All reason and science itself has been sacrificed to greed and corruption.

Has anybody looked into connections between the maker's of "zip-loc" and the Bush administration? That would explain why only certain types of bags are acceptable. I think I'm being facetious here, but I'm not completely convinced.

YEAH - I fly A LOT. And airport security annoys the hell out of me too. I mind my business and do as I am told and think calming thoughts so that I don't go crazy with the inanity of it all. But what bothers me most is that all of this costs a lot of money. And when you add airport security to building security to homeland security to national security, we are spending vast amounts of money for completely non-productive work (dare I mention Iraq?). This is a gigantic waste and a recipe for deficits, falling standards of living, and waning national influence. Maybe this is what the perpetrators of 9/11 had in mind all along?

Whiny pilots, they should just shut up and subject themsleves to the same shit that we should be objecting to...

The whiny pilot should be not allowed to have frigging mouthwash in his bag because he might be able to do something theoretically scary with it, unlike the gun he's actually authorized to have in the cockpit.

The crash ax he/she has access to is no big deal if we make sure that don't have toenail clippers or butter knives. Though in truth, if a pilot was really freaking out, they don't need a weapon, they have control of the freaking plane.

They should just shut up and deal with it like the rest of us.

That would make them tough and manly. Unwhiny.

In truth, it is the pilots that are objecting to the fact that cargo is NOT inspected. It is the pilots that are objecting to the fact that there are a gazillion "contract" employees that have access to all parts of the airplane that do not have to have background checks and do not have to go through security.

All we see is for SHOW and mostly bullshit.

fly a building into some planes. I bet those TSA bastards haven't thought of that.

The TSA are a cadre of fascists. I remember trying to get my 82-year old Dad through security in the San Antonio airport. He had to go through separately. I went through easily, but they had four people working on him for several minutes. Four. Where is an 82-year old man who is wheelchair bound going to go? When I inquired, rather meekly I thought, the supervisor literally started screaming at me and threatening to remove me from the airport. Of course, I backed down. What's the point of fighting with these power mad losers? They are poorly trained, have no manners, and stop absolutely nothing at the checkpoints, nothing except items such as badly serrated knives and 5 oz shampoo bottles. Frankly, it's taxpayer boondoggle and needs to be overhauled.

And the TSA folks that shook me down last weekend only served to make my trip home even worse. After confiscating my one small bottle of purified water that I intended to use to make infant formula, they took me out of line and unpacked my diaper bag and gave me a stern lecture because I had attempted to conceal two jars of baby food. Evidently, Gerber's Chicken Noodle Dinner counts as a liquid, and as Stage 3 jars are more than 4 ounces, it was verboten. They might have allowed it, they said, but because I didn't have the sealed and shrinkwrapped jars in a clear 1-quart (not 1-gallon) plastic baggie, held out at arms length when I walked through the X-ray machine, I was obviously plotting something. Not wanting to "conceal" anything else, I asked if I could keep the emergency can of formula I had in the bottom of the bag. "Oh, a can is fine. That's powder." I pointed out, that actually, the can was ready-to-use formula for emergencies, like, in case I was without a bottle of water (which had already been confiscated before the X-ray machine.) They said, it's 8 ounces, you can't have it. Unbelievable. I was facing a cross-country flight with an already hungry and unhappy baby, and they were telling me I couldn't take any of his food or formula! Luckily, a kind young man who appeared to be in charge took pity on me and let me through with my contraband so that I could feed my son. I don't believe hassling a mom over her diaper bag for 20 minutes helped anyone feel safer, and the experience reduced me to tears. In contrast, my much smaller home airport didn't hassle me about any of the above items, recognizing that I was traveling with a BABY. The TSA regulations have gone too far, and the inconsistency between airports is beyond maddening.

"...Has anybody looked into connections between the maker's of "zip-loc" and the Bush administration? That would explain why only certain types of bags are acceptable. I think I'm being facetious here, but I'm not completely convinced..."

How Ziploc bags help keep America safe:

http://www.salon.com/tech/col/smith/2006/10/27/askthepilot206/

- Patrick Smith

We wouldn't simply be getting a rude response to our argument. Instead we'd be ushered by a couple of very big dudes to a hot locked holding room somewhere behind baggage claim and left to ponder our fate until sometime later, when an even bigger bully would threaten us with the "no-fly list" if we didn't absolutely agree to comply in the future.

I hope the next president puts and end to this crap.

Wow, judging from the number of letters, this really struck a chord with a lot of people. I'm a flight attendant and I, like the author, have to endure the TSA circus every time I go to work. It seems as if common sense is discouraged by the TSA (I get a sensible TSA person every now and then). Making people take off their flip flops and put them through the scanner, harassing Spanish tourists with small souvenir snow globes of NY because of the liquid in the globes, chastising people who've bought the wrong size toothpaste...I've seen it all. Even though I'm in uniform, have been fingerprinted and have had background checks by the FBI, I'm still subjected to the same idiocy. My favorite recent story is the TSA guy in Kansas City who wanted to look in my food bag (most of our layovers are less than 10 hours now, requiring us to carry all of our food for a 2-3 day trip) and asked me in all seriousness if there was anything in the bag that might cause him harm. I had to respond, "Only if the can of tuna in there jumps out and hits you in the head". He was not amused...