boonecountygirl
Wiley Coyote
Herman Cain
hal
Rick Barton
Gelling With The TSA
Rest assured, citizen, that the always-vigilant Transportation Security Agency is one the ball, protecting you and your loved ones from the potential deadly terrorist threats of … cupcakes. This from USA Today:
The Transportation Security Administration says its agents did the right thing in confiscating a woman’s cupcakes at a Las Vegas security checkpoint last month.
On Monday, the TSA took to its public blog to address the Dec. 21 incident.
The agency notes Rebecca Hains’ cupcakes – the two that caused the stir – were packed in jars filled with icing. That, the TSA says, means the icing is classified as a gel – which falls under the agency’s guidelines on liquids.
Not your everyday, run-of-the-mill cupcake, in other words. Or more specifically, in the TSA’s words:
This will be short and “sweet.” Like many of you, when I think of a cupcake, I don’t think of it being in a jar. However, the photo below shows the “cupcake” that was prohibited from being taken into the cabin of a plane last month.
I wanted to make it clear that this wasn’t your everyday, run-of-the-mill cupcake. If you’re not familiar with it, we have a policy directly related to the UK liquid bomb plot of 2006 called 3-1-1 that limits the amount of liquids, gels and aerosols you can bring in your carry-on luggage. Icing falls under the “gel” category. As you can see from the picture, unlike a thin layer of icing that resides on the top of most cupcakes, this cupcake had a thick layer of icing inside a jar.
In general, cakes and pies are allowed in carry-on luggage, however, the officer in this case used their discretion on whether or not to allow the newfangled modern take on a cupcake per 3-1-1 guidelines. They chose not to let it go.
The background on this story gets even more ridiculously delicious, considering that the pair of potentially lethal desserts had made it through a TSA checkpoint at another airport before being nabbed in Vegas, where the cupcake wielding Rebecca Haines was finally stopped (in all fairness to the TSA, this Haines woman definitely looks like would-be terrorist; check the video and judge for yourself):
She said she was able to pass through Logan International Airport security with two cupcakes, but she was stopped on the way back when she tried to return with one of them.
…
Hains said she had received the cupcakes as a gift and after eating one on the trip out west, decided to save the other for the flight back.
Hains contacted the cupcake company, Wicked Good Cupcakes of Cohasset, which said it will ship her a new batch free of charge.
“Apparently we’re a tasty, terrorist threat. I guess we were also amazed at what can pass through security in one airport, but not in another,” said Brian Vilagie of Wicked Good Cupcakes.
So it’s official: our country’s homeland security has become a living, breathing Monty Python sketch.
We need your help! If you like PunditHouse, please consider donating even $5 a month!Click to Support PunditHouse!
Short URL: http://pundithouse.com/?p=8271
Ignorance of the law is no excuse, whether you like the law or not…..
Yeah, yeah I’ll get the “tell TSA that because they let it go in one airport”. But when you balance that with two recent examples listed below and the tens of thousands of people who go through security everyday, cut them some slack.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
A 24-year-old Baltimore man tried to a board a flight last week with 13 knives packed in his carry-on luggage.
Amr Gamal Shedid was attempting to fly from Baltimore Washington International Airport to Minnesota on July 7 when a security officer operating an X-ray machine noticed something suspicious and discovered the 12 switchblades and a butterfly knife in the flier’s luggage, according to Sgt. Kirk Perez, a spokesperson for the Maryland Transportation Authority Police. Shedid told officers that he collected knives.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
A Colorado-based Army private getting explosives training in Yuma was arrested yesterday after police say he tried to board a commercial airplane while carrying explosives.
U.S. Attorney’s Office spokesman Robbie Sherwood says Army Private First Class Christopher Eric Wey, 19, tried to board a United Airlines flight from Yuma to Los Angeles yesterday morning. In his backpack, TSA officials found a can of chewing tobacco with a ball of C4 explosives inside.
Like or Dislike:
2 
2
It is fascinating to know that there is a person, sitting in homeland security, being regularly paid from our taxes to bring this kind of ingenious laws and propositions. Actually somebody spent time analyzing and evaluating muffins as dangerous items. God bless us all.
Like or Dislike:
4 
1
more like God SAVE us all…
Like or Dislike:
4 
1
Kafka will be more like it.
In deference to Wiley and his concern for his personal safety, one can only wonder what went through the airport prior to the TSA. I know I carried knives – 3.5 inch blades, as I always do, on the plane. Now I check my baggage, so the knife will not be confiscated and me harrassed. The fact is, all that needed to be done was doors on the pilots cabins which preclude entry. There could be kidnappings, but kidnappings could occur on a bus.
What we have is ridiculous.
Like or Dislike:
5 
1
Again, short memories.
Those who fail to remember the past are doomed to repeat it…
Prior to TSA, private companies were responsible for airport security, the same companies that were on duty on 9/11.
The 9/11 hijackers were able to carry box cutters past airport security because at the time, they fit the qualifications to be permitted on U.S. domestic flights, which was any knife with a blade up to 4 inches.
Also prior to 9/11, the accepted practice for hijackings was to do what the hijackers wanted and let the proper authorities to handle it. This was another tactic used to get access to the cockpit.
You said “all that needed to be done was redo the cockpit doors”….
If 9/11 never happened, we wouldn’t have to do that now would we?
Monday morning quarterbacking is easy.
Like or Dislike:
2 
1
Wiley – If we were not so PC and use actual intelligence procedures like profiling we would have caught both these guys (muslim and military – both red flags). How does pulling aside my pretty teenage daughter for “special screening” or stealing valuables from luggage or chucking large bottles of head and shoulders or selling naked scanner pictures of celebrities keep us safe? Noone is saying we give up on security – we just object to giving up on freedom. They are using a 9-lb. hammer to squash a flea with no regard for the well-being of the dog.
