Another day, another fine fine airport security idiocy to report. This time, the danger is a rubber-band ball – probably about the size of a soccer ball. The end result is jail time with no actual charges.
I was departing a small commuter airport in Southern California last week and I found myself in jail! Here’s the story with the facts, and without any “emotional hype.”
About two years ago I made a big, rubber band ball. It’s bigger than a softball, but not as big as a basketball. It’s made of 100% rubber bands, and the core is nothing but knotted rubber bands. It’s been in the trunk of a car that I own and keep down there for most of that time.
I decided to bring it home to Anchorage to work on more, and that proved to be a bad decision.
I threw it in my carry-on and headed off to the airport. When I got there, I “dinged” at the metal detector while wearing a belt that has never alarmed before. I removed the belt and went through a second time, and “passed.” As I got through I noticed that my carry-on bag was open and being rummaged through. The TSA agent held up my rubber band ball and asked, “what’s this?” I replied, “it’s my rubber band ball. What are you doing looking through my bag?” The Sheriff that was standing there said, “you gave implied consent to search your bag by coming through the checkpoint.” I retorted, “you need to ask me first though, and I object to your digging through it out here. If you want to look in there, we need to do it in private.”
I have no idea about the implied consent, but I would not be the least bit surprised to find that true. And honestly, it doesn’t even bother me that that might be true – it probably should get me riled up, but I just don’t care about that. However, the rest of the story is absurd. I’m just wondering how many times this kind of stuff has to happen to get people to realize our current security theater that is put on at airport screening is meaningless and harmful to actual security. (via boingboing)
[tags]More airport security theater, Another example of why airport security isn’t[/tags]