“Alright nobody move! I’ve got a cat under my arm and I know how to use it!”
My wife once decided that a 100 g jar of baby apple sauce would make a perfect on-board snack. But it didn’t get past the TSA, nosiree. It wasn’t the 100g size, it was that baby food is banned unless accompanied by a baby. I have no idea if this is a real rule or if the guy just made it up on the spot. I suppose you could scare the crew to death with baby spinach.
I am SO glad I no longer need to take my parrot with me when I fly. Back before 9/11, airport security did ask me to take her out of her travel cage once so they could inspect the cage. I refused, as there was nothing about the cage they couldn’t already see with her inside it, and taking a fully-flighted and nervous parrot out of her cage in a large space like an airport was just asking for trouble. Back then, they allowed me to board the plane anyway. If that happened today, no doubt I’d be hustled down to Gitmo.
We are doomed. No matter how obvious it is that we are increasing the chance of letting more dangerous weapons on a plane by wasting time looking for tiny knives there is still a groundswell of opposition. The argument is that knives are dangerous and shouldn’t be allowed on board. Despite the fact that numerous allowed items could be sharpened to do the same damage as a knife, and that a knife can’t be used to bring down an airplane, the TSA is under pressure return to the restriction. I thing we should just capitulate to terrorism and get it over with.
You’re only just now noticing that a high percentage of Americans are cowards?
No. And I’m not just noticing how many are morons either. But I’m feeling less optimistic that we can survive that.
“We have met the enemy, and he is us.”
Walt Kelly was (sadly) right. 
I won’t be flying again until they allow me to bring my snake handling tools aboard.
Thank you for that. I used to read his Ask the Pilot column in Salon.com but it stopped a couple of years ago. I didn’t know that he revived it on Boston.com. Anyhow, I remember one of his columns described how he went through the security checkpoint as a uniformed airline pilot and the TSA agent confiscated the knife and fork set he was carrying. The catch was that this was the same knife and fork set used by airline passengers at the time and given to them by the flight attendants. He couldn’t understand the idiocy of that. Neither did I.
I’m a bit more cynical.
First, TSA, as any other bureaucratic operation needs to survive as an institution, as a group of people with mission, goals, hierarchy and plenty of employees and as such will – consciously or not – come up with something that will steer it back into the realm of 24-hour news cycle and thus develop argument, in fact, cement the fact that TSA is now how things are. There was never a time when TSA was not around, right?
Secondly, I maintain this for a very long time – and it’s based on experience - if someone wants to hurt you for whatever reason, they will find a way. There are already so many gaping holes in security system and there are already so many other ways. Darn it, block a highway for a day and everything goes to a ditch.
So, I guess, debate over what length of a sharp object constitutes a deathly threat is just another drop in a sea of security related chatter that keeps us all on our edge, where we got to be.
Don’t be too sure, aren’t’ locking blades still forbidden?
yup - because they are clearly more dangerous looking.
I accidentally forgot I has a little corkscrew on my carryon, last week. The TSA screeners said it would have been ok in three weeks. Okay then. Personally I think TSA should rethink the shoe think. That bothers me more.