Originally Posted by eastwest
Thank you all for your support. I really do appreciate it. At this point, I'm not planning to pursue the issue any further. I'm not too sure what my "rights" are at this point. It's entirely possible that I could end up on a no-fly list or have to defend my SIDA access or who knows what? The bottom line is that the TSA can basically do whatever they want. Who is to stop them?
And to answer someone's question: I'd rather not say which airport I was flying out of at this point. It isn't one serviced by AS or QX (or I probably wouldn't have been so hesitant to check a bag.)
Lastly, I was traveling on a paid/revenue ticket. I'm glad for that. I was just "John Q Public" on this flight and was not using my airline privileges for anything. I hope that will help me "defend" myself if my employer or the Airport Authority have any concerns about this...
Actually it isnt the TSA who can do anything but the LEO who decided to arrest you in this particular case.The LEO had the option to allow you to go and just confiscate the item in question or to have the TSA agents do further testing on it as mentioned by someone else.I actually have to say that if I saw a big rubber ball that looked metalic in the middle I would have wanted to examine it further before allowing someone to fly with it.This is just an example of a LEO on a power trip who had zero common sense to just cut open the ball.I do blame the TSA agents for also having a lack of common sense and not cutting open the ball either.
Cheers
howie