TSA Stole my Hot Sauce!

We at the Rio Grande Foundation typically go after the idiocy and corruption of our state political leaders, but the TSA is one entity that we all deal with on a regular basis, but that I have not written about extensively. This is largely because there seems to be no momentum in Congress to undo the nationalization of airport security that was enacted after 9/11.

Over the Thanksgiving Holiday, my wife Krista and I spent the week with RGF co-founder Harry Messenheimer and his wife on the Big Island of Hawaii. We were on Oahu for one day and toured the Dole Plantation. There, we purchase a bottle of pineapple-infused hot sauce. Being good travelers, we checked the bottle which was wrapped in some tissue paper to protect it from breaking. Well, when we got home and opened our bags, we had a pre-printed notice in our bag indicating TSA had checked the bag and we had no sauce. Unbelievable!

Apparently, TSA theft is not a new or uncommon issue. I’m proud that my old organization, the National Taxpayers Union, opposed federalizing airport security when it was done and I wish that our political leaders would get rid of TSA and let airlines and passengers handle security issues.