Millions of Americans are taking to the skies to spend time with their families over Thanksgiving. Many of them will be carrying leftovers on their return trips. Fortunately, the TSA is fully prepared to defend the airways against terrorist turkeys and rogue desserts. Here is a list of food and other holiday-themed items that run afoul of the TSA’s 3-1-1 rule:
Cranberry sauce, creamy dips and spreads (cheeses, peanut butter, etc.), gift baskets with food items (salsa, jams and salad dressings), gravy, jams, jellies, maple syrup, oils and vinegars, salad dressing, salsa, sauces, soups, wine, liquor and beer.
That means you’ll have to put them in checked baggage if you have a decent amount. They are far too dangerous to bring on the plane in a carry-on.
There are also specific guidelines for pies and cakes:
Note: You can bring pies and cakes through the security checkpoint, but please be advised that they are subject to additional screening.
The woman and her husband have filed a formal complaint with the TSA. She spoke to Denver’s ABC affiliate on condition of anonymity; as a frequent traveler, she fears retaliation.
With the unemployment rate still over 9 percent, regulators have been very busy tending to their own job security. Here are some of their more recent make-work programs:
The Consumer Product Safety Commission adopted voluntary new standards for cribs in 2008. Now it has decided to make them both mandatory and retroactive. That means that roughly 100,000 unsold cribs currently sitting in stores will have to be thrown away. Hopefully smaller retailers can survive the hit.
The TSA has a habit of confiscating security-unrelated items. Over at The American Spectator, I recall just such an experience that I had at O’Hare. After years of wondering what became of my beloved Leatherman, I was able to find a likely answer: it probably found its way to a government surplus store. One store alone made $300,000 just from TSA-confiscated items. As I conclude:
So rest easy the next time a TSA screener takes away your spear gun (yes, that’s on the verboten list). You’re not just making air travel safer by leaving it behind. You’re also doing your part to reduce government deficits.
TSA policies are an over-reaction to a rare threat that kills fewer people each year than lightning strikes. Unfortunately, the human mind is not entirely rational when calculating the risk from rare but conspicuous threats, so the TSA is probably here to stay.
Texas is continuing its fight against TSA pat-downs. The legislature recently introduced a bill that would treat the pat-downs as sexual harassment, punishable by a $4,000 fine and a year in jail. It was withdrawn after the TSA threatened to ground all outbound flights from Texas. Looks like lawmakers want to reintroduce the bill in an upcoming special session. Utah is considering similar legislation.
Don’t sell rabbits without a license. The Dollarhite family of Nixa, Missouri, found that out the hard way. The federal government has fined them over $90,000 for breeding rabbits and selling them to pet stores.
Members of Congress have unusual investment acumen. A new paper finds that “A portfolio that mimics the purchases of House Members beats the market by 55 basis points per month (approximately 6% annually).” The study covers the period from 1985 to 2001. The subsidies, tax breaks, and other forms of corporate welfare that Congress indulges in couldn’t possibly have anything to do with their personal investment decisions, could it?
TSA officials recently performed a bomb drill at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport, and didn’t tell anyone about it in advance. Local police surrounded a TSA-employed “bomber” with guns drawn before someone finally told them it was only a drill. Fortunately, no one was hurt.
A spokeswoman says that TSA will “ensure the correct procedures will be followed in the future.”
Apparently its stroller failed an explosives screening. Surprisingly, no explosives were found during extra screening, including what a TSA official describes as a “modified pat-down” of the suspicious infant.
Sometimes people wonder why I favor abolishing the TSA outright and putting airlines in charge of their own security. One reason is incentives. If airlines don’t keep people safe, they go out of business. That’s a powerful incentive to have high standards.
The TSA’s incentives aren’t geared towards performance — and it shows. Instead, its incentives are geared toward growing its budget and expanding its mission.
That’s the primary intellectual argument. But some reasons for getting rid of the TSA are more visceral. This video of a TSA agent groping a 6-year-old girl shows one of them.
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