Apologies for causing even more thread creep than we are suffering already, as this didn't happen anywhere near NY.
Earlier this month I flew (only as pax ... sensibly, nobody lets me fly anything that big) PSP-SFO and then SFO-LHR. On the first occasion at Palm Springs the security checker said to me "I recommend you remove your shoes" whilst I was putting laptops in seperate boxes and removing jackets etc. When I walked through the scanner, with shoes still attached to feet saying "Its OK, there isn't really any metal in them; they don't set it off" an agitated security bod once again "Recommended that I removed my shoes" and told me to go back. Once said shoes had been removed, I could proceed.
Now when someone makes a recommendation to me, I will - of course - listen to it politely and weigh up the various merits of their recommendation and decide if I accept it. Apparently, however, what this chap actually meant was "Sir, could you please remove your shoes and put them through the scanner with everything else, otherwise you aren't going any further through this airport or worse"; and he was happy once I did so.
I asked the security people at SFO about this when, once again, the removal of my footware was recommended to me. The polite lady there told me that they were not allowed to ask people to remove their shoes. I explained my last experience with PSP security, and pointed out that they wouldn't let you through unless you did, so why not just ask for what you want? Both of us just nodded at the absurdity of it as I went through the detector.
So please, anyone from the US side of the atlantic - which damned political correctness means that the security people don't even ask us what they want us to do any more? Thus increasing frustration at something that we all find a irritation at best and pointless at worst (as others have already said - there are ways that airport security could be circumvented by the determined).
A somewhat puzzled Paul.