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Caution Flyers - Almost bought myself a strip-search

post #1 of 41
1/2/09 at 3:11am
Thread Starter 
So,

I'm leaving Maui and going through the xray portion of the invasion of privacy, and I'm pulled off to the side and they want to inspect my 20lb backpack, which has 3 headphone amps, 4 ipods and tons of cables, chargers and headphones/earphones, gum, batteries, sunglasses, cameras, ipod video glasses, 400gb iTunes ext hard drive, beef jerky, books, and more.

They pull EVERYTHING out of my backpack, one item at a time, adding up to about what took me 30 minutes of packing spread out through FIVE of their little grey x-ray-stuff-buckets; working around something they all seem to be afraid of and refuse to touch. Finally they expose the weapon of mass destruction:



My iMod with ALO Jumbo Cryo Silver X and Headsix amp, with external battery pack.

I had forgotten to take it all apart, so it looks like the "B-word" that you can't say around the TSA. Meanwhile, my wife is reminding me, "Didn't you ask me the other day if that looked like a bom... err can't say the B word, and yet you bring it on the plane like that?"

Anyway, by the time they had a clear view of the offending contraband, I had pulled up the Meier Audio Website showing them that these are headphone amplifiers. The problem being that the relatively unlabeled brushed aluminum box doesn't scream out "headphone amp". They all apologized and commended me for my patience, as I watched 20-30 minutes worth of people in the screening line pass us up while my backpack was dissected.

Moral of the story. DO NOT leave your iPod and amp and LOD connected when you go through the airport screening process, or you may come dangerously close to a date with a tube of K-Y jelly (which I managed to avoid thanks to my iPhone and Meier website).
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post #2 of 41
1/2/09 at 3:21am
Were you on vacation? A 400GB iTunes library on vacation??? How long were you there for?

Funny story, tho'.
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post #3 of 41
1/2/09 at 3:31am
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Signal2Noise View Post
Were you on vacation? A 400GB iTunes library on vacation??? How long were you there for?

Funny story, tho'.
8-days and I had to be able to sync my kid's ipods to their home iTunes library, as well as have an off-site backup in case the house burned down while we were gone. It's just a small 400gb toshiba portable drive I got for $125 (500gb would have been over $200). You never know what music you'll be in the mood for. They made me take off all their Xmas music on the 26th, and load a ripped copy of Lilo and Stitch, etc.
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post #4 of 41
1/2/09 at 3:58am
Well, I must say that looks MUCH more ominous than the 92 year old woman with a wheelchair and an oxygen tank that was being hand-patted by the Totally Senseless Administration the last time I went through their gauntlet.

Look at the bright side - imagine what they would have done to you if that was a hand built mint-tin CMoy velcro'd to your ipod...
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post #5 of 41
1/2/09 at 4:28am
Quote:
Originally Posted by billybob_jcv View Post
Look at the bright side - imagine what they would have done to you if that was a hand built mint-tin CMoy velcro'd to your ipod...
Or if it was this:
http://www.head-fi.org/forums/5089453-post598.html
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post #6 of 41
1/2/09 at 5:00am
"Did someone say homemade bomb?"

"No, a homemade amp, r-tard! Gosh!"
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post #7 of 41
1/2/09 at 5:12am
oh lol.i guess i shall avoid bringing my amp to overseas.just my dap will do
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post #8 of 41
1/2/09 at 6:44am
Bad luck there. I have to say I'm quite lucky since I managed to get pass airport security with my vcaps, iQube and all.
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post #9 of 41
1/2/09 at 7:58am
Did you convert any of those TSA personnel into a head-fi ? Or did you let them try your rig ?
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post #10 of 41
1/2/09 at 8:06am
LOL forbigger, turn them into head-fi lol. try ur rig haha. and why 3 amps? ur kids use amps too? how old are they? i dont think THAT old if they still need u to add/remove xmas songs and watch lilo and stitch. if the amps are for ur kids, that would be interesting haha. kids using amps! pretty cool imo.
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post #11 of 41
1/2/09 at 8:27am
Great story!
I guess it sometimes take a while to explain the airport security what all those boxes, cables, ... are for.
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post #12 of 41
1/2/09 at 10:50am
funny story.

The opposite (well, I had no B...) happened to me when I traveled into the US a few months ago from Europe.

I'm a photographer and had a backpack with a big camera and a couple of lenses. Went through xrays, and was asked to go aside for a further check of my backpack. The agent then checked the front pocket of my pack, saw the Ipod .... and that was it... she even did not check anything else out !

Again, I had nothing illegal with me but almost told her she should do a better job. But then I though I would raise false alarm and get into trouble indeed...
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post #13 of 41
1/2/09 at 11:29am
I always keep my Ipod & Amp in a camera bag. The camera bag goes in the bin with shoes and all my other odds & ends. The TSA will rarely look twice since it is out in the open when it goes through the Xray machine. They must just thnk "another Ipod" with personal stuff coming out of pockets.

Funny thing though, In December, I took my son to the Orlando elementary school chess tournament. The TSA flagged his chess set becasue of the chess clock. We got pulled to the side & had to open his chess bag for inspection. I meanwhile was carrying (3) amps and assorted wires in my laptop backpack that went through without raising any red flags.

You should have seen the look on the TSA officer's face when I told hm he was going to be seeing these clocks coming through all day long. Especially since the chess tournament was for grades K thru 12.
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post #14 of 41
1/2/09 at 11:58am
Quote:
Originally Posted by billybob_jcv View Post
Look at the bright side - imagine what they would have done to you if that was a hand built mint-tin CMoy velcro'd to your ipod...
I went through security at Seatac and LAX last month with my BSG CMOY attached to my iPod Classic. I was actually expecting them to take a 2nd look after my backpack went through the machine, but not even a raised eyebrow. Not sure if that's good or bad!
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post #15 of 41
1/2/09 at 12:52pm
Like I have always said you just have to be able to be calm and explain what it is you are carrying. Being mass produced doesn't protect anyways. Remember the whole MacBook Air incident? aka "these aren't laptops they have no hard drives! "
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