Why does TSA hate Christmas?
 

http://www.boingboing.net/2009/11/14...oogle%20Reader

"If you actually believe that 3 oz is a magical high-danger threshold, please consider adding a delightful, hallucinatory element of science to your pseudoscience by putting an Archimedes tank at the checkpoint. It would be a lovely counterpoint to your other scientific tests, such as the ducking stool and the spirit-rattles."

Loved this comment:

as well as this one:

I think a better question is why does the TSA hate freedom and the Constitution?

Disney Stores have a little sign by their snow globes warning people they can't carry these onto an airplane. Yet they continue to sell them by the gross.

I wonder if the stores past security sell them?

The conundrum continues.

Now that you mention it I seem to recall recently seeing snow globes for sale on the 'secure' side of the airport. Those must not look like explosive devices on the x-ray machines otherwise how would they get onto the shelves airside since everything is checked and double checked.

Do all snow-globes have a Christmas theme?

The rules say dont bring them through the checkpoint. What is so difficult about that to understand?

And you wonder why a large section of the population want you and your fellow TSA employees, along with your families, living out of shopping carts for the rest of your existence.

Sorry, but your comment is not helpful. Why is it that some people just can’t follow the rules? They are not difficult, at least this one is not. "Don’t bring them." What’s so hard about that? Most of the rules in our lives have reasons behind them, most for safety. This is no different.

Admittedly there are people out there that just don’t like rules for no reason that they can articulate, but this one is not difficult. We would rather you pack them in your checked baggage and deliver them to your friends/loved one’s at the end of your trip than be forced to leave them at the checkpoint.

I certainly don’t want your snow globe from Vermont or Switzerland, and I would think that if it is important enough to you to actually lay down your hard earned cash for it that you could read and attempt to understand the rules concerning them. The words are not all that big.

Which rules? Where are they located? Where can a citizen find an authoritative list of all of the rules that apply to citizens and screeners at checkpoints?

Oh, wait: There isn't one. :rolleyes:

No definitive set of rules? :confused: How un-American.

I am sure there is a rule book somewhere, and I am convinced that it was based entirely on Joseph Heller's book Catch 22.

Why is a Snow Globe not safe in carry on luggage but safe in checked luggage?

Don't ask.. Too dangerous to carry-on, fine in checked luggage. :rolleyes:

Internally inconsistent rules aren't based on logical thought. :D I am surprised that snow globes don't have to be locked in the equivalent of a gun case, however. @:-) At the least, that would provide some consistency...

Just for the record, CATSA does allow them, the general rule being if it is the size of a tennis ball, it is allowed, size of a baseball or bigger it is not allowed.

Softball? Leave it to the Canadians to make sport of a TSA rule.;)

On a side note, I dislike Christmas because people bring wrapped presents through security which means when I do a bag search, I have to rip open the presents which leads to dealing with hostile passengers.

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.

Ron, I didn't write the SOP you deal with on a daily basis. That SOP says that items pass through the checkpoint at the discretion of the TSO. That's pretty much black and white. It gives the TSO pretty much carte blache to demand a passenger surrender anything.

Except in those situations where the TSO doesn't know the rules as well as the passenger does, and forces the passenger to comply with non-existent, unpublished nonsense. (Shall we repeat the story of Mr. Gel-Pack again?)

Look, I understand the point you're trying to make, and I'm sympathetic. But the statement you made above is way too sweeping; it assumes that TSOs never make mistakes. Logically speaking, if a passenger is denied the opportunity to bring an item into the sterile area, either the passenger is at fault for not following the rules, or the TSO is at fault for not enforcing the rules properly. (Or both.)

And, yes, the rules for snow globes are well published. But your statement above is way too globally encompassing.

What is also frustrating, for both screeners and passengers, is when one airport allows a prohibited item and another airport does not.

Edit: Or a permitted item for that matter.

:confused: Well, then have one intelligent TSA HQ person solve for r in 3.4E-3 liters=4/3 x pi x r**3 and then transmit the result to the TSO's via SOP update, Op Directive, whatever. How could that possibly not work?

Like the Canadians already figured out; if the diameter (that would = 2 r) is not > than a tennis ball, the liquid must be below the allowable volume.

Of course, if Brittney or any other celebrity carries a basketball sized frozen snow globe through the check-point all TSO WROng's hallowed rules (that you people are too stupid to read) are out the window.

The issue is that the whole liquids *rules* aren't making us safer.

If I were ignorant of the capabilities of liquid explosives I would most likely agree with you. Fortunately the TSA and its BAO corps take a great deal of time and effort educating the TSO force on these things.:eek:

Perhaps if TSA took a modicum of effort to educate the public then a this discussion would end.

So far TSA has failed to convince the public.

AM, I cant argue against your point. Which of course in a small way reinforces my point that anything can be made into a weapon and remain covert. The degree of latitude you write about is needed to deal with that threat. Unfortunately there are those out there who abuse that latitude on occasion. There is no way that this small percentage of TSO’s can be prevented from entering the work force, the TSA does what it can within reason and the applicable laws, to not employ these types of folks.

Now, if we could just talk people into not building these covert weapons…

BD, I can see your point.

But try to see mine. Educating people about explosives has its inherent problems. Problems that the TSA was specifically constituted to screen against. In the case of some people, it would be like showing a kid a candy bar and then telling him he can’t have it. This would constitute an unacceptable threat. The internet has been a great boon to the planet in its ability of making information available to anyone with a computer and the will/curiosity to find it. Just about any information can be found on the internet, including information that in the wrong hands can be quite dangerous. I think I’d prefer that the TSA not add to that pool of potentially dangerous information. Wouldn’t you?

Its even more of a problem/frustration for us.