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Comment by laxatives | Hacker News Reader

I've flown with shaving razors and pocket knives attached to my keys numerous times. They get found and confiscated about 20% of the time. I recently forgot to remove both and the TSA agent spent 5 minutes looking for something. He found the shaving razor, but not the pocket knife and was very pleased with himself.

Its absurd the profiling going on with the TSA. If I dress well, I get rushed through the lines quickly. If I dress like a slob, I get subjected to additional baggage checks and pat downs on a regular basis while TSA agents bark orders at me like I'm incompetent. This article makes it sound like they are trained to do this under the guise of "behavior detection". Once I got precheck, I started getting treated like a human being.

Fuck the TSA. If we need to provide jobs to dropouts, give them something meaningful to do without subjecting the rest of the population to their "authority".

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Similar story here. I'm a smoker and usually do international/inside-US flights on a monthly basis. In 7-8 years the only lighters I recall losing have been in my home country (where pat downs and having your bags opened are a common thing).

Curiously, I haven't had a TSA line longer than 45 minutes flying from places in NY, CA or FL (I mostly flight late evening/disgustingly-early morning though) in the last few months.

PS: laxatives, you mention being treated like a human. Why not help by not referring to TSA employees as "dropouts"?

FWIW I've had agents inspect my bad and allow me to keep lighters. I've only had lighters confiscated on a handful of international flights, and never in the US.

Yeah you're right its not fair to call them dropouts.

Lighters are not forbidden. I was told to toss out all but one when coming back into the U.S. from Canada, once, but that's about as far as it's ever gone. I travel a fair amount and almost always with one or more lighters.

One can carry one lighter (and no more than one), of the gas type (no Zippo's) and must be carried on the person (not in the hand baggage).

Having said that, these rules are usually not strictly enforced.

That explains why I was asked to toss out my extras. By the way, this document says that Zippos are fine:

https://www.faa.gov/about/office_org/headquarters_offices/as...

That's a regulation I support, because unlike toothpaste it's a legit fire hazard. A broken lighter that shorts something out can get nasty quickly.

One lighter on a person means a problem will be relatively small and quickly noticed.

I carry 2-3 lighters in my backpack at any given time and fly regularly. Have never had to remove them or had them confiscated in the last 4 years.

I think the parent commenter was using "dropout" as an adjective, not a derogatory term.

Disposable razors are allowed. If they are confiscating those, they're not following their own rules.

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