Originally Posted by
jkhuggins
Because the passenger's response has no relevance to the problem at hand.
The passenger will always respond with some plausible explanation of what the item is. Even in the extremely rare case where the item was, in fact, a bomb, the passenger would respond with some plausible explanation. Therefore, the passenger's response offers no useful information to the TSO.
So use a freaking water cannon to destroy luggage which the TSA can't figure out?!?!
Although the TSA obviously can't base the decision to clear an item on what a pax says it is, surely common sense would dictate that the pax's explanation could go a long way to resolving the issue without resorting to destroying the bag!
I mean, come on. Pax says, "Oh, yes, I forgot I had a jar of peanut butter in there." Is the logical thing to do: (1) blow the bag up just in case; or (2) swab the bag for ETD, and then take a look manually at the item(s) in question?
I hope the pax sues the crap out of the TSA and the individual "9 year TSA veteran" who identified the "anomaly," and anyone else involved, too. No, I don't think those suits will go far, but they would at least bring some much-needed publicity to the TSA idiocy in situations like this.
I'm reminded of the morons in DEN who threatened to turn me over to the FBI "because of the times we live in" and the fact they can't handle ETD swabs properly and who detained me for nearly an hour. "Abundance of caution" my behind. Abundance of stupidity is more like it.