Like or Dislike:
3 
1
…terrorist on 911 used a flea to kill 3,000 people.
The system is evolving with more people being added to known flier status.
I have no idea how much you fly in a year, but I’m on a plane on average about every three weeks.
I’ve been patted down once in the past two years and it was my fault that it happened because I accidentally hit the side of the metal detector walking through it.
Two other times I had my bag inspected because I had materials I have to transport to the West coast, but they couldn’t discern what they were in the x-ray and had to do a visual check.
Each time I was pulled aside, it took less than 3 minutes to check and move on.
I will be getting my known flier status in about 6 weeks which will allow me to stick my bags on the conveyor, not take my shoes or belt off, bring out liquids or take my computer out of the case.
One thing that profiling can’t do is detrmine stupidity.
Like or Dislike:
2 
0
Like most experiences, the view is different based on your X chromosome (or lack thereof) I fly fairly frequently for work and with my family and EVERY time I fly alone or with my underage girls, I am pulled aside. The only time it doesn’t happen is when the TSA agents are female, or if I am traveling with my husband. It is a JOKE and to act like only the unsophisticated, inexperienced flyer objects to this infringement is typical. liberal elitist BS. One second thought perhaps it is not the X chromosome you are missing…
Like or Dislike:
0 
0
And why are you “pulled aside”? Everytime?
I have never seen anyone “pulled aside” unless they were chosen at random as they walked through the metal detectors, as I was this week. I had no metal but was told after the beeper went off I was being randomly chosen and that one of my items needed to be checked.
I said pick one so he took the laptop, checked it and had it back before I could get my shoes on.
Or, they set off the detector multiple times and physically checked.
Or, there was something in their bag that the scanner couldn’t identify.
I would think by now if you were being checked “everytime”, you would find out why.
In all my traveling, I have yet to see any underage male or female being frisked. Never.
Such is my experience….
Like or Dislike:
0 
1
>> …terrorist on 911 used a flea to kill 3,000 people.
And Bushbama has used a hammer to kill a half million.
Like or Dislike:
0 
2
Never have so many been inconvenienced and even violated to find so few.
If imaging scanners and patdowns are what security must look like, count me out. Ill take a bus or drive if possible.
Why stop there Wiley? Why not scan people before they go into shopping malls? Drugstores? Hotels? Into their cars?
Arent their terrorist threats possible with any of those scenarios?
The TSA would not have stopped the 9/11 attackers. As long as you have people determined to create mayhem and destruction you will always have security threats especially if those people are not concerned about getting away.
What we have to decide is what level of risk are we willing to accept given threats to our personal privacy and liberties. The TSA procedures cross that line imo
Like or Dislike:
3 
0
Everytime you go into a store at the mall and other retail places you are “scanned” and on camera.
What’s interesting is all the hooplah over going through security, yet I’ll bet a year’s salary none of those screaming about the minor inconvenience of going through security will light up in a plane lavatory or tell a flight attendant they aren’t going to sit down or put their seat belt on when instructed.
Also, your “TSA wouldn’t have stopped the 9/11 attacks” is Monday morning quarterbacking.
Terrorists used our system at the time against us and what the norm of the day was in security screening and how to deal with hijackers.
Today is a new norm…
Like or Dislike:
0 
0
>> Today is a new norm…
When was the 4th Amendment repealed?
No wonder you get blown up with dynamite every day.
Like or Dislike:
1 
0
KaBOOM!
Like or Dislike:
0 
0
I don’t pay the salaries of those store personnel Wiley nor do I elect them. Those are significant differences.
Thanks for making my point about the new norm. Terrorists will always find a way. I see no need to greatly restrict the liberty and privacy of millions of people to MAYBE find a few hundred with bad intentions knowing those few hundred will likely try methods that get around our security procedures.
I would rather live in a free society with the albeit tiny threat of terrorism than in a police state where my every move is observed and scrutinized.
Like or Dislike:
3 
0
I respect your opinion.
But yes you do pay the salaries of those workers if you buy any products from their stores.
I’m all for freedoms and have stated I would just as soon not have to go through security, however, I hope the “tiny threat” plays itself out on your flight and not mine.
By the way. TSA announced an expansion of their PreVerify to 30 airports.
I’ve been waiting on my Known Flier for about 30 days and should have it by March.
Good luck to you Sir.
Like or Dislike:
0 
0
Figures someone too dumb to spell “flyer” correctly would be in favor of gestapo tactics.
Like or Dislike:
0 
0
And you WIley nor I have anyway of knowing if these TSA tactics will work. What we do know is that profiling, the sort done my the Israelis, has prevented terrorist incidents on their flights and we can safely assume many have been tried. Here in America we would rather pat down and grope everyone on the sheer hope that someone will be stupid enough to try and blow up a plane by walking through the boarding gates with C4 strapped to their body.
I dont have to shop in their stores Wiley. I do have to take a plane if my job requires it. Significant difference and I think you know that however we can keep quibbling over this minor point if you wish.
Like or Dislike:
0 
0
Problem is that the Terrorists will not use airplanes again. The next attack will probably be like those in Russia: the Nord-Ost Theater Siege in Moscow or the Belsen School Massacre in North Ossetia or a good old fashioned Car Bomb.
Like or Dislike:
0 
0
Well Joe.
At least you had the guts to call yourself dumb and a Nazi.
Here ya go:
flier (n) – Bing Dictionary
fli·er [ fl ər ]
1.aircraft pilot: the pilot of an aircraft
2.aircraft passenger: a passenger on an aircraft
3.printed sheet widely distributed: a short piece of printed matter, usually an advertisement, that is widely distributed
Like or Dislike:
0 
0