Originally Posted by
Section 107
Schnikes, where did that come from? No, that is absolutely not correct and I clearly said nothing of the sort.
I said quite clearly only that I was afforded an opportunity to make other arrangements for an item that was not permitted past the checkpoint, an opportunity which is often not available and that it was not made available to me because of my job.
I will say that I do believe that had I been at an airport where I do have credentials AND been known to a supervisor then the possibility of being able to retrieve and make alternative arrangements for an item not being allowed through the checkpoints once having completed screening would be somewhat more likely than typical. But I would expect mostly that I would not be able to retrieve the item after inspection - that it would have been "confiscated."
Interesting, because I believe the "official" TSA line has always been that I always have the option of completing screening and being escorted back landside to dispose of an item I don't want confiscated (with the exception of firearms, of course). I have exercised this option a couple times when I had time, simply because I decided I wanted to make sure my item ended up in the garbage and not on ebay. Some airports even installed mailing stations for people to mail items to themselves rather than have them confiscated. Obviously these mailing stations assumed the pax wouldn't know his/her item wasn't allowed until a screener tried to confiscate it.