Originally Posted by
Gauges and Dials
That's a mighty high horse you're on there.
A couple of years ago I emptied out my briefcase for a periodic cleaning and noticed with some surprise a large Leatherman type tool that included a 4" knife blade -- with which I must have passed through security (domestic, US) for three or four consecutive segments.
I am fully aware that carrying a knife into the sterile area of an airport is a serious crime. I had previously placed the tool in my bag to carry to my car to change a headlamp, and simply forgot that it was there.
Obviously I did not intentionally bring the knife to the airport, but applying the same logic you seem to be applying to this passenger, you could correctly argue that (a) the knife was not in my bag by mistake, since I had put it there on purpose, (b) my presenting my bag for security screening was an implicit claim that it did not contain contraband, and (c) that I am therefore a bad person who deserved to have been fined and have my security credentials taken away. That seems a bit extreme to me.
You haven't watched the woman's statements, have you. Obviously you haven't, or you'd realize how entirely irrelevant your experience of forgetting your Leatherman is, and how off you are thinking what I've said is in any way "extreme". In her statement (whine-fest),
she admits she knew it was in her bag. She stated she put it there to eat on her next connecting (domestic) flight because "she wasn't hungry at the time".
Why some keep insisting on equating
what she said she did to a lapse of memory (
she never claimed to have forgotten it was in her bag), let alone it similar to their own offerings of irrelevant anecdotes re household items and TSA checkpoints is beyond me. By her own admission, she didn't make a "forgetful mistake", she said she purposely put it in her bag to bring into the country in order to eat on her next flight. How can that be so difficult to understand that some keep assigning "forgetfulness" to the situation?
You attempting to equate your forgetfulness resulting in an "implicit claim" of no contraband and how unfair it would be for you to be fined/clearance surrendered with this woman
who knowingly attempted to carry it though while explicitly declaring she didn't have a declarable item is an extreme attempt to compare her apple to your orange. Yours wasn't a conscious act, hers was. Aside from both occurring at airports involving banned items, there is no similarity.
That high horse you think I'm on is just an illusion generated from you not reading or listening to the woman's own words.