prove” it was a real camera. I asked her if she thought it might not be areal camera, and she said they were taking no chances. She then asked me to prove it worked, so I powered it on and showed her the LCD screen. She still wasn’t convinced, so I asked her if she wanted me to take a picture of something in the airport. She got highly offended, and said taking pictures in the airport was a federal violation, and that I should show her some other way to prove it was really a camera. I smiled at her and asked her how I could prove it was a real camera that takes real pictures without actually taking a picture. She looked stymied for a moment, and noticing she had attracted not only her fellow employees, but a fairly large crowd, she brusquely told me to lock up the case and get on the plane. I never have figured out if she knew what she was doing or not.

Once I forgot that I had a tiny Swiss Army 1" keychain pocketknife in my bag.
(OK, I always have it, usually in my pocket with my keys. I have had to surrender 2 of them at various times whenI forgot.)

They pulled me aside and said that they were trying out "new edge detection technology" and needed to go thru my bag to find it.

Out came camera, lenses, some extra clothes. They couldn't find the knife.
I told them it was too tiny to matter and offered to show them where it was and they yelled at me stand back and shut up!

They put it thru the scanning machine again, alarm went off again, everything out of bag again.
They did it all 3 times, never found the knife, and then just sent me thru the gate knife and all.

By then I had missed my flight, had to re-book the next day, and missed the first day of my assignment.

Another time, outside the security gate, 4 marshals with rifles came running after me and confiscated my disposable camera with all my vacation pics on it.

They said I had photographed their secure area.
I had taken a photo of a pretty sloop sailboat they had on display in front of the gate, I guess the secure area was in the background, maybe.
Either way, they had no right, but I wasn't going to argue with 4 rifles.

No, TSA does not make me feel safe at all.