Originally Posted by
eastport
The inconsistency is a major aggravation for me as well. I can carry something for a dozen flights, then it will be flagged. Once a bag search is done, there is a strong tendency to find something -- anything -- that justifies their search.
It doesn't matter if the rules say that the item is allowed. Carrying a copy of the rules won't help. What is allowed is entirely at the whim of the TSA agent. Sure, you can disagree, but you will always lose -- they can make you miss your flight. And if you insist too strongly, they threaten you with arrest.
Ain't that the truth.
I had a close friend that worked in the field for another Federal (regulatory) enforcement agency. He used to tell me stories of how the inspectors would get into "contests" about how many regulatory violations they could find. In fact, one of the would go into the offices of one of the regulated companies to do an inspection and outright tell the folks that "he would find something that wasn't in compliance with the rules, regardless of how hard they tried". And he kept digging until he found something regardless of how minor that could be considered a violation.
When the letter of violation went out, it would always specify something a bit worse than the item found to be in violation - because they knew that the regulated company would come back and have to admit to the minor violation. Example: failure to keep a log of some particular function that they were supposed to do would result in a violation for... failure to do what they were supposed to PLUS the logging violation.
This is the way government enforcement agencies work. And the TSA is no different at all.