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You are here: Home / Insanity at the FAA TSA

Insanity at the FAA TSA

by John Cole|  May 22, 20059:23 pm| 14 Comments

This post is in: General Stupidity

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This is unbelievable:

Like I said, I do like rules, rules that make sense. But this is a form of institutional insanity, and someone needs to do an intervention. When a soldier in full uniform, in the company of nothing but other soldiers, is allowed to retain the bayonet for his M-16 and his M-16, yet has to give up his nose hair clippers, we

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14Comments

  1. 1.

    Mason

    May 23, 2005 at 12:06 am

    Somehow, I’m not very surprised.

    I don’t fly anymore, and it’s not because I’m afraid, but because it’s less hassle to drive.

  2. 2.

    rilkefan

    May 23, 2005 at 12:42 am

    I’m unable to believe this is anything other than a joke on someone’s part – maybe the Lt. Col. is a prankster?

  3. 3.

    RepubAnon

    May 23, 2005 at 12:55 am

    If it makes no sense – it is probably government policy…

  4. 4.

    Shawn

    May 23, 2005 at 9:13 am

    Yea, verily. The nose hair clipper is mightier than a sword.

    Sheer stupidity.

    Last time I flew they picked my suitcase for a random search. I got to my vacation destination with a suitcase full of dirty, wadded up clothes. My clothes looked like they had been rolled around in a dirt pile. At least they included a polite note explaining the search. Instead of the beach, my first vacation outing was the hotel laudromat.

    At least we’re winning the War on Terror. Heh.

  5. 5.

    JKC

    May 23, 2005 at 9:32 am

    It’s no joke. One of my best friends is captain for American Airlines and gets hassled by the TSA on a regular basis. I’m not sure what the risk of a pilot hijacking himself with his pocket knife, but I’m pretty sure it’s low.

  6. 6.

    tsafaa

    May 23, 2005 at 9:32 am

    TSA not FAA.

  7. 7.

    JKC

    May 23, 2005 at 9:33 am

    It’s no joke. One of my best friends is captain for American Airlines and gets hassled by the TSA on a regular basis. I’m not sure what the risk of a pilot hijacking himself with his pocket knife, but I’m pretty sure it’s low.

  8. 8.

    Eddie

    May 23, 2005 at 10:02 am

    Hello!

    This is not spam.

    You are one of twenty bloggers chosen to play the game at aequalswhat dot blogspot dot com.

    Your part of the code is f=n.

    Let the game begin!

  9. 9.

    ppgaz

    May 23, 2005 at 11:27 am

    Well let’s not get carried away with this.

    Many of the proscriptions against things like lighters and scissors are not in place just to prevent the bearer from using them, they are in place to prevent the items from falling into the hands of other people and being used as weapons of opportunity. It’s a matter of maintaining a clean field on the airplane, not necessarily a matter of preventing the owner of the item from going jihad or, more likely, going bonkers. Mental illness and alcohol abuse are impossible to stop at the boarding point, but it’s possible to take away most of the things that could escalate a simple “drunk passenger” or “panicked passenger” incident from turning into a tragedy.

    As for the weapons and the soldiers … it makes a kind of sense. Who is going to take a soldier’s weapons away from him? How likely is it that an M16 is going to accidentally or surrpetitiously fall into the hands of a lunatic during flight? Compare this risk to that of a cigarette lighter falling accidentally into the hands of a drunk or a lunatic.

    The situation is not as goofy as it might appear. Whether it’s the right mix of rules or not, hard to say. But the original article and the responses so far are really just a sort of “hard-dee-har” thing that proves that it’s easy to poke fun at things that are not well understood.

    I’d suggest getting all the facts before forming any opinion on this.

  10. 10.

    JKC

    May 23, 2005 at 1:51 pm

    I’d point out if someone was able to get into the cockpit of a commercial airline and steal the pilot’s pocket knife, then there are already serious problems aboard the aircraft.

  11. 11.

    ppgaz

    May 23, 2005 at 2:25 pm

    If an unauthorized person can get into the cockpit of any airliner and do anything, then there is a serious problem. It would be ill advised for anyone to try such a thing any more, though. Armed marshals, armed flight crews, trained cabin crews and passengers who are not going to put up with any crap during flight, would make such a move extremely risky for the intruder …. life threatening, actually.

    It’s too bad that it took 9-11 to bring this point home. And, 9-11 was hardly the first time that a lunatic or lunatics took control of an airplane and crashed it. It’s just the first time that the crash was into a heavily populated situation, and on television.

