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Comment by Arch-TK | Hacker News Reader

Recently at Stansted I had an encounter with a security staff member who was of the opinion that both clotted cream and butter were liquids. (Note, I wasn't the one trying to get either of these onto the plane.) Her entire argument seemed to rest on the case that they were spreadable. I don't think she did well in GCSE physics.

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So, this is the TSA but: “TSA classifies items that you can spill, spread, spray, pump or pour as needing to be 3.4 ounces or smaller to fit into a 3-1-1 bag,” TSA spokesperson Lisa Farbstein said. “There has been no change in the categorization of any of these items, including peanut butter, which is a spreadable and thus falls under the 3.4-ounce limit.”

Apparently “spreadable” is one of the criteria. I’d argue anything is spreadable if you try hard enough.

>I’d argue anything is spreadable if you try hard enough.

That's exactly what I said.

I once travelled with a 5kg vat of fondant icing on a transatlantic flight. "Yes, it looks very much like Semtex, but it's fine!" Still not exactly sure how I got away with it…

People often manage to bring actual weapons onto flights, so it's unsurprising that they frequently fail to catch liquids.

95% of TSA screening difficulty is entirely dependent on how white you are.

It's always been "liquids and gels" when the instructions are given in full. Toothpaste is the more obvious case.

Reminds me of getting my peanut butter taken away, because butter is dairy.

For all the fuss about whether oat milk should be called milk, there are people of room temperature IQ level intelligence that get confused by peanut butter.

I had cheese confiscated in Brussels “because we can’t tell the difference with C4 on the machine”

I suspect they just fancied a nice lunch.

Meanwhile I’ve flown a few times with a forgotten pocket knife in my carry on and more than 100mL of water. Nobody died and the plane landed safely at destination.

Now that's understandable. A lot of explosives are organic compounds (as in organic chemistry), just like food. And chocolate will have better energy density than most of them (not having to bring the oxydizer)

We’ll never know. It also clearly smelled like cheese. Anyway, I avoid flying as much as I can because it’s an exercise in frustration.

That's not just Brussels, cheese really does show up as C4 on the x-rays!

How nitrogen-rich is that cheese?

Did you lick the cheese?

I should have. Or maybe that's what they wanted!

Once they have given you a reason something needs to be confiscated, there is 0 chance of you changing their mind with any logic, because they would rather look like an idiot than be wrong, because the TSA is a playground for low intelligence authoritarian types.

https://www.gov.uk/hand-luggage-restrictions - Note that it's not just strictly liquids, there's some nuance to it. Where a gel/cream becomes a solid is undefined. Annoyingly.

Edinburgh airport were concerned about the squishy-but-still kind-of-solid lumps I was carrying through, but were ultimately charmed to discover it was haggis.

In the 2000s I worked in Munich and exported ‘Leberkäse’ (a meat paste that you can bake in the oven) from Munich almost every week for family and friends.

Although it looks quite similar to plastic explosives the security team had not once a problem with it.

oh yeah, candles. Expect a fun time at the x-ray if you fly with a scented candle as a christmas gift.

Also marzipan; was told by somebody working at an airport that if you want to look _really_ suspicious, just bring a block of marzipan right next to your headphones.

I had a similar argument once at my local airport. The security argument was that if the container states millilitres then it's a liquid and they don't care even if it's only 10% full.

lipstick, deo stick - seen that being a problem at some UK airport too

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