security screeners at airports

[jarhead]

I know I feel 'safer' due to the diligence of the TSA screeners. How about you?

Concealed weapon at airport turns out to be bookmark
Associated Press
September 17, 2004 BOOKMARK0918
TAMPA, Fla. -- A weight may soon be lifted off a Maryland woman charged with carrying a concealed weapon in an airport.

It wasn't a gun or a knife. It was a weighted bookmark.

Kathryn Harrington was flying home from vacation last month when screeners at the Tampa, Florida, airport found her bookmark. It's an eight-and-a-half-inch leather strip with small lead weights at each end.

Airport police said it resembled a weighted weapon that could be used to knock people unconscious. So the 52-year-old special education teacher was handcuffed, put into a police car, and charged with carrying a concealed weapon.

She faced a possible criminal trial and a ten-thousand-dollar fine. But the state declined to prosecute, and the Transportation Security Administration says it probably won't impose a fine.

 

[Tripower455]

[sarcasm]Hey, better safe than sorry! Al Quaeda's been recruiting non arab appearing people. The tsA has proven time and again that they can protect us from pilots, old ladies and little kids! [/sarcasm]

 

[jarhead]

A short time ago when my wife went through security, she had a nail clipper in her purse. She was told she’d have to leave it there, or go back and send it through as ‘checked baggage’. A little extreme inconvenience, so she told TSA to toss it. While I don’t agree with the rule that nail clippers are not allowed, none-the-less, I accept it. However, my wife was not handcuffed, arrested, put in a squad car and taken to jail. Since my wife was allowed to continue on and board her flight, I have to wonder about the mental agility of screeners who feel a leather book mark is a deadly threat. What’s next, a gold necklace a woman is wearing that one might use to choke a person to death with? Confiscation, however ludicrous, should have been sufficient in the case of this Tampa teacher.

 

[Tripower455]

I agree. The punishment is ridiculous. They have dumbed down the screener job (if possible) even more than it used to be. Pretty soon, they'll be arresting pilots for carrying extra shoelaces!

 

[Habib]

When the TSA started, what did Wal-Mart and McDonalds do when they lost all the "Good People".

 

[Habib]

On a side note about Wal-Mart, when are they getting the ticket Kiosks for SWA?