Just when you thought the absurdity of airport security in these United States under President Bush’s TSA (Transportation Security Administration or Thousands Standing Around, depending on your perspective) and its asinine policy of prohibiting the likes of toothpaste on a plane, along comes The Great Sippy Cup Caper of 2007.
As the story goes, a former secret service officer named Monica Emmerson was recently traveling alone with a toddler at Washington-Reagan Airport in the nation’s logic-free zone known as Washington, DC. Ms. Emmerson claims an airport screener seized the toddler’s sippy cup and was rude to her, a claim which will come as absolutely no surprise to anyone who has ever been subjected to a government-run airport screening at the hands of the TSA.
Emmerson says she was improperly detained by TSA apparatchiks after she accidentally spilled water out of the sippy cup…which kinda seems counter-intuitive to those of us who have been around sippy cups for a number of years. The whole PURPOSE of the sippy cup is to AVOID spills. Nevertheless, that’s her story. But the TSA disputes it, saying Emmerson dumped the water on the floor.
Emmerson says she informed the TSA-eaucrats that she was a Secret Service agent and, therefore, exempt from the “stupid” policy prohibiting liquids on planes. TSA says she never showed them her Secret Service identification.
We’ll probably never know who’s telling the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth about this incident, but let’s agree on this: The TSA prohibition against carrying toothpaste, mouthwash and even sippy cups filled with water for a kid on a plane is, indeed, “stupid.” That being said, why should this mom be exempted from said stupidity simply because she used to work for the Secret Service? Are some moms created more equal than others?
It was a stupid decision to turn private airport screening operations over to a giant new DMV-like federal bureaucracy. Incidents such as the above will only increase, not decrease, as more and more formerly free American citizens bump up against an increasingly aggressive government-run workforce intent on asserting its authority over the sheep. All in the name of “security.”
This, too, is President Bush’s legacy.
Posted on June 17th, 2007 by Chuck Muth
Filed under: National
Sorry Chuck,
I don’t agree with you on this one. I guess a Sippy Cup of gasoline should get on board easily. Don’t we think the terrorists are looking for the “loopholes” we want to pass over. Either all or none.
Personally, I think the gestapo attitude of the government is out of hand. Get rid of the TSA. Next they will institute an Automobile TSA to cope with the possibility of car bombings!
What next!
I am old enough to remember when flying was fun experience. passengers all were dressed very well,and the ” stewardesse’s were very nicely dressed.You didn’t have to wait for someone ‘MILES”from the plane. And best of all,you didn’t have to put up with some arragant idiot on the government payroll,demanding that you submit to their I am the boss”attitude” F
[…] The War Against Sippy Cups at TSA (Transportation Security Administration or Thousands Standing Around, depending on your perspective). […]
I worked as a Security Guard and had to deal with people who tried to throw their weight around and get by and not follow the rules, the so called Secret Service Agent could have dumped the water and gotten on the plane without a problem but she created her own problem she was lucky she wasnt stripped searched. She could have shown her I.D and still gotten on the plane or does she think she is special because she had her kid with her but she did not get with the program and she missed her plane as I say “that is tough on you Lady” as I said she could have gone with the program dumped the water kept the cup gotten on the plane and asked for water for the cup problem solved. Get with the program and coperate with the guard thay are doing their jobs.
Catherine,
Thanks. But as for “the guards are doing their jobs”, I would point out that I have experienced within 10 feet of 2 different TSA czars I’ve heard two different “orders” that contriveened each other. Crap, can’t one hear the other? Where are the supervisors to ensure that the rules are the same across the board?
Do you know what TSA stands for? If not I’ll tell you! It stands for
TOUGH SHIT AMERICA Believe, it check their attitude.
I travel quite a bit and I never complain about weather delays or even upgraded security but I have thought from the beginning it is way over the top since the TSA. My problem with it is that it would only take a minute for someone motivated and clever to put something past one of the more typical TSA agents.
I work in the oil industry travel alot and work with fluids like methanol which is much more difficult to discern from water than gasoline. One day well before the liquid issue became worl news I bemusedly asked one working the Farmington NM airport (there were 5 of them and about 10 passengers) after the searched each piece of luggage, “aren’t you going to check the contents of my drink cup?” Straight faced, “Nope’ was all I got in reply. I nodded my head side to side as I moved on because I know methenol is clear, mostly odorless and flammable. It also burns invisible.
Now don’t get me wrong, I wasn’t advocating we dump all drinks before getting on the plane. But what’s wrong with making a passenger take a big swig of his or her own preferred beverage before entering the plane? And why does the protection only start at the boarding gate? Is it okay to splash flammables on passengers to be and then ignite it as long as it isn’t on the plane?
Some common sense and a healthy diose of profiling would go a long way to making it faster and more effective screening process. Sniffers will pick up any flammable liquid, just make all beverage containers be opened, drank from and therefore easily sniffed. Exclude all the old pensioners of black, oriental and caucasion features until there is at least one case of an old guy from that class that has ever done anything to warrant more thorough screening. Exclude all old women, exclude all mothers with the exception of maybe those that appear of Arab origin. Its kinda border line since until recently I had not even heard of an Arab woman taking her life along with her own infants but now that has even been done.
Don’t exclude any men of whatever race creed or colour between the ages of 13 and 55 because there are examples of all the various types of men in this age group that has commited terrorist acts. But if we exclude all those that are not likely to commit terrorism (based on past history) at least the screening process would be drastically cut down to a size that would permit even more thorough screening for those profiled and the lineswould be much shorter for guys like me and the rest that should get screened.
I believe in shaming a race, creed, color or age groups into becoming more proactive in policing their own tribe. There is too much zipped-lip natured people that are allowing their culture or religion to be stereotyped and it would much more effective if they would get into the habit of chastising the troublemakers within their own ranks to behave like the rest of civilised society until there comes a time when they can be excluded from sucspicious list.
I am not advocating the humiliation of people and I don’t believe that giving some folks a free pass through a less rigourous security line should make those not excluded feel like they have been humiliated. Its just common sense and deserved scrutiny.