Three strikes.

@Ben - it seems that the TSA's main concern is that the next terroristic attack will have incredibly attractive design.

If nothing else, that final sentance made me laugh for 5 minutes.

And the toothpaste probably has a low enough profile that one could stick it in his or her pocket and never be noticed.

And people wonder why I UPS my stuff to where I'm going.

At least the plane was safe from rogue deer attacks.

@B:
Though it may be more prone to attack by dead, gutted deer ghosts/zombies...

OK first, the TSA sucks.

Second: Gut a deer carcass? Really? Me thinks that might be a bit tough with that knife...

Gut a deer with that thing? I guess, but you could also break the plastic on those speakers and end up with something sharp enough to gut a deer with.

TSA needs to work on detecting real threats.

OMG!!! I've got one of those knives! I got it for christmas in a little goody bag of stuff. I totally forgot I had it and it was in my suitcase. I forgot to pull my bag of liquids out so when my carry on got through the x-ray they made me take the liquids out and ran the bag and the liquids through again. The knife got through twice! I didn't even remember it until I got home and was unpacking. It's a tiny little knife, it's a key chain for god sakes! Still, they should have caught that, at least the second time through.

Ever since that dumb Tom Hanks movie where he is stuck on the island with the volley ball came out, I have carried a tiny swiss army knife on my keychain. The idea of going through the ordeal of having to find a lone ice skate and remove my own tooth with it inspired the purchase.

EVERY flight I have been on since has passed the knife through. Oh, and also the Purelle on my keychain. I'm not sure on the amount restrictions, but I'm pretty sure there was a time when NO liquids or gels were allowed, and they never batted an eye.

TSA really is a joke. I'm white, female, and average looking - no anarchy t-shirts or anything at the airport. That is the only explanation, I think?

I hope the next president can do something about making air travel safe but not ridiculous. Probably too much to hope, but oh well.

@rachaeljean:

I'm pretty sure the president is more concerned about hitting on par at the golf course than worrying about safety. He must spend that money he earns somehow.

Yes I had a couple of Swiss Army Knives in my laptop bag. Ok, maybe 3 or 4. They were giveaways imprinted with my company's logo.

Each time thru security, I had to remove my shoes, remove my coat, remove the laptop and turn it on, etc etc etc. Had a small bottle of Bath & Bodyworks lotion confiscated (was 0.5 oz over the approved limit)... But they never noticed the knives...

I only realized them once when I lost a necklace and tore my luggage apart looking for it and whoops - found the knives.. lol

On a side note, the TSA never seemed to care about my various body piercings nor did I ever have to show or remove them. :D

TSA - you go to hell! You go to hell and die!!!!

Oh and funny story - we bought a bunch of the huge Yankee Candles while in Boston. We put them in our carryon.

Bag goes thru x-ray like 6 times.

X-Ray guy asks me what I have in it. I start listing the stuff - clothes, toothbrush, hairbrush, books....

He says "No, you have like 3 or 4 things with fuses in them"

At first I thought I would be in trouble. You know, the TSA, airports & "things with fuses" don't go together.

I said "Yankee Candles?" He says "ok" and lets the bag thru without further thought.

God forbid it would have been a bottle of Poland Springs (which Ihad to toss at the beginning of the line)

Fuses = ok
Water = danger!

yeah, I've taken my pepper spray on many, many flights, and I never get called on it, despite the fact it's on the list of items that can only be in checked luggage. Hell, I even put it in the clear 1-qt bag a couple times and didn't get called on it (clearly, that bag is very important!).

Also, I thought of this the other day and I'm too lazy to look it up, so perhaps someone here knows offhand - the hijackers who made the attacks on 9/11/2001 used box cutters, no? Weren't box cutters actually allowed carry-on items at that point? I could be very wrong, and am looking for clarification.

A couple of years ago, I was shopping duty free before a flight. Several shops were selling nail clippers and pocket knives, and that's after the ban on nearly everything (but before the idiocy about "gels"). They were confiscating the self same things before the security gate and then selling them inside. Truly flabbergasting.

Worse still, at a different airport (after 9/11, I forget when) I was allowed to walk into the security area with a 16 oz. cup of hot coffee. I was willing to wait and finish it outside the gate, but the security guards waved me in. Once I was inside, the cup was passed around the metal detector by the screeners because they wouldn't let me carry it through. If I were a terrorist, I could have hidden a grenade in a cup that size and taken down an airplane, and nobody would have known until after it had happened.

And yet the same idiots will freak out because I don't remove my belt before I go through the metal detector. The belt is nylon and the buckle is plastic. The stupidity of those people seems to be without limit.

I have nothing to post about the jack booted TSA thugs that I haven't already said in other posts.
People need to STOP BEING SHEEP NOW before it is too late (if it isn't already).

Hey! I had that exact pocket knife and I lost it somewhere. Now I know where it is!

@ViperBorg: "And people wonder why I UPS my stuff to where I'm going."

I've always wondered why they don't have a UPS or a FedEx in airports so you can mail your "contraband" or heavy items on ahead of you.

I saw an airport once where there was a USPS station set-up right outside security for you to mail things to yourself if they would be taken by security...

