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Power Corrupts !


The Hinchliffe family had a problem with security on boarding the second leg of our trip to Seattle .
Calgary security thought it was possible we were terrorists trying to take on board a quantity of liquid explosives cunningly disguised as Channel No 5 ! - or did they ?

I wrote them this letter - I await their answer with little hope of justice !

15 Aug 2010.
Without Prejudice

Dear sir ,
I am writing to you as I am in the process of making an insurance claim relating to two bottles of Chanel no5 that were taken from me by your officers .

My family and I were travelling from London Heathrow to Seattle Washington with Air Canada . After clearing security at Heathrow my daughter Emma ( 20 ) purchased two small ( less than 200 ml ) bottles of Chanel No5 at a duty free shop in the airport and gave them to me for safety .

Nine hours later we landed at Calgary on flight AC 851 . The local time was 13:15 on Sunday the Eighth of August . We swiftly cleared Canadian immigration and customs , then US immigration .
Then it started to wrong :- My wife and daughter were checked through the scanners - both metal and the body scanner without too much trouble. My son Adam - who has aspergers , and myself followed on immediately after them . Your officers discovered the perfume which had slipped my mind as we had just got off a plane after being thoroughly checked at Heathrow . The officers who examined the bottles realised that they were ok as they items were less than 200ml , still in the cellophane with the receipt and we had the boarding cards to show we had just landed from Heathrow .
O.K. so far !
A different young lady officer then decided for some reason to swab my sons laptop and test the result .
She announced that it was testing positive for explosives ! She then had her fellow officers completely empty my son and my carryons and carefully examine them . She also required us both to go into the body scanner and also had us “ patted down “
To us this seemed unnecessary as we , as a English family of four travelling together , are totally outside the profile of any terrorist groups . However we are not experts and were totally compliant with your officers demands . We had a plane to catch and had absolutely nothing to hide .
Then came the sickener . The lady officer announced " Because you have failed the explosive test all your liquids are forfeited !" . I could scarcely believe what I was hearing - Did this lady seriously believe there was any possibility that my family had liquid explosives in the bottles . She could have easily opened them to check . She could have given us the opportunity to post them to ourselves . She gave us no chance to think and very visibly ( but quite carefully ) dropped the transparent plastic bag containing our perfume into the bin behind her .
An uncharitable person might believe that it was her intention to retrieve them later for herself . An even more suspicious person might think that the whole " positive for explosives " thing was a scam that she chose to use as soon as she saw our perfumes in order to steal our property .

What we would like from you is conformation that it is indeed airport securities policy that in the event of a " positive test for explosives " all liquids are indeed forfeited . If this is the case your letter of conformation of this fact would help in my insurance claim for the loss .

God forbid that it should indeed have been a deliberate act of dishonesty by security staff . Anybody capable of theft cannot be trusted in such an important role . If mere greed could let them act in this way who knows what their price might be to assist the very terrorists they are there to thwart !

I await your reply eagerly as I have a time limit to claim on my insurance . I hope your reply will be an end to the matter !


Yours faithfully

Jon . W. Hinchliffe .


p.s. I would prefer you to reply by e-mail as I travel a lot .


Update ! Good news . A result - got paid the value of the goods by the Canadian Air Transportation Security Authority ! - Link here

Comments

  1. Wimpie22 August 2010 at 13:45

    You made your first mistake coming to Amerika.
    This country has turned into a total police state, and TSA is accountable to nobody! They just make up new rules every day, and you're screwed! You will probably never get a response to your complaint, and yes, the screener probably did take your perfume. You would have been smart to spill it out into their bucket, and made the checkpoint smell real good for a while.

    You could have avoided the radiation treatment. They are optional, but you must SPEAK UP, and you would have gotten the pat-down anyhow.

    Don't come back to Amerika if you can avoid it.
    This country SUCKS! It's just the same as going to N Korea or Cuba!

    I'M TRULY EMBARRASSED BY MY OWN COUNTRY!

    ReplyDelete
  2. GSOLTSO22 August 2010 at 16:31

    First, Jon, I am sorry you had a bad experience. Please continue to followup on the complaint with the powers that be in Calgary, I hope they communicate with you and something positive can result from this.

    Second, Steve, isn't this security checkpoint operated by the Canadian government, not TSA?

    ReplyDelete

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