Originally Posted by ssb2045

I flew out of PWM on Monday, as I was putting my bag through the x-ray I noticed I still had a bit of iced tea in a bottle on my backpack, so I looked for a place to dump it. I couldn't find one, so I downed the rest, and put the bottle back on my bag, after the TSO said "Hold on to that, save yourself some money on water". After security, I did just that, filling up my bottle at the bathroom sink.

At the gate, there was a secondary screening. They waved most people through, but everyone with beverages was pulled aside. I thought it meant a bag search, but all they asked for was my drink. I handed the men in blue my bottle of tap water, only to be told "You have to open it for us." Then they waved a piece of paper over it, applied some chemical to the paper, and finding that I wasn't a terrorist, sent me on to the plane. Sigh. What's the point of this? (Clearly, I know there isn't one, but what does the TSA claim this does?)