As a former TSA screener, I can say a few things about wearing the kilt in the airport (I literally wore one of mine to work one day to train ALL the guys in Atlanta at the time, that was fun running around in the second white shirt and Black Watch all day).

RULE NUMBER ONE: You ALWAYS have the LEGAL right to withdraw permission to be screened. You WON'T fly and the local LEOs will, most likely, want to know why, but you can refuse all the way to the last bit of a check.

RULE NUMBER TWO: You ALWAYS have the right to request a private screening. It may take a bit longer, but the screening WILL be in a private area, and with only two TSA screeners (chaperone type situation, usually the second one is a supervisor, and if it's a body check they must be same gender as the person being screened). You can request this for both body and bag checks.

RULE NUMBER THREE: The TSA SOP and LAW says you do not have to expose a "private" area of your body to a TSA screener. EVER. The Police can strip search you, NOT the TSA. If a screener does something to cause an actual "exposure" report them, and they will get fired. Not disciplined, fired.

RULE NUMBER FOUR: No part of the screener or equipment is allowed to go INSIDE your clothing. That mean no hand-wands up your kilt, no hands inside your clothes. (If the piece of clothing must be removed, it can not the clothing that covers your undergarments, ever, i.e. jacket/vest or chaps, but not shirt or kilt/pants)

RULE NUMBER FIVE: The technique for screening any person in a unbifurcated garment is the same REGARDLESS OF GENDER. If you've ever seen a woman in a skirt getting screened, it's the same method. Step forward with one foot, wand the inside of the leg, repeat for the opposite side. If a screener EVER does anything differently, stop them and ask for a supervisor (not a lead screener, look for three stripes on the shoulders). Ask the supervisor to review the SOP for screening a person in a skirt/kilt, and they will fix the problem. (Every checkpoint must have a copy of the SOP on site.)



The sad fact of the matter is all the "ridiculous" checks of people are based on real history. (Granny's can be successful bombers as the IRA and Hamas have shown, and I, personally, caught a guy trying to shove his 5 inch pocket knife in his three year old's diaper. Yes, there have been people caught with a weapon in a bag, because they didn't pack it.... wife packed his .45 Colt because she was mad at him.) Most of the "horror" stories of stupid confiscations (like the standard style nail clippers, not the ones that look like mini-wire cutters) are not the part of the TSA, but the private companies before them.

Remember when going through an airport checkpoint, the screeners are just doing their job. Of course, there are jerks and idiots like in any job, but most of the "stupid" decisions are made by the upper guys, whom usually have actual security and counter-terror training (supposedly).