Originally Posted by LessO2

Um, if everything happened the way you describe it, it sounds like they just took it without the owner's permission. Police call that theft.

TSAers here like to tout that they do not confiscate anything, and that the pasengers "voluntarily surrender" the items. This is not what happened here.

Taking the item and "discarding it," again, the way you describe it, without the owner's consent, is theft of property.

Yes, a hyper-technicality, but so is the claim that the TSA doesn't take things from you.