Interesting People mailing list archives
more on TSA Releases New List of Banned Items
From: David Farber <dave () farber net>
Date: Thu, 22 Dec 2005 18:41:35 -0500
Begin forwarded message: From: Serge Egelman <serge () guanotronic com> Date: December 22, 2005 6:05:45 PM EST To: dave () farber net Subject: Re: [IP] TSA Releases New List of Banned Items Reply-To: serge () guanotronic comI'm currently at the Charlotte airport en route to Charlottesville for the weekend; getting here was interesting. Going throug Pittsburgh airport security, they asked if they could look through my backpack (it was more of a rhetorical question of course). Much to my surprise, the woman pulls out my kryptonite bike lock, which I had totally forgotten I had in there. She said she needed to ask the supervisor if it was permitted. At this point I started worrying about having to throw it out and buy a new one when I return. The supervisor took one look at it and then said something like, "oh, we don't care about those."
Needless to say I was pleasantly surprised. But at the same time even more perplexed. I mean, this is solid steel and weighs at least five pounds; one can do a lot more damage with it than with a pocket knife. [ so can that plastic knife djf]
Alas. Serge Sent wirelessly via BlackBerry from T-Mobile. Hence the typos. -----Original Message----- From: David Farber <dave () farber net> Date: Thu, 22 Dec 2005 17:43:13 To:ip () v2 listbox com Subject: [IP] TSA Releases New List of Banned Items Begin forwarded message: From: Lauren Weinstein <lauren () vortex com> Date: December 22, 2005 5:38:19 PM EST To: dave () farber net Cc: lauren () vortex com Subject: TSA Releases New List of Banned Items Dave, TSA has released their new banned and OK lists for items to be brought onto planes ( http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/wireStory?id=1431867 ). Now, I for one have long thought that the banning of many items originally was silly, given, for example, that an umbrella or ball point pen can be nasty weapons and neither were ever banned. But of particular note on the new lists... You can now carry-on scissors with a cutting edge of less than four inches. However, all knives are still prohibited regardless of blade length, except rounded-bladed, butter or plastic. I can't help but think of the classic film "Dial M For Murder" ('54), and how its initial death transpired (hint, a knife wasn't used). A 3.999 inch set of scissors can be much more lethal than a one-inch knife blade. Hey, and you can even bring on a seven-inch long screwdriver now! But a small pocketknife remains verboten. At least the TSA HQ gang still apparently have a sense of humor. --Lauren-- Lauren Weinstein lauren () pfir org or lauren () vortex com or lauren () eepi org Tel: +1 (818) 225-2800 http://www.pfir.org/lauren Co-Founder, PFIR - People For Internet Responsibility - http://www.pfir.org Co-Founder, EEPI - Electronic Entertainment Policy Initiative - http://www.eepi.org Moderator, PRIVACY Forum - http://www.vortex.com Member, ACM Committee on Computers and Public Policy Lauren's Blog: http://lauren.vortex.com DayThink: http://daythink.vortex.com ------------------------------------- You are subscribed as serge () guanotronic com To manage your subscription, go to http://v2.listbox.com/member/?listname=ipArchives at: http://www.interesting-people.org/archives/interesting- people/
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