At our product conference last week, one well-meaning exhibitor passed out handcuffs at its booth (I believe it was to illustrate how without their management product, you would be handcuffed to your server). The listservs are abuzz with people complaining that they were stopped at security at the airport leaving town, and told they had to either check them or throw them away. Since their luggage was long gone, they all chose to throw them away. No doubt they showed up quite well on the X-ray...
That's an odd one...

I'm just imagining all of these people going through security. "I, um, got them from a vendor. No...not a 'vendor'...I mean, I got 'em at a conference. A software convention...really. Okay, I'll just throw 'em away. Whatever you say..."

!!

http://www.geocities.com/Pentagon/Camp/8801/ub202.html

This is an interesting Q&A which addresses your issues. About 2/3 of the way down the page, the questions are about why the rules change from facility to facility and airline to airline. And it mentions the 4" rule as well. FAA links are noted as well.

Hope it helps.

This would explain why I've been able to get on with my Swiss Army Knife("Cybertool" model) the past couple times w/ no problem, although I've felt that each time was a slipup and I was just lucky.
Enough so that yesterday I shoved it into my rolley cart yesterday right before I checked it. We geeks do love our toys and this is a pretty cool one that I'd hate to lose to the capriciousness of a guard who suddenly decided to wake up and get picky.

Rudi, I suspect everyone at the Zurich airport knows who you are and they were just having a laugh at my attempt at an explanation. The good news is that the mention of your name did not lead to a more thorough search.

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Lmbrghini: that's an interesting reference you provided. Thank you.
What I gather it says is that the FAA has general guidelines, but the application/operationalization of those differes from one airport/airline to another. In other words, travellers can have no confidence at all that what they are carrying won't violate the (unposted) rules at a given airport. even within an airport, the application differs--it happened that the incident I started this thread with took place at the very same security checkthrough I had been through about an hour earlier (went back out through security into the main terminal for some food). So, that's an example of the same people (recognized them from the earlier checkthrough), same shift, looking at things differently depending on which individual looked at my possessions.

So, I guess what we have at the more detailed levels of what's dangerous or not is confiscation by whimsy (and, unfortunately, the Whimsies are a very large family).

I would guess that inconsistent applications of this sort are the basic building blocks of legal action, but that's not my area, so I can't say for sure. The lack of posted regulations seem to me to be pretty problematic.

When my family moved from the East Coast to the West Coast, we flew, and we brought our silver set on as a carry on. The security people at DCA wouldn't let us on the Shuttle with it... They pointed to the steak and butter knives.

I asked who had the final authority, and they told me the airline, so I asked to speak to a manager. The manager for Delta let us on the plane, but said the captain may request that the knives be stowed seperately in the front of the plane.

After we were confident that we wouldn't have to check our sterling to New York (sure we'd see it at the other end, sure we would!), we had a good laugh imagining taking over the Delta Shuttle with a silver butter knife.

Maybe the gate agent saw you on the golf course!