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TSA Says Screening Drinks Purchased Inside Airport Terminal Is Nothing New

Posted by samzenpus on from the what-do-you-got-there dept.

First time accepted submitter lcam writes in with a story about a video that has started a new round of condemnation against the TSA over the testing of drinks. "The video, posted on YouTube on Monday and featured on NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams Tuesday night, has already garnered almost 125,000 hits and nearly 900 comments from angry travelers. It shows two TSA officers swabbing bottles of water, a carton of coconut water and a cup of coffee, among other liquids. 'Now remember that this is inside the terminal, well beyond the security check and purchased inside the terminal ... just people waiting to get on the plane,' YouTube user danno02 says in the video's description. 'My wife and son came back from a coffee shop just around the corner, then we were approached. I asked them what they were doing. One of the TSA ladies said that they were checking for explosive chemicals (as we are drinking them).' The TSA insisted Tuesday that its policy of checking liquids beyond the security gate has been in place for five years now. TSA agents will randomly patrol the gates using a test strip and dropper containing a non-toxic solution, it said."

12 of 427 comments (clear)

  1. So why can't they swab bottles 3oz by puterguy · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Why not use this "technology" to resume allowing people to carry liquids >3oz in carry-ons?
    Perhaps limit the number of such bottles to save time but if they can swab drinks bought in the security zone, they can swab our drinks while we wait to be nakey-scanned...

    1. Re:So why can't they swab bottles 3oz by kmahan · · Score: 5, Insightful

      There is big pressure to not relax the 3oz rule. From the vendors in the airports. The 3oz rule is perfect for vendors because they have a monopoly on selling you overpriced drinks.

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      Invalid Checksum. Retrying.
  2. I'll say it again.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Fuck the TSA

    1. Re:I'll say it again.. by Dunbal · · Score: 5, Insightful

      you cannot be required to get on an airplane.

      When your boss says "I need you in Hong Kong on Monday" I daresay you are required to get on an airplane... not all travel is holiday travel of convenience.

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      Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
  3. The TSA needs to be stopped by 93+Escort+Wagon · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I was an American teenager in the 1970s. Back then, people made fun of the Soviet Union. One of the most popular jokes referred to a Soviet citizen's internal passport, which apparently they were supposed to carry even when going from city to city. And of course there were all the stories about the KGB.

    Fast forward to now. The TSA is becoming more and more intrusive into all aspects of our lives. They are even trying to worm their way into searching you on city buses and trains. Also Congress has, on more than one occasion, entertained proposals that would require US citizens to carry what amounts to an internal passport.

    Reagan told Mr. Gorbachev to tear down that wall... and we thought we won the Cold War. But I guess Breshnev and company are having the last laugh.

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    #DeleteChrome
    1. Re:The TSA needs to be stopped by girlintraining · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I was an American teenager in the 1970s. Back then, people made fun of the Soviet Union. One of the most popular jokes referred to a Soviet citizen's internal passport, which apparently they were supposed to carry even when going from city to city. And of course there were all the stories about the KGB.

      The most popular joke is our Pledge of Allegiance, which until the red scare, did not include the words "under god". Communists were portrayed as being godless heathens, and thus atheists and agnostics were frequently profiled (to use the modern vernacular) by police and the authorities. Of course, sixty years later, revisionist history has all but forgotten it. This country has a long and inglorious history of sacrificing its citizens on the altar of public opinion whenever an external threat was perceived. "I hold in my hand a list of 80 names of communist party members in the democratic caucus" is laughed at as an example of how 'backwards' people in the 50s and 60s were, even as we nod our heads agreeably to watchlists containing tens of thousands of names of suspected terrorists.

      Change the names and places, and people forget it's the same dance.

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      #fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
    2. Re:The TSA needs to be stopped by hawguy · · Score: 5, Insightful

      The only reason you or anyone else is pissy about Arizona's law is because you're 1) ignorant of existing Federal law and/or 2) supportive of people violating our borders and flooding into the country illegally.

      No, I'm pissy about it because it allows a USA citizen to be detained until he produces papers just because he appears foreign and might be here illegally. My wife is a USA citizen, but she immigrated here from her home country, doesn't speak perfect English and still has a strong accent from her native language. What's to stop her from being stopped and detained until she produces documentation?

      Nations have a right as part of their national sovereignty to know who is crossing their borders and they have the right to deny entry to non-citizens at will. Anyone found to have crossed illegally should be returned to their nation of origin and barred for legal entry for a long, long time.

      The USA of all nations has little right to claim that only those that are here legally have a right to be here, given our history.

    3. Re:The TSA needs to be stopped by dbIII · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Australia took that to extremes and deported an Australian citizen that had been born in the Phillipines. She was injured in a car accident, and her head injuries and lack of ID meant nobody knew who she was - she was too brain damaged to be able to speak more than a few words. At the time the immigration department had a bounty paid each time someone was deported so she was quickly put in a wheelchair, taken to the airport and flown to Manila while the official that was criminally negligent in getting her deported without establishing identity pocketed the bounty money. If a church in Manila hadn't found her and cared for her she would have died in the airport. I think it was about five years before her children found out why their mother never came home.

      That's an example of what you get when it's seen as a popular policy to pick on foreigners.

  4. How do you know it's a TSA agent? by hawguy · · Score: 5, Insightful

    How do you know it's a TSA agent dripping a strange liquid into your drink and not a crazy guy dripping a slow acting poison or virus that won't be noticed until hours later after hundreds of people come down with a strange affliction all across the country?

    Even if you demand to see ID first (is the TSA agent obligated to show ID upon request?), how many people know what a TSA badge is really supposed to look like?

  5. Re:non-toxic? by siddesu · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Does the TSA know?

  6. Re:non-toxic? by ldobehardcore · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Nothing other than the fourth amendment, which prohibits unreasonable search and seizure. I'd count backscatter x-ray of everyone's naked bodies as unreasonable. Especially since it exposes everyone to a scientifically undetermined amount of ionizing radiation. Seizing ANY liquid of a volume greater than 3 ounces is also unreasonable.

    Also, the US Constitution grants citizens the right to unrestricted interstate travel. The TSA is pretty restrictive. So The TSA is breaking the FUCKING CONSTITUTION on at least two counts. I'll bet they'll be granted more and more ability to trample on citizen's rights until we have FUCKING NO RIGHTS AT ALL

    Dammit, I'm about to puke thinking of the FUCKING LEMMINGS IN CONGRESS, who said "oh, well we need to catch 'bad guys' at any cost. Terrorism seems like a good excuse. Let's just take everyone's rights away at bottle necks in movement and work out from there." Eventually we won't be allowed to walk on the sidewalk or drive on a road without a FUCKING PERMISSION SLIP from homeland security letting their agents know that "this person's a good guy, unless he's brown or black and seems suspicious (aka being brown or black)"

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    Hectice, baby, Mercator says hello to you
  7. Re:non-toxic? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    They are just doing a job, if you don't like the job they do, then get your government to get rid of the job, there's no need for personal attacks against the agents

    That's reductionism, and it's bullshit. It was bullshit at the Nuremburg trials and it's bullshit here. You are responsible for your actions, you don't get to absolve yourself of moral responsibility by claiming "It's just my job." If you don't agree with the policies, then you'll stop showing up for work and find a different job. By continuing to show up, you are giving it your support and are morally responsible as well.