Your nipple piercings are still a threat to national security, but the TSA will let you fly if you “allow a visual inspection of [your] piercings.” The announcement came after TSA officials in Texas forced Mandi Hamlin to remove her nipple piercings with a pair of pliers before allowing her to board her flight. The TSA stopped short of apologizing to Ms. Hamlin, instead saying: “TSA acknowledges that our procedures caused difficulty for the passenger involved and regrets the situation in which she found herself.”
TSA
TSA Forces Woman To Remove Nipple Piercings
By 3.28.08
Woman Says TSA Forced Piercings Removal [AP] (Thanks to Benny!)
By 3.26.08
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The TSA is expanding it’s skiing-themed “self-selection” security lanes beyond Denver and into Orlando, Boston, and Spokane [TSA via Gridskipper]
US Airways Pilot's Gun Fires During A Flight
By 3.24.08
THE QUOTE:In a statement, the TSA said that the agency and “Federal Air Marshals Service take this matter seriously and it is receiving immediate attention.”
What Does A "Clear" Membership Actually Get You At Airport Security?
By 3.20.08
A PR hack sent us a stupidly long press release a few hours ago about Clear, the company that—for an annual $100 fee—will pre-authorize you with TSA to speed up your passage through security. Clear started operating in select airports over a year ago, and this month will add Reagan National and Dulles International airports to its list. So, is the service worth it? We guess that depends on how much you’re willing to spend to be able to jump ahead of all the poor people waiting in line like the common criminals they surely are. We wanted a slightly more objective way to evaluate it, though, so we started looking around online for first-hand experiences of what exactly happens when you flash your Clear card.
By 3.10.08
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A traveler reports that the TSA freaked out over his new Macbook Air when he brought it through security. Apparently the guy manning the x-ray was alarmed at the alleged laptop’s lack of a hard-drive and ports on the back. [Engadget]
By 3.6.08
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A TSA screener contaminated a 14-year-old boy’s sterile backup feeding tube in the name of national security: “If I can’t open it, I can’t let you on the plane.” [WFTV via BoingBoing]
TSA Takes "Rights Of Traveling Public" "Very Seriously"
By 2.26.08
THE QUOTE: “TSA takes the rights of the traveling public very seriously, and in implementing security screening measures, carefully weighs the intrusiveness of those measures against the need to prevent terrorist attacks involving aircraft. Balancing the same considerations, the courts have long approved searches of airline passengers and their bags for weapons and explosives as constitutionally permissible under what is now commonly referred to as the “administrative search” or “special needs” exception to the Fourth Amendment warrant requirement.” (emphasis added)
TSA Brings All The Signage Of Skiing To Security Lines, None Of The Fun
By 2.22.08
The TSA is testing a new crowd management system at two airports in Denver and Salt Lake City that they hope will make the security process less troublesome. No, the new system isn’t less invasive or more security-sensible, but it does give families with kids/strollers/bags their own lane, both for their sanity and for ours. Early reports indicate families are happy with it but too many casual travelers think they’re experts and head to the black diamond lane, which is only for people who walk briskly and frown a lot.
TSA Won't Let Parents Bring Extra Baby Food In Anticipation Of Delays
By 2.20.08
Two Boston doctors brought, by their admission, “probably two and a half times as much as we’d need” of baby food on a recent flight from Chicago Midway Airport to Manchester, N.H. The TSA agent told them it was above the official limit and confiscated it. The parents argued that in light of record delays, winter weather, and stranded-on-the-tarmac stories, they wanted to be fully prepared. The TSA officers told them they’d need a doctor’s note to bring that much food on board—but, um, from another doctor who wasn’t one of the parents.
Suggestion: Don't Try To Smuggle A Box Cutter Through Airport Security
By 2.20.08
The TSA says a 21 year-old man was caught smuggling a box cutter onto an airplane by hiding it inside a secret compartment inside a book. The man says he forgot the box cutter was inside the book.
US Customs Helps Itself To Your Electronics And Private Data
By 2.7.08
A few months earlier in the same airport, a tech engineer returning from a business trip to London objected when a federal agent asked him to type his password into his laptop computer. “This laptop doesn’t belong to me,” he remembers protesting. “It belongs to my company.” Eventually, he agreed to log on and stood by as the officer copied the Web sites he had visited, said the engineer, a U.S. citizen who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of calling attention to himself.
By 1.31.08
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TSA can haz blog. [Evolution of Security]
Man With Loaded Gun Slips Past Ronald Reagan Airport Security
By 1.23.08
A man carrying a loaded gun passed through the security checkpoint at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport without incident this past Sunday, apparently because the gun wasn’t floating in a shampoo bottle or hidden in a shoe. He then remembered he was carrying it and brought it back to the TSA authorities, who promptly charged him with “possessing or transporting a firearm into an air carrier terminal where prohibited, a misdemeanor, and released him.”
TSA Traveler Website Exposed Private Citizens To Risk Of ID Theft
By 1.15.08
The Transportation Security Administration’s traveler redress website—which was launched to give travelers a way to get their names removed from the government’s toddler-centric no fly list—operated for months without proper security in place, leaving citizens who submitted detailed personal information to it wide open to identity theft. Gee, we’re this close to thinking that the TSA is run by a bunch of grotesquely incompetent, slug-like bureaucrats.
TSA Detains 5-Year-Old As National Security Risk
By 1.9.08
A 5-year-old boy was detained as “security risk” because he had the same name of someone on the TSA “No-Fly” list. The TSA had to conduct a full search of their persons and belongings. When his mother went to pick him up and hug him and comfort him during the proceedings, she was told not to touch him because he was a national security risk. They also had to frisk her again to make sure the little Dillinger hadn’t passed anything dangerous weapons or materials to his mother when she hugged him. Pretty insane. If you’re ever mistakenly on the No-Fly list, here’s how to get off it.
No More Loose Non-Rechargable Lithium Batteries In Checked Luggage
By 12.29.07
The TSA has announced a ban on loose non-rechargeable lithium batteries in checked luggage, because they’ve realized that “fire-protection systems in the cargo hold of passenger planes can’t put out fires sparked in lithium batteries.”
A Big List Of Foods That You Can Bring Through Airport Security
By 12.28.07 — Updated: 6.27.16
The Transportation Security Administration is very clear on what types of foods you can and can not bring onto an airplane, but most people think that the “liquid” ban extends to cheeseburgers. Not so.
The TSA’s only restrictions are that any food items brought through security must be either be whole, natural foods (like an orange), or be in placed in a container or otherwise wrapped up. All food must be x-rayed.
