Baggie Enforcement Slipping?
 

Last week when flying out of BNA (my home airport) I was in great hurry and forgot to take the freedom baggie out of my bag. The screeners never said a word and let me through. I realized it only when I was putting the laptop back in the bag and saw the baggie there.

This week I forgot about it again. To top it off, it turns out that I had a tube of hand cream loose in another carry on bag, which I discovered while on board. Again, not a word was said.

I'd like to think that the TSA agents are just using common sense. Or (dare I hope) are we seeing the begining of the end of the freedom baggie idiocy?

I think in the xray they saw that you indeed had liquids in a baggie so therefore you passed the IQ test. Since you passed the IQ test they didn't need to see what kinds of liquids were in the baggie.

Can you see a baggie on an xray? That seems unlikely. Maybe that the items are all jumbled together, oh, I mean "comfortably" fitting beside eachother implies a baggie?

The liquid harassment policy is another "honor system" directive that inconveniences honest passengers and bothers terrorists not a whit.

The contents of the bottles are largely unknown to the x-ray operator. Unless you are thoughtful enough to take along a bottle of mercury, chances are very good that nothing will get even a second glance. If you would like to fill up 10 3oz containers with absolute (200 proof) alcohol, go right ahead. The x-ray cannot distinguish that and most other liquids.

Bottles themselves aren't very dense and do not show up well under the x-ray. You might see a blob, you might not. Water bottles are larger and if there's a large enough bottle-like shape, the drone running the x-ray might shout "bag check" so that he/she and the other drones on that lane might get a fish for The Big Catch by stealing a water bottle from another soon-to-be-thirsty honest traveler.

I know someone who had 3 AA amenity kits in a carryon recently. Each kit contained 4 bottles of toiletries side-by-side. Not even a re-screen at two different airports, one in the UK and one in the US.

since nobody bothers to read my freedom baggie.. I stopped taking it out of my
backpack... atleast for the last 6-7 security scans.. I was not asked
to take em out. so I dont bother any more.
I carry my water with me too :)

I have yet to be asked to produce my freedom baggie, so it remains in my carry-on bag.

I have noticed how few pax have baggies (and how many still don't realize the requirement). I have watched the people in front and behind at checkpoints and very few pull out a baggie and I don't hear any shouts of "bag check" either. I find it difficult to believe that many women are not carrying some type of liquid/gel in their purse.

In addition, my "knife" and "lighter" have not triggered a bag check in several months. Before it was about every fifth time when one of them was seen. All in all it doesn't appear that these are rising to a high level of concern.

The difficulty is if TSO's are required to look for 100 different objects, they are much more likely to miss the 5 that really matter.

Heck, at EWR and IAH they are not even looking at my BP when I pass through the WTMD (even though they say to keep it out).

I've had a couple of trips where I've placed my large bag on the table and the TSA "bag-pusher/2nd time ID & BP checker" has pushed the bag though before I could remove my quart baggie. It's never caused the X-ray person to call for a bag check.

I would agree that either they are not seeing the small bottles or simple don't care.

I have noticed in certain airports, they are not writing anything on my BP after I "declare" my 4 ozs of medically-necessary eye drops. They just say keep it separate. I think the joke is starting to catch on.

However, in the UK and Ireland, they were extremely vigilant. Really ridiculous.

Last few trips I did not take the Ziploc bag out of my carry-on.
No problem(s).

(Shoe carnivals at CLE, STL, PDX, ORD.)

Comrade Hawley has mandated 100% Shoe Carnivals at all airports becuse he's so stupid that he thinks the x-ray detects explosives and that all would-be shoe bombers make their bombs as sloppily as Richard Reid did.

Not only is his Shoe Carnival policy insulting, it is also decreasing overall security because ETD and ETP, which actually do detect explosives, are now very seldom used.

Terrorists: put your ordnance in your underwear or in your butt, put your shoes on the belt, and come on through. In 3 minutes, you'll have your ordnance airside thanks to Kip Hawley, the lying little idiot with the shoe fetish.

Maybe it's not a shoe fetish, maybe he's "in" with toe fungus people or the blue bootie since the barefoot people did a good job of spreading foot fungus resulting in the now present blue booties at places like ORD.

hee hee, i guess because i don't take off my shoes (haven't since 9/11-orthotics) the system of x-raying everyone's shoes really works. :rolleyes: sheesh and btw, in case you haven't heard, the kipster IS an idiot (ok, i'll go to the penalty box now)

Another reason why I avoid the puffer line at DCA... if I have to take off my shoes, why waste time in the puffer AND have to go through the x-ray as well...

At SFO United terminal yesterday, there was a TSA person telling everybody to take liquids out of their carryone. He was making all sorts of funny jokes... a real comedian... I took my freedom baggie out of my carryon because I'd be kind of annoyed if one day they decided to follow the rules and tossed the baggie. I also saw an older man at the United check in counter. The ticket agent gave him a huge cardboard box, in which he put his toothpaste and deodorant. Then she checked the box for him. :rolleyes: