uva185

Wirelessly posted (BlackBerry8830/4.2.2 Profile/MIDP-2.0 Configuration/CLDC-1.1 VendorID/105)

Ok, this is idiodic!! I thought the purpose of the zip lock bag was to limit how many liquid items you could bring. Well just now the TSA in FLO (Florence, SC) made me buy a zip lock bag from a food vendor for my bottle of cologne. What the hell is the purpose of that!!

studentff

Retaliation and power tripping.

Since the freedom-baggies began, I carry the better part of a box of quart-sized baggies in my rollaboard. Whenever I see TSOs hassling a pax over not having a baggie, I start handing them out.

It has happened several times. Fun to see the glowers on the TSOs faces as they realize that they now can neither send the pax to the back of the line to check the item, make them buy a baggie from some vendor, nor confiscate the item. I'm actually kind of surprised I've never gotten a retaliatory secondary for my helpfulness.

To the credit of some TSA stations (or most likely the checkpoint leads/supervisors), there are a few that seem to keep a small stash of baggies around that they themselves hand out to pax in need.

Steph3n

one word:

CONTROL

elpi

Same happened to me in DAL. Now I dont pull out liquid out of carry on and about 20 times I had no problem with TSO. I carry few bags just in case.

DevilDog438

I have done that at BWI before. The last time I did it at the C C/P, the TSO made the other person take their stuff and get out of line (all the way back to the TDC line) in order to place their stuff in the baggie, in addition to giving me the death-ray stares.

At least it was the C C/P, which only rarely gets backed up down the hallway very far; unlike the D C/P, which was all the way down the hall and wrapping back in front of the airline check-in counters last week when I flew to ORD on UA.

sbm12

Happened to me at LGA, too. I told them to keep my bomb, err, toothpaste. They dropped it in a bin under the table. It took all my self-restraint not to bend down to tie my shoe right there and retrieve the contraband. Instead I just got a replacement mini-tube at the hotel that night when I arrived.

Still stupid.

SJC1K

Strange. I've given other pax baggies at (at least) SJC, SFO, and LAX and never gotten anything but an apparently genuine, non-sarcastic "thank you" from the TSOs (and, of course, from the pax).

swag

I've seen some airports that keep a supply of ziplocks on hand, given away to those in need, free of charge. I think this should be standard practice.

txrus

My girlfriend tried to do that @ DFW (having a severe case of 'chemo brain', she had put all of her liquids/gels, etc., in their own individual kippies, not the proscribed 1 kippie for everything). Not only did the screener yell @ her for having more than 1 kippie, she was told she couldn't pass out the extra bags to other passengers in line.

Idiots.

studentff

That BOS is my home airport may explain much of the differences in our experiences.

If they tried the "you can't hand those out" approach like in the DFW report above, I'd be real tempted to call over a supervisor and maybe even a LEO to act as witness. The unsuspecting bag-needing pax would likely have no clue what they were in for watching as I pulled out my stack of blank TSA complaint forms.

Once when I was waiting outside the BOS terminal C checkpoint to pick up my then g/f (I wasn't flying that day), I watched TSOs hassle some poor woman about not having a baggie. The only baggie I had in my laptop bag--which wasn't packed for flying--was a ratty old sandwich bag I used to carry an ethernet cable. It was in such poor shape that I felt bad for handing it out and would never have put an unpackaged food/cosmetic item in it myself, but the woman was still thankful she didn't have to toss her item (cosmetics I think).

woodway

What are you guys whining about? The rules say that liquids need to be in bags. What is so hard about that?

halls120

For starters, the rule is stupid.

It makes sense to have a rule saying multiple small items must be in a bag. It makes no sense whatsoever that ONE item needs to be bagged.

woodway

Of course it's a stupid rule. But, it's the rule nonetheless. So why would anyone expect to be exempt from it? I guess I just don't understand...

studentff

It's like giving a speeding ticket to someone going 66 mph in a 65mph zone on a clear dry day on a straight level road with no other traffic in sight other than the cop car. Sure it's the rule, but it's stupid, and just about everyone expects to be exempt from it.

IMO a better solution would be raising the limits to more reasonable values and strictly enforcing them (i.e., fix the rule), but there's often no incentive to go through that process.

NY-FLA

Perhaps you could ask the exempt airline crew, the exempt airport employees, the exempt TSA employees, the exempt people who claim medical issues, the exempt people who have medical issues, the exempt people with infants, the exempt people who claim their non-bagged liquids are for infants, etc., etc., all of whom are exempt from this limitlessly stupid clownfare exposition, that is well underway in our airports/prisons.
All the more equal animals above, none of whom, unlike the less equal animals, directly foot the bill for this parade of idiocy, are exempt from this idiocy. I have no idea why you think it would be appropriate to block less equal animals from entry to the "secure" area, which, of course is full of unbagged liquids, until their liquid possessions are apprpropriately presented for the alchemist inspection.