An Important Announcement from the Transportation Security Administration

Better watch your attitude.

Comments

[Shannon Love]

This looks like an administrative fine, one imposed by bureaucrats without any sort of trial. Having a bureaucrats decide fines on the matter of agreed fact (she carried a knife into a restricted area) might be barely tolerable but having them decide fines based on highly subjective "attitude" is very dangerous.

I wonder where the revenue from these fines ends up?

[nobody]

They are, evidently, making up the rules as they go.

[StMack]

What I find most disturbing are the number of people still going the aiport with a gen in their luggage - IN THEIR CARRY-ON LUGGAGE!!

The stupidity is unfathomable.

[StMack]

That would be GUN in their luggage (Feeling equally stupid)

[Woody]

I have a gub.

[JimInNoVA]

I've got a gin myself.

Tanquery anyone?

[Warren]

Is that a gun in your carry-on or are you just... Oh umm nevermind

[Not yet drunk]

Jim,

I prefer Bombay Sapphire.
Now I'm thirsty.
90 minutes to go.
90 minutes to go...

[Ron Hardin]

It's profiling. Terrorists have a bad attitude. Fines deplete their financial resources.

[already drunk]

I just finished a bottle of a chunky Australian shiraz. Ahhh....

[Shannon Love]

StMack,

A person accidentally carrying a gun into an airport isn't quite a stupid as it might appear at first glance.

Law enforcement, small business people and traveling sales people might all routinely carry guns in the normal course of their day. Their guns are as much in their minds as their cell phones. It would be easy for them to forget on their way to the airport.

Which is not to say they should not face prosecution if they forget.

[another gun nut]

Not to mention well-meaning defenders of the 2nd Amendment flying down to San Francisco to protest gay marriages.

[Fred]

Inspector Cluseau has a gyn.

[Warren]

I recently lost my Swiss Army Knife at the airport. I grab it along with my wallet every time I leave home. I didn't even think about it. At the airport, while I was still scratching my head over why my shoes set off the metal detector, the security agent looked in the basket I emptied my pockets into and said "Oh no, you can't have that". She was very polite about it, explained that I could return it to my car (I took the bus) or mail it to myself (it wasn't worth the postage). I told her to just keep it. I wonder what they do with the stuff they confiscate? It's very upsetting to learn that in addition to having my property seized by the state without compensation, I could have been fined as well.

[JoeBob]

I had embargoed the airlines for the last 9 months because of a less than satisfactory string of encounters with the TSA. I had driven 3/4 of the way across the country for a vacation over the winter, taken the train the same distance, driven from the dc metro area to florida and I didn't hate it, it was a pain when amtrak got me home 36 hours late and I missed a few things I was goign to do but such is life.

I was going to fly to colorado again for spring break. Usually when I do that about 3-6 people come with me. Avg ticket out there is between 240-350 dollars. They pissed that money away with this article. I will not fly again. I'll go to NYC or montreal this year instead. Maybe the canadians want my money.

[Jean Bart]

Shannon Love,

American administrative law courts, and other members of administrative agencies, make those sorts of decisions every day. Indeed, Congress has limited or even cut off review of their decisions in Art. III courts. You need to catch-up to the 21st century and stop living in the 19th century.

[Jean Bart]

This may make you feel a little better about your government. 🙂

LONDON, England (Reuters) -- A Raphael painting bought by Britain's National Gallery this month for 22 million pounds ($41.7 million) is a fake, a U.S. art professor says.

http://edition.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/europe/02/19/britain.raphael.reut/index.html

[Eric]

It might be a good idea to send an e-mail to the ACLU about the attitude fining issue. There could be some 1st Amendment arguments to make against the rule.

[a First Amendment freak]

Gee, Eric, you think? What part of this does not immediately throw you into rebellion mode?

[thoreau]

Last year, while they hand-inspected my stuff, I said "You know, there used to be something called a Bill of Rights that said you can't search me without probable cause." I didn't resist, I just lectured him.

At the time I got a lecture. I guess now I could get a fine.

I have no doubt that some people here might disagree with my take on the Bill of Rights. That's fine. My only point is that people shouldn't have to pay a fine if we feel like being amateur constitutional law professors but don't physically disrupt anything.

[Eric]

Well, considering how many decent 4th Amendment arguments (not to mention common sense arguments) could be made about some of the TSA's other policies, and how most politicians, judges, and citizens don't seem to give a damn about them, I've become pretty jaded as to the potential success of any attempts to limit the nail-clipper Gestapo's authority.

[garym]

Anyone posting to this forum, of course, falls into the "bad attitude" category.

An article on FoxNews (http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,111840,00.html) quotes a TSA spokesman as saying, "We're looking for weapons, we're not looking for scissors." Apparently scissors aren't weapons, but cake utensils are. The ways of the bureaucrats are indeed subtle.

Also interesting in the article is that the TSA ducked our of providing numbers on how many people have been fined because its databases were recently moved, making the information allegedly inaccessible.

[abashed]

Mama always said my attitude would get me into trouble.

[Warren]

Have you all seen this?

[a First Amendment freak]

Excuse me, I have a purchase to make.

