It is well established throughout the security industry that the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) is nothing but security theater. This shouldn’t come as a surprise to anybody who has done even a little research into government provided “service.” While a private entity has to worry about being fired if they do a poor job the government has no such worry so they can continue to do a poor job and get away with it.
Thor help you though if you’re a person who accidentally got through the TSA theater and later try to turn over the goods that weren’t supposed to be in the airport “secure” area:
Most people are familiar with that moment of panic at an airport security checkpoint when they remember something that won’t pass a screening, but for one Minnesota man, telling the Transportation Security Agency that a live round passed through twice by mistake got him in trouble.
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Yet, when a Rochester man was allowed to bring a live 9mm round through no fewer than two security checkpoints, he was interrogated when he innocently tried to turn it over.
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After turning the bullet over to the TSA voluntarily, Koenig was pulled off his flight and questioned for nearly 30 minutes.
As for why the round was in his pocket at all, Koenig said he was at the pistol range for target shooting the last time he wore that jacket and simply forgot it was there.
This sounds like typical government thinking. First you put a security system that is designed improperly from the start, then somebody accidentally gets through the poorly designed security system carrying something that was on the verboten list, and finally the man realizes what has happened and goes to turn over the verboten good only to be punished by the government goons who fucked up in the first place.
Also let’s put this entire thing into perspective. The man managed to accidentally get through the TSA theater with a single round of live 9mm ammunition. He didn’t have a launching platform for that round on him so the cartridge was mostly harmless. Why a TSA agent didn’t just say, “Heh, we missed that, thanks for letting us know.” instead of interrogating an innocent man for half an hour is beyond my ability to comprehend. There again what else should we expect from a government agent? Innocent people are almost always the ones punished when government agents screw up.