TSA Tyranny Goes Cutesy

Authored by James Bovard via The Mises Institute,

In the glorious age of the Kamala Ascendency, the TSA is no longer restraining its contempt for American travelers. After squeezing millions of butts and boobs and never catching a terrorist, TSA decided to have fun by taunting its victims. 

After a traveler asked online, “Why does TSA need social media anyways?” TSA’s Instagram account taunted: “Idk Kyle, why do your friends keep bringing stuff they shouldn’t in their carry-on?”

Almost 40,000 people liked that post (slightly fewer than the total number of TSA employees). 

The TSA Instagram team added another smack at travelers who failed to devote their lives to pleasing federal agents: “You see how we don’t have 20 different things shoved in our pockets before airport security? Very cutesy, very demure.” Obviously, any American who does not approach a TSA checkpoint stripped down like a convict entering a prison shower bears all the blame for whatever problems he causes.

TSA officials pirouetted as if they had the moral high ground. But TSA has perennially relied on idiotic seizure statistics in lieu of competently protecting the American public.

A 2003 TSA press release proudly announced that it had “intercepted more than 4.8 million prohibited items at passenger security checkpoints in its first year, contributing to the security of the traveling public and the nation’s 429 commercial airports.” TSA chief James Loy bragged to a congressional committee:

“We have identified, intercepted, and therefore kept off aircraft more than 4.8 million dangerous items.”

Except that TSA is Idiocy Incarnate. Every fingernail clipper that the TSA seized from a hapless grandmother became proof that the federal government is protecting people better than ever. TSA checkpoint seizures included frying pans, dumbbell sets, horseshoes, and toy robots—all of which presumably would have been used to carry out suicidal hijackings. Covert government tests showed TSA screeners were utterly inept at detecting firearms and mock bombs.

I have been snared by TSA’s changing and boneheaded rules for cigar cutters. In 2018, I was flying out of Washington National Airport, heading to a Mises conference. A slack-jawed TSA dweeb came up after my checkpoint screening and he gleefully announced: “Your bag triggered an alarm—we have to search it.”

I followed him to a special area off to the side for bag searches. The dude starts going through my bag, pushing underwear and socks and a lonely necktie aside but finding no Uzis. Then, in one of the bag’s side flaps, this aspiring Sherlock Holmes reached in and plucked out a grave danger to safe aviation. 

“You aren’t allowed to take cigar cutters on carry-on,” he announced with the air of an elementary school cafeteria monitor catching a kid who filched an extra donut. 

“TSA’s website says explicitly that cutters are allowed on carry-on.” I had done my due diligence pre-flight. This particular cutter was a cheap plastic device with two tiny medal blades that sliced together like a guillotine.

“Uh… no. You aren’t allowed to take this onboard.”

“TSA at other airports has never prohibited cigar cutters.”

“We have strict rules here. It doesn’t matter what the rules are at other airports.”

“What harm could it do?”

“It has a sharp edge.” 

“Do you think I’m going to use it to break into the cockpit and circumcise the pilot?”

He just stared and kept breathing through his mouth. 

I threw up my arms: “Fine—take it—I have a flight to catch.” 

After getting out of sight of that checkpoint, I popped open my carry-on bag and confirmed that the TSA wizard missed my back-up cigar cutter. 

No shameless emotional string-pulling would be complete without a canine cameo. On Monday, [8/26], TSA announced the winner of its 2024 Cutest Canine Contest Winner—a dog named Barni who sniffs in the San Francisco airport.

But TSA failed to mention the role that its dogs have in plundering any traveler who is caught with more than $5,000 in cash—the magic threshold for feds considering money “suspicious.” Most American currency has micro-traces of narcotics, and a stack of bills usually suffices for a positive alert from a drug sniffing dog—thus entitling the feds to commandeer the cash. Dan Alban, a savvy Institute for Justice attorney, observed: “This is something that we know is happening all across the United States. We’ve been contacted by people who have been traveling to buy used cars or buy equipment for their business and had their cash seized.”

If TSA wants to set a record for social media likes, it should craft a meme with a Monty Python-style witch drowning to illustrate TSA’s devotion to the Fifth Amendment and private property rights.

But TSA is positively gloating nowadays over its latest high-profile seizure campaign. “Peanut Butter is a liquid. We said what we said,” declared the TSA Twitter account last week, sounding like Moses on Mt. Sinai announcing a supplement to the Ten Commandments. And since TSA claims that peanut butter is a liquid, it can effectively confiscate any jar it sees people have in carry-on luggage. TSA’s Instagram account last week posted a photo of the U.S. Olympic team in the rain on a boat and labeled it, “TSA’s social media team on our way to explain why peanut butter is a liquid.” TSA offered mock heroics in lieu of common sense.

I got snared by that bone-headed rule when I was flying out of Dallas last November. After the x-ray sounded an alert, a beefy young female agent hoisted my bag and carted it to the end of the checkpoint area. She summoned me to explain its contents and my depravity. “Is there anything sharp in this bag?”

“No,” I replied. 

She unzipped my bag and began pawing through it. In lieu of a machete, she found a small half-full jar of peanut butter. “You can’t take liquids on a flight,” she announced solemnly.

“It’s peanut butter. It’s not liquid.”

“It’s liquid and it’s prohibited,” was her decree. Did TSA covertly classify peanut butter as a bioweapon, or what?

“Ya, whatever,” I said as I abandoned the jar to federal custody. I’d had worse losses on earlier trips. 

Chatting with another jaded traveler as I put my boots back after clearing the Dallas checkpoint, he asked if I was upset about losing my peanut butter.

I smiled: “I’ll settle accounts with TSA later.”

Plenty of irate travelers settled accounts with TSA on Twitter after it posted its pompous decree on peanut butter as a liquid. 

@gaborgurbacs replied, “You can demonstrate it by drinking a bottle. Post the video.” @la_smartine retorted, “You meant ‘is a bomb’. You’re welcome.”

@amitylee13 groused, “Your agency has exceeded its expiration date, unlike my peanut butter you stole from me.”

@_GlenGarry  tweeted, “Peanut Butter won’t invade your privacy or assault you in public spaces.”

@ErikVoorhees replied, “Thanks for keeping Americans safe from peanut butter.”

@BecketAdams scoffed that TSA was “a permanent DMV for airports staffed by peanut butter-drinking perverts.”

@DrCarolLow warned, “They’ll steal your yogurt as well.”

@NHpilled snarked, “No wonder you guys have failed 90-95% of your b0mb tests.”

Some Twitter users thumped the arbitrariness of the rule—since people can load as much peanut butter as they please onto a sandwich and march unmolested through TSA checkpoints. As @thisone0verhere  scoffed, “Peanuts are not [liquid] so I will see you and my new portable food processor on my next flight.”

The latest controversies are a reminder of the deluge of substitute agency names for that TSA acronym—“Too Stupid for Arby’s,” “Tear Suitcase Apart,” “Thousands Standing Around,” “Take Scissors Away,” “Total Sexual Assault,” “They Steal Anything,” “Tactics to Suppress Accountability,” and “Three Stooges Audition.” 

If TSA’s social media team wants to be marginally less useless, they should sponsor a contest for better substitute names for TSA.