I had a torx handle with a single screw driver bit attached, left over in my backpack. (So basically just a screwdriver)
Combined, it barely exceeded the maximum safety length. If I’d stored it separated, it would have been fine.
I offered to separate it, that wasn’t going to work. I needed to leave one of them behind. …as the rest of the socket set (at home) needed the torx handle, I left them with the screw driver bit.
Toothpaste
A salt-shaker sized container of MSG
I got an opposite kinda thing. I picked up one of those credit card sized folding knives. Forgot it was in my wallet, and wasn’t even stopped at TSA. Didn’t even realize it until a couple days after I landed at my destination.
It’s ALL theatre.
not really theatre, it’s impossible to scan everything after all…
And yet they do scan everything.
I took my bike, but they confiscated my entire tyre patch / repair kit because it had an allen key in it. Apparently I might try to disassemble the plane from the inside or something. Then I learnt it’s surprisingly hard to find a tyre repair kit in my destination. Hooray
I traveled to a manufacturing expo last year. I had so much stuff to bring back that I needed extra room in my carry-on. So I loaded it up with these: box of drill bits and some endmills (very sharp), set of dial calipers, set of metal files, small containers of superglue, a couple books of sandpaper, set of precision pins for measuring holes (basically looks like a bed of nails in a box). Also I had a bottle of water. Yep the bottle was confiscated but they didn’t care about all the other crap even if it looked like MacGuiver was planning to hijack a plane.
I had a flight safe multitool, one that specifically had no blade, nor anything sharp. It only had tools for my camera. I also had a fisher space pen which they said looked too much like a bullet.
Both were confiscated, but they couldn’t figure out how to open the front flipper knife I had with me, so they let it through.
The TSA bullshit isn’t about keeping us safe.
Dude, I took a domestic flight recently and don’t have realid bullshit cause it’s not mandatory in my state and I renewed online during covid. Anyway, had to pay the $45 “security check” (only good for 10 days) to TSA to board. Husband got through with a box cutter, I got held up because I had money they wanted.
3 days later I’m verifying a Costco membership, their questions asked where I lived in 1988. It was harder to verify my identity at Costco than get a box cutter through TSA. It’s a fucking money grab joke. It didn’t even verify anything except my card had $45 they could charge me.
I’ve never had anything confiscated but, I did have an argument with security about whether my backpack was allowed to be used as a carry on or not. It contained a portable battery that strictly is not allowed to be in checked luggage by TSA guidelines and must be via a carry on. It took me having to pull up the TSA regulations on batteries in order for them to give me the backpack back.
I had a small piece of broken mystery metal tucked in my wallet on my way to a trade show. I knew a supplier who had X-ray fluorescence equipment on hand was going to be at the conference and I wanted them to ID the metal piece (there were like 50 sheets of it in the warehouse, and I figured it might be worth something).
Unfortunately this random piece of metal broken off a corner happened to be shaped like a box cutter blade, lol. Sure, it was like 4mm thick and as dull as a Republican voter, but still shaped like a knife on the scanner, so away it went.
$11.8 billion dollars a year in tax money and airfare fees.
Since they were formed in November 2001, they’ve never stopped a terrorist plot, never prevented an airport attack, and never prevented an attacker from getting on an airplane. So literally everything they’ve ever taken in their two decades, including their budget, has been useless.
yeah but 11.8 billion dollars is useful. We’re talking about the useless act they put on wherein they steal our useless stuff for 11.8 Billion dollars.
Hmm, I interpreted “most useless” as applying to “confiscated” (as in, what is the thing that airport security most uselessly confiscated), but you’re right that it could modify “thing” (as in, what is the thing that was most useless which airport security confiscated). I think your way might be more grammatically correct, but I have heard both intended meanings in conversation.
Interesting ambiguity.
Would we know if they stopped a plot? Would it not at least be an imperfect deterrent for those considering but deciding against it?
Probably not. Before 2001, airport security screening was performed by privately-contracted security firms at each airport. The no-fly list (then called “no transport”) already existed and was maintained by the FAA in association with the FBI. There were still metal detectors and other elements of basic security screening which handled almost every reasonable threat, with one notable exception of course.
But the security vulnerabilities that were identified on 9/11–the hijackers’ ability to get small blades and pepper spray onto the plane, and the unlocked cockpit doors–were already patched by those private security agencies and by the FAA when air travel resumed on September 13. While better communication between those agencies, the airlines, the airports, the FAA, and the FBI was something that was sorely needed, establishing the TSA was far from the only way to do that; and putting them directly in charge of security at every airport was absolutely unnecessary.
But overall the threat of force is not an effective deterrent, especially for terrorism. When you think about it, those terrorists were planning to die on the plane; what do they care that the TSA threatened force against them? Any threat that they’d be stopped would only have changed their plans, not eliminated them.
If the TSA had ever prevented a terrorist plot you can be sure they’d be screaming about it at every opportunity.
You can never know.
Actually, all of the meaningful parts of the TSA (the security checkpoints with basic metal detectors, the no-fly list, and the in-flight security) were already in place before the TSA was established; they were just performed by independent security firms (contracted by each airport), by the FAA, and by the FBI.
