TSA Redefines Physics, Says Peanut Butter Is a Liquid
TSA Redefines Physics, Says Peanut Butter Is A Liquid - View from the Wing


	
	

	
	
	
		The Transportation Security Administration has an almost ‘through the looking glass’ way of describing what they do and do not permit, going so far as to redefine physics to their liking.  
You can bring disabled bullets through security, and you can bring ice through security, but you cannot bring ice shaped like disabled bullets through security. Put another way, spent shell casings are fine but not if they can cool drinks.
While the TSA limits liquids through their checkpoints to 3.4 ounces per container, and in total not more than 100 milliliters, per passenger, for years I’ve pointed out that you can bring unlimited amounts of liquids through a checkpoint if you freeze them first.  Because physics.  Frozen liquids are solids.  The TSA actually endorses this interpretation.
However they do not always respect physics.  According to TSA, peanut butter is a liquid ‘because it conforms to the shape of its container’.  Peanut butter is subject to 3.4 ounce / 100 milliliter rules.  No distinction is drawn between chunky and creamy!  And of course ice also conforms to the shape of its container, too.One class of words in Newspeak “consisted entirely of scientific and technical terms” which “resembled the scientific terms in use today,” but the Party defined “them rigidly and strip them of undesirable meanings.” George Orwell wrote,	
	
	
There was no vocabulary expressing the function of Science as a habit of mind, or a method of thought irrespective of its particular branches. There was, indeed, no word for ‘Science,’ any meaning that it could possibly bear being already sufficiently covered by the word Ingsoc.
Sometimes TSA itself gets confused by its own Newspeak rules.  For instance they posted to their website that sunscreen would be exempt from its rules but then claimed this was an error.

Display of oversized liquids, gels and aerosols that travelers had in their carry-on bags at the ⁦@SyracuseAirport⁩ @TSA Checkpoint in a 3-day span. The limit for liquids through a checkpoint is 3.4 oz. pic.twitter.com/Fan95TLrLy
— Lisa Farbstein, TSA Spokesperson (@TSA_Northeast) June 22, 2022

When you bring more than 100 milliliters of liquid to a security checkpoint, the agency does not call in a hazmat team to safely manage the biohazard.  Instead they keep a bin by the checkpoint to toss them into.  All of the dangerous liquids are combined together into the same bin, and allowed to accumulate next to passengers and agency employees.  Even if they use language of danger, their behavior fails to match.
	
	

	
	

			

	
	
	

	
