TSA has no "jurisdiction." TSOs are not law enforcement officers and have none of the powers of law enforcement officers. They may not detain. They may not arrest. They may not confiscate, except for specific contraband. All they may do is deny you access to the sterile area and call for a law enforcement officer.

Not that I'm aware of. It may have happened somewhere, but if it did, I've never heard about it.

It wouldn't surprise me if there have been no discipline instances. The TSA walks a fine line with items outside of the specific items being searched for and to discipline a TSO for failing to report such an item could have legal repercussions.

How are you to know what "blatantly illegal contraband" is? You guys are like a bunch of nine years old who have just gotten their plastic "agent" badges and decoder rings out of the cereal box and you think that qualifies you to somehow "know" contraband when you see it. This is the kind of pig-ignorance that led to the arrest of Janet Lee. Disturbing to see you haven't learned from such incidents.


So you believe it's OK for the articulation of "suspicion" by an untrained TSO/burger flipper to serve as the basis for justifying a search by law enforcement, hence depriving all travellers of the presumption of innocence?

A fella could have a pretty good weekend in LAS with all that stuff.

janet lee should have been arrested and it was a crime she was awarded any money. she knew better. same as you wouldnt try to bring a fake gun through or yell bomb! in an airport.

Why does TSA care about export of unreported cash in amounts greater than $10,000 and possession of illegal substances, but not copyright infringement, transportation of unvaccinated pets, or (you didn't address this one) people who are in the country without permission?

How do you define that category? You've already told us that the definition is not, "appears to be something that could indicate wrongdoing." You said that TSA is not concerned with several illegal activities when its staff sees something that might indicate them.

Many of your staff who voice opinions on your blog do so. Every time one of us says that you shouldn't be concerned with anything found during one of your warrantless searches besides weapons, explosives, and incendiaries (with the exception, of course, of those things which clearly indicate wrongdoing, such as a severed head) someone else chimes in and says, "What do you expect us to do if we find drugs, just ignore it and let the person go on?" I haven't seen you speaking up to tell those people that in the eyes of the law, those aren't illegal drugs, they're just something that is suspected of such.

For example, in the comments for the Incident at St. Louis International post, Kelly Mae, a TSO and member of the TSA blog team, wrote:
Dean, this conflicts with what you wrote. Are you mistaken or is she? Bob put her in the junior blog corp, but despite repeated requests for him to do so, he will not say whether or not she now writes on behalf of TSA.

I don't understand.

This is my biggest gripe. There is absolutely no reasonable suspicion standard for a screener. The cops love it because THEY don't need articulable reasonable suspicion -- all they have to do is to respond to a screener's whim.

The cops get to do everything that they normally can only do with reasonable suspicion -- demand an ID to run a warrant check, perform what is now a warrantless criminal search of a passenger and their property, and arrest someone, such as Ms Lee, with absolutely no compliance with any sort of reasonable suspicion or probable cause standards.

Ms Lee had to expend considerable funds herself, take time off from college, and even defend herself against a charge of something like "faking drugs". I don't recall the specific charge they tried to lay on her after it was clear that the condoms didn't contain illegal drugs, but, it had something to do with the fact that it's apparently a crime to make up something to look like illegal drugs.

Now, despite the civil settlement and the criminal charges being dropped, Ms Lee now has an arrest record based on an untrained screener thinking they had made the "big catch." I hope Ms Lee never needs a security clearance for a job, because the arrest, no matter how bogus, will makeit difficult, if not impossible, for her to get a clearance. And, the screener will NEVER be held accountable. This is just plain disgusting.

Kelly Mae at TSA also wrote:
I have repeatedly asked her whether she thinks this sort of behavior is constitutional, but she has not answered.

she has an arrest record because she was stupid enough to do what she did. she is responsible for her actions. is it ok for me to try and sneak fake tnt on a plane? what if i had a couple of pounds of parsley in a bag? they should just laugh it off? i am no fan of the tsa but we do have to take some responsibility for ourselves....

Hadn't heard they had tried to trump up bogus charges against her -- seems they'll pretty much do anything to avoid admitting wrongdoing. Which is why she was stupid to settle for 180K -- she should have collected enough so that she would never need to worry about getting a job.

WE have to take responsibility for ourselves, but the TSA can just sort of shrug it off? Sounds to me like you have been smoking some of that parsley...

no i just take responibility for myself. i know how tsa is. i know there is nothing i can do about it so i cause the least amount of hassle as possible when going through. packing a bunch of condoms full of flower is begging for trouble and that is exactly what she got....

There�s a container of freeze dried basil in my kitchen cupboard right now that I picked up somewhere in my travels. I guess I should count myself as lucky I didn�t end up on the weekly TSA body count for that.

i'm going to guess you didnt pack it to look like you were smuggling drugs. if miss innocent would have been just carrying a sack of flour she would not have been hassled. would she? she tried to make it look like dope. and the dope got hassled. dont get me wrong in different times it may have been viewed as a harmless prank but we dont live in those times anymore..