DIFIN

EYECUE: perhaps with your expertise, you can explain why TSA in PDX made someone confiscate a very ornate pocket watch?

As per local news KOIN on 3-17-14

perhaps in your opinion, they may have been able to turn he hands backwards to make time go backwards

chollie

It may have actually been turned into lost-and-found.

tc464

I don't have to speculate, I know exactly what a grenade and a glass bottle look like under an xray and on visual observation. I've disarmed and blown up thousands of them. They do not even remotely look alike. The EOD/HDS guy who made that call should have his badge ripped off and drummed out in disgrace.

I am, however, speculating that the perfume was presented to a girlfriend or wife as a gift.

DIFIN

It wasn't. It was turned over to the state as all confiscated items are for resale or disposal.

That was how the news found out. The state is trying to find the owner.

My question to Those Standing Around with their thumbs where the sun don't shine, why was this confiscated in the first place ???

Darkumbra

The job of TSA is now to remove delays to flight travel?

Ahem... Should I point out something to you?

Or would I be wasting my time?

InkUnderNails

I suppose I should be concerned enough that I should leave my Blanton's minis at home

DeafBlonde

^BINGO! We have a winner!!!

sinanju

Dallas TSA stops me every time for my water filter which they claim looks like a pipe bomb to them. Never mind that the interior configuration and material density are all wrong. They are the only airport of the many dozens I visit every year with that opinion. Are you suggesting that DFW TSA should confiscate it?

The filter in question: http://www.amazon.com/MSR-56425-Mini...rds=msr+filter

chollie

The news report I heard said the state lumps confiscated goods (that TSOs didn't take home) together with airport lost and found items for disposal.

chollie

Very artfully concealed. Pull up on the horse's tail and the Blanton's is ready to fire you up. You'll never get away with it, Ink.

Flaflyer

By your logic passengers exist to make life easy for the TSA. (permission to flame me for using “TSA” and ”logic” in the same sentence )

If the ultimate TSA goal is to avoid checkpoint delays, you must agree the best way to accomplish this is to ban ALL carry on items, including clothes and shoes. Passengers fly naked and may carry on only boarding pass, REAL ID, baggage claim stub, and eyeglasses.

Think of the timesaving for TSOs. ^ Nothing to x-ray. ^ Lines move very fast. In fact, half the TSA checkpoint clerks can be fired as they will no longer be needed. ^ And at $25 a bag the airlines will make billions as everything must be checked.

The Anything for Security crowd will love your new motto. “Fly Naked—It Keeps you Safe from Hijacking plus No One will use a Cell Phone on the Plane as They Won't Have One.” It will really speed up checkpoint transit and boarding times. (If the plane needs to be evacuated, the Skymall catalog may be used as a mini sled to avoid butt burns on the slides.)

Feel free to put this idea in the suggestion box at work. I am certain Washington will give it much consideration. You might even get a shiny medal when they adopt it.

Jenbel

I travel with very expensive binoculars and telescope with coated lenses for better light gathering in my hand baggage. They look dark in x-rays (can depend on the machine), and I've had them inspected now on several occasions.

If TSA tried to confiscate them on the basis they looked black on the x-ray and so could cause delays at other check points, they would have such a fuss created. We are talking a significant value in those items....

Strangely, in all my travels, while they have been subject to enhanced security on many occasions, no-one has decided that because they are opaque, they are too dangerous to fly

Schmurrr

It should not take more than a minute to clear the bottle, no? TSA staff might then pleasantly suggest to the flyer that the bottle ought to be placed separately in a bin or bowl the next time the flyer brings it through a TSA checkpoint. No confrontations, no consfiscations, and no excessive delay.

How's that for outside the box?

RadioGirl

This is a new low for an organization that regularly sets new lows.
Not only that, it only "resembles" a prohibited item when viewed on the x-ray. When viewed by plain old human eyeballs, it looks nothing like a grenade.

How could they possibly imagine this threat playing out? "Stand back, everyone, I have this item which, umm, if you were looking at it with an x-ray, might be a grenade!!!!"
That's an understatement!
The question is: why did it cause a delay at even one airport? The bottle was in a separate clear plastic bag. Okay, it looks "suspicious" on the x-ray. When the bottle emerges from the x-ray, it should be clear that it's a bottle of perfume, not a grenade. Back the x-ray up and double check: yes, that's what made that funny shape. How could it possibly - apart from mind-numbing stupidity - take nearly an hour to confirm that "suspicious shape in x-ray" = "clear glass bottle of perfume in clear plastic bag."

relangford

On top of tiny toy guns, Arabic flashcards, and pictures of "bad things", this one seems more like theft than stupidity (which abounds in TSA up to Washington). Someone within TSA wanted to steal the expensive perfume and did so. If I were the passenger so mistreated, I would consider a lawsuit just for the publicity. Could the passenegr also file a theft report with the Phoenix police (unless they were in on the scam)? The irrational "national security" and "protecting the public" BS might keep them from jail time, though. Anyone who has even SEEN a granade would know at once this wasn't one (by the way, the pineapple-shaped ones are unique to the U.S. - most of other militaries have different shapes, including cylinders with or without handles - I was told the U.S. make them this way because before WW II "'Mericans know how to throw baseballs"). Have any TSA staff been in the military and thrown granades? I have.