TSA Snooping

When TSA searches your checked luggage they used to put a note in saying "Hey we opened your bag."

When did this policy end? Was there any official notice? Is it something that the TSA in Philadelphia decided to do on it's own?

Yesterday I checked a bag with some clothes and some fly fishing gear. The fishing gear included a hemostat (looks like scissors, but used like pliers), flies, hooks, and fly floatant. For those who don't know, fly floatant is a liquid/gel product that you put on the fly to keep it afloat. All of the fly fishing gear was stored in a glorified fanny pack, which was velcroed shut.

When I unpacked, I noticed that the fly floatant wasn't in the pouch anymore. There's no way it could have flopped out of the pouch. It was laying loose in the suitcase, and the pouch was still velcroed shut.

I'm amazed that they found the floatant. I suspect that the hemostat showed up on an x-ray and figured that they opened it up then. But where's my note? ... and why not put it back where it belongs?

For what it's worth, a month ago, I carried the same setup on the plane. No problems... I wish they would profile frequent fliers and let us be.

We're from the government, and here to help. Posted by AlexC at August 16, 2006 1:15 PM