"Really sir, It's only ginger ale. Just take a sip."
Posted on 07/05/2012 8:04:36 AM PDT by rawhide
GRAND JUNCTION, Colo. - Passengers say their problem is not with the rules at the airport. They understand why drinks are not allowed through security, but when they buy one while they wait for their flight, they say the TSA should not ask to test it.
Passengers say traveling is a big enough stress, but now some are worried the drinks they are getting are not safe.
The TSA would not say what they are testing for or why they are doing it, but travelers say they have a right to know.
"I'm always glad that my safety is a priority, I just think testing drinks after they've already been bought might be a little extreme," infrequent flyer Jennifer Smart said.
"The water or or the juices or anything you buy here in the airport, TSA is going to come over and look and check and test it? That's just ridiculous," world traveler Thomas Burgard said.
We asked the TSA about the drink testings and they said, "TSA employees have many layers of security throughout airports. Passengers may be randomly selected for additional screening measures at the checkpoint or in the gate at any time."
Passengers we spoke to also said they think the price of drinks are too expensive. If security is going to test them, it should be before they are purchased, so they do not waste their money.
(Excerpt) Read more at kjct8.com ...
Starve the beast.
Ha! What they're telling you is that they're not able to keep you safe, no matter how many security measures they take. Sounds like they got a tip about plans to poison people's drinks at the stands behind the security gate. Next they'll be wanting to test the food you purchase. I say test the drinks on the TSA staff each day before the public is allowed to purchase any of it. What a joke!
Give it to them after you’ve passed it through your kidneys.
Would anyone actually finish a coffee, water, etc. after the TSA tested it with their “sterile” equipment?
It is a very poorly written article. It appears that what they are saying is that you can buy a drink INSIDE the secure area and they can walk up to you and demand to test your drink.
The implications here is that the area inside the secured area in the airport is, freedom wise and constitutionally speaking, like anywhere in the Soviet Union of the 1960’s. That is, you give up your first amendment rights once you pass through security and then get them back once you cross that “can’t go back” line on your way to baggage claim.
"Really sir, It's only ginger ale. Just take a sip."
Gov’t is like a simple, multi-celled organism. It doesn’t think, and simply responds to stimuli. It feeds and grows as much as the environment allows - until it can not any longer.
They haven’t said what would happen to you if you refused to let them stick their thingy in your drinkie.
All that needs to be done, is buy the drink after going through security. That’s what most people do.
It's the drink you buy after you go through security that they want to test.
Obviously they are now busily trying to justify their existence.
I do my best to avoid flying wherever possible.
I got a great one for you; true story.
In 2008, flying back here to Prague from Seattle (via Paris), I exited the plane, looked for the sign for “baggage claim”, and duly toodled off to the right. Got my suitcase, then proceeded to what I thought was Customs/Passport Control.
Only one problem; instead, I proceeded straight to the main exit. No Customs, no Passport Control, nothing.
I’m a permanent resident here, so no biggie. But to say that was disconcerting, especially at an international airport, is an understatement.
Don’t know if it’s still that way.
Then they need to go to the merchants and batch test everything. There is no way they are going to go up to people in a busy airport, and ask to test their drink.
Re: “This doesn’t seem that heavy a burden”
1. For the zero security actually provided by the TSA, everything they do is too heavy a burden.
2. Given the TSA’s history thus far, they will figure out a way to make this process dangerous to the travelling public somehow. I don’t know how, but they’ll do it. They’ve even made luggage screening, which should impose no risks whatsoever on the public, into a danger, as witnessed by the TSA X ray machine that spontaneously caught on fire in LaGuardia on June 24, 2012. Besides the usual risk of fire and possible X ray exposure from damaged shielding while the fire burned, they managed to fill a La Guardia terminal with “white smoke.” BTW, lead (a common component of X ray shielding) burns to grey lead oxide, and beryllium (a commonly used window material for X ray devices) burns to white beryllium oxide. That “white smoke” was probably a mix of lead oxide, beryllium oxide, and other dangerous chemicals ... and the TSA maintenance and calibration procedures were so unbelievably poor as to allow this fire to happen. When is the last time you heard about X ray machines used near the public (in, say, a hospital or clinic) spontaneously catching on fire?
What the TSA says they will do may not be particularly dangerous or a heavy burden. What they actually do is another thing altogether.
I remember a few months after 9/11 I was in the secured area of SeaTac eating at TGIF (or Chile’s or something like that) and they gave me a metal steak knife. I actually got on the air at KVI about that one.
Until they close the border, this Kabuki Theater at the airport is bullsh!t.
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