Chalk up a 'bone head move' to TSA!

[Lone Star]

Student pranked by airport security worker

She says she was terrified by planting of white powder in her luggage

PHILADELPHIA - A college student returning to school after the winter break fell victim to a prank at Philadelphia's airport by a Transportation Security Administration worker who pretended to plant a plastic bag of white powder in her carryon luggage.

The worker is no longer employed by the TSA after the incident this month, a spokeswoman said.

Rebecca Solomon, 22, a University of Michigan student, wrote in a column for her campus newspaper that she was having her bags screened on Jan. 5 before her flight to Detroit when the employee stopped her, reached into her laptop computer bag and pulled out the plastic bag, demanding to know where she had gotten the powder.

In the Jan. 10 column for The Michigan Daily, she recounted how she struggled to come up with an explanation, wondering if it was bomb-detonating material slipped in by a terrorist or drugs put there by a smuggler.

"He let me stutter through an explanation for the longest minute of my life," Solomon wrote. "Tears streamed down my face as I pleaded with him to understand that I'd never seen this baggie before."

A short time later, she said, the worker smiled and said it was his.

The worker "waved the baggie at me and told me he was kidding, that I should've seen the look on my face," she said.

Solomon said she asked to speak to a supervisor and filled out a complaint, and during that process was told that the man was training TSA workers to detect contraband. Two days later, she said, she was told he had been disciplined.

"I had been terrified and disrespected by an airport employee," she said. "He'd joked about the least funny thing in air travel."

There was no answer Saturday at a telephone listing for Solomon at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. An e-mail message seeking comment from her was sent Saturday by The Associated Press, and a telephone message was left at her parents' home in suburban Philadelphia.

Maybe he thought that was a 'cool pick up move'?

[penguin_pong]

Wow he is really stupid for doing that!!!

[Kiwiology]

Doesn't suprise me; the TSA is a joke, a farce and a waste of money.

I have caught TSA employees at San Francisco, Boston-Logan and Oakland asleep on the job; I've had bags put through for search ignored and in one case was told I did not need to be searched because I had been searched the previous day by the same guy.

[Kaisu]

They are pretty meticulous about making me throw out my 2 ounces of hair gel in a 3.5 ounce container, but the last time I flew (last week), in my pockets and my carry on bag, I had, among other things, 2 pairs of trauma sheers, an IV catheter (I know, it was in the package and I forgot I had shoved it in there on scene), a device for cutting through seat belts, and sundry other items that in my non-educated and ignorant fashion (cause I'm not a trained TSA professional) are far more capable of causing harm than the hair gel.

[Chief1C]

I've cut a 4' wide sheet of 6 gauge aluminum, in half, with a fairly cheap pair of trauma shears... They could certainly be used to kill someone.