19 ms·

The government could have got it for free: St. Petersburg, Florida-based SecurityPoint's founder Joseph Ambrefe offered the TSA a license to his patent in 2005

The government could have got it for free: St. Petersburg, Florida-based SecurityPoint's founder Joseph Ambrefe offered the TSA a license to his patent in 2005 in exchange for the exclusive right to advertise on the trays at U.S. airports. The TSA had success testing SecurityPoint's technology and equipment, but refused SecurityPoint's offer. The court said the TSA began using the same method with its own equipment later that year at most or all of the airports under its control, and SecurityPoint sued the U.S. government for patent infringement in 2011. The government conceded that it had used the technology since 2008 in 10 airports including Dallas/Fort Worth, Boston Logan, Phoenix Sky Harbor and all three major Washington, D.C.-area airports. The court rejected the government's arguments that SecurityPoint's patent was invalid in 2015, leaving questions about the extent of the government's infringement and how much it owed in damages.

staticman2 5y ago
That's literally not free since they would have had to turn the security process into more of a clown show with advertisements.
- paulgb 5y ago
  As it happens, one of the violations the TSA admitted to was the part of the patent that covers putting advertisements in the trays. (It boils my blood that the patent system rewards the people who essentially “call dibs” on ideas like this, instead of the people who build things.)
  - dathinab 5y ago
    How is putting advertisement on ANYTHING patentable, that's driving me nuts. If there is space, you can put a ad on it, that's a trivial truth older then the patent system itself.
    - akersten 5y ago
      > How is putting advertisement on ANYTHING patentable Because our patent system is broken beyond repair and should be entirely dismantled never to be rebuilt. Remember cases like this the next time you hear anyone try to justify existence of something like a software patent. A monopoly on ideas is an absurdity laid bare to most people only by glaring examples like this.
    - Frost1x 5y ago
      Keep in mind, a system of rules is just a system of rules. It takes someone to come along and knowingly look for "ah ha, gotcha" loopholes in a system to exploit for their own advantage. It's completely possible to look at a system, realize there's a flaw, and not take advantage of it--perhaps even try to fix the flaw you discovered. In the US, we're increasingly normalizing the culture of "well, it's legal" as to whether we should or shouldn't do something--the baseline of morales is becoming law. Part of this is driven by competitive forces that put us at critical disadvantages if we don't follow suit. Taking the "high road" often costs more and hinders us to points we can't survive, so even if you don't want to play exploitative games on systems and people, in some cases, your very livelihood may actually depend on it. "Don't hate the player, hate the game" comes to mind as players unwilling to come to a consensus that the game is flawed and adjust the rules so they can follow the intent of the game and not the flaws in the rules of the game.
      - FourHand451 5y ago
        > It takes someone to come along and knowingly look for "ah ha, gotcha" loopholes in a system to exploit for their own advantage. Obviously it's not a positive thing in this case, but there seems to be a lot in common with a hacker sort of mindset here. Figuring out loopholes in laws seems awfully similar on some level to figuring out how a piece of tech works and making it do goofy things the designers never thought of or intended. Obviously, ethics enter into the equation, and there's a collection of things that are legal but unethical whether you're talking about legal loopholes or traditional hacking. Though given this discussion I'm able to think of more in the legal realm that's unethical. Maybe we need an analog to red-teamers in the legal world. I guess that's a lawyer? A certain kind of lawyer anyway.
  - vmception 5y ago
    > (It boils my blood that the patent system rewards the people who essentially “call dibs” on ideas like this, instead of the people who build things.) To me that's a really bad take, obsessing on builders, do you see how much additional wasted energy and mindshare that requires? "woah hey there, I don't respect you because what I wanted you to do was build the security apparatus and tray system yourself and find the product market fit yourself, despite the TSA monopoly on all the checkpoints, don't worry about that part its about how much I respect you, not the higher capital requirements, time requirements and worthlessness of attempting any of this!"
    - mindslight 5y ago
      You've got a valid general point about the scapegoating of NPEs. But it isn't applicable here, where the lack of building being referenced is the seeming impossibility of doing anything novel and non-obvious with plastic bins. If you click through to the patent filing (linked elsewhere in this thread), the claims are quite easy to read. If someone notices something novel in the claims that I've missed, I'd love to be wrong and learn about some fantastic new invention for plastic bins. But all indications are that this is yet another utterly bullshit patent that should never have been granted.
