Via SayUncle: Pens are illegal now?
From the TSA Blog (Baghdad Blog?)
When is a pen not just a pen? The answer is when it doubles as a potential weapon.
A TSO at Palm Beach International (Fla.) was working the X-ray machine when he came across an anomaly on the screen and called for a search of a passenger’s backpack. Inside, the responding Officer discovered a tactical pen, used commonly by law enforcement as a defense tool with its sharp aluminum-based point on one end and blunt portion on the other.
A Supervisory TSO confirmed that item was a prohibited item. The police responded and issued the passenger a criminal summons to appear in court – under the state statute – for carrying a concealed weapon. He was cleared for travel and there were no flight delays.
If an pen is an illegal concealed weapon then ANYTHING is. I could just as easily kill someone with a key on my keychain as I could with a pen. Or a pencil. Or literally anything I can carry.
Just when you think the TSA couldn’t get more absurd they reach a new low.
UPDATE: Contrary to the TSA’s fantasy, pens are not weapons.
I read on Unc’s Blog a couple of weeks ago about how that he was able to take his Tactical Pens through TSA a couple of weeks back. Bet you someone read about it and passed the info along. (Actually, tain’t Unc’s fault. Not trying to be a troll). Just so glad I don’t have to Fly anymore.
Hey, you don’t think they’d be happy to have the ability to declare ANYTHING a “Weapon” and then act upon their own Decree?
Typical Goal Post moving, which is fantastic for Authoritarian Dictators!
I commented to a fellow passenger several years ago that I thought it was freaking ridiculous that the nail file from a nail clipper or a set of nose-hair scissors was considered somehow a lethal weapon when the mechanical pencil in my pocket was “just a writing instrument.
Looks like the TSA is finally catching up.