WillCAD

https://www.usatoday.com/story/trave...os/3917339002/

At least this woman's Cheetos were not confiscated or disallowed. But still - the idea that each individual bag was test-stripped is absolutely infuriating. It indicates that either TSOs are so ignorant of their jobs that they have no conception of cross-contamination, or they were intentionally harassing this woman for some reason.

GUWonder

TSA has an issue with food in cabin baggage and this incident is a sign of that and/or of the multiple “metallic”/“reflective” plastic soft packaging causing the cabin baggage image screener to perceive a problem with the bags.

When I transport lots of American food/snacks/candies from the US to abroad, I default to putting them in checked luggage — even when I don’t really need to check in luggage otherwise and could fit the stuff in my cabin baggage allowance. I do this with checked luggage at times so as to reduce the chances of facing a slow down at the TSA passenger/cabin baggage screening checkpoints since I know TSA makes a fuss over foodstuff of various sorts and has issues with metallic and reflective-coated plastic packaging material when there is a lot of it in cabin baggage.

Maxwell Smart

But it was quite depressing to read this at the end of the article (bolding mine):

Though Mei found the search slightly embarrassing, it was mostly funny. And she doesn't mind that TSA chose to search her bag.
"Makes me feel safe," she told USA TODAY."

Boggie Dog

"Feeling" is the only kind of safe TSA has to offer. I'm surprised they didn't break out the water canon to diffuse the threat.

petaluma1

The entire purpose of TSA is to make people feel safe, not actually be safe. And to that end, the more they harass people, the safer some people feel.

WillCAD

Yes, I noticed that, and it made me feel sad as well.

I wonder if she would still have felt safe had TSA confiscates all of her Cheetos? Or perhaps she would have realized the entire farce for what it was: Security Theater, no more connection to reality than a Marvel movie, and significantly less watchable.

studentff

We must not forget that it was the reporter's (or maybe the editor's) choice to include this quote. And this type of quote seems to occur in most if not all articles about TSA shenanigans. Imagine how much the media could shift the conversation if instead of this they ended these articles with a quote about security theater.

IMO media coverage of TSA is a very straightforward (and generally a-political) example of media bias and its impact.

WillCAD

I'm not so sure I agree with that. I think it's more a case of societal bias; the media seems to have the same percentage of Anything For Security folks as society at large.

Incidents like this generally don't incur any real backlash from the public, because as farcical as they are, the public sees them as examples of TSA legitimately keeping us 'safe' from terrorism. The media simply seem to buy into TSA's hogwash right along with the public.

Ms. Mei posted about the ridiculous nature of individually swabbing each of her twenty bags of Cheetos, but like most Americans, she seems to be completely oblivious to the fact that the more time and energy TSA spends on the ridiculous, the less they have to spend on the truly effective. And that shouldn't make her feel safer, it should have the opposite effect.

But she's certainly not in the minority on that one.

JamesBigglesworth

I don't think it's media bias. I think it's a simple case of media ignorance and indifference.

84fiero

I'm sure they were just suspicious because Chester Cheetah is on the No-Fly List.

And sadly that general sentiment among the public is one reason that reforms to TSA and the whole security theater scheme will continue to be sloooow in coming.

petaluma1

gsoltso

One does not necessarily preclude the other...