      - paulgb 5y ago
        Yes, exactly, you put it better than I could have.
      - vmception 5y ago
        Right, I actually disagree still, not because of the genericness of the patent itself but because it was a good finesse. And also because we are looking at it from 2021's eyes and not 2001's eyes. We need to rewind to 2001 and 2002 here, where the priority date of this patent begins. TSA was created as part of a series of kneejerk reactions to the September 11th 2001 terrorist attacks in November 2001. Congress was merely a tool here as there was almost zero original bills passed, just pet projects that enterprisers and war hawks had already written as bills, forwarded to their favorite committees when it was convenient. Within 8 months this person has their provisional patent filed that predicts how these checkpoints will be structured and how they could further function. July 2002. Here, I agree that it was patentable because this level of security really was not in use anywhere back then. There was no need for an efficient baggage binning system back then. Just a few government buildings had scanners for just a couple people at a time. The TSA did not implement this until after this patent holder presented the proposal to them. The TSA also had a choice of not doing these obvious things. The patent system allows for infinite permutations to be patented, as well as patents to cover many of those permutations. The TSA did a very specific one, this isn't really that ambiguous. I agree with the patent examiner, I agree with the judge. Also thank you for validating my point about how non-practicing entities get scapegoated way too much, I appreciate that. Hope my perspective still offers more insight others can agree with.
  - cosmojg 5y ago
    I wonder why we don't implement a Georgist tax on 80%-100% of the value of a patent to discourage patent hoarding and incentivize building on top of patents held. The intellectual property market would become a lot more efficient and productive.
    - thechao 5y ago
      I like this. We should do the same for copyright: the owner of the thing (patent; trademark; copyright) declares a value, then they pay a tax on the value; anyone else can “pay the balance” to buy off the monopoly.
      - gameman144 5y ago
        The issue here is that the value of things is not universal, nor is the means to pay such a tax. For instance, I may discover a manufacturing machine that cuts the cost of building semiconductor chips in half. My options under this model, though, are to either price it low enough that I can actually afford to build up a business on top of it (in which case a bigger company can swoop in, buy the rights from me, and destroy my business) or price it high enough that the incumbents can't afford to buy me off (in which case, the proposed tax will be large enough that it'll stifle my business, and the incumbents can just wait until my business dies on its own.) The current system is far from perfect, but it does favor upstarts and entrepreneurs' ability to build business rather than incumbents. The big thing I'd love to see is a shortening of the patent exclusivity period before becoming public domain.
        karlkeefer 5y ago
        > The current system is far from perfect, but it does favor upstarts and entrepreneurs' ability to build business rather than incumbents. I think exactly the opposite is true. Patents are one of the primary ways that incumbents are able to rent seek on their inventions for decades. These large companies hoard patents, and are legally granted monopoly on a given technology, making direct competition on their invention illegal. A world without patents would be more enabling to small entrepreneurs, because the amount of things they are allowed to attempt is so much higher than in our current world.
  - throw10920 5y ago
    > the patent system rewards the people who essentially “call dibs” on ideas like this Patents are regularly invalidated due to prior art. As long as you document your inventions thoroughly, then even if you don't patent the idea yourself, you can invalidate the person who did. If the people who "call dibs" are being rewarded, it's only because the inventors either weren't patenting, or weren't documenting.
    - karlkeefer 5y ago
      Calling dibs is still problematic, even with proper documentation... independent inventors often come up with same thing at a later date, because it's obvious, but they are still prevented from using their own invention because someone else had the same idea.
      - SomeCallMeTim 5y ago
        The problem is that the law isn't being enforced with any consistency. You know what's required for a patent to be awarded? It has to be non-obvious. It has to be something that someone "the typical person in the field" wouldn't think to do, when given that problem to solve. If the patent office (and later, the courts) would just apply the non-obviousness criteria reasonably we wouldn't have these problems. And yes, that means they'd likely need to consult with people in various fields. It's not exactly free to get a patent; some of that money could go to pay those same consultants to judge the obviousness of each patent as it is reviewed.
        webmaven 5y ago
        > If the patent office (and later, the courts) would just apply the non-obviousness criteria reasonably we wouldn't have these problems. Agreed, but given that inventors can endlessly refile with whatever minor tweaks they like, and examiners are incentivised according to the number of patents they grant, it isn't hard to wear them down, eventually. Courts then presume a patent is valid and it takes a lot of effort to convince them otherwise, and typically it is only prior art that will do it.
