TSA and Paperwork in your luggage
 

Maybe an easy one to answer, but tried to find some info online and failed.

My daughter has been here for a month visiting, and we sent her home from IAD last week. She was loaded down with piles of paperwork from universities, as well as lots of leaflets she had collected on her travels.

We have stuffed all this paper into the front of one of her suitcases, and there was probably 10lbs in leaflets and booklets in there. In addition she had some books in the main part of her suitcase.

Her other suitcase contained snow globes and electronic items.

So the TSA let the bag with the snow globes (lot's of liquid) and electronics in it pass unchecked, and then proceeded to pull the bag with the paperwork in it, and systematically check every single leaflet and piece of paper, and check every single page in every book in her luggage as we looked on bemused.

Why? Drugs, money laundering, pornography? Maybe they were scared someone would get a paper cut? :p

Given that this was checked hold luggage, it could not be accessed by the passenger in flight, so what were they looking for?

N

I had paper confiscated by the TSA a few trips ago. They had a "reason" for taking it, but wouldn't have even been suspicious had they not rifled through a stack of it in the first place. They couldn't give me a reason for looking through a bunch of paper then, so I have no explanation now. I'm oddly happy to hear it's not just me though.

Don't lose sleep trying to reason with the TSA or figure out their thought process. Sometimes it seems as if they are having a bad day, they do things that may not seem reasonable to pick a fight with passengers. :confused:

Please follow the thread as it moves to the appropriate travel security forum. Ocn Vw 1K, Moderator, TravelBuzz.

Wise words maybe, but I'm an enquiring type and have to know :p

It is important to know these things so we can avoid problems, and possible confiscation (as the other reply noted). Often what seems a meaningless bunch of papers to the TSA/other folks, can be highly important to the traveller.

Most business travellers carry stacks of documents, so it is important to know why this occurs in checked baggage, when I've never been stopped with piles of papers in my hand luggage...

Unfortunately, there is no why. TSO's tend to act arbitrarily and capriciously, not even knowing their own rules. And even when they do, they will sometimes admit to not following them.

FYI, my paper issue was in hand luggage. I don't check paperwork, especially business documents.

Bolding mine: The TSA has "this thing" for those funny sounding languages whose characters are full of curlycues and lots of "ch" sounding words" and are spoken by brown people :td:

Hmmm, strage as we are white, English, and were flying BA, so not wearing any form of national clothing, or face covering garb. Maybe my 19 year old Caucasian blond haired student daughter appeared to be a terror wrist (don't want my posts being flagged by DHS do we) :D

Maybe the paperwork appeared on xray to be a box of korans...

Fact is that paper presents as an organic on our x-ray systems. Not usually a problem. Large stacks of paper present as dense organics, and several types of explosives do as well. Hence the reason for a more extensive look at your daughters bag.

Kiddie porn is rare, most folks flying and who enjoy that form of entertainment (disturbing as it may be, there are those out there that see it as such) know that it will cause no end of problems for them if discovered by the TSA. Regular porn is as common as grass, we see it all the time.

Wait. Kiddie porn can bring down an airplane?! I'm so glad the TSA is keeping us safe from threats like that.

Now it makes sense. Not sure why TSA just don't advise folks why so that we avoid the delays. Anyway, thanks for clearing the mystery up, which also suggests we should carry papers in hand luggage as it avoids these searches, and checking hand luggage is much easier to do.

I generally carry anywhere from 5 to 10kg of paper in my primary suitcase, every single week, around the world, including where dragons be.

I've never had my suitcase opened or be requested to be present for it to be opened in any of those countries.

However, after reading this thread I emailed my contact for my next trip and advised that I would be shipping the material ahead of time. My next trip requires a trip to the US. :(

OP, I disagree with you. And there are many, many reports of TSOs reading what is on the papers.

I don't think they were reading the text, but they systematically opened every leaflet, and examined them. We are talking schedules from Disney and Universal theme parks, university pamphlets, and tourist info picked up from tourist information locations.

The way they shook some of the folded leaflets suggested they were seeing if anything was concealed. This is what led me to think drugs, small flat wraps et al.

This whole process took a good 20 minutes.

And why exactly should the TSA be looking for drugs, or for porn?

Because it's an easy way to do an end run around the 4th.

TSA procedures seem more and more aimed at drugs rather than security.