Further, security and screening of almost every kind has a bias toward the attack vector of the most recent attack; it sucks across the board at coming up with new possible vectors. That means that, if the TSA had been in operation two months earlier, they likely wouldn’t have caught the terrorists’ weapons either (small blades and pepper spray), because they didn’t know to look for them then either.
The only reason that the TSA might’ve caught the September 11 hijackers is that the FBI and CIA individually had intelligence that, if put together, could’ve identified the hijackers early and added them to the FAA’s no-fly list; and the TSA might have facilitated better communication between those agencies.
Which means that the only arguable benefit that the TSA has brought to transportation security in America is coordination and standardization between entities and across airports throughout the US–which isn’t explicitly a part of the TSA’s mandate and could’ve been accomplished by a computer network.
There is actually an entire industry focused on testing security measures to ensure they work. It is called penetration testing. For something like the TSA, they’ll do audits where test passengers are sent through with contraband. Sort of like secret shoppers who evaluate a retail store by pretending to shop there. In one particular audit, they only successfully caught 3 out of 70. Some audits estimate a 95% failure rate.
The audits have consistently found that TSA’s catch rates are lower than random searches, by a wide margin. As in, they’d be better off not searching everyone, and just doing randomized searches on ~10-15% of passengers. That random “10-15% of passengers get a full search” system would catch more than the current “search everyone but miss 95% of contraband” system.
They could literally just roll a d8 die for each passenger in the line, and on a 1 they initiate a full search. And that would be more effective than their current methods.
Sorry, but that doesn’t sound even remotely realistic. Source?
Here is a write-up about one of the old 2015 audits. And here is one from 2017. And it’s worth noting that new audit results aren’t readily available, because the TSA started classifying their results around 2017 instead of releasing the numbers, when David Pekoske was installed as administrator. Because that definitely screams “our numbers are improving!”
Basically, a thorough search of 10-15% of passengers would more accurately catch threats, when compared to searching everyone with a ~95% miss rate. There are even systems designed to randomly select people for searches. Usually used in jobs where employees are subject to searches/drug tests as they’re arriving/leaving. For instance, if a company needs to drug test 5% of their employees every day, they can set their random selector to ping on 5% of people as they’re arriving.
They’re usually triggered automatically by walking across a mat, by employees badging through a controlled access door, or via a button push as security buzzes you in. But it could also be configured to be triggered based on something like ticket scans for passengers. Passengers get their ticket scanned, the random selector system randomly selects the pre-programmed percentage of passengers, and they’re the only ones who get pulled aside. All the rest are free to continue to their gate as usual. That way there are no accusations of random searches being discriminatory, because the random selector system is doing the choosing based on the defined percentage.
TSA took a half-eaten banana away from my crying toddler niece to run it through the X-ray scanner.
ಠ_ಠ
Would make a great “What radicalized you” answer, too.
Btw, my toddler was given absolutely fantastic treatment in Japan. Free toys and patience. I bet other countries are similarly respectful.
Never had an issue in the US. Coming back from Cozumel Mexico one of their security people was on a pair of micro wire cutters, had to empty most of a bag so she could “find” them. Then she took it to a supervisor who said it was fine so she gave them back and I wasted another 5 minutes repacking my bag wasting their space. I had flown down with them and passed through TSA again heading home without issue.
When I got to Cozumel they decided I needed extra screening because of all my cases. I was there to SCUBA dive. Woman in front of me lost like six cartons of cigarettes and had to pay a fine. Her husband passed through and was gone, she was pissed… Dude half ass checked my two cases, carry on bag, and personal item bag and sent me on my way.
How about not confiscated?
Was in New Orleans for the Jazz Festival.
My wife gets headaches, so we brought an ice bag like this one:
In the morning we fill it with ice in our hotel, and toss it in a backpack. We empty the water at the end of the day.
On the last day, we gather our luggage and gear and head to the airport.
When we got home I realized that my backpack went through the airport scanners with the ice bag full of water. Probably about a quart.
I think that might be above what’s allowed.
I had a bottle taken from me because the bottle was rated for 250 milliliters, even though it only had about 30 in it, and it was translucent, and you could see how little liquid was actually in the bottle.
It was on a return flight as well, so I had already flown in with the bottle, but I was not allowed to fly back out with it.
This one time I was in Berlin with my girlfriend and the guy is taking a long time looking at the xray of my bag. Finally, he asks me, “do you have a flashlight in your bag?” and I told him no. He looked puzzled and he asks me “what is the device in your bag that is shaped like a flashlight?” and I told him I really had no idea but I was sure I don’t have a flashlight in my bag. Then he tells me he needs to search the bag. Of course I agree.
He opens the bag, chuckles, and closes it back up and says “its ok have a nice flight!” and I’m so confused. Right then my gf comes from the line and grabs my hand and drags me to the gate.
We get a little bit away and she starts laughing her ass off “it’s my vibrator!” because of course she stuck it in my bag without telling me but no he did not confiscate it.
“Have a VERY nice flight”
Love that “my girlfriend’s vibrator” is your answer to “what is something useless”
yahahaha!
It’s ok, the vibrator says the same thing about them.