  - AnimalMuppet 5y ago
    On the plus side, that means that nobody else can put ads there without violating the patent...
- notRobot 5y ago
  The TSA is anyway almost entirely security theatre: https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2014/01/tsa-business-security-theater-not-security/357599/ https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2014/01/tsa-bus...
  - JoshTko 5y ago
    I agree that TSA is ineffective against any sophisticated attack, but couldn't it potentially be a great filter for the many run of mill crazy person? Not suggesting its an efficient use of funds in either case.
    - garyfirestorm 5y ago
      Run of the mill crazy you say - this happened in last 24 hrs https://news.yahoo.com/american-airlines-flight-diverted-passenger-043342094.html https://news.yahoo.com/american-airlines-flight-diverted-pas...
      - lowkey_ 5y ago
        It appears the attacker didn't have a weapon, though, which is the TSA's job you're saying they didn't accomplish?
    - jonwachob91 5y ago
      ^^^ This, so much this. Especially with how common we've seen violent outbursts on airplanes since post-pandemic flights have resumed. It's almost a daily occurrence. If those individuals had weapons during flight, the outcomes would be very different. Leave the detection and prevention of sophisticated threats to agencies better equipped.
      - mindslight 5y ago
        You're assuming that the people who are throwing tantrums on planes are premeditating enough to prepare by bringing weapons. Yet if they had those kind of planning faculties, they would realize that flipping out at flight attendants doesn't further their cause at all. Alternative take: the people throwing tantrums have reached their breaking point from the stress of being in a totalitarian environment [0]. And all the security theater of airports is a major and needless contributor to that stress. [0] Just to be clear here, I think masks are highly necessary and if I had to fly somewhere I would be wearing a full face P100. But the act of forcing people to wear them is still totalitarian, regardless of how justified it is.
- rspoerri 5y ago
  Apropos free: https://geek-and-poke.com/geekandpoke/2010/12/21/the-free-model.html https://geek-and-poke.com/geekandpoke/2010/12/21/the-free-mo...
- bellyfullofbac 5y ago
  I guess putting ads in the security check area works? If I were the buyer, I would be wondering if people would associate my brand with the negative experience which is airport security.
- Cthulhu_ 5y ago
  It depends on whether it's advertising advertising, or just a sticker or maker's mark - you know, the ones these trays and other products in use at airports and security checkpoints already have.
- Marsymars 5y ago
  One of the nice things about China is that they don't sell off naming rights to their stadiums to the highest bidding advertiser: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_stadiums_in_China https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_stadiums_in_China
  - seattle_spring 5y ago
    That's always bothered me about stadiums here in the US. There's one in Seattle with this joke of a name: "Climate Pledge Arena."
    - toast0 5y ago
      Climate Pledge, brought to you by SC Johnson, cleans and polishes your surfaces in more varied conditions for people who live in extreme climates. Makes sense they'd sponsor a hockey arena. /s
    - loosetypes 5y ago
      Similar but unrelated, the audacity to post-facto denote something a Netflix Original.
    - brewdad 5y ago
      Considering Amazon is paying for that name, I find it far more appealing than "Amazon Prime 2-Day Delivery Arena".
      - seattle_spring 5y ago
        Or "Bang Bros Arena": https://www.insider.com/porn-site-bangbros-bid-10-million-naming-rights-miami-stadium-2019-9 https://www.insider.com/porn-site-bangbros-bid-10-million-na...
    - wang_li 5y ago
      It's the home of the Seattle Krakens. We call it the Krakhaus.
  - anm89 5y ago
- nobody9999 5y ago
  >That's literally not free since they would have had to turn the security process into more of a clown show with advertisements. As I recall (I flew a couple weeks ago), the bins where you need to dump your belt, shoes, carry-on, etc. have advertisements on them. But even without the ads, the TSA security theater was already a clown show, IMHO.
- troyvit 5y ago
  They already advertise on the trays in DIA if I remember correctly. And besides, airport security is a clown show.[0] https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelgoldstein/2017/11/09/tsa-misses-70-of-fake-weapons-but-thats-an-improvement/?sh=32e5fd8e2a38 https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelgoldstein/2017/11/09/tsa...
