If the TSA (much like the IRS, only without the whimsy and hot dance moves) decides that there was an effort at "smuggling" such an object, say it's just innocently "buried" in a Pelican case -- it's entirely up to those agents, paid anywhere between US 14 to 43.00 per hour (many of whom would now make more flipping burgers at McDonald's in California) -- to determine whether any real "threat" exists, with their so-called "
TSA Interpretive Rule" -- you're likely to be arrested and shopping for a lawyer, particularly if "attitude" is involved (and who wouldn't really like to stick it to some mouthy well-heeled traveler with his size-zero girlfriend, headed to Papeete with 10K in gear?).
Inflated views of entitlement are all too common with travelers nowadays (two passengers, alone, were escorted, for whatever reason, off my last flight to Seattle).
I saw arrests happen at security at SFO on a couple of occasions -- cops, cable ties, the whole shebang -- and I was delayed and threatened with detention for only carrying a few syringes and a tiny vial of KCl in a field kit, much less some honking dive knife . . .
www.tsa.gov
