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Saturday, October 28, 2006

Homeland Absurdity
Posted by Jill | 7:41 AM
The Transportation Safety Administration: Working with the Zip-Loc Bag industry to keep you safe from hand sanitzer:

Although we were carefully checked out in Kiev, we must now endure another shoe removal and bag scan. Somebody help me with this: We require foreign countries to implement the same tedious and wasteful preflight checks we've adopted at home. Yet, after your plane has landed in the United States, suddenly the checks weren't good enough, and everybody is marched through a metal detector all over again.

Apparently, we are worried more about those departing for Pittsburgh, Houston, Indianapolis or Salt Lake City than about those arriving from Morocco, Jordan, Kuwait or Pakistan. In the convoluted circuitry of Homeland Security logic, passengers coming from abroad are not adequately screened but are allowed onto U.S.-bound flights regardless. The only restriction is, they cannot proceed onward without a follow-up shakedown, presumably to make sure those foreign screeners didn't miss any deadly stashes of shaving cream.

[snip]

"Whose bag is this?" yelps a woman in a red TSA vest.

Naturally it's mine, and naturally she has to scan it again, because "there's something in there." That something turns out to be a 2.5-ounce bottle of hand sanitizer. In a rush, I'd packed it separately from my other lethal fluids and forgotten about it.

Five minutes later, after the bag finally completes its second trip down the belt, the woman unzips it, digs down inside and emerges with the sanitizer. She holds it up for inspection, making a tsk-tsk noise. "You can't have this."

"Why not? It's fewer than 3 ounces."

"It's not in a zip-lock bag."

"That's because my zip-lock bag is over here, with these other things inside."

"Well, it has to be in a zip-lock bag."

"But it's right there in your hand! You can see what it is."

"I told you, it has to be in a zip-lock bag."

"You realize I just stepped off a 10-hour flight, and that bottle was with me the whole time?"

No reply, just a stare.

There's a pause now while I attempt to make sure that I'm not dreaming. There are those times in life when you simply can't believe you're having the conversation you appear to be having, and this is one of them.

"So," I say to the woman. "You mean to tell me that if I take that bottle, and put it into this bag with the other tubes and bottles, everything is OK. But if it stays by itself, you have to confiscate it?"

"I told you, it has to be in a zip-lock bag."

And into the zip-lock bag it went, and off I staggered to catch my connecting flight, which by now had departed.

There you have it: Tiny containers of hand sanitizer in zip-lock bags are harmless and approved. Those not in zip-lock bags are dangerous contraband. Meanwhile, the TSA still cannot justify its methods of confiscation: If certain liquids and gels are taken from a passenger, the assumption has to be that those materials are potentially hazardous. If so, why are they tossed unceremoniously into the trash? At every checkpoint you'll see a bin or barrel brimming with illegal containers. They are not quarantined or handed over to the bomb squad; they are thrown away. In effect, the agency readily admits that it knows these things are harmless. But it's going to steal them anyway, and either you like it or you don't fly.

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