Thank you Doober, for your kind words.
As far as artful concealment goes, in my experience it is really tough to prove the intent. As Iworkhere stated, a knife in a cane
could be artful concealment. I did have a passenger once who had one of these canes, it was an elderly woman who had purchased the cane at a garage sale. She did not know the knife was in the cane,
she was not charged with artful concealment. There are also many cases where the lining of a bag is ripped (or a even a hole in the pocket of someones coat) and a pocket knife or a lighter (at the time lighters were prohibited) had fallen in the lining accidentally. Accident, not concealment. A few years ago a screener of mine while working the x-ray discovered a pillow that had a razor blade sewn inside of it. Turned out the guys mother-in-law made the pillow for him, and left a razor inside of it (accidentally).
He was not charged with artful concealment, but was mighty suspicious of his mother-in-laws intent
In some situations someone is escorted out with a prohibited item, and then they hide it on themselves and attempt to go through security at another checkpoint. These people have pretty much proven the intent, and usually get charged (or fined) with something. Otherwise, it seems to me that a person would have to admit to their intent of sneaking an item through security. Rolling something up in clothing is a common practice, it would be impossible to prove you had the intent to conceal it. Often enough, just to say "I forgot that was there"... or "I did not know that was there, this is my husbands bag"... will avoid any
artful concealment charge. We TSO's have the benefit of reading the whole story in our briefing notes of the incidents that are listed on the TSA website. Usually the artful concealment charge comes with an admission.