Federal agency tests drinks purchased inside airport
CP note: Tell me that it is not so! This is absolutely ridiculous and has GOT to stop and people need to start saying “No thanks.” People, if you don’t realize this yet, this is not about safety, this is about conditioning the public to get use to undo searches and seizures. By the way, this airport, in my opinion is one of the worst. I'm wondering if they are testing this in Columbus because it has the demographics of the US in this city. Columbus, Ohio is a test market because it a smaller version of the collective US—if it works in Columbus, Ohio, most likely it'll work in the rest of the US.
A video clip shot yesterday at Columbus Ohio Airport illustrates how the Transportation Security Administration has dreamed up a bizarre new way to waste time and taxpayer dollars – by testing drinks purchased by travelers for explosives inside the airport long after they have already passed security.
A video clip shot yesterday at Columbus Ohio Airport illustrates how the Transportation Security Administration has dreamed up a bizarre new way to waste time and taxpayer dollars – by testing drinks purchased by travelers for explosives inside the airport long after they have already passed security.
The footage shows TSA agents walking around a departure lounge asking to test passengers’ drinks for explosive residue with a swab they hold over the liquid.
“Now remember that this is inside the terminal, well beyond the security check and purchased inside the terminal…just people waiting to get on the plane,” writes the You Tube user who uploaded the video.
“My wife and son came back from a coffee shop just around the corner, then we were approached. I asked them what they were doing. One of the TSA ladies said that they were checking for explosive chemicals (as we are drinking them). I said “really – inside the terminal? You have got to be kidding me.” I asked them if they wanted to swab us all. She responded with something like, ‘yes sometimes we need to do that’. I then asked if she wanted a urine sample…nonetheless, the TSA is way out of control,” he adds, joking that the TSA’s next move could be to visit people’s homes before they even leave for the airport (they’re already in the parking lot demanding to search people who aren’t even flying!)
As we have previously highlighted, the drinks policy was recently introduced with virtually no explanation from the TSA whatsoever. The much vaunted 2006 liquid bomb plot on which this nonsense is all based completely collapsed in court and was revealed to be farcical at best.
Experts have savaged rules relating to liquids being carried through security as pointless and unnecessary and yet they still remain in place six years later, with ludicrous cases routinely popping up of mothers having to drink their own breast milk or even pump it into empty bottles.
But this new rule applies to drinks purchased within the airport after travelers have already passed airport security, items that have presumably already had to pass some form of security check to be brought inside the airport in the first place.
The drinks testing farce has been accompanied by other harebrained TSA schemes which have virtually nothing to do with genuine security and everything to do with subjecting the public to intimidation and obedience training.
The federal agency recently brought in a similarly asinine new policy in which travelers are ordered to “freeze” on command by TSA screeners while passing through security – for no apparent reason other than to check they will obey orders without question.
Perhaps the TSA should concentrate on real security threats and cleaning up the behavior of their own criminally-prone employees instead of harassing travelers who have already been through the ordeal of a grope down or a radiation body scan.
Given the fact that TSA agents now festoon political events, highways and even prom nights, how long is it before we have blue-shirted goons in fast food restaurants checking whether or not our Diet Cokes are weapons of mass destruction?
