Government 'surplus' stores now selling personal items TSA steals from passengers

Tuesday, June 21, 2011 by: Jonathan Benson, staff writer
Tags: TSA, surplus, health news

(NaturalNews) If you have ever wondered what happens to the countless barrels of personal items that the US Transportation Security Administration (TSA) confiscates (steals) from air travelers every single day, you might be surprised to know that state governments are now reselling these supposedly "dangerous" items in government surplus stores for extra revenue.

According to a recent article in the Austin American-Statesman, Texas state surplus stores are reaping hundreds of thousands of dollars in new revenue every year for the state by selling travelers' "legally" stolen goods.

Formerly reserved for legitimate surplus items, state surplus stores in Texas are making a killing on the thousands of new "security threat" items being stolen by the TSA, which is, of course, the result of artificially-generated government paranoia. So harmless personal items like snow globes, for instance, are now in great supply at the surplus stores because they contain more than the three ounces of liquid permitted by the TSA.

Most travelers, of course, would never in their wildest imaginations think that a snow globe is a security threat, which is why many are shocked in the security line to discover that their simple souvenir is considered a terrorist threat by the TSA. But apparently that threat magically diminishes once the government decides to resell that same snow globe for cash to fill its coffers -- because surely the thousands of snow globes the shops receive are not inspected for the mythical explosives they could contain, prior to hitting surplus shelves.

Humorously, both the TSA and the agencies that are selling the stolen items refuse to admit that they are even confiscating them in the first place. According to the Statesman, a worker at a Texas surplus shop said, concerning how the items were obtained, "We say willfully surrendered." Using this same logic, of course, a man who holds up a woman and steals her purse did not actually steal -- the woman merely "willfully surrendered" her purse upon having a gun pointed in her face.

In reality, this fictitious robbery scenario, as absurd as it sounds, is exactly what the TSA is doing to air travelers every single day in the US. It is also what the illegal IRS does to American taxpayers with its "voluntary" income tax.

When presented with options that include inability to fly, arrest, imprisonment, or even being killed, most people will likely "willfully surrender" whatever is demanded of them, whether it is something as large as half their income, or something as miniscule as a plastic snow globe.

Sources for this story include:

http://www.statesman.com/life/where-have-all...