About the Movie

About the Movie

Please Remove Your Shoes is a revealing documentary about broken government process. It is also an empathetic story about a half dozen public servants who try to fix it. And it is a familiar topic to all of us who have flown in the last fifteen years: the security routine at the airport - first the FAA and now the TSA.

Please Remove Your Shoes examines the period before 911 and the current situation eight years later and asks the questions that make Washington squirm: “Are we really any better for all our money spent? Or is it safe to say that nothing has changed? The answers come in excoriating detail in places, and by unnerving implication in others. Direct disobedience of agency charter, subversion of management practices, and terrifying abuse of power and secrecy become the film’s markers for the superagency charged with protecting us on airplanes.

With testimony from some of the original congressional lawmakers who have created TSA to the federal air marshals, screeners, and testing agents who “served” it, you’ll wonder if we weren’t actually safer before 911, as they reveal their personal stories about a government agency run amok, which lies and covers up its oversights as frequently as it makes them.  Vivid HD visuals and undercover recordings add grit and realism to the personal horror stories of the “cast.”

The film leaves no doubt that we need a better system to watch over our transportation. But the unsettling feeling that occurs to most is a sense of broader familiarity with the sins of this agency that look disconcertingly similar to the crimes of others. Who will watch our watchdogs?   Flying in an airplane will never be the same after you’ve watched Please Remove Your Shoes.