- anm89 5y ago
  Thank you for defending the purity of sanctity of the TSA. I don't know what we would all do if we couldn't look up to TSA as a shining beacon of morality and it turned into a "clown show". Putting an ad on a tray would at least be somewhere in the top 500 most atrocious things the TSA regularly does.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
mmaunder 5y ago
The issue I see here is that would be an acknowledgement of ownership, which leads to greater demands as time passes.

staticman2 5y ago

That's literally not free since they would have had to turn the security process into more of a clown show with advertisements.

paulgb 5y ago
As it happens, one of the violations the TSA admitted to was the part of the patent that covers putting advertisements in the trays. (It boils my blood that the patent system rewards the people who essentially “call dibs” on ideas like this, instead of the people who build things.)
- dathinab 5y ago
  How is putting advertisement on ANYTHING patentable, that's driving me nuts. If there is space, you can put a ad on it, that's a trivial truth older then the patent system itself.
  - akersten 5y ago
    > How is putting advertisement on ANYTHING patentable Because our patent system is broken beyond repair and should be entirely dismantled never to be rebuilt. Remember cases like this the next time you hear anyone try to justify existence of something like a software patent. A monopoly on ideas is an absurdity laid bare to most people only by glaring examples like this.
  - Frost1x 5y ago
    Keep in mind, a system of rules is just a system of rules. It takes someone to come along and knowingly look for "ah ha, gotcha" loopholes in a system to exploit for their own advantage. It's completely possible to look at a system, realize there's a flaw, and not take advantage of it--perhaps even try to fix the flaw you discovered. In the US, we're increasingly normalizing the culture of "well, it's legal" as to whether we should or shouldn't do something--the baseline of morales is becoming law. Part of this is driven by competitive forces that put us at critical disadvantages if we don't follow suit. Taking the "high road" often costs more and hinders us to points we can't survive, so even if you don't want to play exploitative games on systems and people, in some cases, your very livelihood may actually depend on it. "Don't hate the player, hate the game" comes to mind as players unwilling to come to a consensus that the game is flawed and adjust the rules so they can follow the intent of the game and not the flaws in the rules of the game.
    - FourHand451 5y ago
      > It takes someone to come along and knowingly look for "ah ha, gotcha" loopholes in a system to exploit for their own advantage. Obviously it's not a positive thing in this case, but there seems to be a lot in common with a hacker sort of mindset here. Figuring out loopholes in laws seems awfully similar on some level to figuring out how a piece of tech works and making it do goofy things the designers never thought of or intended. Obviously, ethics enter into the equation, and there's a collection of things that are legal but unethical whether you're talking about legal loopholes or traditional hacking. Though given this discussion I'm able to think of more in the legal realm that's unethical. Maybe we need an analog to red-teamers in the legal world. I guess that's a lawyer? A certain kind of lawyer anyway.
- vmception 5y ago
  > (It boils my blood that the patent system rewards the people who essentially “call dibs” on ideas like this, instead of the people who build things.) To me that's a really bad take, obsessing on builders, do you see how much additional wasted energy and mindshare that requires? "woah hey there, I don't respect you because what I wanted you to do was build the security apparatus and tray system yourself and find the product market fit yourself, despite the TSA monopoly on all the checkpoints, don't worry about that part its about how much I respect you, not the higher capital requirements, time requirements and worthlessness of attempting any of this!"
  - mindslight 5y ago
    You've got a valid general point about the scapegoating of NPEs. But it isn't applicable here, where the lack of building being referenced is the seeming impossibility of doing anything novel and non-obvious with plastic bins. If you click through to the patent filing (linked elsewhere in this thread), the claims are quite easy to read. If someone notices something novel in the claims that I've missed, I'd love to be wrong and learn about some fantastic new invention for plastic bins. But all indications are that this is yet another utterly bullshit patent that should never have been granted.
    - paulgb 5y ago
      Yes, exactly, you put it better than I could have.
