TSA agents are entitled to reverential treatment, regardless of how much damage they inflict on people’s travel schedules or luggage. The TSA slapped fines on almost 5,000 people in 2003, yet never made any public announcement that people faced fines for violations. There were no warnings and people who received a fine in the mail were never informed of their right to contest or appeal the fine. TSA waited until early 2004 to announce the fine system, at which time the maximum fine was raised from $1,100 to $10,000.

TSA agents at Baltimore-Washington International Airport confiscated a small steak knife from the briefcase of Susan Brown Campbell, a California lawyer. After she received a $150 fine in the mail, she called TSA seeking information on how to challenge the fine. A TSA lawyer phoned Campbell and, as she later stated, was “very, very intimidating,” warning “that the penalty could be up to $10,000.” Campbell was told she would have to travel back to Baltimore to contest the fine. TSA punished Campbell’s insolence by doubling her fine to $300.

The TSA’s system of fines is a travesty of the Administrative Procedures Act – which guarantees Americans due process rights in dealings with federal agencies. Instead, TSA simply concocted a system of fines, failed to give people warning or notice, failed to define the key terms, failed to notify violators of their right to appeal. And if people are unsatisfied with the TSA’s “justice” – they must go through the Coast Guard’s administrative law judge system to dispute the fee. This guarantees years of delay and makes it far more difficult for an American citizen to let a jury of his peers in a federal courtroom decide the justice of the government’s action.