[dj of raleigh]

> traveling sales people might all routinely carry guns in the normal course of their day... It would be easy for them to forget on their way to the airport.

[dj of raleigh]

>I had embargoed the airlines for the last 9 months because of a less than satisfactory string of encounters with the TSA. I had driven 3/4 of the way across the country ... it was a pain when amtrak got me home 36 hours late

[Pavel]

This isn't exactly new. Ever since 9/11 I've heard regular announcements at the airport that go something like:

In semi-sweet motherly announcement voice:
"Please note that anyone leaving their baggage unattended...[blahblah]...and anyone making inappropriate comments or jokes regarding security, may be subject to arrest."

I suggest next time you're at an airport you don some attitude gear. And tell the security agent that you think his little magneto stick is "da bomb."

[dj of raleigh]

> while they hand-inspected my stuff, I said "You know, there used to be something called a Bill of Rights that said you can't search me without probable cause." I didn't resist, I just lectured him.

[Jennifer]

Speaking of bad attitude, does anybody know what happened to that teenager they arrested a few months back, for putting a note in his suitcase that said something like "Dear idiots, there are no bombs in here?"

Soon the Constitution will only apply to the polite.

[Jim Henley]

"driven from the dc metro area to florida and I didn't hate it"

Well of course you didn't. It's the only way to go from DC to Florida AND get a meal at Jack's Wood-Cooked BBQ off GA Exits 7 and 14. Hmm, BBQ.

[dj of raleigh]

>people shouldn't have to pay a fine if we feel like being amateur constitutional law professors but don't physically disrupt anything.

[Kevin Carson]

Jean Bart,

The exercise of such powers by administrative law courts, without any common law due process protections, is indeed more widespread than most people know. Does that make it a good thing? Is this an example of the Whig theory of history, where the dominant forces always deserve to have won?

Such administrative law, carried out by Admiralty courts, was a major grievance that led to the American Revolution. At the time, it was viewed as analogous to the other branches of prerogative law used by the Stuarts to tyrannize the English people a century earlier.

Starting with tax law, civil/prerogative law has gradually grown like a cancer in this country, to a degree that would have appalled the American colonists. Civil forfeiture, which is within the power of several dozen federal agencies, is another procedure borrowed from the prerogative law. In many ways, it seems we are going "back to the future" with all these revived forms of Stuart absolutism.

[nobody]

"...does anybody know what happened to that teenager they arrested a few months back..."

Sorry to break the bad news, Jennifer, but they executed him in January.

[dj of raleigh]

"...does anybody know what happened to that teenager they arrested a few months back..."

They didn't execute him, they let him turn twenty,
punishment enough, I say!!!

Teenagers aside, what kind of idiot does it take
to joke about bombs or weapons when at the airport?
A comic has to know his audience, and if they
don't laugh at his jokes, then they weren't funny.

[Brendan Perez]

What happens if she doesn't pay the fine? How did they know where she lived to mail the ticket to? Did they ask her for, and document, her ID?

[Economist]

Remember that Seinfeld where Elaine is blacklisted by doctors for her bad attitude? Yep... just wait until they take over health care.

[dj of raleigh]

Think about it...don't we all keep "attitude" lists?
Believe me, from the plumber to the caterer,
the attitude costs you money & workmanship.

[ewilliam]

DJ of RALEIGH said, TIME is still money, and if you want time and attention, then you should be willing to pay for it, or take a walk.

I am paying for it. Every two weeks, I pay quite a bit, against my will. And when that money is used to fund billions in pork projects for other states and locales, or to pay for marriage counseling for troubled couples, then I say, I might as well get my money's worth where I can. If that means taking up the time of folks whose paychecks I fund, then so be it.

[Walter Wallis]

Flying is no longer an option to me. The resistance to arming pilots is the last straw in the Simon Sez debasement of civility.

SCREW MINETA!!!

[Will Spencer]

A few weeks ago, I had a business trip to D.C.

Before I left my house in Denver, I checked my laptop bag.

I removed an H&K USP .45 Tactical, a spare magazine, and a 30 round AR-15 magazine that had fallen in there somehow.

I flew to D.C., spent the week going in an out of highly secure government facilities, complete with armed guards, x-ray machines, and metal detectors.

Flying back home through Dulles, TSA asked if they could search my laptop bag. Knowing I had no choice, I said "Sure, no problem."

They said they were looking for two small metal objects a couple of inches long. My laptop bag is full of all sorts of stuff, so I couldn't figure out what they had seen in the X-ray machine.

The TSA agent eventually pulled out two live .223 rounds, which I immediately recognized. Ooooppssss...

They then wanded me and told me that someone would be along shortly to speak with me. OK, no problem, this is my fault anyway and I have plenty of time before my flight.

TSA then called the D.C. cops and informed them that they had someone who had tried to sneak a *gun* through airport security.

Six D.C. cops showed up, ready to deal with the guy who had tried to take a gun onto a commercial airline flight.

Luckily, the D.C. cops were angrier with TSA for screwing up the call and scaring the bejeezus out of them than they were at me for failing to clear my bag properly.

They ran me for warrants and apologized for the inconvenience.

But really, it was my fault in the first place.