    - vmception 5y ago
      Right, I actually disagree still, not because of the genericness of the patent itself but because it was a good finesse. And also because we are looking at it from 2021's eyes and not 2001's eyes. We need to rewind to 2001 and 2002 here, where the priority date of this patent begins. TSA was created as part of a series of kneejerk reactions to the September 11th 2001 terrorist attacks in November 2001. Congress was merely a tool here as there was almost zero original bills passed, just pet projects that enterprisers and war hawks had already written as bills, forwarded to their favorite committees when it was convenient. Within 8 months this person has their provisional patent filed that predicts how these checkpoints will be structured and how they could further function. July 2002. Here, I agree that it was patentable because this level of security really was not in use anywhere back then. There was no need for an efficient baggage binning system back then. Just a few government buildings had scanners for just a couple people at a time. The TSA did not implement this until after this patent holder presented the proposal to them. The TSA also had a choice of not doing these obvious things. The patent system allows for infinite permutations to be patented, as well as patents to cover many of those permutations. The TSA did a very specific one, this isn't really that ambiguous. I agree with the patent examiner, I agree with the judge. Also thank you for validating my point about how non-practicing entities get scapegoated way too much, I appreciate that. Hope my perspective still offers more insight others can agree with.
- cosmojg 5y ago
  I wonder why we don't implement a Georgist tax on 80%-100% of the value of a patent to discourage patent hoarding and incentivize building on top of patents held. The intellectual property market would become a lot more efficient and productive.
  - thechao 5y ago
    I like this. We should do the same for copyright: the owner of the thing (patent; trademark; copyright) declares a value, then they pay a tax on the value; anyone else can “pay the balance” to buy off the monopoly.
    - gameman144 5y ago
      The issue here is that the value of things is not universal, nor is the means to pay such a tax. For instance, I may discover a manufacturing machine that cuts the cost of building semiconductor chips in half. My options under this model, though, are to either price it low enough that I can actually afford to build up a business on top of it (in which case a bigger company can swoop in, buy the rights from me, and destroy my business) or price it high enough that the incumbents can't afford to buy me off (in which case, the proposed tax will be large enough that it'll stifle my business, and the incumbents can just wait until my business dies on its own.) The current system is far from perfect, but it does favor upstarts and entrepreneurs' ability to build business rather than incumbents. The big thing I'd love to see is a shortening of the patent exclusivity period before becoming public domain.
      - karlkeefer 5y ago
        > The current system is far from perfect, but it does favor upstarts and entrepreneurs' ability to build business rather than incumbents. I think exactly the opposite is true. Patents are one of the primary ways that incumbents are able to rent seek on their inventions for decades. These large companies hoard patents, and are legally granted monopoly on a given technology, making direct competition on their invention illegal. A world without patents would be more enabling to small entrepreneurs, because the amount of things they are allowed to attempt is so much higher than in our current world.
- throw10920 5y ago
  > the patent system rewards the people who essentially “call dibs” on ideas like this Patents are regularly invalidated due to prior art. As long as you document your inventions thoroughly, then even if you don't patent the idea yourself, you can invalidate the person who did. If the people who "call dibs" are being rewarded, it's only because the inventors either weren't patenting, or weren't documenting.
  - karlkeefer 5y ago
    Calling dibs is still problematic, even with proper documentation... independent inventors often come up with same thing at a later date, because it's obvious, but they are still prevented from using their own invention because someone else had the same idea.
    - SomeCallMeTim 5y ago
      The problem is that the law isn't being enforced with any consistency. You know what's required for a patent to be awarded? It has to be non-obvious. It has to be something that someone "the typical person in the field" wouldn't think to do, when given that problem to solve. If the patent office (and later, the courts) would just apply the non-obviousness criteria reasonably we wouldn't have these problems. And yes, that means they'd likely need to consult with people in various fields. It's not exactly free to get a patent; some of that money could go to pay those same consultants to judge the obviousness of each patent as it is reviewed.
      - webmaven 5y ago
        > If the patent office (and later, the courts) would just apply the non-obviousness criteria reasonably we wouldn't have these problems. Agreed, but given that inventors can endlessly refile with whatever minor tweaks they like, and examiners are incentivised according to the number of patents they grant, it isn't hard to wear them down, eventually. Courts then presume a patent is valid and it takes a lot of effort to convince them otherwise, and typically it is only prior art that will do it.
- AnimalMuppet 5y ago
  On the plus side, that means that nobody else can put ads there without violating the patent...
notRobot 5y ago
The TSA is anyway almost entirely security theatre: https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2014/01/tsa-business-security-theater-not-security/357599/ https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2014/01/tsa-bus...
