Originally Posted by Policypeddler

I flew HKG to DTW today. At HKG gate (yes, inside sterile area), the gate agen announced (words to this effect), "In accordance with USA / TSA requirements, no water or liquids may be taken on plane. All bags will be checked at gate". We gave attendant our boarding passes, and went down the tunnel. There were "many" white shirts/black pants agents who searched all carry on bags. They confiscated bottles of water, cans of apple juice, etc. Many of these items were just purchased inside the sterile area!

When I discussed this with a fellow passenger on my connecting flight DTW to BNA, he said the same thing happened to him at AMS this morning. His bottle of water was confiscated (which he just bought near the gate).

When I arrived in BNA and was outside waiting for a Hotel Shuttle bus (literally outside the terminal), 2 TSA blue shirts were lurking around (obviously not off duty but simply walking amongst the people waiting for buses). I asked them about the water confiscation and they said they had never heard of this. They laughed and said, "watch CNN tonight to find out if something happened to prompt this".

The logic of this amazes me; however, it seems to have happened in both HKG and AMS so someone put out the word to more than one station.

Anyone else have any examples of this or know what is going on?