Having become the butt of jokes across the Internet, the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) decided to address the issue of “cupcakegate” on its blog.

 

Last month, passenger Rebecca Hains, a professor at Salem State University in Massachusetts, flew across the country with a cupcake-in-a-jar, a specialty dessert sold by Wicked Good Cupcakes. She had no trouble carrying the glass-encased treat on board her flight to Nevada. But during her return trip, a TSA inspector in Las Vegas confiscated the cupcake on grounds that it violated the agency’s liquids policy aboard planes.

 

“I wanted to make it clear that this wasn’t your everyday, run-of-the-mill cupcake,” wrote TSA blogger Bob Burns about the incident.

 

Burns added that the icing inside the jar fell under the “gel” category of TSA’s protocol for confiscating items. He noted that two terrorist acts involving liquids—the 1995 “Bojinka Plot” and the 2006 UK transatlantic aircraft plot—demonstrated the need to not take any chances with unusual looking carry-on items.

 

“What the two plots above and intelligence gathered from all over the world tells us is that unless Wile E. Coyote is involved, the days of the three sticks of dynamite with a giant alarm clock strapped to them are long gone,” Burns wrote. “Terrorists have moved to novel explosives disguised as common, everyday items. Our officers are regularly briefed and trained by TSA explosives specialists on how just about any common appliance, toy or doohickey can be turned into a dangerous explosive. When you think about it, do you think an explosive would be concealed in an ominous item that would draw attention, or something as simple as a cute cupcake jar?”

-Noel Brinkerhoff

 

Cupcakegate (by Bob Burns, TSA Blog)