Can't remember what airport now for the life of me. East coast....

TSA is more concerned about following the rules than any real safety. I think they get so caught up looking for the things the average non-terrorist traveller accidently brings through they miss all the stuff that's actually dangerous.

I went through security once with a knife, a full size bottle of shampoo, a micro controller development board, and bags loose wires, ICs, resistors, etc. All of which an attentive X-ray technician should have picked up.

@Kat@Work: Me thinks he's never actually done it. I agree that that looks like a terrible hunting knife.

CHEMMY, I've seen that at more than one airport. Pretty sure the US Airways terminal at LGA has one for example. It's pretty smart.

@camille_javal: Box cutters, pocket knives under 4"-5", some tools like screw drivers, scissors. I always had a box cutter in my shaving kit along with small roll of duct tape. Box cutters - the slim cheap grocery store kind- were a great item for packing for emergencies. Also I always had a swiss army or similar type pocket knife in my backpack.

The 9/11 terrorists gamed the system by using what could be carried on along with empty red plastic tool boxes which they then claimed were bombs. Remember up to that point, all terrorist hijackers had wanted either 1. money, 2. freedom of jailed comrads, or 3. freedom from some sh*thole country so the Standard Operating Procedure was to accept the demands and not try to fight. Conventional thinking was (and for me still is) Why would someone hijack a plane to fly a suicide mission with passengers on it? What good would it do?

Chemmy: the airport at Nashville has a travel agency in it which would allow you to deposit your knife/blade in an envelop and hold it for up to 5 days- for a fee $10 of course... That saved me loosing my grandfathers small Reingold Beer can opener (church key w/ the point end) and Swiss army knife on one trip where I forgot to put them in the car trunk...

i am having a knife like that (Well maybe a bit bigger) on my keychain ... i always put it in the plastic tray and get it xrayed and they always let it pass. And .. i really wonder why ... i mean this is no novelty stuff ... thats a real Opinel which i often use too cut things ...

But then last time i had too leave the snowball which i forgot to give into my checked luggage behind and only by luck i found an airline agent who did sent it to me by mail.

i really do wonder about airport security agents ... may it be here (Europe) or in the US ... although the TSA guys are really the most obnoxiouse of them...

@Geekybiker: I think you're right.

As the writer of the article on TGISFW, I have to say I'm really stoked that Consumerist picked it up! I do admit, I was being a little sarcastic with the deer carcass line (although it's super-sharp this thing...I've cut wood with it, leather, plastic, and it's still stayed sharp).

I think my main concern with all of this is that the 9/11 hijackers used box-cutters, and this knife could do the same amount of damage. It could easily cut someone's throat. It seems like the TSA screeners are just going through the motions. They don't make me feel safe though. Now I have to wonder, what else are people smuggling on board?

lol I have that same knife. I actually found it in a parking lot. Its pretty small. Smaller than my regular medium sized pocket knife I always carry.

I think the TSA is just there to bust people's balls over idiotic things just to make it "look" like they are doing their job. That's why the real weapons are making it thru while the innocuous items (like toothpaste) dont.

It's my understanding that you can have a knife with a 1.5" blade or smaller. My keychain Swiss Army knife is within that requirement and they've never said a word to me about it--although on my last flight, I made it through security with a pair of large scissors in my carry-on. (I forgot they were there, but I know they're not permitted--and they could be deadly, for sure.) Go TSA!

The TSA is the most worthless, useless, redundant joke of an organization yet spawned by our government. The truth is, all those innocuous but "prohibited" items they list as threats to our national security get onto dozens of flights every day. Period.

I've personally brought a number of these items aboard a plane several times (always by accident), and I have grave doubts that I just somehow managed to win the lottery a bunch of times and not get hauled off to some airport's interrogation room. If my own experience is at all representative of the standard the TSA achieves regularly, they're batting 500 at best.

Never mind the fact that the measures the TSA has taken since 9/11 are flat-out ineffective (let's face it -- if someone wants to hijack a plane, they can do it without anything on the TSA's "prohibited" list), the reality is that the TSA has proven itself AGAIN AND AGAIN to be utterly unable to live up to its duties.

It's all or nothing: either travelers should be allowed only a VERY narrow list of items (clothes, medicines, toiletries within reason) or they should simply be allowed to travel with whatever they like (as before 9/11), to be policed by airport security. These seemingly never-ending lists of arbitrarily-selected items simply cause too many variables for any form of security to be remotely effective. The TSA could learn a little something from the security at concerts: if it doesn't set off the detectors at the door, it probably won't cause you any trouble beyond it.

Hahaha.. a candle wick is not a fuse. There's a difference between a wick and a fuse. What morons.

