Banned items fly past security [View All]

[liberal N proud]

Liquids, gels getting past airport screeners

Wendy Shanker was passing through security at the St. Louis airport Friday when the X-ray machine detected a potential weapon inside her carry-on bag. A screener dug into the satchel and found a pair of scissors that Shanker used for knitting. The scissors' blades were shorter than the 4-inch federal limit so the screener plopped them back into the bag.

But he missed something else: Shanker's two-ounce container of Neutrogena hand cream, a substance banned since federal authorities clamped down last month on allowing liquids and gels into airline passenger cabins.

$75 hydrating gel
She would give only her first name, Nicole, saying that she worried about getting in trouble. At first, she admitted to a reporter that she was carrying a $75 hydrating gel in her backpack. Then, she revealed lip gloss, toothpaste, a bottle of expensive Chanel perfume and a $300 container of facial cleanser neatly packed in a bulging cosmetic case. Screeners never noticed the items, which she had no intention of checking, she said.

"There is no way I'm putting my Chanel in a checked bag," she said. Then she looked down at her two children: "Who knows what's in their bags?"

Gary Boettcher, a pilot and president of the Coalition for Airline Pilots Association, a trade group that closely tracks security issues, said he constantly sees people drinking from illicit bottles of water or putting on lip gloss when he walks through the passenger cabin. Most of the time, he said, it doesn't bother him.

"They are just doing their routines like they always did," Boettcher said. "An old woman drinking a bottle of water doesn't concern me. . . . The whole screening process is a facade to make the public feel safe, to show that the government is doing something."

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14807713