
TSA Reportedly Demands To Inspect Man’s Luggage For Bitcoin - kanche
http://techcrunch.com/2014/02/28/tsa-reportedly-demands-to-inspect-mans-luggage-for-bitcoin
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xeroxmalf
"Update: A TSA spokesman says they have been unable to find the agents in
question or verify the incident. I’m told Baker’s story is complicated by the
fact that protocol would be to contact law enforcement if someone was taking
large amounts of cash for a suspected purpose, rather than request additional
screening."

So basically, he most likely had some 'TSA' agents that were trying to rob
him.

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asdfaoeu
More likely he just made it up and techcrunch lapped it straight up

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ck2
This smells a lot like agents getting a bonus for seizing cash over $10k which
the TSA keeps.

When a chain of people start aggressively enforcing laws for their own gain
without giving a damn what the original intent of the law was, very strange
things start happening in society.

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ewoodrich
The TSA has over 50,000 employees serving transit related functions. If they
were "getting a bonus" for seizing cash, shouldn't we have heard from >1
officer who was complicit in this?

I understand the motivations for skepticism over TSA practices, but I don't
think that justifies baseless speculation about unlawful institutional
practices like you describe (LEOs don't receive a bonus tied to civil
forfeiture, which would be far more likely)

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ck2
How do you explain the excessive seizures of everything by the TSA? They
auction massive lots of things they take from people, where do you think all
that money goes? Certainly not back to taxpayers.

If there is not a bonus, then it is something more subtle like a performance
review perk. Unless it just boils down to TSA agents enjoying being a-holes.
Remember the TSA has not prevented one single incident, in fact they
constantly fail security tests, which is also swept under the rug.

The TSA is theater, pure and simple, and they've learned to put on a big show
or face extinction, starting at the individual job level all the way up the
organization.

I am also pretty sure they are astroturfing against negative comments about
them (not accusing you of that, just saying it seems to be a pattern on the
internet).

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qwerta
I traveled a lot in post-soviet countries. Once I was held for several hours
by military police for losing my way into restricted military area. But never
ever anyone took my fingerprints, except TSA agents...

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ewoodrich
At risk of appearing to be some sort of TSA shill in this thread, you are not
actually fingerprinted for international travel by TSA:

"United States Visitor and Immigrant Status Indicator Technology (commonly
referred to as US-VISIT) is a U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP)
management system. The system involves the collection and analysis of
biometric data (such as fingerprints), which are checked against a database to
track individuals deemed by the United States to be terrorists, criminals, and
illegal immigrants."

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/US-VISIT](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/US-VISIT)

~~~
ubernostrum
And the US is not the only country which fingerprints non-citizens on arrival.
I know Japan does, and possibly other countries too.

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efoto
This story sounded a lot like the one that happend to me in 1984. It's rather
hard to describe a place I was working at the time beyond saying it was a
restricted access area. Anyway, I was detained by security for walking out
from the gates with a floppy disk and a programming manual. I had to explain
what a floppy disk is. It wasn't actually very funny, mostly because my
quarterly bonus was at stake. The funny part was to read the incident report,
that said I was detained with one "manual" and one "information".

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ewoodrich
"When Baker asked how much he thought his alleged tokens were worth, the agent
responded, “It fluctuates all the time.”

Either a surprisingly well informed (and a tad snarky) TSA officer (who
inexplicably dwells on the possibility of vanishingly rare physical Bitcoin),
or a tounge-in-cheek satire presented as fact. I suspect the latter, unless
the supposed victim can produce any non-anecdotal evidence to corroborate the
story.

Edit: It seems strange to me that TSA would be making such a big deal about
searching for Bitcoin, when as far as I'm aware, limitations on transfer of
cash only apply to international flights, and would be handled by actual law
enforcement or Customs, not TSA. And other than the author being a bit of a
dick in his supposed TSA interaction, I really don't see how this situation
would have been plausible.

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marvin
Sounds like a new version of "you have been selected for a random search" to
me.

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LyndsySimon
I admit the title had be curious, but upon consideration, I suppose it's
_possible_ that the TSA employee (I refuse to call TSA employees "agents") saw
something small and round on the Xray, and thought they might be physical
Bitcoins. Some of the early ones enclose private keys to wallets containing 25
BTC or more. That would easily be more than the $10k limit.

Please don't take the above as my condoning the employees actions, the
existence of the TSA, governments, or any other entity whose existence is
based upon the initiation of force against others.

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colund
I would guess that this is just a joke, but a fun one.

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Bahamut
That is quite a twisted interpretation of that law/regulation/etc. - bitcoin
in itself is not cash.

Also as a result of that logic, no traveler who owns lots of bitcoins would be
allowed to travel on a plane - how the heck does that make sense?

