TSA Pours Out Coffee, Ignores Boxcutter

Remember the pudding incident? Another BoingBoing reader had a similar experience — this time, Shannon Larratt‘s girlfriend forgot she had a boxcutter in her purse, but the TSA didn’t notice/care. They were more interested in throwing away the cup of coffee she had just purchased at the terminal cafe.

What’s scary is this probably happens pretty regularly, but not everyone thinks to sneak off to the airplane bathroom and snap a photo of the incriminating device. One commenter writes,

“I’ve done the same thing a half dozen times. I use my mess bag both for biking and travel, and I’ve at times forgotten to thoroughly de-terrorize it. I’ve been let on planes with an assortment of knives, bike tools and folding tools, no problems.”

What I’d like to know is if a passenger or flight attendant somehow finds out that there’s a boxcutter on the plane, whose fault is it? The person who accidentally forgot it was in their purse, or the TSA official who didn’t notice it?