Anyway, with that out of the way, I just wanted to say that I don't really ever feel unsafe because of a terrorist threat, except at 3-4 am when there's incredibly loud booms/blasts/shaking outside (I live in San Diego near the Miramar Air Base), at which point I normally believe that the end of the world has finally arrived.
I think that it is virtually nonsense to be afraid of something happening if it isn't a large amount of explosives or heavy weaponry, which I think TSA should be able to spot. And it's not because sharp items like pocket knives or machetes or nail clippers aren't potentially dangerous when wielded by a maniac, because they definitely are. B I just honestly doubt that any terrorist (or really any person at all) threatening someone on a flight these days has a snowballs chance in hell of surviving the incident with all of their front teeth in tact. There is just no chance that a plane full of people is going to make the same mistake and assume that the terrorists aren't going to kill them all + thousands of other people if they sit around thinking about it. Nowadays the second that the plane takes off, everyone and their grandma thinks that they're Chuck Norris. Flying is probably the least threatening place you can be these days, unless you're cruisin' for a bruisin'.

@SuperJdynamite: MKE has UPS & FedEx hubs located there, I believe.

@duncanatrix: whats funny about this is a box cutter has about that size of a blade, and that was what prompted the "no knifes" thing to begin with.

While leaving New Mexico, I witnessed a TSA asshat confiscate a young boy's toy bow (sans arrows) and break it over his knee. My jaw dropped as he laughed diabolically. Where does this BS end people? How much is too much?

Banning small knives, nail clippers, and scissors is a moot point. The door to the cockpit is reinforced and locked, so short of a bomb or gun no one is going to hijack jack. Certainly someone could wreak havoc in the cabin, but the TSA is going apeshit over things that don't really matter anymore.

TSA is a complete joke!!! Most of the TSA agents are nice and professional, but overall it is a joke!!

Maybe sites like Gizmodo should be required reading for these agents? Are they really that detached from the world that if tech doesn't look like it is from the Reagan era, it has to be dangerous?

Ugh. TSA stole a bottle of hot mustard from me yesterday. It was unopened and not what I consider a liquid. My friend thought it could be used as a tasty weapon against the flight crew. Hot mustard to the eyes!

If I worked the job, I would of held you, sent you to Guantanamo just for being the infallible prick you are, and I don't even work for the TSA. Deal with the volume, which most likely don't, deal with the job and low pay, which most likely you don't, and catch EVERYTHING that comes through, that most like you don't, and do everything that your own job entails without a single mistake, which I'm sure you dont. Learn to be a human being and life gets easier for at least everyone else.

It's quite easy to find plastic knives sharp enough to cut someone's throat. Going after metal knives exclusively is kind of silly.

I had a keychain knife for years... shaped like a key, but with a small blade that popped out of some car company's logo. On the other hand, I've had to throw out a rather nice zippo because it wasn't a BUTANE lighter. I've had to check a hand-sized iron bell because, well, I guess I could have hit someone with it.

The last straw should have been when they started sending people to the back of a 45 minute line so that they could put a single 2oz container of shampoo into a plastic bag. Argue all you like about standardization, but that level of stupidity should not fly anywhere in the US. We're talking millions of dollars per day plus tens of thousands of hours of lines for a security level that five-year-olds can see the flaws in.

They've BANNED WATER. It's like some bad Monty Python sketch.

I hope you all get to meet the one person I've ever found with the power to make me shut my mouth, and that would be a bond judge, and then, I hope you still find those little ball bearings you've got to post things like this, but most likely you wont. I'm guessing that out of the 3 options you have, fight, flight, or posture, alot of you choose the flight method, because those ball bearings don't exist.

@imxres: Don't you have a bridge somewhere to guard?

@imxres: You fail at trolling.

The problem is, this isn't an isolated incident. TSA is security threater at its finest.

[www.schneier.com]

The TSA largely seems to use the 3 B's of who to stop and screen: Boy, Beard, Brown. If you got those, you're getting stopped. If not, then it's just a question of the attentiveness of the screener. Notice that the people who don't get busted for knives generally didnt remember they had them, thus they didn't exhibit the nervous features of someone who knows they are doing something "wrong".

My friend told me about 2-3 years ago that you can bring a pocket knife as long as it is no longer than the length of a credit card. TSA really has weird priorities on what/what not to bring into the plane.

I flew to California last week and my friend brought a slightly larger than travel size bottle of contact solution with her, so we weren't sure if we would be stopped or not. It went through the x-ray, but the inspectors were too busy being dicks to the a Chinese woman in front of me and a French woman behind me that we stood there for a few minutes and then just took our things and walked away.

They were up in arms about a juice box this lady had, and the guy was getting red in the face and saying "you can either drink it in front of me or I can escort you back outside, but this juice box will not get on the plane."

I typically get SSSS every time i fly. For those of you who do not know what that is, it means that they take me aside and go though everything i own. (this being because i fly using buddy pass codes from a friend who works for Alaska Air, and i pay for tickets at a 90% discounted rate).

That being said, different airports handle the same items differently.

I have been able to fly from seatac down to burbank, no problems many a time, but coming back though say ontario or orange county, i find some items wont make it though.

One example is toothpaste. If you go with a container that holds more then 6 fluid ounces, orange county will throw it way, even if it is 1/4 full, which common sense would dictate that it contains less then the 6oz.

Anyway, It is basically up to the TSA agent, and how well they were trained. Since they work for the government, most of them are not trained that well, however since they do get paid so much an hour, i have found that most are very nice.

I once got through TSA in Ohio with a slingshot in my carry-on.