Cupcake Deemed 'Security Threat,' Confiscated By TSA

The reality of course is that this stuff is thrown in a pile and kept in the middle of a much larger crowd of people than you'd ever see on an airplane. Worse, all the "dangerous" objects are allowed to mingle. If these things are actually dangerous, then security agents are being criminally irresponsible by exposing the threat to an unnecessarily-large group. And for that matter, anything actually dangerous should be viewed that way by other people, wouldn't you say? (If an uncaged rabid rottweiler were in the middle of the checkpoint, I guarantee you that people would be paying attention to that, so why not any of these other "threats"?)

As far as I can tell, security is either wasting its time by confiscating non-threatening materials, or being criminally negligent by not treating threatening materials seriously. Either way, there is a problem. And of course I think the overwhelmingly obvious solution is to let people keep their toothpaste and cupcakes so we can get on with our lives.

I've had stuff pass at one airport and confiscated at another. I flew to a meeting in California earlier this year, and my toiletries (packed in a clear ziplock bag) went unchallenged on the flight out, but my toothpaste was confiscated on the return flight.