Confiscations at airports rise

Among items that are allowed in carry-on luggage are: corkscrews, cigar cutters, eyeglass repair tools, knitting needles and crochet hooks, round-bladed butter knives, nail files, safety razors, scissors with blunt tips and tweezers.

Data notes

Some caveats are needed with the data.

The TSA provided information about confiscated items on several hundred pages of paper and not in electronic form. Because the Deseret Morning News had to then enter the data itself into computer spreadsheets for analysis, that increased the chance for error (although it tried to double-check data as it was entered).

The TSA, at the request of the Deseret Morning News, reviewed summaries of its resulting spreadsheets for accuracy.

TSA officials had told the Deseret Morning News that if it wanted the data electronically, which would have reduced the likelihood of errors, it likely would have had to wait for more than a year to allow TSA to review every cell of data in spreadsheets to ensure they did not contain hidden information it did not feel should be released.

But, ironically, it offered to make the printed data available immediately. Entering the data and then analyzing it required many weeks.

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E-mail: lee@desnews.com