You’re allowed to bring on scissors, as long as the blade is under 4 inches in length, and you’re allowed to bring on tools, as long as they’re under 7 inches in length.

problem solved.

If your airline pilot is planning to hijack the aircraft he is flying, how will taking his little serated knife prevent him from gaining access to the cockpit?

Maybe you should start confiscating airline pilots.

Sincerely,
Who’s flying this thing, anyway?

Break all laws of time and space and come back to us and lead us to overthrow this tyrannical government.

Please?

I have gone through airport security several times over the past year with an empty water bottle. I’ve even gone so far as to go into the washroom immediately before the security checkpoint, dump the remaining water out of my bottle, go through security, and fill it up from the fountain on the other side.

Given how hard it is to stay hydrated on long flights (that air is _dry_, and the cups you can get for drinks on board are tiny), I highly recommend this tactic for any airline traveller. The rules prevent you from taking liquids through security. They don’t prevent you from taking containers that it is possible to store liquids in.

Yeah. Because there’s no way they’d select only the video with stupid people in it to score laughs. That would never happen.

So, sure…96%, 97%. Keep watching Leno.

Joe: (Moving to the ‘Out’ line of the prison) I was supposed to be in the release line.

Guard: (Squinting dumbly)
You forgot your paperwork, dumbass.
(Lets Joe leave)

I don’t think Red Guard is a good analogy. Cultural Revolution was a political hysteria created by Mao to save his ass after failure of Great Leap Forward. Red Guards were ad hoc youth gangs that were given authority to roam and abuse anybody who they thought was suspicious.

TSA is more like a security firm that was hired by a control freak. It has to adhere 100% to his rules or the job goes to someone else.

Then again, who uses such an outdated word like ‘citizens’ unless they are complaining about illegal immigration? Not many will change their perspective and ask if there are still rights and privileges left that make it worth being a citizen.

Maybe I’m just getting cynical in my old age…

Sorry for playing ham-fisted to your flat-footed.

Um…carry on?

I thought Lufthansa’s customer service was pretty lousy, except for the part where I thought a Leatherman Wave had been swiped from my checked bag, and I told them about it and they promptly sent me a check to replace it.

Now here’s an interesting bit: many weeks later, I discovered I had actually put it in my backpack, not in my suitcase, as I had planned to do. So, I had it with me *on the plane* the whole time. Neither Addis Ababa nor Frankfurt airports caught it. Oops.

Now, I don’t think US airports would have done any better – When I went to Johannseburg via Hong Kong via San Francisco, I had one of those little break-off-the-blade boxcutters in my backpack. Forgot it was even there. SF missed it, but HK found and confiscated it.

He was right, too.

Jul 14, 4:10 PM (ET)

By LARA JAKES JORDAN

WASHINGTON (AP) – The Justice Department’s former top criminal prosecutor says the government’s terror watch list likely has caused thousands of innocent Americans to be questioned, searched or otherwise hassled. Former Assistant Attorney General Jim Robinson would know: he’s one of them.

Robinson joined another mistaken-identity American and the American Civil Liberties Union on Monday to urge eliminating the list that’s supposed to identify suspected terrorists.