    See: Egypt Air, PSA, and Pacfic Airlines:

    Redding, CA Searchlight:

    It was the deadly 1964 skyjacking, though, that prompted Pacific pilots to carry guns, said Gene Malm, 71, who was a pilot at the time and ended his career as vice president of flight operations for Republic Airlines.

    In that incident, a man who had recently separated from his wife went to Reno, where he lost most of his money in the casinos, said Malm, who now lives in Sebastopol.

    Before hopping Pacific Flight 733 bound for San Francisco, the man bought a $50,000 Mutual of Omaha flight insurance policy from a coin-operated machine in the airport terminal, according to news accounts at the time.

    Then somewhere over Danville the man pulled a Smith and Wesson .357-caliber Magnum and shot Capt. Ernest Clark.

    “My God, I’ve been shot. I’ve been shot,” Clark radioed to the Oakland tower before his Fairchild F27 twin-engine turboprop dropped off the radar screen, said news accounts the next day.

    “Everyone perished, and after that the company and pilots decided to arm ourselves,” Malm said. “We took training and carried revolvers for approximately 10 years. Pretty much everyone did it. It was a great comfort and we didn’t have anymore hijackings.”

    With Federal Aviation Administration sanction, pilots carried either .38-caliber Smith and Wesson Chief’s Specials or Colt Detective Specials, he said.

    But later the FAA and the FBI adopted a policy that negotiating with potential hijackers was better than risking violence on airplanes, and the FAA finally banned the pilots’ guns, the Pacific veterans said.

    “I think it was a mistake,” Malm said. “I think all pilots should be armed and trained to be responsible for the well-being of passengers . . . I think the events of Sept. 11 would have been far different if the pilots had been armed.”

    —/

    With this simple expedient, 9-11 probably would have been prevented.

  12. 12.

    Peter ve

    May 23, 2005 at 5:09 pm

    A friend recently came to visit. On arriving at check in at the airport, he couldn’t find his driver’s license. He was directed to the information booth, where the helpfull clerk helped him fill out an affidavit stating ” I am who I say I am”, and notarized it for $4. Based on this “Real ID”, and a thorough search at security, he was able to get on the plane.

    On arrival, he needed to brush his teeth, so he got his toilet bag out. Sitting on top: no driver’s license, no nose hair clippers; but the last buds of the pot he smoked on his way to the airport. I guess Tracy Ullman must have been working security that day…. I suspect the driver’s license was in the glove compartment where the pot had been meant to go.

  13. 13.

    Al Maviva

    May 23, 2005 at 8:52 pm

    Man, am I an idiot.

    Well, you said it, not me… Check out:

    http://www.tsa.gov/public/display?content=0900051980003712

    If the link somehow doesn’t work, go to http://www.tsa.gov, and type “nail clippers” into the web page search engine. The top document linked is the policy regarding nail clippers.

    Here’s the quote from TSA’s public notice regarding prohibited items, just in case you’re having trouble with the cut & paste options on the browser.

    “Items permittedin aircraft cabins:

    * Pets (if permitted by airline check with airline for procedures)
    * Walking canes and umbrellas (once inspected to ensure prohibited items are not concealed)
    * Nail clippers with nail files attached
    * Nail files
    * Tweezers
    * Safety razors (including disposable razors)
    * Syringes (with medication and professionally printed label identifying medication or manufacturer

  14. 14.

    Al Maviva

    May 23, 2005 at 9:17 pm

    I take that back. I’m an idiot. It seems nose hair *scissors* are banned. I read it as “clippers.”

    If it’s a ban on scissors, this seems consistent with the flying armed program for law enforcement officers, which allows them to take their issue sidearm on board planes, but still forbids them from carrying non-duty items such as hand grenades, baseball bats, personally owned weapons carried in a non-duty status, and, I presume, nose hair scissors.

    On the other hand, I wonder how a regulatory attorney for TSA would go about crafting an exception to the rule for GIs, since so many are quite fond (and permitted to carry) a number of non-issue items that are, or could easily be, weapons. I.e., kubotans okay, but not nunchuks, etc.

    The alternative, of course, is leaving it up to the screeners’ discretion, or not regulating the items carried on board. I’m not sure I’m comfortable with either solution. Treating GI’s as law enforcement – issue weapons on board only – bugs me less than those last two obvious alternatives.

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