I can't tell you how pissed off I am at TSA. At every luggage check between Sacramento and Dusseldorf Germany, every one, I was harassed (and rightly so) about carrying my little Topeak Alien bicycle tool kit...but the second to last leg from Amsterdam to Minneapolis refused my boarding it.
What?
I was allowed to carry it on four flights, but on the fifth of six, they said "you can't bring tools on board." Where and when did this fucking rule come from?
Well, after being rather baffled why I was allowed to do so on four earlier trips, and having no time to back out and "check in" a nine-oz set of allen wrenches, a chain tool, and an 8, 9, and 10 mm box end wrench, I had to lose my $30 tool set. Not only did they not just take it away, I was honored with the act of having to throw it out myself. Perhaps so that TSA personnel aren't burdened with having to explain how bike tool kits somehow show up in their own bike bags at home.
What makes me most mad about all of this is the TSA website expressly allows for tools (not sharp) to be carried on board that are less than seven inches in length. I wish I'd have discovered this and printed this out before the flight. But what good would it have done to persuade a TSA "official" about what can and can't be brought on board? You think fighting it, right then and there, would have been in my best interests? Like I know more about his fucking job than he?
What I'm getting at, and what I'm going to comment on over the next several posts, is just how utterly screwed up my nation is, on so many levels. After spending over a week in a country whose language I don't understand and managing quite effectively to get around all of western Germany without having once gotten into a car/cab/van, and had I rode a bike to have an ability to fix it with a tool kit -- and then to board a U.S. bound airplane and being refused to "re-"take on board a 2.5 inch allen wrench set?
The United States TSA represents a colossal waste of human capital. Its sole purpose is to make white Americans feel safe. This is most stunningly, stunningly! evident when you compare the European Union conduct of airline safety vs. that of the U.S. It is immediately clear that behavioral patterns are included along with just checking nuns for billyclubs. The U.S. fails to arrive at the inescapable conclusion that terrorism can only be carried out by people...with or without blasting caps, blackjacks, brass knuckles, billyclubs, BB guns, box cutters, baseball bats or bull whips. We fail to respect the human faces of terrorism, but I suggest that this is all we are capable of anymore...America refuses to acknowledge the human face of most everything. It is this concept more than any other that really defines what I post about on my monologues.
It is why Americans can't make a living wage building good quality products that they are so very capable of, why we demand of our governments and other nations a crushing debt load to finance a standard of living we can't sustain, why our cities and rivers and neighborhoods were allowed to be bisected by eight lane freeways to shuffle faceless motorists, on and on...they are all connected, and they are all caused by the same set of conditions...
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2 comments:
Sorry to hear about your bike kit. I notice you said the kit was taken in Amsterdam? If that's the case, it was not TSA. Were any of the tools larger than 7"? I know some of the tool kits have knives. Did this one? I can see why your kit might warrant a second look, but I'm not sure why it wouldn't be allowed on the flight as long as there was no knife and the tools were not larger than 7".
Bob
TSA Blog Team
It was indeed Amsterdam. I was boarding a U.S. bound flight to Minneapolis. The agent as I was checking in placed a small orange stamp on the outside of my passport indicating U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP). He signed it with a pen after I was asked a small series of questions...which is exactly what I am imploring we do more of...interacting with the human element.
Nonetheless, immediately following this interrogation the same crew of inspectors created this incident at the baggage check-in. I had exactly as I described -- a set of 2.5" allen wrenches, a chain tool, and three stainless steel box wrenches. There was also a phillips screwdriver and a bottle opener/straight slot screwdriver. The opener served me well in Germany, opening several Diebels Alt beer bottles. I had, well before traveling, removed the knife that originally came with the kit. All, at ~2.5", are below 7".
I, too, fully expect a second look with such metal items, and indeed, this was done at my earlier inspections. I am just so mad with the capriciousness that there was just one flight that I couldn't take it on, and that I didn't have the resolve or the time to fight it. Realizing that I don't have a kit for my own domestic bike anymore, I have to fork out another $40 to get another one. Inflation. Now it's $40 instead of $30, as I'm having to replace it. Forty dollars so that I can fix my bike...in domestic America. The inspector wouldn't even let me separate the allen wrenches from the rest of the tools! What -- allen wrenches are forbidden on flights? I've read the goddamn prohibited list. The As are ammunition, axes and aerosols...allen wrenches ain't listed, and I'd be hard pressed to assume they'd fall under "other prohibited items."
All this did was inflame a decent U.S. citizen to want to challenge TSA from now on. That is, fuck with TSA in a good way...I intend on taking aboard a set of 6.5" Chinese made piece-of-shit allen wrenches my next trip, whether I plan on biking at my destination or not. There is no reason I shouldn't fight for my right to bring aboard anything that TSA already says I can bring aboard, and if I have the time, well... If nothing else, it will serve to educate TSA personnel about what is acceptable and what is not, according to their own guidelines. And if I lose, a cheap set of Chinese allen wrenches isn't much of a loss. I'd certainly be better off without them.
I was equally amazed to learn that my 5.0 oz. toothpaste (unknowingly) could make it from Sacramento to Denver two months back, but couldn't make it from Denver to Sacramento. I was amazed to discover that Sacramento and Amsterdam didn't require me to take off my shoes, yet other airports did...all of which never told me directly or indirectly what was required. I am now amazed to discover I can travel 4/6ths of a round trip with "prohibited" items, and likely the 6/6th of the trip, but not the 5th 6th.
This is merely technical bullshit, and the failure to apply the same standard at each airport is stunning...and in my case, costly.
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