- JoshTko 5y ago
  I agree that TSA is ineffective against any sophisticated attack, but couldn't it potentially be a great filter for the many run of mill crazy person? Not suggesting its an efficient use of funds in either case.
  - garyfirestorm 5y ago
    Run of the mill crazy you say - this happened in last 24 hrs https://news.yahoo.com/american-airlines-flight-diverted-passenger-043342094.html https://news.yahoo.com/american-airlines-flight-diverted-pas...
    - lowkey_ 5y ago
      It appears the attacker didn't have a weapon, though, which is the TSA's job you're saying they didn't accomplish?
  - jonwachob91 5y ago
    ^^^ This, so much this. Especially with how common we've seen violent outbursts on airplanes since post-pandemic flights have resumed. It's almost a daily occurrence. If those individuals had weapons during flight, the outcomes would be very different. Leave the detection and prevention of sophisticated threats to agencies better equipped.
    - mindslight 5y ago
      You're assuming that the people who are throwing tantrums on planes are premeditating enough to prepare by bringing weapons. Yet if they had those kind of planning faculties, they would realize that flipping out at flight attendants doesn't further their cause at all. Alternative take: the people throwing tantrums have reached their breaking point from the stress of being in a totalitarian environment [0]. And all the security theater of airports is a major and needless contributor to that stress. [0] Just to be clear here, I think masks are highly necessary and if I had to fly somewhere I would be wearing a full face P100. But the act of forcing people to wear them is still totalitarian, regardless of how justified it is.
rspoerri 5y ago
Apropos free: https://geek-and-poke.com/geekandpoke/2010/12/21/the-free-model.html https://geek-and-poke.com/geekandpoke/2010/12/21/the-free-mo...
bellyfullofbac 5y ago
I guess putting ads in the security check area works? If I were the buyer, I would be wondering if people would associate my brand with the negative experience which is airport security.
Cthulhu_ 5y ago
It depends on whether it's advertising advertising, or just a sticker or maker's mark - you know, the ones these trays and other products in use at airports and security checkpoints already have.
Marsymars 5y ago
One of the nice things about China is that they don't sell off naming rights to their stadiums to the highest bidding advertiser: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_stadiums_in_China https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_stadiums_in_China
- seattle_spring 5y ago
  That's always bothered me about stadiums here in the US. There's one in Seattle with this joke of a name: "Climate Pledge Arena."
  - toast0 5y ago
    Climate Pledge, brought to you by SC Johnson, cleans and polishes your surfaces in more varied conditions for people who live in extreme climates. Makes sense they'd sponsor a hockey arena. /s
  - loosetypes 5y ago
    Similar but unrelated, the audacity to post-facto denote something a Netflix Original.
  - brewdad 5y ago
    Considering Amazon is paying for that name, I find it far more appealing than "Amazon Prime 2-Day Delivery Arena".
    - seattle_spring 5y ago
      Or "Bang Bros Arena": https://www.insider.com/porn-site-bangbros-bid-10-million-naming-rights-miami-stadium-2019-9 https://www.insider.com/porn-site-bangbros-bid-10-million-na...
  - wang_li 5y ago
    It's the home of the Seattle Krakens. We call it the Krakhaus.
- anm89 5y ago
nobody9999 5y ago
>That's literally not free since they would have had to turn the security process into more of a clown show with advertisements. As I recall (I flew a couple weeks ago), the bins where you need to dump your belt, shoes, carry-on, etc. have advertisements on them. But even without the ads, the TSA security theater was already a clown show, IMHO.
troyvit 5y ago
They already advertise on the trays in DIA if I remember correctly. And besides, airport security is a clown show.[0] https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelgoldstein/2017/11/09/tsa-misses-70-of-fake-weapons-but-thats-an-improvement/?sh=32e5fd8e2a38 https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelgoldstein/2017/11/09/tsa...
anm89 5y ago
Thank you for defending the purity of sanctity of the TSA. I don't know what we would all do if we couldn't look up to TSA as a shining beacon of morality and it turned into a "clown show". Putting an ad on a tray would at least be somewhere in the top 500 most atrocious things the TSA regularly does.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

mmaunder 5y ago

The issue I see here is that would be an acknowledgement of ownership, which leads to greater demands as time passes.