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A passenger flies on Northwest Airlines from Washington via Detroit to Montreal. On arrival he opens his checked bag with a combination lock.
The bag contains a notice of baggage inspection from the Transportation Security Administration (TSA). It reads: “To protect you and your fellow passengers, the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) is required by law to inspect all checked baggage. As part of this process, some bags are opened and physically inspected. Your bag was among those selected for physical inspection."
During the inspection, your bag and its contents may have been searched for prohibited items. At the completion of the inspection, the contents were returned to your bag.
If the TSA security officer was unable to open your bag for inspection because it was locked, the officer may have been forced to break the locks on your bag. TSA sincerely regrets having to do this, however TSA is not liable for damage to your locks resulting from this necessary security precaution.” However, the notice is silent about missing items.
Compare this with Malev’s response to a complaint of a passenger whose bag was damaged because the locks had been broken.
You may buy a TSA approved lock that can be opened by security officers using universal "master" keys, so that it may not have to be cut. You can buy this kind of locks at airports and travel stores. Although this passenger did not have such a lock, it had not been cut. Thus, the TSA officer was an accomplished burglar.
Police officers do not have the right to stop someone without cause on the street. TSA officers, however, are legally allowed to cut bag locks, thoroughly search passengers trying to board a plane and interrogate them at length, even if there is no evidence they have broken any law.
This not only recalls the former Soviet Union, where these practices were also normal, but also the Watergate scandal. In 1972, the federal government already hired professional burglars to protect US citizens (at the time against the Democratic Party).
The scandal began with the arrest of five men for breaking and entering into the Democratic National Committee headquarters at the Watergate complex in Washington.
The investigations revealed that this burglary was just one of many illegal activities authorized and carried out by the staff of Richard M. Nixon, the 37th president of the United States (1969–1974).
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