Quintessential TSA stupidity

[Muser]

Quintessential TSA stupidity: taking airline cutlery away from a pilot (http://www.boingboing.net/2008/07/11/quintessential-tsa-s.html)

Salon's Patrick Smith, author of the excellent Ask the Pilot column relates the incredibly frustrating -- and quintessential -- story of the day a surly TSA screener confiscated the airline-issue, safe-certified knife from his luggage (part of his hotel stayover emergency kit): "No, this is no good. You can't take this." "Why not?"
"It's serrated."

He is talking about the little row of teeth along the edge. Truth be told, the knife in question, which I've had for years, is actually smaller and less sharp than the knives currently handed out by my airline to its first- and business-class customers. You'd be hard-pressed to cut a slice of toast with it.

"Oh, come on. It is not."
"What do you call these?" He runs his finger along the minuscule serrations.
"Those ... but ... they ... it ..."
"No serrated knives. You can't take this."
"But sir, how can it not be allowed when it's the same knife they give you on the plane!"
"Those are the rules."
"That's impossible. Can I please speak to a supervisor?"
"I am the supervisor."

There are those moments in life when time stands still and the air around you seems to solidify. You stand there in an amber of absurdity, waiting for the crowd to burst out laughing and the "Candid Camera" guy to appear from around the corner.

Except the supervisor is dead serious.

Realizing that I'm not getting my knife back, I try for the consolation prize, which is getting the man to admit, if nothing else, that the rule makes no sense.

"Come on," I argue. "The purpose of confiscating knives is to keep people from bringing them onto planes, right? But every person on my flight was legally handed one of these knives with their meals. How can you ... I mean ... it just ... At least admit to me that it's a dumb rule."

"It's not a dumb rule."
As is my usual custom, I like to give kudos to the reader comments worthy of highlighting:I mean, if the pilot is allowed to bring a knife onboard, he might somehow get control of the plane!While I'm certain it has been said before, while we are so worried about a plane being hijacked and the passengers being held hostage, not everyone has noticed that the country has been hijacked and the citizens are all being held hostage.

[AlanC]

It is indeed very difficult to fix stupid.

[Trish]

When I flew to Cincinatti and back to Houston last month I had one of those little combination knives/scissors/file in my purse along with two cigarette lighters. Everything passed through security with no problems whatsoever. Granted there was so much junk in my purse it was likely difficult to determine exactly WHAT was in there, but those items were there nonetheless. I just plopped my purse down on the conveyer and it passed through the machine without incident right beside my shoes and plastic bags of shampoos and meds!

[Osborn F. Enready]

Well, join me in boycotting the airline industry.... ;)

[Easy90]

The only time I have yet to have any carry-on baggage searched was about a year ago, when I put my shoes, carry-on bag and camera bag on the x-ray pass-through...walked through the metal detector, and was waiting for my stuff on the other side. I noticed the person looking at the x-ray monitor and frowning...as my crap came into her view. Then she called two other agents over and they looked at it....stopping the line...as I waited. Then they came over to me and asked what was in my camera bag. I said..."a digital camera!" The agent said there was something else suspicious in it...I said I have no clue what that might be... They had me stand in a holding area and in my view, took the camera out and looked at it like a monkey might look at a typewriter...then they stuck their hands in one of the little side pockets and retrieved a shiny little lithium battery and held it up...They asked me what it was. I said "it's a spare battery for my camera." They conferred with one another and put it back and came over to me and said..."sir, next time, don't put any spare batteries with your camera...they look like a bomb!" I said: "OK." and retrieved my bag, camera and shoes and left..as about 40 people waiting behind me stared. I continued my trip, passing the same camera bag (with the spare battery) through at least three other x-ray check points without any problems.

I had previously taken that camera and battery through around 30 other airport screenings without ever a hint of any problem...and wondered....'if it looks like a bomb...why didn't it ever make any of the other screeners pull it out and inspect it?' But I have long ago learned to keep my mouth shut in such situations, as no good can come of trying to justify anything involving common sense with people such as you find doing that kind of job. It wastes your time, and usually just pisses them off...and they can really ruin your day if they get pissed.