See Number 4 if you can't read all Ten
 

The 45,000 TSOs are some people.
The first ten amendments to the US Constitution are the rules.
Keeping this in mind, please read your own quote above--while looking in a mirror.

Your quote is what some people around here repeatedly ask, when they should not have to ask at all. Understand?

It would require a great deal of reorganization to come up to the level of Catch 22.

If you're looking for sympathy, it's in the dictionary between "sorry" and "syphilis".

Don't believe I asked for sympathy. There was a question as to why the tsa hates Christmas and althouh I am not tsa, I am qualified to answer the question.


Have a good day.

Great post by the OP! ^

Rules: http://www.tsa.gov/311/index.shtm

The word you're looking for is "confiscated."

Sorry, but that's a stupid article.

Yes, at the busiest time of the year I really want to have people calculating the volume of water inside of each freedom bag instead of just screening people so we can catch our flights. Do we really need a thread like this every time someone comes up with a novel item that contains water?

I guess it's how you want to look at it; Ive helped man people take these items from their carry-on and place in their checked-in luggage.

And I do agree and understand what Ron is saying. Right now it is clearly list on the TSA web-site that snowglobes must be in checked luggage. This is not to say you or I have to agree or like it. Right now that rule is a fact, and it's easy info to fihereOf may change later. I don't know.

However, for now there is little reason anyone should come into a checkpoint with a snowglobe. Following the current rules does not mean you agree with them.

It would be great if TSA could get its priorities straight.

Nope. That's not "an authoritative list of all of the rules that apply to citizens and screeners at checkpoints." It only deals with some of TSA's liquids fabulations, and has nothing about the rules screeners are obligated to follow.

No, its not. Please try to refrain from putting words in my mouth.

The passenger always has the option to keep their items (as far as the TSA is concerned), all they need do is walk away with it. Not into the sterile area for sure, but if that item is worth so much to the passenger that they would prefer to keep it rather than fly then that is their decision.

Then again, they could read the rules and put these things in their checked luggage and avoid the issue completely. Which sounds like a more reasonable solution to you?:rolleyes:

What rules? The rules that say that regardless of what the list says, an individual TSO can unilaterally decide that any item a passenger might bring onto a plane is a potential threat and is therefore not allowed? Those rules?

And quit with the "it's not confiscation" BS. You're forcibly taking things with people with a "DY...T" attitude (whether you actually say those words or not). Intimidating people into turning over items they own to you is confiscation under any definition of the word.

Virtually anything can be made into a weapon and remain concealed. We catch sword canes several times a month, belt buckles with knives or guns, shoes with razor blades in them, even though they are more prone to be found in a poor movie rather than at a checkpoint. We do what we can to mitigate the threat to the passengers that fly, to do any less would be a disservice to the traveling public.

Only if you are the one doing to defining. The rest of the passengers can recognize options when they see them. To prove my point, the very next time you go through a checkpoint bring along your full sized shampoo. You will be given the option to either abandon it or transport it out of the sterile area to do with as you will. If they “confiscate” it, provide me with the proof and I will happily pay to replace it.

Ron, we weren't talking about premade weapons being brought through the checkpoint. We were talking about the fact that a TSO at a checkpoint can make an on the spot decision to keep anything and everything from passing through that checkpoint. Got a laptop? A laptop can be used as a club. Confiscate it. Got a belt? A belt could be used as a garrote. Confiscate it. Got a pair of shoes? Shoes could be used a club. All of this is open to interpretation by the TSO at the checkpoint according to rules posted for the flying public.

Ron, we've all heard from passengers who have dealt with TSOs who said that the TSO told them that they weren't getting such and such back. Under those circumstances I would say that that TSO did indeed confiscate the belongings of the passengers.

So far I count at least two Grinches on this thread. Not just anti-Christmas Grinches but 365-days-a-year anti-common sense Grinches.

You are quite right, anything can be a weapon, converted or not. What would you have us do? Have the rule that nothing can be brought through the checkpoint?

Lets be realistic, there is somewhere a “happy medium”, right? Opinions are going to vary as to where that “happy medium” is going to be and no matter where the line is drawn someone is not going to agree. If that person has a computer then they are going to find a venue to vent their frustration, its possible that it will be here. There is no way that anyone, much less TSA, can make absolutely everyone happy. A line must be drawn though, and the TSA has stepped up and taken the responsibility, and done so. Some are not going to like it, some don’t really care. [b]SOMEONE[\b] is going to complain. My advice is to get over it and move on.

Maybe. We have only their word. I know what the SOP says. I know what I am my fellow TSO’s at my airport do. I know that I have been given the options at the airports I have traveled through. I have no experience to the contrary, either as a passenger or as a TSO. The SOP says to give the passenger the options and let them decide. I also know that many people feel that they have no option because they feel they must make their flight, or that we have placed them between a rock and a hard place. Fact is that TSA has done neither. If they must abandon an item at a checkpoint then it is because they have failed to properly prepare and not because of the TSA’s rules. That’s the facts. I know you and others here will not agree, but again that’s not my problem. I have given you the facts, what you do with them is up to you.