Originally Posted by ptony101
Maybe they are starting to get more consistant
I flew from BDL the day after the Freedom Zips were annouced (last week). I had a 4 oz. bottle of saline in the bag. There was a TSA pre-screening guy who asked for liquids, gels, etc. I dutifully showed him my Zip and he tried to confiscate the saline claiming it was over 3 oz. I quoted the rule "4 oz of contact lens solution". He said that was only for medicines. The bottle didn't say "medicated" so it was not acceptable. I protested gently so he called his supervisor who immediately said it was OK.
On the return trip, 3 days later, starting at RNO, there were 2 pre-sreeners. When they zeroed in on the saline, I thought I was in for it again. But, instead, they flipped through some pages in a ring binder and made a note on the back of my BP with something like "Cat II, 4 oz".
This week, through BDL again, they let me through without any discussion but made the same notation on the BP. I guess they finally got the memo.
From what I understand there are 4 categories of exempted liquids. The 4 categories are 1) prescription liquids 2) non-prescription essential medications 3) Diabetic products, and 4) baby/small child liquids. So I think the designations go CAT-I, CAT-II, CAT-III and CAT-IV, and this merely lets later screeners know what exemption you are operating under, and the volume of the liquid in that category. However, my recent experience has indicated to me that the declaration tables are probably going away. (Most likely these were a short term item until people got used to the new rules) Both times going through security this weekend there was no declaration table. It was straight through to the screening point, into the bag and go.